China does not really “give” anybody anything.
They don’t even have a foreign aid budget.
The many construction projects they do around the world are business deals - typically predatory business deals.
Their typical project is what is called a debt trap, where they fool or bribe local Government officials to sign their country up for a Chinese project, where the Chinese do everything, including be the bank. Later the Chinese pull the carpet out from under the business and take ownership of the asset through foreclosure of the loan.
The other big scam they run, is to trade a high profile project that benefits a local politician politically, for the rights to extract natural resources - often worth hundreds or thousands of times as much.
China is by far the biggest force in the world today for corrupting Government officials. For the Government official looking to cash in on his position, China is a one stop shop, offering complete turnkey solutions to finding scams and laundering/hiding the money.
Very true about China. However, the Chinese method probably doesn’t seem so horrible to a local denizen that sees some infrastructure built under a mercantilist model. They actually see a road, a dam, a port, or hospitals. (happens a lot in Africa lately) Then they compare it to our method of using the State dept/USAID/Facebook/CIA to create an insurgency, and when it gets out of hand, we turn loose some firepower and brag how we saved them.
If you were a local, you might like the Chinese method better. Locals suffer less.
“Their typical project is what is called a debt trap, where they fool or bribe local Government officials to sign their country up for a Chinese project, where the Chinese do everything, including be the bank. Later the Chinese pull the carpet out from under the business and take ownership of the asset through foreclosure of the loan.
The other big scam they run, is to trade a high profile project that benefits a local politician politically, for the rights to extract natural resources - often worth hundreds or thousands of times as much.”
You basically described the EU and the World Bank. Ask the Greeks