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China intends to invest $46 billion in infrastructure links to Pakistan:
The focus of spending is on building a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) - a network of roads, railway and pipelines between the long-time allies. They will run some 3,000km (1,865 miles) from Gwadar in Pakistan to China's western Xinjiang region.
The projects will give China direct access to the Indian Ocean and beyond. This marks a major advance in China's plans to boost its economic influence in Central and South Asia, correspondents say, and far exceeds US spending in Pakistan.
[...] Some $15.5bn worth of coal, wind, solar and hydro energy projects will come online by 2017 and add 10,400 megawatts of energy to Pakistan's national grid, according to officials. A $44m optical fibre cable between the two countries is also due to be built.
The Great Game lives. Different players, same game. Equally large implications. Diplomacy game geeks, awake! Who are the players, and what's the play?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Gravis on Monday April 20 2015, @07:52PM
the Chinese government announced that it will finance Chinese companies to build $45.6 billion worth of energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan...
$15.5 billion worth of coal, wind, solar and hydro energy projects will add 10,400 megawatts of energy to the national grid of Pakistan
For those who dont know, china uses the most coal on the planet. Right now they have gotten all good/pure coal and are now excavating low quality coal. It seems to me that it's more likely this is just China taking all the coal they can from Pakistan and shipping it home. Why would Pakistan agree to that? China will gladly bribe Pakistani officials to ignore what they are doing and Pakistan has an even larger corruption problem than China so the officials will take the bribe.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2015, @08:07PM
Your post doesn't shit on the US in any way, and actually assigns ulterior motives to a country that is not the US, so you'll have to remove it immediately. This kind of thought is not welcome here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Monday April 20 2015, @08:26PM
For those who dont know, china uses the most coal on the planet.
I dunno.. I don't doubt what you say but I wonder what China's government wants.
Weird anecdote (has a tech angle though): I came across an article somewhere that said a Chinese app had won a prize for best Android app. It was made by an astronomer from a university in Beijing (can't recall). The app made it possible to use an Android camera phone, and put it outside at night, and, using long-term exposure and probably some rotation of the exposed pictures, *see the stars as if you could go outside your house and look up and actually see the stars*.
How many kids grow up in Beijing who have never seen the stars, or even the other end of Tiananmen square, because the smog is so thick it can be cut in blocks and sold?
So, there might be a slow groundswell of environmental awareness in China, "let's not burn all the coal in the world, we need to breathe too!". I've never been there, I can't be sure, but this is my opinion.
If China has anarchy and revolution, they can't build out the necessary wind, solar and hydro infrastructure to transition their society. So maybe they need coal gasification as an intermediate solution. But I like to believe that they are aware that the environment exists and is something they need to live in, if they want the "Kingdom of the Middle" to endure five more centuries, or even one.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday April 21 2015, @05:44AM
It's actually not too bad in the "golden autumn." It's the one season in Beijing that's quite clear, and it is genuinely lovely. You can see the stars then. A lot of kids in Beijing are born to parents who are from the countryside, so they usually get to travel back to the home villages during Chinese New Year. Not far outside Beijing city limits the stars are quite visible. Some of the best star gazing I've ever done was while camping on top of the 15th guard tower at the Simatai stretch of the Great Wall. Ironically enough, we had more than enough fuel for our campfire burning the wooden chopsticks and other rubbish left behind by the Chinese day trippers, so your general point about Chinese respect for the environment is pretty accurate.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 21 2015, @07:45AM
Go look at the really cheap plastic shit like bins in your local dollar stores, sure many say "Made in China" but more and more are saying "Product of Malaysia". As The Chinese get tired of their land and air being poisoned and working like slaves for a buck a day? The corps just move on to the next country they can exploit.
After all as long as the CEOs can live in a Mansion in a clean valley and drink purified water why should they care how much of the third world they poison? BTW if you don't think they'll fuck their own country for a buck go by a superfund site sometime and see how huge a toxic waste dump once beautiful land can become.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @06:13AM
bribe Pakistani officials
This is probably the case.
The long-term consequences for Pakistan will be that China will make a stronghold in the area, and will not get out until all natural resouces have been exhausted, which may take many decades or even hundreds of years. All they want are the resources. They have the dollars to line the politicians' pockets. They have been doing that to Africa, building highways and whatnot in exchange for local resources.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @07:28AM
Just like the US did before them and the British before them. Romans are famous for their roads, among a few other things. In many ancient cultures fresh produce, game and even fish was transported for hundreds of kilometers sometimes over mountains for the rulers by runners.
It's how the imperialist super powers behave. Evolution is a slow grind.
(Score: 2) by TK on Tuesday April 21 2015, @01:51PM
Do we count the Panama Canal as an imperial road?
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum