A few months ago, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, Oxfam encouraged us Britons to give “the gift of dung” to Africa. That’s right: dung. Apparently poor African farmers like nothing better at Christmas time than to receive a bucket of shit with which they can fertilise their crops.
Oxfam called on British consumers to donate some of their Christmas shopping money to its new campaign to send “funusual” gifts to poor parts of Africa. Alongside the gift of crap, you could also lavish poor Africans with the gift of condoms (”Rubberly jubberly!” said the Oxfam website), five bags of seeds (”We’re sacks maniacs!”) or a goat (”a mobile source of income”).
“Buy someone a gift related to Oxfam’s work and make a real difference to the world,” the charity yelped.
Contrast this “funusual” approach to Third World development with the work of Chinese businessmen and officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Last week, BBC TV’s Newsnight revealed that the Chinese have a signed a trade deal with the DRC worth a whopping $9-billion. As part of this package, the Chinese will help to build 2 400 miles of road, 2 000 miles of railway, 32 hospitals, 145 health centres and two universities in the DRC.
Now, if you were (or are) a poor African struggling to make ends meet, who would you prefer to see treading a path to your village? A worthy, well-spoken NGO volunteer from Islington in London laden with the gifts of shit, contraception, goats and seed? Or a Chinese guy in a suit wielding plans to build roads and factories and schools and in the process create thousands of new jobs?
I thought so. Bring on the Chinese.
China’s trading with Africa has given rise to a great deal of tortured, handwringing debate in Western commentary circles. A few weeks ago the Economist, the bible of Western capitalism, ran a front cover showing a Chinese man riding through an African desert on a camel, under the heading: “The new colonialists”. Others complain that China simply wants to get its hands on Africa’s resources and is not really interested in African welfare.
Yet one spin-off consequence of Chinese investment in Africa has not been properly commented on: the way that it has implicitly undermined the arguments of leading Western charities and NGOs.
For more than a decade now, groups such as Oxfam have tried to convince us that poor Africa needs small-scale, sustainable development, and that caring Western consumers can change an African child’s life forever by sending him a pencil or a cutlass. Westerners have tended to believe that for the price of a Starbucks latté they can have a meaningful impact on an African person’s well-being and future prospects.
In one fell swoop, the Chinese have nuked these rather patronising ideas by showing that it is possible to build massive infrastructure in poor Africa, and what’s more, that Africans want this kind of investment. The spread of Chinese trading in Africa is causing a severe crisis of confidence among sustainable-minded Western charity and aid workers.
China’s trade with Africa has grown exponentially in recent years. Between 2002 and 2006, it rose from $12-billion to $40-billion. In December 2005, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao confidently predicted that Chinese trade with Africa would increase to $100-million by 2010. This has meant more jobs for Africans and more infrastructure in their towns and cities. And not surprisingly, many African officials and workers seem happier dealing with the no-nonsense, large-scale Chinese than with the small-scale NGO representatives who often hail from former colonial powers.
The policy of the Chinese government is to trade with Africa on “the principles of independence, equality, mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs”. Contrast that to the attitude of Western NGOs and financial institutions, who often attach various strings to their aid: they demand that African governments must be more “transparent” and that African adults must agree to be “sexually responsible” before they can receive their Western handouts. As one British writer argues, “China’s anti-colonial approach and its ability to ‘get the job done’ has clear appeal” for African leaders who for a very long time have had to “jump through hoops” in order to receive a bit of cash from Western organisations.
Sahr Johnny, Sierra Leone’s ambassador to Beijing, put it well in an interview in 2005. He said: “We like Chinese investment because we have one meeting where we discuss what they want to do, and they just do it. There are no benchmarks and preconditions, no environmental impact assessment.” This makes a dramatic change from the form-filling, impact-measuring culture of Western aid to Africa, where Africans must continually prove their goodness and honesty in return for the gift of dung or some extra farming equipment.
Western activists and commentators have responded to China’s rise in Africa by trying to problematise the idea of “trade without strings”. BBC News recently complained that China offers “no-strings aid”, which is “a marked contrast to Western donors who impose conditions on aid and tie trade sweeteners to human rights issues”.
Human Rights Watch seems to believe that China’s non-political trading and aiding with Africa will nurture more dictatorships on the continent: “China’s growing foreign aid programme creates new options for [African] dictators who were previously dependent on those who insisted on human rights progress.” In short, Chinese investment is a problem because, unlike “enlightened” Western investment, it doesn’t use financial and political blackmail as a way of keeping African rulers in line. With attitudes like that among Western human rights activists, it is no wonder many Africans are welcoming the Chinese with open arms.
