Hello everyone, I'm Old Skye.
Over the years, China has helped many third world countries in the form of foreign aid for infrastructure construction, which has not only made money, but also added a lot of international prestige to the mainland in the world.
The United States is worried that in the long run, it will affect its position as a world hegemon, so it has thought of many ways to smear China's assistance to developing countries, such as saying "debt crisis" and "modern colonization", and so on.
But the people of the third world countries are not stupid, no matter what the United States and the West say, after China assisted them in building railways, ports, hydropower stations and other facilities, life is getting better and better, this is a fact that no one can deny.
As soon as the Americans saw that the method of smearing and spreading rumors did not work, some experts put forward the so-called "defeat of China in the Chinese way."
They feel that China can help third world countries and help build infrastructure to make money, and the United States and Western countries can naturally do the same. Moreover, the United States and the West are more technologically advanced than China, and their capital is more abundant than China, and as long as they copy China's way, they can crush China with absolute force.
Of course, if you want to use the "Chinese way to defeat China", it is not achieved overnight, the United States and Western countries also need to test, and in 2013, the Bagamoyo Port project between China and Tanzania was targeted by British and Japanese companies.
To put it simply, at that time, China and the Tanzanian government cooperated to prepare to assist Tanzania in building a port called "Bagamoyo Port". As a result, after the news spread, Britain and Japan felt that it was profitable, so they joined forces and found the Tanzanian government, while smearing China, while proposing more favorable conditions, saying that "Chinese can be, we can, and we can do better."
At that time, the Tanzanian government, seeing the conditions put forward by British and Japanese enterprises, actually agreed to the proposal of British and Japanese enterprises, agreed to the construction agreement already signed with China, and transferred the development plan of the port of Bagamoyo to Britain and Japan.
What no one expected, however, was that just two years later. Britain and Japan voluntarily abandoned the construction and development of the port, leaving only a mess in the land, waiting for Tanzania to clean up.
So why did British and Japanese companies, with the support of the government, fail to take over the development and construction of the port of Bagamoyo? Behind this, the idea of "defeating China with China's method" in the United States and the West has been completely defeated?
First, the British and Japanese jointly "pry" the corner
Before figuring out why the Joint Pry Orders of The British and Japanese Companies ultimately failed, it is worth mentioning the strategic location of tanzania as a country and the port of Bagamoyo.
Tanzania, once known as the "African Little China", its army building was completely completed with the support of mainland training, and it was also one of the first countries supported by China in Africa.
The Tanzan Railway, which was built in the 1960s and 1970s, is still a major witness to the friendship between China and Africa. China has provided more assistance to Tanzania, and Tanzania has not supported China less in the international arena.
When New China entered the society, Tanzania behaved more actively than we did, took the initiative to face other African countries, and tried to show China's return to the United Nations, becoming one of the five permanent members, and winning several votes for the benefits of Africa.
In a word, historically, China and Tanzania are friendly countries with traditional friendships, and they have a deep trust in each other, and it is reasonable that they should not be easily provoked by Britain and Japan.
But after entering the 21st century, the situation has changed slightly. The first is that after reform and opening up, China's economy has developed rapidly and has become the world's second largest economic power.
In the past, when China was poor, we supported Tanzania in building a railway, and Tanzania was very grateful. Now that China is rich, Tanzania always wants more.
However, whether it is from the perspective of the interests of the mainland or the long-term exchanges between China and Tanzania, blindly giving Tanzania money is not sustainable.
Therefore, the mainland insists that in the process of cooperating in the development of the port of Bagamoyo, Tanzania can not pay for it, but it will mortgage the operation rights of the port to the mainland for 99 years to repay the huge amount of money that aided the construction of the port. When the money is paid off, Tanzania wants to take back the port, or lease it to someone else to operate.
But Tanzania, for its part, wants to reduce the leasing time as much as possible and make Chinese investment a little bigger, and the Tanzanian government can also make a little money from it.
If there is no provocation from Britain and Japan, etc., this is not a big deal. From a business perspective, Tanzania understandably wants to maximize its national interests. As long as the two sides negotiate and reach a mutually acceptable plan, that's fine.
After all, the brothers still know the accounting, and it is inevitable that people will bump into each other, not to mention between the two countries.
But when the United States, Britain, Japan and other countries are inserted in this, the meaning is completely different. The United States first used the name of the Millennium Challenge Program to promise to assist Tanzania with $500 million to support Tanzania's infrastructure construction.
When the Port of Gamoyo in China-Tamaba was cooperatively developed, the United States also proposed that Tanzania could not cooperate with China, otherwise the 500 million US dollars of aid promised before would not be given.
At the same time, British and Japanese companies have also approached the Tanzanian government, saying that they can provide better solutions and more favorable conditions than China to help Tanzania build the port.
On the one hand, the bait of 500 million US dollars, on the other hand, the so-called "preferential conditions" of the United Kingdom and Japan, coupled with the fact that after 2010, the United States promoted the color revolution in the world, and African countries with better relations with China, such as Tanzania, which is also an important target of the "democratic infiltration" of the United States, so at that time, there were quite a few people in tanzanian politics who were influenced by the West. Magufuli, then president of Tanzania, was one of those people.
The combination of these factors prompted Tanzania to break the treaty and abandon cooperation with China in favor of seeking cooperation with British and Japanese companies.
Second, why is the port of Bagamoyo
It is not surprising that the United States and the West want to undermine China's influence in Africa. But over the years, the mainland has built so many infrastructure projects in Africa, why is the port of Bagamoyo in Africa the target of the joint "pry order" of British and Japanese enterprises?
