China's Expanding Role in Africa

[Jedburgh]

TWQ, Summer 07, The Tenuous Hold of China Inc. in Africa

...China’s “corporate engagement” strategy in Africa consists of several elements. Top Chinese leaders and diplomats create a favorable environment for Chinese investment in Africa through a mixture of prestige diplomacy, economic assistance, and diplomatic support for African leaders. At home, China’s economic bureaucratic agencies encourage Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to increase their investment and trade with Africa. China’s SOEs implement Beijing’s aid projects, extract strategic natural resources for export back to China or for profit in the international marketplace, and expand their manufacturing bases in China. Chinese workers staff Chinese projects efficiently and at low cost, and Chinese migrants build trade networks and supply chains linking China and Africa. At least, that is the idea.....

[MountainRunner]

Check out Josh Kurlantzick's new book Charm Offensive for a good read on China's use of diplomacy, trade incentives, cultural exchange, and various assistance packages to change its image and win friends in Africa and elsewhere.

Not that published policy and actual policy match, but if you haven't seen China's 2006 Africa Policy, it's worth skimming. The policy is in six parts:
1. Africa's Position and Role
2. China's Relations with Africa
3. China's African Policy
4. Enhancing All-round Cooperation Between China and Africa
5. Forum on China-Africa Cooperation And Its Follow-up Actions
6. China's Relations with African Regional Organizations

Also noteworthy is China's intentional use of peacekeeping missions to up regional and global profile.

[Firestaller]

Frankly we should welcome China attempting to compete with us as a conventional peer. They will never match us and will end up wasting enormous resources trying to. Unfortunately I doubt they're that stupid.

If America is having trouble managing 26 million Iraqis, imagine how difficult it would be to deal with 1.3 billion people ... especially since China has never welcomed an occupation.


As far as China never coming close to American millitary ... that all depends. China is eager to buy arms and technology from Europe and Europe is eager to sell it to them.


Should be interesting how this current conflict between the central and the local government (where most of the human rights abuse occurs) turns out. After years of trying to do something about it, the central government is using the media to expose local government abuses to make sure the populace is on their side.

Now the central government has to step in and control those areas. This is going to be a real test to their validity and if things don't improve in the rural areas under thier control, they might face a peasant uprising in the coming years.

[Jedburgh]

CS Monitor, 27 Jun 07: Young Chinese idealists vie to join their 'peace corps' in Africa

Across the border from South Sudan, in the small Ethiopian village of Asossa, Sun Yingtao, a young agriculture student from Hebei Province in China, is teaching subsistence farmers – many of them refugees from war-torn Sudan – techniques for getting good yields out of their meager lands.

Seconded to the Ethiopian Department of Rural Development, Mr. Sun spends his days trying to identify various vegetable diseases, discussing possible alternative water usage, and debating the pros and cons of sowing onions and peppers in rows or in a scattered fashion.

Sun, who has been here for six months, is a civilian volunteer – one of a group of 50 young men and women who have been sent by the Chinese government as part of a new, experimental "peace corps" project in the country. This is the program's second year, and there are small volunteer groups in three locations: Ethiopia, the Seychelles, and Zimbabwe – three countries of limited economic importance for China....

[Mooks]

What goes up...

Christian Science Monitor - In Sudan, China focuses on oil wells, not local needs June 26th

Mostly covers the growing backlash to Chinese assistance in Africa.

[MCMasterChef]

For more in the same vein you might scan this article in Der Spiegel (focusing mainly on Zambia).

[Firestaller]

According to a recent Pew Research Report:

In general, Africans are more positive than Latin Americans about the growing influence of both China and the U.S. on their countries. But in both regions, somewhat greater percentages say China's influence is a good thing than say that about U.S. influence.


Across Africa, favorable views of China outnumber critical judgments by two-to-one or more in every country except South Africa, where opinion is divided. In both Mali and Ivory Coast more than nine in ten (92%) have a favorable view of China, and positive opinions also overwhelm critical judgments in Senegal and Kenya, where 81% view China favorably.

Three-quarters hold a favorable view in Ghana and Nigeria, as do two-thirds of Ethiopians. Even in Uganda where a third of the population does not know enough about China to express an opinion – twice as many have a favorable view as view China unfavorably (45% to 23%). The survey provides a trend only for Nigeria, where favorable attitudes toward China are sharply up, rising 16 percentage points in just the past year from 59% to 75%.