China goes to Africa: the good, the bad and opportunities for US-Chinese cooperation
Yesterday marked the beginning of Hu Jintao's second trip to Africa in less than a year. His 12 day tour of the continent will take him to Cameroon, Sudan, South Africa, the Seychelles, Liberia, Zambia and Mozambique.
Africa, has become a region of particular concern for China. First, China's bilateral trade with Africa hit $55.5 billion dollars in 2006, up from $40 billion in 2005 and is expected to reach $100 billion by 2010. Africa supplies China with a third of its crude oil imports, and is rising in importance in other natural resources. This past year, China surpassed Japan as the second largest importer of crude oil, just below the United States and has become the continents third most important trading partner. China sees Africa as a great market for its low cost consumer goods and as providing Chinese firms with a great economic opportunity thanks to the push by many African countries to privatize their industries, and their bid to open themselves up to foreign investment. Africa, is so important to China that the Chinese government last year invited 48 African heads of state to participate in the China-Africa Forum where President Hu Jintao promised to offer $5 billion in loans to Africa, and to double foreign aid by 2009. Just before President Hu embarked on his tour of the continent, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced that China would be providing African countries with a $3 billion loan, a move widely seen as demonstrating China's commitment to fulfill the pledge it made at the China-Africa Forum last year.
China's visit to Africa, is tied very closely to one of China's primary foreign policy goals; the need to find resources to feed its economic growth. China has used diplomacy, trade deals, debt relief, aid packages and infrastructure projects as a means of getting African countries to look favorably on Chinese firms bidding for access to raw materials. A brief look at President Hu's itinerary makes evident just how important this goal is to China's government. In this trip, President Hu will be visiting South Africa which is the African continent's economic powerhouse and of China's most important trading partners. He will also be visiting Sudan, despite tensions with the West over the issue of Darfur, as the country supplies a large quantity of China's oil imports. Zambia, a long time ally and key supplier of copper to China is also receiving a visit from President Hu. China is even visiting Mozabimque, which it sees as a strategic port for access to landlocked countries like Zambia and Malawi. As mentioned above, the Seychelles are also on his list, as China sees these as providing China with useful ports in the Indian Ocean. Apart from the strategic significance of China's visit, it also demonstrates China's use of its soft power which by visiting the continent twice in two years, garners it a measure of goodwill. As Sanusha Naidu, a researcher in Chinese studies at South Africa's University of Stellenbosch, argues the visit demonstrates the importance China attaches to its relationship with African nations, even while countries like the US seemingly do not. As proof, he states, "I can't remember the last time (President) Bush visited" However, this latest trip will also measure the rising discontent with Chinese policies in the continent, and will say a lot about whether China's African honeymoon is over. Despite being a main factor in driving Africa's economic growth to 5.2% (the highest ever), China will now have to contend with some of the problems its policies, and the manner in which its companies operate in the continent, have created.
First, China will have to improve relations with Zambia, where protesters took to the streets over the treatment of Zambian workers, and salary disputes at copper mines operated by Chinese firms. President Hu's visit, will also seek to mend relations with Zambia over a Chinese diplomatic incident leading up to Zambia's September 28 election. About a month prior to the election, China's Ambassador to Zambia got involved in the presidential contest by suggesting that Chinese investors were scared of investing in Zambia in case Michael Sata (a critic of the government's close relationship with China) won the election, even threatening that China would cut investment in the country until after the presidential contest was decided and then, only if incumbent President Levy Mwanawasa emerged victorious. Ultimately, President Mwanawasa won the contest, but the damage done to relations between the two countries was significant, as even though losing the election, it was obvious that Michael Sata had garnered a majority of votes in the areas most affected by Chinese investment.
Second, China will have to address South Africa's concerns regarding China's $3 billion trade surplus with the country and concerns by South Africa's trade unions that Chinese textile imports have devastated local industries. Increasingly, Africans have become concerned about the manner in which the Chinese operate in the country with many complaining about the fact that Chinese firm's underbid local competition and about China's policy of importing Chinese laborers for infrastructure projects, even as African countries suffer from high unemployment rates. In addition, President Hu will likely encounter some resentment over China's perceived foot dragging with regard to its pledges to improve Africa's manufacturing capabilities. Thirdly, President Hu's visit will also be watched closely to see whether China will use its leverage with Sudan to push the regime to cooperate with the UN and resolve the crisis in Darfur. This, after having blocked the US attempts at the UN, to send peacekeepers to Sudan.
