For years, China has worked tirelessly to craft an image of itself as a benevolent global partner, a literal and metaphorical builder of bridges. Its massive Belt and Road Initiative, launched in 2013, has been promoted as an unprecedented effort to connect the Global South through infrastructure, trade, and mutual development. Chinese state media and diplomatic envoys now regularly contrast this narrative of international solidarity with depictions of a hostile, self-interested United States, especially as new tariffs and trade tensions take center stage. But while China frames itself as a great friend of the developing world, the material consequences of its outreach tell a much different story, one not of generosity but of quiet coercion, dependency, and the slow erosion of sovereignty.
Upon closer examination, China’s Belt and Road operations reveal a pattern that should raise red flags for progressive thinkers. This is not simply globalization under a different name. It is, in practice, a system that echoes the very forms of economic imperialism and neocolonialism that many Global South nations have long sought to escape. Debt traps, exploitative contracts, and lopsided resource arrangements are dressed up in the language of partnership. The result is a world where power is once again centralized in the hands of a few, only this time, the dominant force is headquartered in Beijing rather than Brussels or Washington.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in Sri Lanka, where the promise of Chinese investment quickly soured into a cautionary tale. In the early 2010s, the Sri Lankan government pursued an ambitious project to build a deep-sea port in Hambantota, financed through loans from China’s Export-Import Bank. The port was envisioned as a gateway to prosperity, a new node in the global supply chain that would bring business and jobs to the southern coast. However, the economic viability of the project was questionable from the start. The port failed to generate the expected revenue, and Sri Lanka could not keep up with the mounting debt payments. In 2017, facing a financial crisis, the government handed over the port and thousands of acres of surrounding land to a Chinese state-owned enterprise on a ninety-nine-year lease.
The implications of this handover reach far beyond economics. It gave China control over a strategically significant site along vital Indian Ocean trade routes. More than just a financial blunder, the Hambantota deal laid bare the geopolitical calculus behind many BRI investments. Infrastructure becomes leverage. Debt becomes a means of control. For Sri Lanka, the dream of development turned into a real and symbolic loss of autonomy.
This pattern has repeated itself across much of Africa. China has poured billions into roads, railways, ports, and energy projects, often financed through opaque lending agreements with high interest rates or undisclosed collateral terms. In exchange, Chinese companies have gained access to raw materials and markets on favorable terms. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chinese firms dominate the cobalt mining sector, extracting one of the world’s most vital resources for clean energy technologies. However, this extraction often comes at significant human and environmental costs. Investigations have uncovered poor labor conditions, environmental degradation, and the sidelining of local communities. Many projects are built using imported Chinese labor, denying locals the opportunity for employment or skills training. Regulatory standards are frequently ignored or waived, and communities are rarely consulted.
These practices evoke an uncomfortable historical memory. During the colonial era, European powers justified their conquests through rhetoric about civilization and progress while extracting wealth and labor from the colonized. China may not use the same language, but its actions often mirror the old logic of empire: infrastructure projects that serve the investor more than the people, resource deals that enrich a distant power while leaving local environments scarred and communities impoverished, and contracts that bind governments in long-term obligations leave little room for democratic oversight.
Even as these patterns persist, China has intensified its image campaign. In response to recent U.S. tariffs, Chinese officials and media outlets have portrayed America as belligerent and inward-looking, positioning China as the steady hand offering opportunity and fairness to the world. This narrative is alluring. In a world where many countries have legitimate grievances with Western hegemony, China’s appeal to anti-imperial sentiment resonates. But that resonance does not make it accurate. A balanced critique that acknowledges the faults of both American and Chinese policies is essential for a well-informed perspective.
For progressives committed to justice, transparency, and equity, this is a moment that demands clarity. Criticizing American protectionism should not mean ignoring how China uses trade, infrastructure, and loans to advance its strategic interests. Solidarity with the Global South means listening to the people most affected by these deals, not just the leaders who sign them or the officials who praise them. It means empathizing with those impacted and demanding investment that builds genuine local capacity, respects democratic governance, and protects the environment, not investment that extracts, indebts, and dispossesses.
There is no virtue in replacing one empire with another and no justice in trading the old tools of domination for newer, more efficient ones. True international partnership is built not on dependency but on empowerment. The progressive movement, both at home and abroad, should reject the myth of China’s altruism and push for a global order where development does not come with strings attached, where sovereignty is respected, and where people's needs come before empires' ambitions.
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