Neo-Colonialism and Exploitation of China

When we talked about neo-colonialism in lecture and how it is about inequality in terms of resources and economic control, it made me think of the issue of China as a dumping ground. About 70% of global e-waste ends up in China which causes massive environmental damage and health problems. There is a good deal of waste that ends up in China illegally from the U.S. and other countries that don’t want to deal with the garbage that they produce. Powerful nations exploit other countries for labour, resources and land for their own benefit. 

There is no way the U.S., Europe or other wealthy nations would allow waste to be shipped from abroad to be dumped within their own land, yet they send their waste to countries who don’t have the means to stop it. According to a critical review on the economic implications of recycling e-waste, the cost of domestic e-waste disposal is higher than the exportation fees so of course it makes more sense to burden other people regardless of the harm it does to those who end up with the waste. As Suzanne described in lecture, these “unequal conditions of economic exchange” depict the idea of neo-colonialism where some nations have an incredible amount of power and wealth that is used to keep other countries from ever having equal opportunities because of how much damage gets inflicted to them.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es702255z