They've already burdened us, (we willingly accepted it of course), with a stadium, that is proving to be a taxpayer albatross, and heaven knows what other "aid" they've provided.
In a letter, posted in the opinion page of the Nassau Guardian Yuan Guisen, Chinese Ambassador to The Bahamas, tells us "Bosom friends make distance disappear" and promises over the next five years to provide the region with:
6,000 government scholarships,
6,000 training opportunities in China,
400 positions for master's degrees,
Take 1,000 regional political leaders to visit China,
Launch the "Future bridge training programme" for 1,000 Chinese and Latin American Youth Leaders,
Set 2016 as the "Cultural Exchange" year.
He also tells us:
There is now a mutual visa exemption between China and The Bahamas,
In May a Chinese medical team visited and performed 101 cataract surgeries,
36 Bahamian officials have been invited to China for training,
9 Bahamian students have been granted scholarships to study in China.
Mr. Yuan closes by telling Bahamians China will "seek to expand our common interests and ensure our two peoples benefit from the strengthening of our bilateral relations".
That's a real grocery list of apparent goodies and I'm sure we'll hear how great China is for doing these things and how "progressive" the country is when these people return, much like when democrats/progressives visited Russia in the 1920's and 1930's and came back with glowing reports.
Russia imploded.
What will happen to China should they consider the principles of democracy like multiple parties, one man, one vote, and human rights for her people?
As Thomas Sowell reminded us;
"Some of the most distinguished intellectuals in the Western world in the 1930s gave ringing praise to the Soviet Union, while millions of people there were literally starved to death and vast numbers of others were being shipped off to slave labor camps." More…
Or as Paul Hollander asked in Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society;
"Why did so many distinguished Western Intellectuals–from G.B. Shaw to J.P. Sartre, and closer to home, from Edmund Wilson to Susan Sontag– admire various communist systems, often in their most repressive historical phases? How could Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, or Castro's Cuba appear at one time as both successful modernizing societies and the fulfillments of the boldest dreams of social justice? Why, at the same time, had these intellectuals so mercilessly judged and rejected their own Western, liberal cultures? What Impulses and beliefs prompted them to seek the realization of their ideals in distant, poorly known lands? How do their journeys fit into long-standing Western traditions of looking for new meaning In the non-Western world?"
Yes, trade is important, but we had better pay close attention to what is in the belly of the beasts (gifts) the Chinese are "giving" us and the region.
