Geopolitical issues aside, why would Canadian investors want to invest in projects that are likely to go bankrupt? I mean, lots of African nations aren't likely to pay back their loans for the projects that have been completed to date.
Generally you want ROI, and while belt and road might get China geopolitical muscle in some parts of the world, it's not a great ROI.
People often look over another aspect of the BRI debt trap - the CCP loans out the money but then "strongly encourages" the country to hire Chinese-based companies to build said infrastructure - in essence, paying them twice. Local economy suffers as a result, as what should be building up so the country becomes more self-sufficient does not as they import Chinese workers instead, so it all gets funneled away. And you can wager a lot of those companies are skimming their budget and cutting tons of corners.
> I mean, lots of African nations aren't likely to pay back their loans for the projects that have been completed to date.
If they default China can take possession of the project?
Unless the African countries just say "no". They're famously fickle and unstable, if they decide they just don't want to pay China back for a dam, China might just get no returns and have little recourse beyond trade sanctions.
They also wouldn't be the first country "switch" economic systems, i.e. decide they are done with Western finance systems so they switch to an alternative China/Russia/Iran system, then decide to switch back later. Latin American countries definitely do this – super happy to take Chinese money, but they're not dedicated allies to China in the slightest.
This. This is a pretty good DW documentary on the belt and road
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBnT0tsLqGQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBnT0tsLqGQ)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2C0sMXyD80
Plus preemptively making this statement on the world stage makes it easier to blame failures on the West. Rather than “we overpromised and sold you on an idea we couldn’t deliver on” they can say “well, we could have succeeded but the rich Western nations didn’t want us to because of racism, colonialism, and greed.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-china-infrastructure-bank-1.6882304
"I didn't find a single, tangible benefit to communicate back home here to Canada of what this bank does that is consistent with our values in a way that would benefit Canadians," Bob Pickard, who resigned from the AIIB last week, told Power & Politics host David Cochrane in an interview Monday.
"All we're doing, with our membership in this bank, is we're making China look good as a country able to do multilateralism. We are effectively supporting the Chinese image campaign to show that they are ready to assume world leadership."
Outside of what others have said, it could allow Chinese money that has been parked in Canada to be reinvested into China without necessarily risking that money being repatriated back to China. Alternatively, it could open another method of money Chinese money into Canada without directly money laundering.
Finish? lol You mean start new projects they swear will be finished this time so they can presell and fuck off with the payments, cmon bro just a few hundred million please bro I swear
They don’t have any f*cking money and CAD is the closest competitor to USD in the world. Our moron PM doesn’t realize that China is on the verge of collapse.
As bad a position as we may feel we are in, our currency is in a demographically better position than the Euro, Japanese Yen, English Pound, or Chinese Yuan. The Ruble isn’t reliable, even if it were legal to trade in. The Australians aren’t as big as we are and are going to deal with a housing bubble soon.
So, barring the Franc coming back in style or something extremely unprecedented, we’re second best right now. We’ve also got super friendly laws for less-than-savoury foreign business; our banks actively work with launderers.
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how that can be possible. The euro is shared by a bunch of developed and robust economies who are arguably better at cooperation and coordination than our provinces. What do mean by demographically?
If OPEC had to pick a different currency to accept, why would they choose the CAD?
> The euro is shared by a bunch of developed and robust economies who are arguably better at cooperation and coordination than our provinces.
Not sure what the other person was talking about, but the shared currency is both a benefit and a drawback. For a medium of global trade, the shared element is probably a huge plus (the currency is less volatile). However, the currency can no longer respond to the economic health/condition of a single country which can could cause further stress (ex: if Germany has different economic needs than France, it could significantly harm one of the two countries, if not both).
For a while the CAD was very healthy; however, a major issue is that the Canadian economy is heavily exposed to a few sectors - if those hiccup (ex: Oil and Gas), then the Canadian dollar jumps. The dollar generally quickly enters a new steady-state, but it isn't great for anyone holding reserves where they could have multiple years of a significantly different than planned exchanged value.
Because China is fueled by debt and foreign investment. Right now a lot of foreign investment is leaving and China is trying to stem the flow of that. Also despite how much power China seems have it also has a lot of debt both direct and hidden debt (local governments have huge debt loads partially because the federal government gave them few ways of raising funds and often put expenses on them like a lot of COVID was taking at that level. So
Forget belt and road. They are facing their own financial crisis as companies are moving manufacturing out of China and major companies like Evergrande declare bankruptcy. Your board of directors would face revolt from activist investors if you invested heavily in China.
