Peace Time: The All Absorbing Army
13th January 2020
Chinese expansionism doesn’t always involve reviving, or inventing, territorial claims along their borders. Chinese efforts to annex the South China Sea and large areas on their Indian border get a lot of diplomatic, military and media attention but there is another kind of Chinese expansion that, while less noticed, is becoming a serious economic and political problem for the countries the Chinese have been allowed to invade economically. There are growing number of countries that allow Chinese investment on a large, multi-billion dollar, scale.
Such large investments come with conditions, and that’s where the trouble begins. The Chinese insist that they must bring their own Chinese workforce. This includes demands that these new visitors can establish their own Chinese settlements and then stay when the project is over. The new visitors must be allowed to start businesses. This sort of thing results in the Chinese establishing a permanent economic presence and control over a growing percentage of the local economy. This does not always end well, with the Chinese being driven out of the country along with any more Chinese investment. One reason for building a large navy and military air transport fleet is to provide armed escorts for Chinese bill collectors and diplomates.
January 13th, 2020 at 13:04
On the positive side, the countries no longer have problems with stray dogs or cats.