Western observers should have more faith in poor Africans and their leaders. If Africans want to deal with Chinese investors who treat them as adults rather than as victims, good for them. And if they are exploited by their Chinese employers, as many no doubt are, then they are more than capable of standing up for themselves — as demonstrated by the recent riots over poor pay in Chinese-owned factories in Zambia. It is time for Oxfam and others to cut the apron strings: Africans are grown-up enough to determine their own futures, and to decide who they want to work with.
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65 Responses to “Bring on the Chinese”
So far western aid has proven to consist of a pencil and a doll to some child, a bucket of manure to a farmer and a fat cash handout to the president for life. China does make an interesting to change to all of this and what they have proposed and initialised in DRC and elsewhere on the continent looks promising. The nag is, what is the supply of arms to a Zimbabwe all about ?
Looking around the continent, I’m not so sure that all Africans are “grown-up enough to determine their own futures”. But then that’s probably the case with many Westeners too.
Especially now with the advent of globalization, we are all now responsible for the world as a whole (global warming, protecting the oceans; being just two examples), and I’m not sure that the Chinese are taking that into consideration.
Living in South Africa I have noticed how the problems in Zimbabwe have affected my own country because or president has not meddled somewhat in their business, and was it not the U.S.A who built Saddam Hussain - and how has that activity affected them.
We cannot ignore responsibility, and we cannot ignore responsibility for each other, because we share this world.
The reason why the western powers have strings attached is due to the fact that when they did try to do normal business they lost money.
Of course the Chinese are a bunch of dictators themselves so like is dealing by and large with like.
Don’t be surprised to see Chinese troops sent in to protect Chinese investments as the Chinese will be less likely to write off bad debts and more likely to do barter trade. The Chinese won’t care about pollution and the environment to our detriment. Africa is the last unpolluted frontier.
I have seen a Chinese sweat shop - if that is what we africans want then that is what we will get. Perhaps the Chinese will improve our work ethic.
You make a good point, but western businesses are nowadays so hamstrung by ethics rules that they are at an immediate and permanent disadavantage to the Chinese. Chinese investment might have few strings attached, but when the rent is due it gets collected with even fewer scruples.
Yip how quickly the Europeans forgot that their continent was rebuilt by the American Marshall Plan after World War II and the only pre-condition was to prove they weren’t dirty commies.Spain was rebuilt even though it was pretty much a dictatorship through most of the 70’s and the Italian corruption bill could not have been a pretty sight.
I for one welcome my new Mandarin speaking masters with their stolen Western technology (patents what patents, how about we just clone the BMW and call it BWM) and their asian penchant for hard work.
I think it is safe to say that investors are only interested in their returns, be they from the west or east.
One thing you don’t seem to mention is that there are a few important preconditions to Chinese investment in African infrastructure. Chinese materials, Chinese management and Chinese labour, and a few mineral concessions here and there. It is a process of colonisation more than investment.
The Chinese come into Africa with their own preconditions… one major condition being that the workers are Chinese. So, PERHAPS, with the infrastructure in place, there will be spin off jobs, but I don’t see the development plans creating jobs for locals. Which is what billion-dollar “Western Development” projects are about these days… teaching a man a fish, not giving him a fish/ a pencil/ a bucket of manure.
As for “Mutual Respect”, I call “bullshite” on that. The Chinese are renowned for never having respected another power in their lives, why would they start now.
I say, bring in them in, but do not think they are benevolent or that we must not be as cautious as ever in how we accept them and their plans.
The Chinese will do what they have to to catch up to the Western powers (U.S.). Only when they are THE superpower will they start to ‘care’ about the environment and such other things. They figure, the states did it, why can’t they. I just hope Africa makes use of this opportunity and develops herself!
What about that Chinese factory in Windhoek which proved to be unprofitable, so while they hoodwinked the authorities they sneaked out all their equipment, closed the doors and left a lot of unemployed workers? O’Neill tries to make us believe that what Oxfam does is the only form of aid that comes from the West. Not a very honest way of arguing.
Thank you Brendan for you posting that is laden with insight. Africans must also be wary of being colonised by any of the foreign forces. Africa has what the world needs and must not kowtow to foreign interests be it western or eastern.
It touches me when South Africans of all races genuinely address issues. It entrenches my view that God brought us together for a reason and that is to attain greatness. Albert Luthuli the ANC Nobel peace prize winner stated that People from various backgrounds will create a beautiful and successful country in South Africa. They will be people from all races but will not necessarily all be African. That is God’s plan for us as South Africans.
