Just Like Us

Apparently the stuffy Brits at the Economist are trying to moderate what little shame they have for the 19th century by dubbing china the 'new colonialists'.

In an article full of inuendo and 'some say' modifiers, the most striking thing isn't how much of what is said parallels the colonial era, but rather how the charges thrown China's way apply to the modern day Anglo alliance.

'China is coddling dictators, despoiling poor countries, and undermining westen efforts to spread democracy and prosperity.'

Yet you could just as easily have started with America and gotten a robust slate of examples - Saudi Arabia and Egypt; west Africa and central America; and Russia, the entire arab world, and Ethiopia.

The difference is that we 'won' the resources of Africa and south America by propping up local dictators and encouraging civil wars so that we could take them an near 0 costs. Today we are 'losing' those places because we have yet to fully adapt to the notion that the emerging democracy on those continents means we will have to pay for them. While the US continues to undercut trade negotiations, cut and tighten aid budgets (save sexy issues like HIV, micro finance, and malaria - only the last of which has any potential for big benefits at a national level), and strong arm leaders to back the 'war on terror', china is building bridges (literally), floating massive loans, and planting cell phone towers.

Will we 'win' or 'lose'. The truth is it is less about that than whether some will succeed in creating a 21st boogie man for paccom, Lockheed, and the cia to battle.