Isn't China better off than before? It is a beneficial relationship for both parties, not for one as you are trying to suggest. Now china is second or maybe the richest country in the world. Thanks to capital investment of the West and local culture of working hard, 400 million chinese moved from poverty level to middle class. And this in one generation time!
A relatively small percent of people in China benefits from investments made by corporations. You will say at least these corporations offer jobs for locals and give them a worth to live, but subjectively speaking kids at age 9 working 16 hours a day may be viewed as something which brings up the local's life quality even if they get paid less than a dollar after long hours of work.
We can't be sure how multinational corporations use it's human resources and we've seen couple of examples how these corporations obey local laws and make whole regions a local mess in the environment. Surely we can see the positive aspects of GDP growth, but who will get the benefits from it? The rich is getting richer and the poor becomes poorer in a very simple view. Don't forget even corporations are considered relatively "citizens" because the corporations made by investors have the same rights as a real human being and guess if i own 1000$ in a local corporation in China and later it'll be worth more than half a million then what will the local Chinese worker gain by it's benefits?
I own my shares in that corporation because i can gain profit by paying less for a Chinese worker than i had to in anywhere else in the World.
Being second in the rank doesn't define the life quality of the majority. We can assume China will sooner or later become the dominant nation, but it's still a local not a global power compared to USA relatively wise.
for any corporation to start working in Africa there have to be set rules. For example take a mining company. The corporation and the government first need to agree on royalty payments from corporation to government, some paid regardless if company makes a profit or not, some according to the profit. Next step, the corporation needs to invest billions of dollars in mining operation and port facilities, roads, railroad and even a power plant, because local infrastructure is inadequate or doesn't exist.
What governments Africa have? Most of these governments were made by local guerrillas who doesn't even know the basic rules. Modern Western Africa objectively speaking is a big mine where the money is at and the locals don't have the technology nor the power to take advantage each of these operations.
I do agree a company has to make significant investment like you said building roads which will impact the local infrastructure in a positive way and even give jobs for locals. But i doubt you'd consider how many locals been dying because a local corporation ruin their lands for oil and mine.
Talking about if there are slaves in Africa or not from my experience and I've talked with not one African from Senegal, Mali most doesn't have a job opportunity to being with and slavery still exists in Mali for instance.
Some corporations in fact has a positive on the infrastructure and will likely impact the locals life quality but most corporations will ruin it's locals life routine as many tribes get used to live on each land how to live and those people barely need any new "gift" from the First World, unlike what the media tries to portrait by describing the white man as saviors on those lands.
We can see how savior the Iberians were when they colonized the Caribbeans and Latin America killed and raped millions of the locals and enslaved them. Yes this was back in the XV century still we don't see much of a change.
Or we can see how many murders been made just by the US military in the Middle East for self interests and provoking wars to gain money by black operations.
We don't need the evidence for CNN to makes us believe sadly it's how the modern system works and i assume you read Zbigniew Brzezinski, Al Gore, George Soros or read about the the corporations that supported the Nazi Germany by selling them oil through South America.
There are no regulations forcing corporations to do that, when profit and mining is abroad. From perspective of US and France, they would love to see this corporation's capital to be invested in US or France, benefiting local jobs and government finances.
You'd think so? Many of these so called interests from a local government are based on the corporation's value. One of the most common way let's say the IMF offers money for an African country, the nation itself doesn't hold any value (money, gold) to pay for instead they pay with their local water, miles, and human resources (sadly) and after this process we'll see how the multinational corporations appear on a land and take away most of the profits the locals gained. (I assume you believe in Santa also if you think an African nation has the power to obey a corporation which money wise has 100 times more than the whole government and it's citizens together) Most people in West Africa were able to live on their own. Their cultural heritage and life view didn't need Western education, economic standards to live their lives. Many of these people still regret education nor wanna be employees in each of these corporations.
What benefits would a local have by working 12-16 hours a day for cents which he can use to buy food at most. He's would rather be part of his community and live a lifestyle which his tribe been living for thousands of years.
A person's interest hasn't made by himself but major culture and society. As a local society changes new needs become important. Nobody would want to watch and consume if this wasn't a cultural norm in the West and i guess we'll blame third world nations why we see trash islands on the Pacific Ocean because our "way too developed" society still use plastics and other useless materials which ruin our Globe if we won't change basic customs and technology.
Do you know why USA became so powerful so quickly? Because there was a free trade (relatively free trade) between states of US.
The US today is rich and powerful because they have the right to set the rules in the Western world. Their political and military dominance allows them to control states weaker than them. What makes most of the profit in the US today? Many things from military industry to corporations which has the right to settle in any nation in the Western world. What benefits did Bolivians have when the government privatize water? The locals lost 25% of their earnings because their water was free, but the local government had the right to shot it's own citizens due the law of the local government. You're right trading is what makes a country to thrive economically but it's just one side of a coin we often see the complete opposite of these local operations and i can tell you from my own experience how the "great investments" made a whole nation lost it's factory jobs and manufacturing because the Multinational interests bought these companies and closed them after the first year and thousands of people lost their jobs.
A nation became "debt slave" because these great corporations has ruined the local systems in favor of their own interests. With money they had gained power by sponsoring politicians and parties whom set the advancing rules for their needs.
