250
China ‘world’s biggest debt collector’ as poorer nations struggle with its loans
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
250 points (97.7% liked)
World News
39171 readers
3497 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News [email protected]
Politics [email protected]
World Politics [email protected]
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They beat out the IMF? Impressive.
Yeah they went to those counties that for some unimaginable reason don't trust the IMF.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
I mean I guess but the imf charges 2% interest on loans. China charges 5%
@zepheriths the trouble with the IMF is it requires very specific economic restructuring that tends to lower social spending on things like health.
For many years NGO doctors nicknamed it the Infant Mortality Fund for this reason.
And this has subsequently been backed up by research which found that yes, a rise in infant mortality really does follow an IMF loan, even when you control for other factors.
So basically which would you rather: children in your country die now, or your railway gets reposessed later?
@FMT99
(Example of research = Globalization and health equity: The impact of structural adjustment programs on developing countries)
You will see a lot of bad outcomes following an IMF intervention for the same reason you will see a lot of bad outcomes following oncology visits. Once you've gotten to the point the IMF get involved, things are already going to hell. What do you believe the effect on infant mortality of bankruptcy to be?
@hanekam that's the conclusion you would jump to if you're not familiar with the actual research, but this is why I mentioned that they control for other factors.
I'm not ignorant, I know correlation doesn't equal causation. But the fact that the actual conditions of IMF loans drive specific negative social outcomes has been well-established.
Here are a couple of starting points:
The impact of IMF conditionality on government health expenditure: A cross-national analysis of 16 West African nations
International Monetary Fund Programs and Tuberculosis Outcomes in Post-Communist Countries
I've looked at all of the sources you provide, and they all point out the fact that countries experience bad outsomes after an IMF intervention, which nobody's disputed. My argument is that countries in similar dire straights will experience even worse outcomes if there is no such intervention. As an example, I could name Venezuela, which experienced an extreme increase in child mortality, your favored metric, after leaving the IMF. The root cause is economic distress, not the IMF intervention.
Minimizing the negative effects of government failure is absolutely worth examining. Identifying the mistakes made by the IMF in past interventions is a noble goal. But we should not blame international organizations when poor governance causes countries to fail.
I understand your argument but it doesn't really apply. With all due respect I don't think you can have looked at my links very well.
The TB one for instance found that TB gets worse whenever there is an IMF loan but not in the same circumstances when there is a loan from somewhere else.
You don't seem to realize that IMF loan conditions have very specific governance requirements which directly impact governmental decisions around health spending.
These are called Structural Adjustment Programs.
There have been a bunch of these types of finding. Like I said, it's well known in NGO circles.
There is a reason China's loans are so popular. I think being able to govern your health system as you see fit is a much more compelling reason for choosing a particular loan style, than some vague ideological mumbo jumbo.
Yes, because the countries taking those loans aren't distressed.
They are popular because they come with very little oversight. Countries with higher transparency do not find them very appealing, as Italy's recent withdrawal from the program attests.
They come with very specific governance requirements which impact governmental decisions about a whole host of things, because those governments have proven incapable of sound fiscal management.
Again, the IMF is in no way perfect and I'm sure there is a myriad ways the conditions of their loans can be tailored to minimize negative outcomes. But that does not mean they cause these problems any more than every cancer death being a failure of medicine means doctors cause cancer.
Alright: meet the new boss, slightly worse than the old boss, maybe.
China is way way worse than the IMF. The IMF restructures the debts of distressed countries to help them avoid bankruptcy. China sabotages this sort of help by refusing to negotiate on the same terms as other creditors, preventing the IMF from doing it's job.