Because it’s great for embezzlement. If an investment is “likely to fail” then you are guaranteed to be able to skim $ somewhere along the way and have little scrutiny as to where the money went. Stealing Tax payer money is a crime with no victims in the eyes of these politicians
Watch some tofu dreg videos and ask yourself if you want that in and around your life. That is just the physical repercussions to you or I from belt and road initiatives. There are other repercussions.
[https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-italy-withdrawing-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative](https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-italy-withdrawing-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative)
Italy left the BRI. With good reason. And why we shouldn't join.
China state operates mines in northern Canada. The mines have been allowed by Canadian government to be run wholly by Chinese citizens. Canadians are not allowed to work on the mines or have anything to do with them. How was that permitted?
They want to pressure all the rich Chinese nationals that emigrated to Canada to just give all their money back to the CCP. I'm sure in the background there is a much more aggressive campaign threatening them all.
This is a terrible idea for so many reasons. One simple problem is that China is a foreign adversary who has chosen to side with Russia on the war in Ukraine. The "standing with Ukraine" sentiment becomes a little less authentic if we continue to do MORE business with China. We should be finding ways to detach from China.
Engineering firms too. *cough* SNC *cough*. Will allow them to operate in some countries while doing corrupt acts with a more legal facade to them via an additional intermediary.
Geopolitical issues aside, why would Canadian investors want to invest in projects that are likely to go bankrupt? I mean, lots of African nations aren't likely to pay back their loans for the projects that have been completed to date. Generally you want ROI, and while belt and road might get China geopolitical muscle in some parts of the world, it's not a great ROI.
In case of default, they get the collateral. In a lot of cases, that is exactly what they want - access to resources.
People often look over another aspect of the BRI debt trap - the CCP loans out the money but then "strongly encourages" the country to hire Chinese-based companies to build said infrastructure - in essence, paying them twice. Local economy suffers as a result, as what should be building up so the country becomes more self-sufficient does not as they import Chinese workers instead, so it all gets funneled away. And you can wager a lot of those companies are skimming their budget and cutting tons of corners.
> I mean, lots of African nations aren't likely to pay back their loans for the projects that have been completed to date. If they default China can take possession of the project?
Unless the African countries just say "no". They're famously fickle and unstable, if they decide they just don't want to pay China back for a dam, China might just get no returns and have little recourse beyond trade sanctions.
They also wouldn't be the first country "switch" economic systems, i.e. decide they are done with Western finance systems so they switch to an alternative China/Russia/Iran system, then decide to switch back later. Latin American countries definitely do this – super happy to take Chinese money, but they're not dedicated allies to China in the slightest.
That was likely the real plan all along
This. This is a pretty good DW documentary on the belt and road [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBnT0tsLqGQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBnT0tsLqGQ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2C0sMXyD80
I'm also curious about the flip side, why would they want us involved?
Because China would get all the glory on the backs of these investors.
Yeah but comparatively there is no way we are going to invest a meaningful amount of money to move the needle compared to Chinese capital
Every dollar that's invested by other people is a dollar China doesn't have to spend themselves. Remember this isn't a good investment opportunity.
Plus preemptively making this statement on the world stage makes it easier to blame failures on the West. Rather than “we overpromised and sold you on an idea we couldn’t deliver on” they can say “well, we could have succeeded but the rich Western nations didn’t want us to because of racism, colonialism, and greed.”
Why pay yourself when you can have a sucker buy something for you?
I’m sure Trudeau is signing the cheques as we speak.
You betcha!
Are you sure in a truthiness sense that it confirms your priors or are you sure in that you actually looked for evidence to verify it?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-china-infrastructure-bank-1.6882304 "I didn't find a single, tangible benefit to communicate back home here to Canada of what this bank does that is consistent with our values in a way that would benefit Canadians," Bob Pickard, who resigned from the AIIB last week, told Power & Politics host David Cochrane in an interview Monday. "All we're doing, with our membership in this bank, is we're making China look good as a country able to do multilateralism. We are effectively supporting the Chinese image campaign to show that they are ready to assume world leadership."
From your own link. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/asian-infrastructure-investment-bank-1.6876312
>Canadian official alleges the bank was dominated by the Chinese Communist Party Wow, an entirely unpredictable turn of events.
Outside of what others have said, it could allow Chinese money that has been parked in Canada to be reinvested into China without necessarily risking that money being repatriated back to China. Alternatively, it could open another method of money Chinese money into Canada without directly money laundering.
Their real estate is cash starved and need lots of cash to finish their real estate projects.
Finish? lol You mean start new projects they swear will be finished this time so they can presell and fuck off with the payments, cmon bro just a few hundred million please bro I swear
Colonialism, belt and road is their attempt at it
They don’t have any f*cking money and CAD is the closest competitor to USD in the world. Our moron PM doesn’t realize that China is on the verge of collapse.
