This is an edited text of a paper submitted to 'Contribute' Magazine, the publication of UQ's United Nations Student Association
In January this year, an interesting guest attended the
opening ceremony of the new African Union headquarters building in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia: Jia Qinglin, the fourth ranking member of the Politburo Standing
Committee of the Communist Party of China. Amazingly, the entire US$200 million
construction project (everything from raw materials to interior furnishings)
was bankrolled by the Chinese government. This is a profound exemplification of
the Sino-African union in the changing economic and political landscape of the
twenty first century.
The isolationist foreign policy of the Middle Kingdom is no
more. Indeed, since the economic reforms and Open Door Policy of Deng Xiaoping
(1978), China has been at the forefront of the global economy and international
trade. Since 1999, the ‘Go out Policy’ has become the primary framework
defining China’s investment in, and exploitation of, expanding regional and
international markets. As the example of the Chinese donation of the new
African Union headquarters suggests, Africa has been the major focus of China
in recent years. China needs the continent’s natural resources to augment its
(already) unprecedented industrial growth. Channelled through its state-owned
enterprises (and defined by a large migratory flows of Chinese nationals),
Chinese capital has often crowded out any local or regional economic actors.
Although the ‘Go out Policy’ has been at the fore of Chinese economic
activities in Africa, the so-called peaceful rise (marked by soft power,
non-interference and responsible world leadership) also characterises the
Sino-African relationship. At the opening ceremony of the new African Union
headquarters, China reaffirmed this commitment: Jia Qinglin remarked, “China will firmly support African countries
in their efforts to uphold sovereignty and independence and to resolve African
issues on their own.”
China has reignited the scramble for Africa and is seemingly
reigning as the Rhodes Colossus. In recent years, it has been the largest
single source of financial aid and foreign investment for Sub-Saharan Africa.
Last year, trade amounted to US$120 billion, surpassing the United States and
the European Union. This this comes at no coincidence, given China’s newfound
status as the world’s largest energy user, according to the International
Energy Agency. The resource extraction has been further complimented by a large
inflow of Chinese nationals into the continent (with Chinese state owned
enterprises now dominating the economic landscape). Sanou Mbaye, a former
senior official of the African Development Bank, states, “more Chinese have come to Africa in the past ten years than Europeans
in the past 400. First came Chinese from state-owned corporations, but more and
more arrive solo or stay behind after finishing contract work.” The new
Chinese entrepreneurial movement has excelled with government support.
Notwithstanding the continental disincentives of civil wars, institutional
corruption, political instability and (recently) the GFC, China has been
capitalising on the lack of Western competition. Indeed, negotiations with
African governments (particularly those with records of human rights abuse)
have proven remarkably straight-forward for Chinese investors. Chinese
investment is afforded protective security by African governments through
legitimate reciprocal trade agreements, but also through corruption. Suffice to
say, these cacophonous relations show no signs of quietening down. On the
diplomatic front, China has more embassies and diplomatic postings in Africa
than the United States and European Union combined. In 2000, the Forum on
China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was established and its 2006 ministerial
meeting was the largest diplomatic forum in both modern Chinese and African
history.
In the wake of the United States’ waning influence and Europe’s
economic woes, many consider that the Middle Kingdom is heavily engaged in
neo-imperialism throughout Africa’s postcolonial states. In 2006, then UK Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, criticised China as neo-imperialist,
remarking, “most of what China has been doing in Africa today is what we did in
Africa 150 years ago.” In 2011, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, warned
Africa of a “new colonialism”. Although not explicitly naming China, she did
urge greater scrutiny of its investments in Africa. Nevertheless, the character
of Sino-African relations is markedly different from that of the continent with
European and American relationships. Now, it
is investing in industry and infrastructure and importing resources and goods;
though this largely centres upon the extraction of largely finite resources,
China has also invested in telecommunications, financial services, and energy
infrastructure. Sino-African relations are officially guided by the policy of
‘mutual benefits’ and bilateral economic cooperation. Drawing upon this
policy’s profoundly positive developments, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi recently stated, “The future prospects of the [Sino-African] partnership
have never been brighter. China’s amazing re-emergence and its commitments for
a win-win partnership with Africa is one of the reasons for the beginning of
the African renaissance.”
In exchange for these developments, China has received large
contracts from African governments and priority with respect to to the
extraction of natural resources. In 2007, China signed a US$9 billion dollar
mining agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, constituting 68 per
cent of the latter’s annual mining revenue. In return, the Congo received
hospitals, schools and 6000 kilometres of railway and road infrastructure all
financed by China. Without Chinese textile corporations, unemployment in the
South African town of Newcastle would be over 80%. Workers are paid
approximately US$200 per month, which is greater than in China, but still less
than South Africa’s minimum wage. The local unions have tried to shut these
textile factories down, but a majority of the workers consider a poorly paid
job to be better than none at all.