This has to start with the geographical location of the port of Bagamoyo. In simple terms, the port of Bagamoyo is located on the central line of the east coast of Africa, to the north is Somalia, Djibouti, to the south is South Africa, the Cape of Good Hope; to the west is the entire African continent, to the east is the Indian Ocean.
If the whole of Africa is regarded as a country, then the port of Bagamoyo can be regarded as Shanghai in China. It could participate in the oil trade in the Red Sea to the north and radiate distant trade routes between Central Europe to the south. At the same time, it also serves as the outlet for the entire African continent and participates in the Indian Ocean trade.
In a word, the strategic location of the port of Bagamoyo determines that if the port can be built and operated, it can greatly drive trade in Tanzania, and even throughout Africa and other regions. The company responsible for the construction and operation of the port can also make money from it.
As we said above, a very important reason why British and Japanese enterprises jointly "pry orders" is whether trying to use the strategy of "China's method to defeat China" can work.
The core reason why China's investment in infrastructure in Africa and even the vast third world has been able to achieve so much is that these aid projects are not completely free of charge.
The countries that are aided certainly benefit from it. But China is also making money on these infrastructure projects. A truly win-win situation.
In the past few years, in order to maintain their influence in the world, Europe and the United States have actually invested money in Africa. However, most of this investment assistance is done directly by giving money or food.
As a result, money is often spent, but it does not win the hearts and minds of African countries. Because most of this money goes into the hands of politicians, it rarely benefits african people's livelihoods and is not sustainable.
Such "money that has been sprinkled for many years", the United States and the West have also realized that it is unrealistic to maintain their influence purely by giving money. After all, so many countries in the world, if they all use the way of giving money to win over, even if these developed countries are broken up and sold, they will not last long.
So they actually want to learn from China's way of aiding third world countries to achieve a win-win situation. That is, the so-called "use The Chinese method to defeat China."
But this kind of project cooperation, which has not been done in the West before, was first tried, of course, to choose a "stable profit" business to test the waters.
It is in this context that the port of Bagamoyo entered the eyes of Western countries. As mentioned above, this place has a prominent strategic location, as long as the port is built, it is almost the "Shanghai" of Africa, not to say that it can make a lot of money, at least it will not lose.
In addition, Tanzania is also a traditional friendly country on the mainland, if it can provoke a rift in the relations between China and Tanzania, then in the same way, it is not difficult to provoke other African countries to fall out with China.
These reasons are superimposed, which together prompted British and Japanese companies to choose the choice of "pry orders" of Bagamoyo Port.
So why did they fail in the end?
Third, the disadvantages of capital being king
Just two years later, between 2015 and 2016, British and Japanese companies fell out with the Tanzanian government and finally abandoned the project, leaving only Tanzania with a mess.
How does Tanzania think and not mention that the United States and Western countries have spent so much effort to carefully choose the port of Bagamoyo, a project that is "stable and profitable", why did they finally take the initiative to give up?
The answer is actually very simple, because it is really not profitable.
There is no free lunch in the world, and British and Japanese companies have promised to help Tanzania build the port of Bagamoyo on more favorable terms, the core reason is that they do not intend to build this port, but to renovate and upgrade the old port.
Of course, this can save a lot of costs, but from the perspective of the use of the port, the original Bagamoyo port was established by Western colonists during the slave trade. Such a badly aging port with outdated facilities, even if you put a layer of glazed tiles on it and make it look good, in essence, it still can't assume the role of a modern port.
This is like Shanghai is important in terms of geographical location, but if you have to renovate the city of Shanghai on the basis of the Ming Dynasty, and then use it for modern port trade, it is obviously useless.
The Tanzanian government is not stupid, naturally can not let the British and Japanese companies so confused, so they hope that they can completely rebuild a port according to China's plan.
But in this way, the cost is too large, British and Japanese companies in order to grab the order, originally to the Tanzanian government, promised a lot of unrealistic preferential conditions, if this is to increase the cost indefinitely, when can you earn back profits?
As a result, the cooperation between Britain and Japan and Tanzania has been caught in a fight from the beginning.
On the other hand, after the construction of bagamoyo Port, the most important profit channel is actually to serve as the outlet between the African continent and the Indian Ocean trade line.
If you want to make money with access to the sea, you have to connect inland. Also taking "Shanghai" as an example, if there is no Yangtze River Delta, without the heartland of the entire continent as a foundation, Shanghai, even if its geographical location is important, there will be no business.
Therefore, for the port of Bagamoyo to really develop, it needs to open up trade lines with the African interior. This will inevitably involve many African countries, and it will not be possible without the government to match and exert influence.
As for the governments of the United States and Western countries, they do not have this ability. Therefore, even if The British and Japanese companies build the port, they still can't make money.
As capitalist countries, following the baton of capital is almost a habit carved into their bones. Capital, on the other hand, is profit-seeking, and when it is discovered that the port of Bagamoyo, in their own hands, is simply not profitable, no matter how persecuted by the governments of these countries, their enterprises and capital are unwilling to reinvest.
Therefore, in the end, you can only choose to give up.
IV. Conclusion
There is a Chinese saying that "it is not difficult to see people carrying water."
The United States and western countries have only seen that in recent years, China has made money and expanded its international influence by means of foreign aid infrastructure construction. But what they don't see is that China's industrial system is perfect, production capacity is large, labor costs are low, and the country has tightened its belt and provided extensive assistance to third world countries from a few decades ago when it was still poor.
In this way, there is now a complementarity between China and other third world countries. If this is only for the sake of capital and technology, then the West has already done it, so why wait until now?
In addition, "those who learn from us are born, like those who die like me", there has never been any country in this world that has become a world power by copying the development path of other countries. If you can't combine it with your own actual situation while learning from others, then you will eventually fail and cause people to laugh, which is also worth learning from.