As China’s GDP increases relative to the rest of the world, its investments in foreign countries has also increased. Before 2005, China had “no major investment in Africa”. However, in 2013, China invested in over three times as many countries around the world including over ten African countries.
The article “The World According to China” zooms in and out on a world map while using captions and text overlays to tell the story. The main visualization takes a look at China’s share of each country’s foreign investments as well as the risk associated with that country.
The author’s target audience is those interested in political aspects of China’s recent investments. Through deep dives into the industries receiving Chinese money in countries where the US seems to be withdrawing resources, the author aims to prove that China’s investments are worrying and could have harmful effects on “Western” initiatives in the future.
I think the visualization was effective in giving numbers to connect to a vague idea that I had seen thrown around. It was also effective in convincing me that China was heavily benefiting from investing in countries that were in turmoil.
“China’s money has made it harder for Western-led institutions like the World Bank to demand economic reforms and environmental standards. In all, China was the largest investor in five of the 10 riskiest countries in the world.”
While the build up made me feel informed enough to draw conclusions, I believe that some of the explanatory text were not as effective as it could have been. For example, the final sentence would have had more impact if it was a conclusion or a description of the effect of the information given instead of another statistic.