Whilst many Africans perceive the West’s demeanour as
condescending, the Chinese ostensibly manage their relationship with Africa as
a serious business partnership. As Faida Mitifu, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo’s Ambassador to the United Nations said, “There are people who still consider Africans like children who can be
easily manipulated. The good thing about the [Sino-African] partnership is that
it’s sincere and give and take.” On the surface it does – in fact – seem
that China is improving Africa’s wellbeing through its trade, investments and
financial aid.
Whilst the official policy guiding Sino-African relations is
of ‘mutual benefits,’ the primary rationale for Chinese involvement is out of
economic necessity and hunger for resources. Consequently, whilst official
government statements report on the positive friendship, there are widespread
claims of human rights abuses, poor working conditions and environmental
degradation leading to a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment and xenophobia on the
continent. As evidenced by oil spills in Sudan and Gabon, weekly deaths in
Zambia’s Chinese-controlled mines, slapdash construction in Guinea and endemic
corruption in some African governments, China has inflicted substantial harm
across the continent.
Amongst other continental statesmen, the Environment
Minister of Zimbabwe has been an active critic of the Chinese, calling them
“makorokoza”, a scornful local term for criminals. Thus, to avoid condemnation
from African governments, the Chinese have engaged in bribery and coercion.
Chinese managers have bribed government ministers and even taken some on ‘study
tours’ to massage parlours in China. Obstructionist African midlevel officials
are sacked and workers who assemble in groups are dispersed with rubber
bullets. In the rare event that cases do end up in local courts, there have
been reports that witnesses are intimidated and judges being paid off.
China has become just as embedded in the African continent
as the minerals and oil that its state-owned companies are extracting. Whether
through massive migration of Chinese nationals or the perpetual presence of
state owned enterprises, China is seemingly, at least to some Western officials
(such as Clinton and Straw) and local African populations, colonising the
African continent. But this begs the proverbial question: is this really
neo-imperialism and, akin to the Scramble for Africa of the late 19th
and early 20th centuries? On balance, the answer is ‘no’; there is a
lack of cogency between the plethora of Chinese corporations and the
heterogeneity of Chinese private entrepreneurs. China is simply being a
rational economic powerhouse and seizing the opportunity to exploit the
resources and markets in Africa to fuel its own economy.
This points to an even more important question – is a
Chinese monopoly on Africa’s natural, economic and political capital good for
the world economy? Obviously a monopoly in any market is detrimental, but is
China alone to blame for crowding out other regional and international actors?
Arguably Western nations are equally if not more to blame – Europeans and
Americans exploited the natural resources of the continent through imperialism
and are responsible for the some of the most intense ethnic violence in
history. Many Africans have felt that the West has abandoned their plight.
Indeed since the 1980s, with increased civil wars and ethnic violence, and with
the global financial crisis since 2008, there has been an apparent lack of
political and corporate willingness in the West to invest in infrastructure and
industry on the Africa continent.
Although China’s monopoly on African markets and industries
may be regarded as a form of economic imperialism, it fundamentally differs
from the character of historical European colonialism in Africa. The driving
forces of European colonialism were administrative, political and cultural.
European nations attempted to maintain cultural hegemony over African colonies,
importing customs from food to sports and entrenching political and legal
institutions. The British implanted the common law system and cricket in Kenya;
the French implanted language and pastries in the Ivory Coast. Not bound by
such administrative or cultural hegemony, the underlying motivations for
Sino-African relations are marked by a deep paranoia over energy security by
the Chinese government.
China has decidedly operated like a private corporation in a
Western nation – prioritising profit and only caring about social
responsibility and public administration when it serves a purpose. It has
rationally sought to exploit African resources for its factories that are
fuelling the global economy and making the cheap products that we in the West
consume. Surging foreign direct investment from China has substantially
affected Africa’s economic prospects and continental infrastructure networks.
Indeed, according to Johnnie Carson, the United States Assistant Secretary of
State for African Affairs, “China is a
very aggressive and pernicious economic competitor with no morals. China is not
in Africa for altruistic reasons. China is in Africa for China primarily.” During
the nineteenth century, the British Empire was widely regarded as a mercantile
powerhouse ‘upon which the sun would never set’. Today, it is perhaps more
appropriate to reason that ‘the sun never sets on Chinese investment’.
Notwithstanding speculation as to the future character of its political
hegemony in Africa, Beijing’s insatiable appetite for natural resources will
define the growing presence of Chinese investment throughout the African
continent.
--
Tasman Bain is a second year Bachelor of Arts (Anthropology) and Bachelor of Social Science (International Development) Student at the University of Queensland. He is interested evolutionary anthropology, public economics and philosophy of science and enjoys endurance running, reading Douglas Adams, and playing the glockenspiel.
No comments:
Post a Comment