China's Soft Imperialism

Libya is in the news for obvious reasons.  The country has fallen into civil war and is emblematic of strife across the whole region, the modern "Arab Spring."  A subplot of the Libyan story revolved around the evacuation of foreigners who were caught in conflict.  Each country sought to remove their citizens as fast as possible; Americans were stranded at port until a ferry was secured to carry them across the Mediterranean to safety.  The Dutch had a few of their marines detained on a mission to rescue nationals

Yet, the Chinese evacuated over 30,000 nationals flawlessly, without a problem.  Which begs the question, why were there over 30,000 Chinese in Libya of all places?

The answer is natural resources.  Mainly oil, but also ores and other earthly metals.

It's the world's newest imperialism, but of a softer, blunter variety.  Over the last decade, China's trade with Africa has exploded - it's estimated to reach $300 billion by 2015.  The key to Chinese trade and investment is that there are no strings attached.  Investment and trade dollars are not conditional on human or civil rights, like the dollars from the West via the IMF or WTO.  Somalia gets money, and China gets oil.  Simple.  (Kinda follows China's internal model).

With a million people in Africa, China is not looking to slow down their soft imperialism anytime soon.  Africa is the last undeveloped (and unexploited) region in the world.  As the globe's rising power, it is natural for China to expand into the continent that is most underdeveloped.  The question is will their economic control of the region mitigate Western efforts to promote human rights.

Will Eastern economics or Western morals win out?