You are absolutely right - I think one of China’s main advantages is that the state can co-ordinate and push through huge projects like this - can you imagine the red tape (pardon the pun) and number of lawyers that would be involved in getting a deal like the DRC one going between a consortium of Western companies?
I guess Communism is showing a capitalist advantage.
Your premise suggests that this is either/or. But I reckonthat you have a dubious sense of scale. The DRC trade deal might look big, but my guess is its decades before this starts to impact on more than a tiny proportion of villages; and in many cases such places will *always* remain outside whatever formally developed economy is sparked by deals like; at this level, condoms, seeds and goats remain pretty useful.
You’re also not comparing apples with apples - you need to look at Western FDI + World Bank investment in addition to aid to even make this comparison. Goats versus roads make an amusing blog teaser, but its really just a sophistic conceit.
Yes African leaders “Bring on the Chinese” and in the process get six containers packed full of weapons and armament that you can use on your own people when you don’t like the way they vote
“Democracy” isn’t a pre-condition for Chinese aid.
“Democracy” isn’t always a viable option, especially if middle-eastern or african goverments because there’s a culture issue at hand. “Democracy” also guarantees puppet Presidents are in place to allow Western “investors” to rape and plunder without care.
This is what is scaring the shit out of the west. Africans and Chinese resorting to the old barter system, which leaves their dollars high and dry.
Brendan, as admirable as your article is i can not help but wonder if you were leaving in Zimbabwe and you had a ship full of weapons from China would you still say all the things you say about the Chinese.
I do agree with yo when you say that conditionalities are not always good when aiding a country but in some instances they are unavoidable.
It was this kind of mentality that kept people like Mobuto in power for over three decades during the Cold War. It was this ‘no strings attached’ mentality that led to millions of African’s to suffer at the hands of rotten dictators. Had the Americans or the Soviets had more genuine interest in the people of the continent more than they had at keeping each other out the continent the plight of the people might have been alleviated much sooner.
Another thing that you failed to mention on your praising of the Chinese is the fact that most of this devopment the purport to bring is of a very low standard. In Tanzania a Chinese construction company had to be shown the door after repeatedly failing to meet the deadlines. The work that they did was of a very poor quality and their work ethics were dubious to say the least.
I am not against Africa being developed in fact i welcome development in Africa whoever the source. But what i am against is African’s being fooled into beleiving that the Chinese, or anyone for that matter Oxfam included, has our best interest at heart with their endevours.
There are benefits from doing business with the Chinese. The organisation I work for received some very nice, very expensive scientific equipment from China which has served us fairly well. The strings attached - we’re not allowed to move it, switch it off, modify it or replace it. We’re involved in a continent-wide project that is constantly in need of equipment. So far the project is being funded by two universities (one South African, one American), our organisation and an American aid agency but the Chinese have the money and the resources to get the project off to a good, solid start. If we could work with the Chinese AND the Americans then I’m sure the project will well-funded and well-equipped and the benefit to Africa’s scientific development will be greater.
At some point you have to put aside your prejudices and objections and realise that Africa is not Europe. Western standards, conditions and ideals sometimes simply do not work or apply. As much as we may deplore their human rights record (viz a vis Tibet, Darfur etc), the Chinese have the right idea - they are giving Africans what they want and need, not what we think they want and need.
And everyone conveniently ignores the fact that China has been “investing” in Africa for many decades already. So what benefit do the Tanzanians, Zambians, Zimbabweans, etc have to show for Chinese investment to date? I mean apart from the obvious one, being armaments (most frequently deployed in the singularly unproductive of fashions)?
The Chinese are led by an extremely shrewd set of people who are determined (as they should be) to build China into the most overwhelming superpower ever to dominate this planet. And yes, they will succeed, not least because the West panders to them. But China’s success will require vast quantities of natural resources from Africa (as well as the Middle East, South America and Asia). China is very rapidly establishing exclusive contracts/supply lines for these resources, not just in Africa. So oil is not the only commodity that China will create worldwide scarcities of. And the West stands by smiling.
Chinese investment in Africa does come at a price. That is to be expected. The question is whether or not we are willing to pay that price and whether or not, in the medium term, the West will be content to stand idly by while China consumes what little the Americans have left of Earth’s resources.
Dear Matthew,
The western presence in Africa has been one long sophistic conceit, from Jesus through apartheid and liberalism to aid. Has anyone but Mbeki noticed the pun in Aids? It has an ironic historical significance that points to the root of our language–and we are our language.
Where have you been good fellow?
China knows about poverty. The western ‘powers’ introduced them to it with gusto in a concerted and duplicitous attempt to fleece that huge country. They are ahead of the west in Africa not only because they have a better strategy. They always have been ahead in a way. Now, from bitter, personal experience currently reinforced by the duplicity of the Americans who are in Iraq and looming over Iran to prevent oil from reaching China, they know about the greed and moral degradation of the Christian, monotheist west.