China has taken note of these problems and is taking steps to remedy the situation. Recently, China's Foreign Ministry called on Chinese firms operating in Africa to be more responsible, arguing that some of the problems are due to the inexperience of Chinese firms operating outside of China. More specifically, China has announced that it will sign a series of accords and agreements with South Africa to enhance relations between the two countries. Among these, China will agree to provide $2.6 million to help South Africa in its efforts to provide its people with access to skill training and poverty alleviation, in addition to donating "money to Asgisa programs that provides training, capacity building and agricultural development" and helps provide jobs for South Africa's unemployed. China has also announced, that in addition to its $3 billion loan, it would cancel the bilateral debt of 33 African nations, forgiving 168 interest-free loans. Additionally, China also announced plans to build the African Union a convention center free of charge by 2010, 100 schools in rural areas in Africa, hospitals with 100-150 beds for African countries with poor medical faciliites anti-malarial medicine to 33 African countries. Moreover, to expand the sale of goods from the continent, China eliminated import tariffs on over 190 products from 28 African nations. These moves are seen as an attempt to both address concerns regarding trade imbalances and perceptions that African nations are entering a new colonial relationship similar to the one they had with Western powers. In fact, this year's visit is being billed by China, as a means for President Hu to address these concerns with his African counterparts. Thirdly, with regard to Sudan, China recently called on that country to cooperate with the UN in resolving the crisis in Darfur and the deployment of UN peace keepers.
On top of all this, China now has to contend with Western mining companies, who are complaining to the UN and the World Bank that China is using unfair trading practices to gain access to lucrative mining contracts by offering aid, and infrastructure projects to African nations. As they put it,"Chinese engineers are building dams, telecoms equipment, football stadiums, roads, railways and power stations across the continent. In return for these deeply discounted or gifted projects, they are winning rights to explore and exploit vast areas."
Many of the companies are even trying to use an issue long used against them on Chinese firms, and are asking the UN to require that countries singing deals require participants to meet high environmental and safety standards. They also want to partner with the World Bank's IFC to invest on infrastructure projects so as to be able to offer similar incentives as those offered by the Chinse government to African nations. Moreover, they are seeking to work with environmental groups and organizations such as Oxfam to encourage African leaders to demand more of China, and hence raise China's price of doing business in the continent. A few, however, are taking a "if you can't beat them, join them" approach, and have sought to partner with Chinse firms in Africa exchanging their know-how, for access to the continent's raw materials.
As can be seen from the above, China's relationship with the African continent and African nations is bourgeoning. As it does, it has had to deal with ever more complex situations. Last year, Eddie from Live from the FDNF argued that the US needed to take advantage of China's growing problems in Africa. Adopting Tom Barnett's thesis, Eddie argued that we needed to "begin engaging with China on issues like Petro development and security concerns," with the end goal of creating "a rule set for acceptable standards of conduct by client states." As Tom and eddie pointed out, however, such a policy of engagement with China would likley not materialize due to the lack of imagination on the part of the current administration.
Complicating matters further, is the fact that although China provides much of its aid and projects with hardly any strings attached (a point it uses to distinguish itself from Western governments) there are two conditions that it expects to have fulfilled. The first revolves around the issue of Taiwan, where countries receiving Chinese development aid or benefitting from Chinese infrastructure projects are essentially banned from having formal ties with Taiwan. The second condition regards support for Chinese positions in the UN general assembly. Already South Africa has gotten into trouble with human rights groups and Western governments, for voting with China against a resolution to censure Myanmar for human rights abuses.
Having China in Africa, as Tom and Eddie point is a great asset because it is connecting Gap countries to globalization, but there are many pitfalls. As Barnett argues "They are the essence of SysAdmin sans ideology: connectivity with no effort on democracy," and that is where we have to come in, to ensure that China begins to promote the Rule Sets that we would like them to promote, by demonstrating to the Chinese that they are in their interest as well. An argument for the export of these rule sets (democracy, rule of law, transparency) is that they will lead to more stable states in the continent and hence more stable supplies of raw materials for China's growing economy and growing markets for Chinese goods. This is important, as it is one of the main reasons behind China's foot dragging on Iran, mainly they need a steady supply of energy resources to power their economy and Iran is a vital component of it. This in essence is a bone I throw to those who oppose engaging China as a strategic ally, since they want more than anything to overthrow the mullah's in Iran. I still argue, along Barnett's line, that a better strategy with regard to Iran would be to recognize that the Theocracy is a spent force and that more engagement with Tehran on its economy is a better way to achieve this, even while recognizing that Iran will get the bomb, and there's not really anything we can do about it. That however, is an issue for a later post.
With regard to China, I hope this at least gets others thinking of constructive ways to engage them on issues that matter to us, and about regions that we have up to now ignored, but which in recent years have risen in strategic importance. Africa, is such a place as Islam is the fastest growing religion in the continent and it is also home to very weak, failing, or failed states. In other words, a perfect incubator for al Qaeda's next wave. To prove that point, I submit this from the Counterrorism blog, which is a post on Algeria's GSPC announcement that it was adopting the name of Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghrib. In an earlier post, I did on Somalia, I argued that the issues underlying the conflict were far more complex than what the media reported, or what the administration told the American public. Al Qaeda's potential move to Africa is just as complex a phenomenon, and given China's interest in the region, we better start to pay attention.
