A recent publication by the Washington DC based think tank American Enterprise Institute revealed that China had invested over $900 million to Commonwealth countries since 2005. The report indicated that China had extensively invested in the Caribbean and African nations including Barbados where they invested $500 million to develop roads, housing, sewers and other critical infrastructure. Barbados is set to become the latest Republic in the world after alienating itself from the British.

The report was met with concern from the British who claimed that allowing China to invest in their former colonial countries was a threat to their security. A Senior non-resident fellow at the Sinopsis Project in Prague stated that “They (China) are using their considerable financial resources to build strategic dependencies in societies wherever they can. This is how you start to control the world around you and start making it safe for totalitarianism because countries can’t afford to do anything about it.”.

While this statement is neck deep in Eurocentric prejudice, this gives us the opportunity to analyze how and why the West is waging a war with China. But to fully analyze the current situation, we must first peer into the past.

Colonialism and Exploitation.

The world we know right now came to being after countless struggles. War, genocide and enslavement were the defining aspects of history for the past 400 or so years. Needless to say, that the current period in which we live is statistically the most peaceful period in the history of humanity.

The constant war and enslavement in the preceding centuries were brought about by the global powers as they competed to secure more land and resources to enrich themselves. The British were famous for its vast empire, covering more than 25% of the global landmass while the French occupied over the lands of over 90 million people around the world.

The colonial age was marked with what was then and even now deemed as blatant violations of human rights. Vast populations were subjugated through military might and forced to pay “tribute” to the crown while they wasted away their lives in the service of the “colonizers”.

Exploited individuals were often harshly punished by colonizers.

This is especially evident in the case of Africa, the cradle of civilization which was left devastated when the colonial powers exited the stage and assumed their now moral high ground. Trillions of U.S. Dollars’ worth resources were pumped out of Africa and into Europe and the U.S. This essentially halted the development of multiple civilizations in Africa, forcing the once emerging nations into a century’s long coma.

Gold, silver, diamonds, Ivory, Coffee, cotton and rubber were mass exported from Africa through slave labor. The resources were shipped to Europe where they were used as a stepping stone to finance and construct the marvelous cities, palaces and halls which now define European history. Europe in essence ascended over the rest of the globe at the cost of centuries of exploitation. European architecture is stained with the blood of the exploited.

While the British exited Africa and assumed their position of power, they did so while leaving a deeply rooted measures to retain control of their colonial states. In the case of Africa, they used their influence to allow British companies to operate in Africa, exploiting their resources. According to the London Stock Exchange, 101 companies have mining operations in Africa where they still retain control of African resources worth $ 1 trillion.

The west’s exploitation of the rest of the world was significantly worse in Africa where human beings were treated inhumanely. King Leopold II of Belgium’s exploitation of the Congo free states were horrifying to even the subhuman standards set by European colonizers.

A father stares at the severed hand and feet of his 5 year-old duaghter, as punishment for failing to meet daily quoata of rubber extracted in Belgian Congo.

The U.S’ mass enslavement of Africans is also a testament to the west’s exploitation of the rest of the globe. According to a 1999 report by the Truth Commission in Accra, the west exploited over $ 777 trillion from Africa. The great American economy was built on the back of slave labor.

In the years that followed the colonial powers engaged in self development while their former enslaved states had to overcome centuries of systemic abuse and a halt to break in their civilization.

This resulted in the global wealth disparity which we see today where the exploited nations are labelled as “developing” and while the exploiters are living in the comforts of the resources exploited from the rest of the world.

While the dark years of colonialism have become just a chapter in the history books, the European nations continue to evade their responsibilities in reparation for the centuries of losses for the other nations. For the British, the closest to paying back for centuries long exploitation is the $2 billion a year dispersed among 54 countries by the Commonwealth Development Corporation.

This is where China comes along. China is no stranger to foreign occupation and exploitation as they had to endure centuries of abuse by the British. The Opium war is a classic example of how the British exploited millions for financial gains. In China, millions of people were addicted to opium which was bring imported by the British. Once the sale of opium (core constituent of Heroin) was banned by the Emperor of China, the British declared war on China in 1839. The Second Opium War was fought between China and both the British Empire and the French, which China lost, resulting in a forced treaty where they had to handover Hong Kong to British control and watch helplessly as the European powers increased the sale of illegal drugs in China, destroying generations.

The opium war and the ensuing treaty resulted in long lasting issues for China.

China which has no history of colonization knows that the way forward is to invest in other countries and to promote mutual growth. In the past decades China has invested in hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars to developing countries around the world. This has led to a significant rise in the living conditions of the recipient countries where economies bloomed. This growth of the exploited world does not sit well with the post-colonial British and other European states who continue to deny the guilt of exploitation.

Not only does the Eurocentric post-colonial mindset also prevents Europe from seeing their former colonies prosper, they continue to meddle in the domestic affairs of other nations as they continue to deem themselves the apex of civilization and that “Showing the right way” is their duty.

Criticizing China for helping alleviate the living conditions of former colonial states is downright ludicrous. While the western states continue to enforce their will through military might and economic sanctions, China has found a better way to promote their economy, by partnering up with the rest of the world in a win-win solution where both states will grow together. The concerns and allegations around Chinese investment is without a doubt the product of post-colonial guilt and insecurity, to see the once exploited surpass the “colonizers” all on their own.