As to China being a colonialist power, we must not be stupid and presume others are like us. China has a culture as different from ours as Chinese is from English. There are indeed crooks in China but any man has his price and deliver us from temptation.
I presume you pray that.
If not you should regarding the temptation to blame others.
You have not divulged just how China accounts for its investment in as unstable states such as Sudan, amidst the genocide. And mention DRC, how apt. Seeing they contain again the same as Sudan, vast volumes of crude oil.
I hoped for another applicable line on argument but have seen nothing in your writings, but a loose argument based on money. Well hey, the world needs money, money, money.
Let’s go over China itlsef, and how their citizens are unwilling to listen to world calls for the freedom of Tibet. Let’s look at the fact that their borders have never been determined as they believe they own Taiwan and wherever else they wish. I don’t have a great phobia of China, however their human rights records leave a lot to be desired, end of.
Africa needs to keep every inch of raw materials for itself. Then build technological wonders from it. The fact that iron and other raw materials are taken from Africa to build fridges in China and sold back at huge mark ups simply does not make economical sense.
Admittedly I was of the opinion that the average M&G reader fell into the upper intellect percentile. Well perhaps they did, but immigration has seemingly resulted in only “intellectually challenged” ones remaining and now and (horror) passing comment…well, I suppose “in the land of the blind…” Good Luck to you who welcome the Eastern Invasion, it’s early days yet and the show is only beginning! To get a view what it may be like in the years to come, I suggest a trip to China, not Shanghai or Beijing, the other cities where the communist government would prefer you not to go, you’ll be in for treat. It’s the stark absence of any life (fauna/flora) that really scared me and the Oceans have been all but decimated of life and believe me, they do eat anything. Let’s see where it all ends up for human rights campaigners because as far as these are concerned, in China there are none, not the campaigners, nor the rights. No churches either, only the masses toiling away for a pittance under a brutal regime. What of the justice system, courts, intellectual property rights and individuality? Hell what am I complaining about Africans couldn’t get it right with every resource imaginable so perhaps it’s poetic justice.
Where you will read that a major Australian shopping site allows the use of it for charity products, where shoppers can pay a bit over the top, knowing that it will go directly to the third world local, individual and co-operative manufacturers.
I am personally a member of the Lions Clubs Manufacturers who are predominantly middle class managers or professionals and we have no goats.
We do fund a large airplane converted for operating on eyes, which flies into countries, inc African, cures the blind lined up for them and then carries onto the next country.
Perhaps you would care to book yourself in to cure your shortsightedness.
And many of the Lions Clubs are Chinese or have Chinese members, or are you unaware that there are many Chinese descendants in the west, and that some of them work for charities?
Or that many chinese donate to ethical charities both within and outside China?
As a Western cookie pusher I think you overlook two important points. First you present the West as monolithic, there is a great deal of difference between FDI and government spending on public health or infrastructure. You reference moral prerequisites for aid but that policy is largely US and is a creation of the Bush administration not of NGOs. Similarly as other comments have suggested the Chinese investment in infrastructure is designed to ease the flow of goods back to China not within Africa, a direct parallel of colonial development. Second you dismiss sustainability for an immediate payout, Africa is far better if the work of development is done by Africans and business is owned domestically. Otherwise environment degradation and the future viability of markets are non-considerations for investors. It is better to avoid a future skills shortage and disinvestment than to exclude domestic industry for an immediate payout.
Western aid has failed miserably in Africa- from the ill-advised ‘structural adjustments’ of the IMF, to Canada’s ‘wheat program’ in Tanzania, to Bush’s ‘abstinence’ instead of condoms to the hectoring of evangelists bringing their bizarre bazaar of Jesus and Bibles. The Chinese have always been pragmatic and their quid pro quo is more acceptable to Africans than the condescending attitude of the West with their TV show begging by well-dressed whites touting a welfare system for Africans that can only increase their poverty. The West has shot its load in Africa and needs to adapt to the new reality. China is not the panacea to all of Africa’s problems but their approach is more acceptable to Africans than the holier-than-thou West. Besides, China has been trading with Africa since the eleventh century.
Nah Brendan - I’m not convinced about Chinese “Investment” in Africa. But then again my rather jaundiced opinion is based on post Tanzam encounters with these trusty Chinese fellows deep in Mugabe territory in the Mocambiquean bush in the 70’s and they were actively engaged in some suspiciously military activities with the Honourable “Sir” Robert Mugabe’s ZANLA Terrorists. There was also a lot of military shit lying around, you know - like Chinese explosives, heavy calibre weapons like mortars and AA guns so we kinda concluded that this wasn’t exactly an investment team from China dressed in suits - they were actually dressed in Chinese combat fatigues so I guess things have changed no?
