老外说的些我们喜欢听的话Mercantilism, "Chopsticks" and Otherwise

diver18

Last week at the APEE meetings in Nassau, I saw economist George Ayittey give a talk on why most African economies are in such sad shape. He blamed the things free-market oriented economists tend to blame: foreign aid, the absence of free markets, heavy government controls, etc.

Then he turned to the role of China in Africa. He listed a number of things the Chinese government was doing in Africa that he didn't like: making deals with the government for mineral rights in return for fixing a railroad system and giving government officials palaces and soccer stadiums in return for favors, to name two. He also stated that the Chinese government wants to settle 12 million Chinese people in Africa. He seemed outraged by this.

In Q&A, I said that I would love it if 12 million Chinese people settled in the United States and I didn't see why he objected. Ayittey responded that he didn't necessarily object to the fact of 12 million people immigrating but to the fact that the deals are being made in secret and that rank-and-file Africans are not getting a say. I was glad to get that cleared up because his tone in his speech made me think that he was objecting to immigration per se. I still wonder, though: what if regular Africans had a say about immigration and voted to disallow it. Would he say that it should be disallowed?

Also, when I went on the web to see more about his objections, I found the following from Ayittey (paragraph 37):
Further, China's engagement has devastated local industries in Lesotho, Nigeria and Zambia. In Nigeria, the influx of Chinese products has destroyed Kano's manufacturing sector. In 1982, 500 factories churned out textile products in Kano, but fewer than 100 remain operational today, most at far less than full capacity. In South Africa, the textile union says some 100,000 jobs have been lost as Chinese synthetic fabrics replace cotton prints in street markets across Africa.

His objection sounds awfully mercantilist to me.
关于作者：
David Henderson (economist)

David Henderson is an economist. He was the Head of the Economics and Statistics Department at the OECD in 1984–1992. Before that he worked as an academic economist in Britain, first at Oxford (Fellow of Lincoln College) and later at University College London (Professor of Economics, 1975–1983); as a British civil servant (first as an Economic Advisor in HM Treasury, and later as Chief Economist in the UK Ministry of Aviation); and as a staff member of the World Bank (1969–1975). In 1985 he gave the BBC Reith Lectures, which were published in the book Innocence and Design: The Influence of Economic Ideas on Policy (Blackwell, 1986).
Since leaving the OECD, Henderson has been an independent author and consultant, and has acted as Visiting Fellow or Professor at the OECD Development Centre (Paris), the Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels), Monash University, the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, the University of Melbourne, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the New Zealand Business Roundtable, and the Melbourne Business School. Recently, he has been a Visiting Professor at the Westminster Business School.
In 1992, Henderson was appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George as a Knight Commander.
Henderson is prominent as a global warming skeptic and has been critical of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, particularly the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, and the Stern Review of the economics of global warming. He has also published books that strongly criticize "corporate social responsibility".

Jigong

George Ayittey (born 1945) is a Ghanaian economist, author and president of the Free Africa Foundation in Washington DC. He is a professor at American University,

zhiyi

关于中国在非洲“破坏”和“殖民”的满含“羡慕嫉妒恨”的老调重弹。鉴定完毕。楼主可以省略不翻译。