Plausibility Check: Alternatives to Colonialism

Of late I've been reading a lot about China's resource deals in Africa. To put it simply, China agrees gets natural resources from African countries and in return builds infrastructure such as dams, roads, hospitals etc. China generally refers to this type of arrangement as a win win agreement. Is it possible to have colonialism develop in this manner as well? Instead of destroying native institutions in Africa and Asia, can European countries follow the Chinese model and get natural resources from Africa and Asia in exchange for helping out with infrastructure and economic development? Like for example if the British got a mining concession somewhere in Africa then they would agree to introduce Western medicine. This would be particularly useful with diseases like malaria for instance. This sort of arrangement would also hopefully avoid stupid things like measuring people's skulls to see their IQ and the like.
 
Of late I've been reading a lot about China's resource deals in Africa. To put it simply, China agrees gets natural resources from African countries and in return builds infrastructure such as dams, roads, hospitals etc. China generally refers to this type of arrangement as a win win agreement. Is it possible to have colonialism develop in this manner as well? Instead of destroying native institutions in Africa and Asia, can European countries follow the Chinese model and get natural resources from Africa and Asia in exchange for helping out with infrastructure and economic development? Like for example if the British got a mining concession somewhere in Africa then they would agree to introduce Western medicine. This would be particularly useful with diseases like malaria for instance. This sort of arrangement would also hopefully avoid stupid things like measuring people's skulls to see their IQ and the like.

This is basically what Portugal did to its vassal countries.
 
You could argue that native state interests during the European colonial period weren't much focused on general 'economic development'. They were more focused on a) enriching the ruler, or b) defense against external/internal enemies. So the so-called 'Chinese' model of development wasn't a conceptual option back then.

In terms of a) and b), European trading companies were very much performing this function as far as the native rulers were concerned. European arms, naval/technical expertise or gold were traded for the native state's resources. European companies also assisted in piracy suppression.

"Like for example if the British got a mining concession somewhere in Africa then they would agree to introduce Western medicine." - this implies a very specific conception of state-centralism that didn't really exist in many parts of the world.

For this arrangement to work you need to ensure that the party that is negotiating with you also has the ability to enforce the outcome on its subordinates. This was not always the case, not simply because of weak states but also because of the way the state was conceived in places like India or Africa, where the ruler was not so much the head of the state, but rather a primus inter pares against local notables. Oftentimes, these states also saw treaty obligations as only lasting until the ruler's death.

So in many case you have colonial powers indeed negotiating deals for access to resources, only to have some subordinate or successor revoke them as soon as they could. Europeans, not understanding the 'rules' of the political game that was being played, oftentimes saw this as duplicitous behavior, and saw direct control as being more preferable to the alternative.
 
There's also the case that whenever you did get these sorts of local privileges, you would often get someone else (or even the same ruler!) infringe upon those privileges. At that point, the European nation would feel obliged to defend their honour by going to war to enforce them, and inflicting even more privileges in the peace treaty. That leads to a cycle where the native ruler would then feel even more humiliation and need to scrap them. Eventually it gets to the point where the European power gets fed up of the constant wars, and finds it easier just to depose the ruler, and then bringing in a vassal for indirect rule (less reliable), or directly annexing the territory.
 
At the time of early colonialism, these techonologies were not feasible.

Also, most of the significant AFrican Empires in existance were in the largely unreachable interior.

As for African colonialism, I thought it was largely a fad and was not central to any colonial power's real objectives. With the success of India in the "new Empire age" after the independence of the Americas, Europe's powers did this mainly for prestige. Very few colonies were profitable in any meaningful manner.

I've often thought that if India had not been conquered by Britain, most of these other colonial conquests would never had occured. Much of east Africa was conquered by Britain solely to protect India. France took much of West Africa and SE Asia to compete with British India, etc, etc, etc.

Africa would be very different today, no doubt, though you can argue if it would be better or worse. Certainly less developed.
 
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