China in Africa

‘Strategic Partnership’ and ‘Economic Cooperation’

• China has given aid to every country in Africa save one: Swaziland, which alone has never switched allegiance from Taiwan.

• Official aid is still regarded by China as a sensitive area, a state secret.

• This shroud of secrecy has helped to intensify concerns both in Africa and in the West. Much attention has focused on the multibillion dollar, resource backed loan offered for infrastructure in countries recovering from conflict.

Chambishi Copper Mines - Zambia• China Non-Ferrous Metals

Corporation (CNMC) bought 85% of mines in 1998 for $20 million/

• By 2005, another 160 Chinese companies had invested in Zambia

• April 2005, 51 factory workers killed in an explosion on the grounds of the mines.

• Accused of lax safety standards.

• Protests over wages and working conditions

China’s new role• China is different as a donor and strategic partner

because it is also a developing country, and its development success give it a great deal of credibility as a partner with relevant experience.

• Liberia’s former Finance Minster Antoinette Sayeh:, ‘Clearly for us, In Africa, we have a lot to learn form Chins, beyond its financial capacity to assist. China has made the most progress over the past several decades in reducing poverty. That experience is of great interest to us’.

• While China’s new role as a major source of finance was welcomed in the corridors of power in Africa, it sparked considerable concern in Europe and in the US.

A Shroud of Secrecy• Although China has become

increasingly transparent about man aspects of its governance and policy making, aid figures remain state secret.

• The Chinese government releases only the barest of information about the quantities of aid it gives.

• There are no official figures on aid allocation to individual countries or region, no breakdown by sector or purpose.

• The tradition of secrecy fuels misunderstandings, rumours and speculation.

Aid as Foreign Policy• Like the US, China gives aid for three

reasons:– strategic diplomacy – commercial benefits– reflection of societies ideologies and values

• Fundamentally, foreign aid is a tool of foreign policy. China is not an exception. All donors give aid for a variety of political, commercial, and moral reasons.

• Understanding the balance between these motives gives us one of the keys to unlock the black box of China’s aid program.

Rogue Donor: Myths and Realities1. ’Chinese Aid: It’s all about Oil/Minerals/Resources’

2. ‘China Enables Sudan to Get Away with Murder in Darfur’

3. ‘China Hurts efforts to Strengthen Democracy and Human Rights in Africa’

4. ‘Chinese Support Kept Robert Mugabe in Power in Zimbabwe’

5. ‘China is making corruption worse’

6. ‘Chinese aid and loads are part of a system of ‘unfair subsidies’

7. ‘China gains Business with Low environmental and social standards’

The Real Story…• First of all. Chinas aid is not huge, the

traditional donors give far more ad to Africa. • China’s export credits are much larger than its

aid, but not as large as commonly believed.

Road to development?• The Chinese say” ‘to end poverty, build a road’.

• The ‘Four Modernizations’ China launched in the 1970s emphasized infrastructure. They built roads, ports, and rural power plants, modernized architecture, invited in factories.

• They experimented with different approaches special economic zone,s for example.

• The deals they offer Africa are based on similar deals Japan and the West offered China many decades ago, and which the post-Mao Chinese accepted in the belief that they could also win from an approach that was not about aid, but business.

The China model of development in Africa

• By Western standards, China is secretive about its aid and export credits

• Private banks and corporations in the West have long maintained secrecy about their deals with African leaders.

• China is now a powerful force in Africa, and the Chinese are not going away. Their embrace of the continent is strategic, planned, long term and still unfolding.

• We should remember that China’s own experiments have raised hundreds of million of Chinese out of poverty, largely without foreign aid.

• They believe in investment, trade, and technology as levels for development, and they are applying these same tools in their African engagement, not out of altruism but because of what they learned at home.