Well looking at recent Chinese “investment” in Zambia one would be a little taken aback to see that this investment has in fact not benefited the local Zambians in any way along the entire length of the Copperbelt from the DRC border (Which incidentally this new development in the DRC will connect to) all the way down past Kitwe to Ndola.
Plenty of very busy looking Chinese miners and surveyors and prospectors and managers and alles but the Zambians still look as bedraggled and as sick and as hungry as they did in the 90’s when Anglo American aborted it’s R93 million bid for the Copperbelt under then President Chiluba as a bad investment.
The curious things about this Chinese “investment” in the copperbelt is that for the relatively simple exchange of mining royalties to the Zambian Government, they have free reign to mine the Copperbelt stukkend and transport all that copper on the TANZAM railway that they had the foresight to build way back in the 60’s to Dar es Salaam from whence it is shipped to China to make copper trinkets and electronic circuitry and maybe some bullets for their mate Bob down in bambazonkeland.
Bambazonke, incidentally in the local vernacular means to “Take everything” - can’t imagine why such a description would be ascribed to the good “Sir” Bob, but anyway, back to the Chinese copperbelt.
When discussing this phenomenon recently over a Tsing Tao at the local Chinese eatery with a Chinese mining engineer, I asked him why black Zambians weren’t being employed by the Chinese to work the mines and the very, very sensible response that followed went something like this.
It is impossible to find black Zambians in Zambia with any level of qualifications in mining engineering, management, etc. so they had to use Chinese expertise. Most of the rest of the Zambians were uneducated and illiterate but could still not be used as labour as they were mostly HIV positive and with the deterioration in health standards and facilities since the evil white men left in 1964, by the time most Zambians reached adolescence, they had contracted a variety of tropical diseases such as malaria, bilharzia, TB etc. that they may have survived with rudimentary conservative treatment, but their immune systems were hopelessly compromised by these illnesses. Of course at adolescence they became sexually overactive spreading HIV amongst themselves at lightning speed so that if they did survive to employable age, the HIV would develop into full blown AIDS within a matter of months to just 2 years whereupon the hapless Zambian would meet his expiry date typically short of his 20th - 30th years.
As such it was not viable to try and train them as that would take time working off a poorly qualified base and if they did undergo 2-6 years of specialist training they would succumb to AIDS before they could be productive.
An interesting dilemma, but as such, left the Chinese in their mining endeavours, under no moral obligation apart from (dimunitive) mining royalties to the Zambian Government, to provide training and/or jobs to black Zambians until the typical job seeker demographic improved which as everybody knows will take forever, by which time Chinese in Zambia will outnumber black Zambians.
But apart from that, the Chinese, as you have pointed out have been rather beaver-like in their endeavours throughout Southern Africa, especially Zimbabwe and more recently buying a significant chunk of Standard bank with all it’s African subsidiaries puts them in the very visible position to be seen to be investing in Africa - or re-colonising Africa. My instinct is without a shadow of a doubt on the latter. But then again us stupid Rhodesians have been trying to warn the Western World about this since the 60’s when the British, with their logic that determines doling out buckets of shit and a goat as beneficial to indigenous blacks, sought to hand us over to that great ally of China and N. Korea; Sir Robert “Bob” Mugabe - peer of the realm what…
So ja - in my opinion, I’d say that China is doing what it has been planning all along now that white Europeans have almost been totally eradicated from the continent - just a few left in South Africa - and that is re-colonising Africa with it’s vast untapped resources and strategic shipping value in a global village running out of resources, lebensraum, food and fuel with burgeoning populations over 60, shitty weather in most cases
stagnant economies, over-saturated markets and seriously stupid societies.
Without all those corpses routinely fouling up the place from genocides, famine, disease and civil war, Africa is the new Eden in the Global Village and as of now, it all literally belongs to China.
Re-colonising Africa? - You betcha…..
Look from a perspective of getting the west to take notice perhaps the Chinese interest in taking Africa’s mineral wealth back to China will in the end benefit African countries however right now I see no evidence of that. China like Japan and other Asian countries need raw materials in order to indulge their beneficiation aspirations. The real problem is still not being addressed and that is that until Africa gets involved in investing in its own minerals beneficiation programs it will always just be dealt with as one big crude raw material larder. But there is no doubt that the larder is worth more now than it was before as a result of Chinese domestic growth.
