China's Expanding Role in Africa

[AdamG]

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...ied/article.do

Reminiscent of the West's imperial push in the 18th and 19th centuries - but on a much more dramatic, determined scale - China's rulers believe Africa can become a 'satellite' state, solving its own problems of over-population and shortage of natural resources at a stroke.

With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way.

The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve the problems of over-population and pollution.

The plans appear on track. Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities - oil, platinum, gold and minerals. New embassies and air routes are opening up. The continent's new Chinese elite can be seen everywhere, shopping at their own expensive boutiques, driving Mercedes and BMW limousines, sending their children to exclusive private schools.

The pot-holed roads are cluttered with Chinese buses, taking people to markets filled with cheap Chinese goods. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold.

The trains are linked to ports dotted around the coast, waiting to carry the goods back to Beijing after unloading cargoes of cheap toys made in China.

Confucius Institutes (state-funded Chinese 'cultural centres') have sprung up throughout Africa, as far afield as the tiny land-locked countries of Burundi and Rwanda, teaching baffled local people how to do business in Mandarin and Cantonese.

Massive dams are being built, flooding nature reserves. The land is scarred with giant Chinese mines, with 'slave' labourers paid less than £1 a day to extract ore and minerals.

Pristine forests are being destroyed, with China taking up to 70 per cent of all timber from Africa.

All over this great continent, the Chinese presence is swelling into a flood. Angola has its own 'Chinatown', as do great African cities such as Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.

Exclusive, gated compounds, serving only Chinese food, and where no blacks are allowed, are being built all over the continent. 'African cloths' sold in markets on the continent are now almost always imported, bearing the legend: 'Made in China'.

From Nigeria in the north, to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Angola in the west, across Chad and Sudan in the east, and south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower's long-term survival.

'The Chinese are all over the place,' says Trevor Ncube, a prominent African businessman with publishing interests around the continent. 'If the British were our masters yesterday, the Chinese have taken their place.'

[Jedburgh]

JFQ, 1st Qtr 09: China-Africa Relations in the 21st Century

Over the past decade, while the United States and other Western powers focused on counterterrorism and traditional aid programs in Africa, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) developed a broad, unified strategy toward Africa. This policy spans government ministries and uses all four instruments of national power. China’s African Policy, announced in January 2006, is a bold step for the PRC as it demonstrates a fundamental foreign policy change for a government that once valued noninterference as its highest standard. Although the policy still espouses China’s historic respect for the sovereignty of other countries, the scope of its activities reveals a clear intent to advance Beijing’s involvement in Africa beyond historical levels and build strategic partnerships on the continent that will substantially increase China’s economic, political, and military presence. With U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM) now having full operational capability, it is important for officials to understand the extent of the PRC’s engagement in Africa, where it is going in the future, and the implications for USAFRICOM.....

[Jedburgh]

IPCS, Oct 09: The Dragon on Safari: China’s Africa Policy

In contrast to the political and military militancy of the 1970s, China’s current engagement with Africa should be viewed within the context of globalization in the aftermath of the Cold War. This new relationship is voluntarily focused on economic and technological cooperation for the sake of development. In fact, the current emphasis of China’s Africa policy is based on the classical foundations of what is described as a tripod of historical legitimacies, namely:

• Historical links to liberation movements (historical legitimacy)

• A Third World ideological heritage dating back to the Cold War (ideological legitimacy)

• An evolving partnership based on principles of non-interference and neutrality (political legitimacy)

[Stan]

Kinshasa's Missing Millions -

Evidence of Grand Corruption Mounts in Beijing's Showcase $6 billion Barter Deal with the Kinshasa Government

Over US $23 million in signature bonuses payable on China's $6 billion Sino-Congolaise des Mines (Sicomines) deal with the Kinshasa government have been stolen according to a probe by a commission set up by the National Assembly.

And the final blow

The Congolese shareholders say that they are getting tougher in negotiations. Before, they had to 'close their eyes' to certain details, such as feasibility studies carried out by the same company that would later implement the project, a practice that led to overestimating of costs.

[William F. Owen]

Wow... what comes around.

The Chinese have been major players in most of central Africa for 40+ years. Odd that is now only receiving the attention it should.

[M-A Lagrange]

Over US $23 million in signature bonuses payable on China's $6 billion Sino-Congolaise des Mines (Sicomines) deal with the Kinshasa government have been stolen according to a probe by a commission set up by the National Assembly.