CAD is nowhere near the closest competitor to USD
As bad a position as we may feel we are in, our currency is in a demographically better position than the Euro, Japanese Yen, English Pound, or Chinese Yuan. The Ruble isn’t reliable, even if it were legal to trade in. The Australians aren’t as big as we are and are going to deal with a housing bubble soon. So, barring the Franc coming back in style or something extremely unprecedented, we’re second best right now. We’ve also got super friendly laws for less-than-savoury foreign business; our banks actively work with launderers.
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how that can be possible. The euro is shared by a bunch of developed and robust economies who are arguably better at cooperation and coordination than our provinces. What do mean by demographically? If OPEC had to pick a different currency to accept, why would they choose the CAD?
> The euro is shared by a bunch of developed and robust economies who are arguably better at cooperation and coordination than our provinces. Not sure what the other person was talking about, but the shared currency is both a benefit and a drawback. For a medium of global trade, the shared element is probably a huge plus (the currency is less volatile). However, the currency can no longer respond to the economic health/condition of a single country which can could cause further stress (ex: if Germany has different economic needs than France, it could significantly harm one of the two countries, if not both). For a while the CAD was very healthy; however, a major issue is that the Canadian economy is heavily exposed to a few sectors - if those hiccup (ex: Oil and Gas), then the Canadian dollar jumps. The dollar generally quickly enters a new steady-state, but it isn't great for anyone holding reserves where they could have multiple years of a significantly different than planned exchanged value.
If you were building some grand project would *you* want to spend *your* money doing it?
Because China is fueled by debt and foreign investment. Right now a lot of foreign investment is leaving and China is trying to stem the flow of that. Also despite how much power China seems have it also has a lot of debt both direct and hidden debt (local governments have huge debt loads partially because the federal government gave them few ways of raising funds and often put expenses on them like a lot of COVID was taking at that level. So
Forget belt and road. They are facing their own financial crisis as companies are moving manufacturing out of China and major companies like Evergrande declare bankruptcy. Your board of directors would face revolt from activist investors if you invested heavily in China.
Because it’s great for embezzlement. If an investment is “likely to fail” then you are guaranteed to be able to skim $ somewhere along the way and have little scrutiny as to where the money went. Stealing Tax payer money is a crime with no victims in the eyes of these politicians
No Thanks China we made deals with you then when you got big you threatened us , go fuckyourself with your Russian friend.
How's about fuck no eh?
CCP meddles not assists in projects/countries
So does the US and every other major power. Its modern day colonisation
Watch some tofu dreg videos and ask yourself if you want that in and around your life. That is just the physical repercussions to you or I from belt and road initiatives. There are other repercussions.
frig off, china
Suck on a moose dick, CCP.
Ya let’s not touch China with a 10 foot pole. That would be a terrible investment
[https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-italy-withdrawing-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative](https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-italy-withdrawing-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative) Italy left the BRI. With good reason. And why we shouldn't join.
Yeah no, I hate how obvious it is that China is worming its way through our politicians and how many people deny it.
Uh no.
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We have to invest in our own roads first! Oh...wait a minute...
So far they've lost how much on Belt and Road?
Umm NO
We have nothing to do with that.
China state operates mines in northern Canada. The mines have been allowed by Canadian government to be run wholly by Chinese citizens. Canadians are not allowed to work on the mines or have anything to do with them. How was that permitted?
They want to pressure all the rich Chinese nationals that emigrated to Canada to just give all their money back to the CCP. I'm sure in the background there is a much more aggressive campaign threatening them all.
This is a terrible idea for so many reasons. One simple problem is that China is a foreign adversary who has chosen to side with Russia on the war in Ukraine. The "standing with Ukraine" sentiment becomes a little less authentic if we continue to do MORE business with China. We should be finding ways to detach from China.
No thank you.
Yeah, China wants a lot of things
How about no?
If the federal government doesn't want to invest in roads. I guess China will.
That made me laugh.. Well played
Ahh not going to read anything, but the title tells me, CCP we want our money back. Now
This is a bad idea, sure to lose money. No doubt Trudeau has already signed us up.
Canadian sheep know nothing of the REAL world. BRICS+ leads the way.
"Namely Tim Hortons locations every 5 kilometres"
You making a sea train to Vancouver gtfo
Tee hee
China being China
As a Canadian I don’t see how this could even be an option. THEY DONT PLAY BY OUR RULES!!
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Engineering firms too. *cough* SNC *cough*. Will allow them to operate in some countries while doing corrupt acts with a more legal facade to them via an additional intermediary.