China

My optimism ends at China being good for China. For the rest of us third worlders, they're just the newest foreign exploiter (that might maybe turn good at some point).

For example the Export–Import Bank of China loves giving out loans with minimum spending oversight, at higher interest rates than the competition. Our politicians (organized criminals) take out a loan, and hire a Chinese company to build a highway. The Chinese company imports prisoners as free labor, and builds the highway for extravagant prices. Since they're spending practically no money on the labor, as they don't even have access to hot water for showering, I'm guessing the profits are split between the parties. All of those deals smell worse than Chinese prison camps in winter, and you can smell those long before you see them.

In the last 10 years the debt of my country to China has multiplied 12 times, and is now 2x the debt to the European Investment Bank. Xi and other high party officials are always happy with our deepening friendship and cooperation, and he even came to check stuff out before it really ramped up.

Meanwhile, literally every factory and project they're involved in is an ecological disaster, surrounded by armed guards to prevent any journalist or NGO from peeking in. And when they for example manage to prove that a factory is releasing toxic sewage directly into a river that feeds a national reserve with endangered endemic species, our minister of ecology responds by essentially telling the assembled journalists to fuck off and mind their own business. The same factory was initially built by a couple hundred Vietnamese workers living in inhumane conditions, whose passports were taken away as soon as they entered the country. (more China fun times in the Balkans)