The real question with DRC is who is complaining? If it's the chinese: why not. If it's the congolese... I just found the thief: the national assembly commission.

The Chinese have been major players in most of central Africa for 40+ years. Odd that is now only receiving the attention it should.

Right: Chinese trained nice guys as Bob Mugabe or young Kabila... Their military presence has been quite obvious since more than 40 years.

What has change now is, chineses come to settle in Africa. Algeria is an interresting example. Few month ago there were anti chinese riots in Alger. Today, they are one of the biggest business community and they are the first foreigners community in Algeria...
China involvement into Sudan electoral process is also interresting. They are no more challenging only Western economical interrests in Africa. Soon they will move from their "we do not get involve into your governance" policy to a much more "administrate your country as I said because it belongs to me" policy.

[AdamG]

LUSAKA (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged African countries to lift trade barriers with the United States here Friday and voiced concern about China's aid and investment practices in Africa.
The first US chief diplomat to visit Zambia since 1976, Clinton attended annual talks over a US preferential trade deal at a time when China has overtaken the United States as Africa's top trading partner.
"China's presence in Africa reflects the reality that it has important and growing interests here on the continent," Clinton said during a press conference with Zambian President Rupiah Banda.
"The United States does not see these interests inherently incompatible with our own interests. We do not see China's rise as a zero-sum game. We hope that it will become succesful in its economic efforts," she said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110610...MzOWNvbmNlcm5l

[Dayuhan]

The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve the problems of over-population and pollution...

...Massive dams are being built, flooding nature reserves. The land is scarred with giant Chinese mines, with 'slave' labourers paid less than £1 a day to extract ore and minerals...

...Exclusive, gated compounds, serving only Chinese food, and where no blacks are allowed, are being built all over the continent...

...'The Chinese are all over the place,' says Trevor Ncube, a prominent African businessman with publishing interests around the continent. 'If the British were our masters yesterday, the Chinese have taken their place.'

I once met an Angolan businessman in Dubai who told me "we didn't know what racism was until we met the Chinese".

I'm not entirely sure that it's "the West" that should be "very worried" over all this, It looks to me like something that could very easily blow up in the faces of the Chinese, especially with Chinese-owned farms worked by Chinese labor setting up. How long before the backlash starts? How long before a government that's cut all kinds of cozy deals with the Chinese is threatened by insurgents who want to nationalize Chinese investments and throw the colonists out, and the Chinese are suddenly debating how to "do FID", "do COIN", and otherwise maintain a friendly government that can't govern in power?

I don't see any reason to suspect that China's colonization of Africa will end any better - or any differently - than Europe's. Let them go ahead and bite off bigger and bigger pieces; not like there's anything we can do to stop them, and sooner or later they'll choke on it.

[AdamG]

Jabin Jacob, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi, is also skeptical about the string of pearls theory.

He says India's policy planners should be more concerned with the way China is using its military in what are called "military operations other than war," such as anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia.

"How will you deal with a China that is actively crisscrossing the Indian Ocean, and building up relations with other Indian Ocean littoral states where India has traditionally held sway?" he asks.

India needs to involve itself actively with its smaller neighbors and their problems, if it wants to maintain its influence, he says.

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/20/137061...s-ports-nearby

[M-A Lagrange]

Adam,

A very interresting point. India is with China an emerging power in Africa. But also a power which is present since now several centuries. It's always supprising for new comers to see a huge Hindu temple in Kampala, Uganda, in the middle of the African continent.
Also India has been involved since several years in peace keeping operations (in competition with Pakistan) in Central Africa.
I do not know how far Africa is a priority for the Indian authorities but they are every where (Just like the Chinese). And not just to run smal street shops. Indian companies in Cebtral Africa are deeply involvedinto mining activities (just like the Chinese), large scale farming (just like the Chinese), cheap goods import (just like the Chinese)...

India VS China is coming to be the next big struggle in Africa.

[Ray]

Indians in Africa should not be surprising.

They had gone as labour for the British.

They stayed behind and became commercial successes.

I believe of late the Indian Govt is looking at Africa commercially.

I think Indians should do better than the Chinese since they will be able to adjust to the laid back attitude of Africa since they too are laid back in attitude.