Chinese President Xi Jinping talks a lot about China going global and embracing mutually beneficial trade and investment ties with the world. But in practice, it appears that the Chinese are engaging in a form of colonialism that may be just as bad as, if not worse than, what European colonial powers did. This article in the New Yorker is a case in point. The Chinese have set up a colony in Italy to make handbags that are “made in Italy.” But they do not engage with Italian society. The Chinese feed themselves and supply all the inputs that are necessary for them to live in Italy without learning how to speak the language or engage with Italians.
The European pattern was to take over a country and build railroads, dams, mines and ports and extract raw materials. But at least they used many locals to do those things and paid them a pittance perhaps, but still paid them some money. Some peoples’ lives improved and a country’s infrastructure improved, affording gains to some locals. It was much the same with manufacturing–the locals got jobs. Some people learned skills and received some education.
But because the Chinese have such a large population, they are supplying their own people to most of their international projects, which deprives locals of positive knock-on effects, or multipliers. As the Chinese ramp up their efforts to build their One Belt One Road initiative linking China with all of Asia and Europe, everyone should very carefully, who is extracting the largest economic benefits from these infrastructure projects? My guess is that the overwhelming majority of economic gains will be in Chinese hands.