The author’s “clarion call” in favour of Chinese “investments” loses all credibility for the mere fact that he uses the example of so-called Chinese massive investments in infrastructure in the D.R. Congo! The figures he cites may impress some readers, but they do not reflect the reality on the grounds. The author, it must be recalled, bases his piece on BBC TV’s NEWSNIGHT (which we watched through BBC World)and on his personal reading of the contract. Has he read the many critical pieces by well-informed economists (Congolese, not European) who have expressed misgivings about the contract? Is he aware of all the fine prints in the contract! This article by a “thought leader” is an example of misinformation by armchair pundits who, through some crude regurgitation of what propaganda peddlers disseminate, believe they are doing a lot of good to Africans. The Chinese who, by the way, have been in the DRC since the nid-1970s are in no way more generous and efficient than the very Western NGOs used by the author as an example of Western exploitation and neglect.
@ Luanga Adrien - My point exactly. China has with this “Investment” in the DRC basically extended it’s sub-equatorial control of Africa from West coast of Africa to Dar Es Salaam on the East coast and all the way south through Angola, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mocambique to Cape Point.
They thus have strategic, economic and financial control of the Southern Sub continent, which is the wealthiest and most developed part of Africa and they have carefully planned and implemented this stealthy acquisition by supporting Southern African “Liberation Struggles”, particularly of Mugabe - whom they still support.
My only consolation is that the Chinese have very effective means of dealing with crime. One way or the other, the genocide of white people in Southern Africa is going to be very appropriately avenged and who is going to stop the Chinese?
The raw materials come from Africa, are shipped to China, are manufactured in sweatshops and for who’s benefit? Ours of course. With our insatiable appetite for more and more ’stuff’, which in turn drives the US multinationals, which in turn leads them to use Chinese products and labour in their appetite for larger profits with lower costs, which in turn leads to unemployment in the West and the milking of Africa.
Anyone on this blog thrown out their Nikes or their TV sets in disgust? Thought not. Therefore we, and not the Chinese, are ultimately responsible. They saw an opportunity and went for it. Can’t blame them.
That’s right: dung. Apparently poor African farmers like nothing better at Christmas time than to receive a bucket of shit with which they can fertilise their crops.
“… the Chinese have a signed a trade deal with the DRC worth a whopping $9-billion. As part of this package, the Chinese will help to build 2 400 miles of road, 2 000 miles of railway, 32 hospitals, 145 health centres and two universities in the DRC.”
Also as part of this package, $4 billion will go to various DRC politicians, officials and their family members. So naturally these ‘Africans’ prefer the no-strings-attached Chinese approach.
What do the peasants and the unconnected think? Nobody knows.
And what do the Chinese think? As far as can be ascertained, most of them regard Africans as subhuman.
You are ignorant to the facts. Ignorant to why the West approaches Africa in the way they do and ignorant to why and how China approaches Africa.
@Owen sums up the approach of the West pretty well. How much more money do you wish into the hands of corrupt governments? How many more African leaders do you want to make millionaires without any sustainable solutions to their economies and relief for their very, very poor citizens?
Even if you do not take “China’s game” from Games Foxes Play - Planning for Extraordinary Times by Ilbury and Sunter into account, the facts are clear to see. @Doug from Holfontein sums up what you so conveniently leave out: the deals with Africa do not necessarily create jobs for the locals – China is only interested in Africa’s resources and you have to wonder why they bring in their own workforces so eagerly.
Shame on you and Africa; shame on you for writing such dribble and shame on Africa for sitting on all the resources to be a gigantic economic force and STILL not being able to make it work!
I think that the author of this article is wrong and that Oxfam is right in this matter. The first priority, especially today given rising food prices across the world, is the ability of a nation, especially developing nations, to feed its self first. As this encourages domestic stability and an economic base off which economic development can occur. The Chinese have recognized this in their own development which is why food security is so important to them at this stage in their development.
Master in Indernational Development student in China on April 25th, 2008 at 9:17 am
A really good article, Brendan, and a very good discussion following it. I’ve been in the international development field for 15 years and I’d add only one thing - don’t assume the past is necessarily a good predictor of the future, but don’t ignore the past either. We’re all changing.
The donor and development community - dominated by the west - agonise endlessly over the difference between handouts and hand-ups. I know because I’m directly involved in this agony. Our activities have often been misguided and damaging in the past, but most of our work today has no ’strings’ attached in any conventional sense, just the hope that the future will be better for Africa than the past.
Goats and poop are good for a laugh, but they point to a deep grasp of the long-term challenge of helping people to uplift themselves through sustainable income generating activities, rather than handing them a bunch of shiny toys which they can’t use or maintain, but which they may be paying for long after the toys are broken.
