Older readers may remember the 1970s and 1980s, when Czechoslovak companies built breweries, sugar refineries, textile mills, tanneries, tire factories, and a great many arms plants in African countries. Every such project meant a dramatic decline in our ability to export beer, sugar, shoes, tires, ammunition, and other goods to those countries. The underlying idea was that everyone would be better off if each country or region produced what it needed for itself, with international trade playing a largely supplementary role.
There is sometimes a tendency to view Chinese construction projects in Third World countries in similar terms, but we should not be mistaken. When the Chinese build a factory there, it remains under Chinese ownership. The profits flow abroad, while the host country is prevented from developing an industrial base of its own. It is a textbook example of creating imperial dependency. Infrastructure projects such as ports and railways are generally handed over to local governments, but those governments must repay loans to Chinese banks on ordinary commercial terms. This is not a path toward a more just world. It is a path toward a world in which the Chinese do the squeezing instead of the Americans—a world of dependent, indebted countries with very limited prospects of building economies of their own.
One can probably agree that American behavior has become even more aggressive in recent years. The Americans extract even more from these countries while building virtually nothing there. But we should have no illusions that an imperial great power can behave as anything other than an imperial great power. The Czech Republic would behave the same way if it ever acquired sufficient power.
What is particularly interesting is that China behaves like a Western-style empire. That is, it does not seek to incorporate subordinated territories into its own state, as the Russian Empire historically did, but instead assigns them the status of colonies.
There is little point in complaining that someone is stronger and behaves accordingly. What matters is figuring out how, in such a world, a state can secure room for a high degree of independence. Above all, we should put no faith in empty talk about alliances, equal partnerships, or friendly intentions—from anyone.