AFRICA DIARY
China is acquiring, and to a large extent has been successful,
in establishing a “slave empire” on the continent. 5 “China
off ers both rulers and the ruled in Africa the simple, squalid
advantages of shameless exploitation.” Former South African
President Thabo Mbeki had himself warned in 2007 that,
“China cannot only just come here and dig for raw materials
and then go away and sell us manufactured goods.” The aid
paradigm also risks coming full circle, with loans potentially
leading to the spectre of debilitating debt.
From the European side of things, Karin Kortmann,
German development ministry parliamentary secretary, has
been a prominent fi gure warning that China’s trade deals with
Africa countries totalling $1.9 billion meant that “our African
partners really had to watch out that they are not facing a new
process of colonisation.” 6 But here, the problems are far more
subtle, and Beijing, attuned to such criticism, has attempted
to adopt a more refi ned posture, a point emphasised at the
latest FOCAC meeting.
Xi has certainly shown some awareness of these criticisms.
The FOCAC gathering gave some room to combat and, in
some cases, defl ect criticisms. The threats posed by “debt trap
diplomacy” and its neo-colonial suggestions were countered
by various actions, including the forgiveness of debt to some
poorer African states. (These acts are not entirely benevolent:
they tend to come with encouragement for greater access for
Chinese multinational corporations.) “China’s investment
in Africa comes with no strings attached,” stressed Xi to a
high-level dialogue with African business representatives
and leader immediately prior to the FOCOC summit. “Our
cooperation with Africa is clearly targeted at the major
bottlenecks to development. Resources for our cooperation
are not to be spent on any vanity projects, but in places
where they count the most.” 7 South African President Cyril
Ramaphosa was convinced. The platform for cooperation
focused “on the tangible improvement of the quality of lives
of all the people of Africa.” FOCAC, in his mind, “refutes
the view that a new colonialism is taking hold in Africa, as
our detractors would have us believe.” 8
Consequences
The modern sentiment advanced by countries keen on
good relations with Beijing can be gushily approving. Serbian
President Aleksandar Vučić, in a recent meeting with China’s
ambassador to Serbia Li Manchang, suggested that, “As the
world economy faces the challenges of trade protectionism,
China, as a country of great economic power, has once again
demonstrated its willingness to help developing countries
unselfi shly, to the benefi t of, as President Xi Jinping said, a
common prosperity.”
What is needed here is an understanding about various
new symmetries of power: the emergence of, for instance,
an “Aid 2.0” idea that challenges Western oriented models.
Development aid and assistance tend to be, in the Chinese
approach, coupled with trade deals, thereby adding another
layer of complexity. Exploitation it might well be, but in a
qualifi ed sense. As Stephanie Rupp deems it in an edited
collection titled China into Africa: Trade, Aid and Infl uence
(2008), “Relations between African states and China can be
best characterised as postcolonial interdependency.”
What is unmistakable here is that aid and development
do come with political restraints. Connectivity and Chinese-
backed infrastructure projects can simply smack of an
accelerated process of exchange that disproportionately
favours the PRC. Then comes the issue of criticism of Chinese
policy, something that aid and investment tends to stifl e. “It’s
offi cial,” wrote a concerned Azad Essa in Foreign Policy
(Sep 14). “After more than a decade of planning, setting
up, and bankrolling African media, the Chinese are ready to
cash in on their investment.” 9 Interference and managing the
aff airs of another country remain in the eye of the beholding
power. Where there is aid, there is infl uence; where there
are investments, there must be promises of return. The
Chinese program and infl uence is here to stay; what African
states might well be advised to do beyond the individual
and singular interests pertaining to each, is forge a unifi ed
front. The PRC can be, in time, one of several options but it
is incumbent on states to improve their means of bargaining
and leverage with Beijing. Even Xi duly acknowledges this,
suggesting that, “The vigorous development of China-Africa
cooperation has… inspired international partners to pay closer
attention in Africa and increase their input and cooperation
with the continent.”
* The author was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn
College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University,
Melbourne. Email: [email protected]
5
Peter Hitchens, “How China has created a new slave empire in Africa,” Daily Mail, Sep 28, 2008, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1063198/PETER-
HITCHENS-How-China-created-new-slave-empire-Africa.html.
Eva Cheng, “Is China’s Africa’s new imperialist power?” Green Left Weekly, Mar 2, 2007, https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/china-africas-new-imperialist-
power.
7
Ben Dooley, “Cyril Ramaphosa denies deal with China is a ‘new form of colonialism’,” The South African, Sep 3, 2018, https://www.thesouthafrican.com/cyril-
ramaphosa-china-deal-colonialism/.
8
Goh Sui Noi, “China’s President Xi Jinping pushes back against charge of new colonialism,” Straits Times, Sep 3, 2018, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/
chinas-president-xi-jinping-pushes-back-against-charge-of-new-colonialism
9
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/14/china-is-buying-african-medias-silence/
6
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