Conversely, I’m very impatient with the goats and poop kind of mentality. Africa has an appalling number of school aged children who are not in school - how much would it cost to guarantee that every African child will receive good quality schooling and tertiary education for the next 30 years, with no strings attached? I suspect not much more than we’re spending right now. We need to think big if Africa is ever going to join the donor community, instead of depending on it.
But maybe this is exactly what China is doing. The trouble is that they play their cards close to their chest, so we fill in the blanks with our preconceptions and rear-view mirrors, about both the helpers and the helped. They, too, are changing. Mostly what we need is transparency.
Thanks Brendon and everyone who commented.
This aricle (whether one agrees with it or not)has finally provoked a constructive debate (many other debates in these posts are full of prejudices, racism and unqualified comments). The Chinese involvement in Africa at least forces western countries and companies to rethink the way they are engaging with Africa.
O’Neill’s article contains the following fallacies:
“Africans” are a homogeneous monolith. Without even taking the Zim example, the waBenzi class have very different wants (and positioning on Maslow’s hierarchy) from the lumpens. It’s often, if not guns, Gautrains and stadia vs butter; bread vs cake & circuses.
The Chinese attitude of: “non-interference in each other’s internal affairs” bring the Zim armsdeal to mind and makes one wonder how that applies to Tibet or Formosa.
Sure, in this global economy we should not forget our global conscience, looking after the global community. Then it’s difficult to justify development aid to countries with poor human rights record, little regard for the environment, etc.
But Western governments should focus less on aid (which benefits the donors at least as much as the recipients) and more on assistance for companies investing in Africa.
The profit incentive is the best way to ensure development. And international companies will be held to account by their own shareholders and regulators in the countries where they are based. Such control exceeds (by far!) the control that most African government institutions can exert over operations in their own countries.
An old Chinese proverb - ” no money, no talk “.
After reading Brendan’s article ( an interesting, refreshing “angle”, I might add ) I was amazed at all the criticisms from some of the replies aimed at the Chinese government’s motivation … maybe it is your fear of the “unknown” ?
As children of Afrika - what have we done lately for our brothers and sisters in the other parts of our continent ?
PS - and as far as human rights and religious freedom in China goes …. I go to church every Sunday and my teenage daughter can walk home late at night after extra class at school without being molested or raped - and oh, by the way - we live in the hinterland of mainland China …. and as for Tibet and Taiwan - history shows that both provinces actually belong to the motherland of China.
So - I do not see any of your money being invested in these African countries - which brings me back to the Chinese proverb …
Nanfei in Ningxia
China is doing this to secure resources for the future and by the time the Africans have repaid the Chinese for the new roads and hospitals they’ll be in disrepair.
China won’t be doing this out of the goodness of their hearts! What they will take in payment will far exceed their initial investment.
It’s like buying something on higher purchase, you end up paying far more over a longer period!
It is such a shame that prominent real estate on national newspapers is given to the uninformed thoughts and prejudices of Brendan O’Neill. Media monopoly of thought through their owner’s agendas is the greatest tragedy (yes yes I’ve heard about editorial independence blah blah, but who really bites the hands that feeds?).
Clearly this O’Neil fellow is a history drop-out. The magnificent decaying, neglected, infrastructure, the rusted tractors, the inland lakes came from China?
Go back to school O’Neil
Brendon:
I assume you’ve never lived in Africa.
If the people of the DRC (Grocho Marx said,”Any country with the word ‘Democratic’ in it’s name ain’t”) were able to choose between:
1) Basic agricultural goods(manure,seed,livestock etc),
or
2) roads(for which they have no vehicles),railway line(for which they have no trains),hospitals(for which they have no doctors or nurses),
guess which one they would opt for?
Bob mugabe(who the British and the US helped to get into power) has always been close friends with the Chinese. How has the country benifited?
The Chinese are in Africa for what they can get out - not for what they can put in.From what I’read and seen on tv,rural China makes Soweto look like Manhatten.If they can’t uplift their own people, surely it’s naive to think they will help a people they despise.
Finally, your derision of the the likes of Oxfam an(by implication) Bob Geldorf is a kick in the nuts (or fanny) to many dedicated people.
Not one of the previous posts mentions that there is not just one emerging power competing for Africa’s resources, but two. The second is India.
And if anyone thinks India will be a benevolent investor, think of Mittal Steel. Even the SA govt is now at its wits end how to reign in Mittal Steel.
Here are some recent articles on India’s push for Africa’s resources.
