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CHINA: Latest Africa Foray: Altruism or Hegemony?
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING, Nov 9 (IPS) - Brushing off accusations that its investment is denuding Africa of precious
natural resources, China has pledged "going all-out" to help African countries
overcome poverty and fight new threats like climate change.
Beijing on Monday offered full assistance to Africa in agriculture and
infrastructure on the heels of its pledge to extend 10 billion U.S. dollars over
the next three years in concessional loans to the continent’s countries.
At the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation in the Egyptian resort of Sham
el-Sheikh, Beijing won applauses for its no-strings attached foreign aid and
was held as an example for development worth emulating by countries
around the world.
"China has been able to develop its economy without plundering other
countries, and the Chinese economic miracle is indeed a source of pride and
inspiration," Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe told the forum. Beijing’s
engagement with the continent was a model the rest of the world should
adopt, he said.
But on the sidelines of the forum, Beijing has had to fight criticism that its
expansion in Africa is driven solely by interests in the continent’s vast natural
resources.
Zhai Jun, an assistant foreign minister, told the media that China was not
seeking to impose its "hegemony" in Africa.
"China will not treat Africa in an imperialist way. China will not be pointing
fingers or bullying African countries," he said, reiterating that China would
not "practice colonialism in African countries."
Zhai’s remarks echo some Chinese commentators here. They have launched a
counter-offensive, saying criticism of China is driven by envy because
western countries continue to treat Africa like a colony.
"The West envies China’s engagement with Africa," said an editorial in the
‘Global Times’, a tabloid published by the Communist party’s flagship
newspaper, the ‘People’s Daily’, last week.
"Europeans view Africa as their own backyard," the paper quoted Xu
Weizhong, an expert on Africa, as saying. "Of course they don’t like to see
China encroaching on their ‘territory".
Beijing has always denied it harbours any intentions of replicating the West’s
colonial expansion in Africa. But earlier this year, delegates to the annual
session of China’s parliament debated a proposal to seek employment for up
to one million Chinese in various African countries.
The proposal was put forward by delegate Zhao Zhihai, a researcher with the
Zhangjiakou Academy of Agricultural Sciences in China’s breadbasket
province of Hebei.
Zhao, who had visited Ethiopia and Guinea to explore possibilities for
agricultural cooperation in cultivating hybrid rice on the continent, told
delegates that Africa’s vast land and underdeveloped agriculture could
provide employment for up to one million Chinese labourers.
"In the current economic climate, with so many of our people unemployed,
China can benefit from finding jobs for them and Africa can benefit from our
expertise in developing any type of land and crop," Zhao told the parliament.
He suggested Beijing should draft a long-term strategy of dispatching
Chinese labourers to Africa in order to solve two of China’s greatest
challenges—food security and unemployment.
Zhao’s proposal may have not been endorsed at the top level, but its having
been publicised by the media has provoked comments of approval in some of
the popular Internet forums here.
"At last we have heard of something useful from our delegates to the
parliament," wrote one netizen in a sarcastic jab at China’s National People’s
Congress, often derided here as a "rubber stamp".
Another, writing in ‘tianya’ forum (www.tianya.cn), suggested that Angola,
Congo and Equatorial Guinea should be developed as "outposts" of China’s
overall strategy of transforming Africa into a "China-friendly backyard" and
Beijing should seek to buy land and send labourers to those countries in
order to relieve China’s "food and land bottlenecks".
China’s rush for Africa is part of a global race underway to tap the continent’s
energy resources and mineral wealth. Prices of many commodities have been
soaring recently, making Africa’s vast deposits of copper, bauxite, cobalt,
iron ore and gold all the more attractive.
While Beijing is not alone in its pursuit of Africa’s oil, gas and precious
materials, it has invited more criticism than any other government for its
huge diplomatic and commercial expansion in the continent.
The aid offered by premier Wen Jiabao at this China-Africa forum was double
that unveiled by president Hu Jintao at the last summit in Beijing in 2006.
Then Beijing pledged five billion U.S. dollars in assistance over three years
and signed agreements to relieve or cancel the debts owed by 31 African
states.
Critics say Beijing has been unscrupulous in grabbing African resources,
disregarding human rights and environmental issues. The Chinese
government and its state-run companies have struck lucrative deals with
some of the most unsavoury governments in Africa.
In October one Chinese company—China International Fund—struck a seven-
billion U.S. deal for oil and mineral rights in Guinea, a country run by a
military junta, which was responsible for the recent massacre of 150 pro-
democracy protesters.
Beijing says it would refrain from interfering in the internal politics of any
African country.
"China’s support and aid for Africa has never and will never attach any
political conditions," Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said in his address at the
summit held Nov. 8 to 9.
But lack of transparency surrounding much of Beijing’s expansion in Africa
has hurt China’s attempt to set itself up as a pioneer of new diplomacy.
Experts say that China’s advance on the continent appears a little ad-hoc and
few in the Chinese government, if any, know the full extent of overall aid and
investment and how these are being utilised in Africa.
"The problem is, we don’t know what the volume of aid from China is," Brian
Atwood, who served for six years as administrator of the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) during the Clinton administration, told the
Foreign Correspondents Club in Beijing recently. "There is a lack of
transparency about what is actually happening… It is not a conspiracy, but it’s
not joined up; no one is keeping track of it all".
The murky nature of China’s aid-giving has given rise to fears that it does
not lay a base for sustainable development on the continent and that only
benefits Chinese companies and labourers.
(END/2009)
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