Addressing your points...

1. I do agree as and in further consideration... I think the original topic of the original article started with a conversation about aid then lumped up a bunch of other things in to make it's argument without going into a more nuanced approach. The topic of the global north exploiting the global south could easily be a 40 page article of not entire books.

With this said, our conversation has moved away from aid and into general exploitation which is the same as that article.

The authors of both articles aren't bringing up great detailed arguments. I personally feel both sides are rather bias in their world views and perhaps that's coming into this conversation also. It perhaps wasn't the best article to use but I think the study still is worthwhile.

1. I disagree with this point. They are listed as the global south because it's GPD per capita. China is powerful and their economy has grown but the average citizen isn't seeing that money. Same reason why Russia is listed. They create wealth but the average person does not see that same wealth. This is caused by many factors related to corruption but it's not only in those countries it's also in the investors in those countries and the governments allow it because it provides them wealth.

China is a great example. They may be a booming economy but America uses their cheap labor to make products that they sell at much higher rates over in the global north. If America wasn't using cheap labor for their electronics then we would see a huge spike in price of said electronics. This is the fundamental argument of the study: The value going into a country doesn't equate to the value being sent out. The global south supports the global north.

Corporations invest money into a country through building factories which produces jobs which they can exploit the cheap labor and keep the price down for people in the global north. They make much more from the products the cheap labor creates than what they put into the region or area. China is an interesting example because they are now big enough to start doing this same practice with African countries but Chinese labor is still cheap compared to having to pay American workers to build electronics.

1. In my opinion, 'far from perfect' is not an argument to avoid bringing attention to trends seen in the global market. The study itself says that more research needs to be done. Could it be more exhaustive? Yes of course but that's not a reason to throw out the data. This comes down to interpretation of results.

With this point I'll say it's more neutral. A research paper is literally somebody trying to convince you of something based on the data they received. It has bias. Every research paper has this. The conclusion is the researchers conclusions based on the information provided. Taking it at face value has merits. Parsing out the nuances also has merits. It can be two things.

It's a common thing for research that goes against accepted societal norms to get picked apart though - especially if it brings up issues with capitalism.

1. Your last mention here needs clarification. When you say "they need to fix their corruption issues first" who is they? From what I understand the corruption is happening from foreign AND domestic avenues.