African countries are not simply spectators to the economic rise of China and India, they
are party to it. This book demonstrates how the growing economic power of China and India
is already influencing the growth patterns of African countries, particularly oil- and
commodities-exporting ones. As world prices for commodities rise, producer countries
in Africa and throughout the world will gain, but there is more to the story than that. Some
African countries are redirecting part of their trade and other relationships from their traditional
OECD partners to China and India. The book explores the consequences of this, and comes
to some surprising conclusions.
This book is a must-read for anyone who is concerned with the changes in the world
economy being brought about by the extraordinary economic growth of China and India.
Not only do they represent over a billion workers, but these workers are also consumers and
investors. As China and India consolidate their positions in Africa, the results could
be unexpected and dramatic.
China and Vietnam are the current world leaders in poverty reduction.
From 1980 - 2005, China lifted 400 million of its own people above the $1 per day poverty level, which is 75% of all the people in the world lifted above this level in this period. There are many article on this, see e.g. www.finfacts.ie/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10003611.shtml
“..the poverty rate of two dollars per day in China was as high as 64.5 percent in 1993, it had fallen to 37.8 percent by 2004″.
“Along with Vietnam, China is the only other country experiencing a reduction in 2 dollars-a-day poverty rates of two percentage points or more per year on average since the early 1990s” http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/16/content_6888061.htm
South Africa has slipped back 35 places in the Human Development Index (largely but not entirely due to HIV/AIDS), and its HDI ranking in 2007 was 121. In the last few years, China has advanced 20 positions in the HDI rankings, and is now at 81. India’s HDI in 2007 was 128.
Ms. Cynthia, from Ghana, participated in the “research classes for officials on African countries’ poverty alleviation policies and practices” organized by the International Poverty Reduction Center in China in 2006. As part of the curriculum, she visited a poverty reduction project in Menghua Village, Longsheng County, in southwest China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
“Ghana has similar poverty relief projects, yet the effect is far less obvious. Ghana needs to learn from China’s successful experiences in poverty relief and development,” concluded Cynthia in her paper. She hopes that the Chinese government can send experts to guide poverty alleviation projects in Ghana.
From 1980 - 2005, 400 million people in China were lifted out of the $1 per day poverty level, this is 75% of all the people in the world who have been lifted out of poverty over this period.
There are many articles on this. Here is one. www.finfacts.ie/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10003611.shtml
If $2 per day is used as a poverty level: “the poverty rate of two dollars per day in China was as high as 64.5 percent in 1993, it had fallen to 37.8 percent by 2004″.
“Along with Vietnam, China is the only other country experiencing a reduction in 2 dollars-a-day poverty rates of two percentage points or more per year on average since the early 1990s.” http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/16/content_6888061.htm
Zakmeister wrote:
“No churches either, only the masses toiling away for a pittance under a brutal regime”
The following is from one of the articles in the April 2007 Edition of China Today Magazine, which had a Special Report: Protestantism in China: Religious Rites and Rights www.chinatoday.com.cn/English/e2007/e200704/ctenglish.htm
“Today China has no more than 4,000 pastors and associate pastors working for 16 million Christians in 55,000 churches and congregations.”
Another article in this special report is by a visiting American professor of Hebrew and Old Testament, who is teaching pastors in China.
[…] Thought Leader » Brendan O’Neill A few months ago, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, Oxfam encouraged us Britons to give the gift of dung to Africa. That’s right: dung. Apparently poor African farmers like nothing better at Christmas time than to receive a bucket of shit with which they can fertilise their crops. [more…] Posted by Rethabile Masilo ~~ Social Bookmark “>del.icio.us “>Digg it “>Furl “>Yahoo MyWeb “>Google Create Bookmark Links […]
CYNIC, What have Zambians done to you? Where is the hate and bitterness coming from? Stop making false claims. The Chinese do not control neither do they account for a large chunk of Zambia’s copper production. The leading producers are Vedanta, Glencore and First Quantum Minerals. Please avoid misinformed rants and disinformation. Not everyone in Zambia has AIDS.
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Brendan O'Neill is the editor of spiked, the "sassy, irreverent, UK-based online magazine of news and opinion", as the San Francisco Chronicle described it. He has been labelled "one of Britain's sharpest social commentators" by the Daily Telegraph and as a "loony lefty hack" by the far-right British National Party. His journalism is published widely on both sides of the Atlantic and is collated at: www.BrendanONeill.net.
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So far western aid has proven to consist of a pencil and a doll to some child, a bucket of manure to a farmer and a fat cash handout to the president for life. China does make an interesting to change to all of this and what they have proposed and initialised in DRC and elsewhere on the continent looks promising. The nag is, what is the supply of arms to a Zimbabwe all about ?
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