While President Kibaki’s government and many others across Africa are opting for stronger partnerships with China rather than the West, there’s growing evidence of a need to take stock and consider our relations with China.
China's adopted approach of not commenting on or seeking to influence a country’s democratic and governance institutions is becoming increasingly popular with Africa regimes weary of the West’s regular interference in matters of State. It goes without saying that the Chinese scramble for Africa gained momentum with the election of George Bush II whose foreign policy has paid less mind to Africa, and much more attention to the Middle East and Asia. The Chinese wasted no time and over the last few years, their presence can be felt across the entire Africa continent, from Ghana to Kenya to South Africa to Zambia. In the latter case it’s worse, with the entry of Chinese retail traders who are busy taking away jobs from the informal sector traders. In Mozambique I came across Chinese traders engaged in the informal sector as well. In my visit to Tanzania last year, a local confided to me that it’s easier for a Chinese to set shop in Tanzania than a Kenyan.
Whilst I have an admiral for the Chinese for their aggression, discipline and hard work, I’ve a bone to pick with them. Does any of you recall some two characters that were prevalent in high school days? On one side, we had the talkative fellow aka kimbele. This was an easy going character who in all sense suffered from an intoxication with verbal exuberance that almost left all in a state of limbo. He would lack no words to utter whether during prep time, class or parade. He would comment on anything, tease and sometimes even bully. Think the West, think this fellow. On the other hand, there was this quite reserved character with carefully scripted words and calculated moves and never looked fit to kill a fly. He would be on schedule and ahead of the pack while the talking fellow kept us glued to his entertaining stories. The resemblance between the Chinese and the latter character is one that cannot be doubted. On face the quite character looked disciplined and non-interfering. Unfortunately the story went that in a fit of rage, the chances of him piercing his fist through your mouth was higher.
The Chinese have perfected the art of a gentleman’s look while they pursue their selfish needs in mother Africa behind our backs. A typical case is the Darfur crisis. There’s now growing evidence that the biggest supporter of Sudan’s brutal regime currently propagating the Darfur genocide is no other than China. The BBC recently revealed details supporting this notion and were able to track Chinese military hardware deep into Darfur being used by Sudan’s military. An arms embargo against the Sudan regime was put in place some years back. The Chinese whose thirst for oil is unquenchable disregarded the embargo and went ahead to supply a batch of 212 Dong Feng army lorries that the UN traced as having arrived in Sudan after the arms embargo was effected. The BBC further claimed that they found witnesses who said they saw the first Dong Feng which the BBC tracked down, being used with Chinese anti-aircraft guns in an attack in a town called Sirba in West Darfur. This happened in December last year.
To all world news readers, it’s common knowledge that when China’s President Hu Jianto visited Sudan in 2007 he wrote off millions of dollars worth of debt. He went ahead to donate a multi million dollar interest free loan for a new presidential palace to Sudan’s dictator, President Omar al- Bashir. It’s not to say that President Hu was unaware of President Omar’s massacre of black Africans in Darfur. He was well aware but chose to place his countries business interests ahead of the need to protect human lives. Turning a blind eye, his support for the Sudan regime has grown exponentially and only God knows how many more Darfurians would be felled by the Chinese military hardware.
More recently, the Chinese did an equally appalling thing that has led me to further question why we should call them genuine friends. Words are not enough to describe Mugabe’s atrocities and the world has rallied against this once great African leader in a bid to push for his stepping down. To this effect, the UN Security Council decided to pass a resolution imposing new sanctions on Zimbabwe. The measures in the resolution included an arms embargo and travel ban for Mugabe and 13 of his allies. China was amongst the five countries that voted against this resolution in the name of non-interference with member states. It might be worthwhile to note that Libya, the upcoming scrambler of Africa sided with China, incase you still support the Grand Regency deal.
I sought to understand why China would support Mugabe considering that Zimbabwe has no oil deposits, a resource whose China has a very high affinity for. In my research I discovered that Zimbabwe is one of the world’s largest producers of platinum. Besides platinum, the country also has large deposits of coal, gold, nickel, tin and steel. I learned that platinum is considered one of the finest of all jewellery metals. Over 20% of all consumer goods either contain platinum or are produced using platinum. For instance hard disk drives, anti cancer drugs, fibre optic cables, explosives and LCD displays all rely on platinum. As Anglo American Plc, the company that controls the world’s biggest platinum production reviews its plans to mine the metal in Zimbabwe due to the political crisis, China’s mouth must be watering as it simmers with the opportunity of another natural resource strike. Mugabe’s embrace of China is expected with his international isolation. However for Kenya, Tanzania and the rest of Africa, to continue embracing this economic giant in the name of interest free loans, roads, bridges and airports, it is a worrying trend that ought to be checked closely.
In a recent research paper by The Heritage Organisation, I was astonished to learn that in 2006, Chinese leaders visited half of Africa’s countries and they declared 2006, the “Year of Africa”. According to the paper China has at least $3 billion invested in the Sudanese energy sector and continues to pursue more investment opportunities.
My take is, China is a selfish, aggressive investor that would stop at nothing to get what she wants at the expense of human lives and good governance. Before further progressing and advancing the trend of blindly embracing China as a partner and friend, it’s time for Africa regimes to halt and take stock of whether this is a worthy cause. I am more worried though by the fact that while we are trying to stop China on one hand, on the other hand, another psycho christened Grand Regency grabber is bracing for grabs!
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Just to put it in context: China is the only major power without a military base in Africa. The French, British, Belgium have them. The US is setting up the AFRICOM sometime. Yet they talk about China supplying arms to dictators in Africa and they do precisely the same. Just look at the OXFAM report released in 2006 detailing that Africa has lost $300bn since 1990 to armed conflict. around $18bn per year due to wars, civil wars, and insurgencies. On average, armed conflict shrinks an African nation’s economy by 15%, and this is probably a conservative estimate. The evidence also suggests that at least 95% of Africa’s most commonly used conflict weapons come from outside the continent.A steady supply of ammunition is required to keep the conflict economy, but little military ammunition is manufactured in Africa.
All these powers are involved in arming these dictators but it is only China that gets the bashing. Not to be mistaken for saying China is clean, but I am afraid the bashing is just hiding the dirt on the other side.
The world bank and IMF forced Kenya to adopt the SAPS while all along they knew they were not working. The endless loans that we get from them is just pure modern slavery.
My take is that the West is now crying foul since they have been beaten at their own game-that of exclusively exploiting Africa's natural resources. And for this they have put up an aggressive information machine to depict China in bad light.
Africa should take a hard look on not what China is being accused of doing, but on all the players in the continent. We should adopt measures that spell out exactly how we are going to relate with all the major powers who are exploiting us. If we continue riding on what other people are saying then we are going to lose the bigger picture.