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Ranga Mataire, Zimpapers Politics Hub
CHINA’s adversaries are in a frenzied mode of trying to cast aspersions on the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC), which is scheduled to start on September 4.
Predictably, much of the negative portrayal of FOCAC is peddled by some research institutions and media organisations with a strong affinity to the United States or the West in general.
This is not surprising.
The United States sees the rise of China — economically and militarily — as having an impact on its continued hegemonic dominance as a superpower. And yet the rise of China and its attendant humanistic foreign policy thrust have made it an attractive development partner of most African countries.
China’s foothold on the African continent has created a lot of anxieties in the West, who feel that important allies and opportunities could be slipping into the orbit of a government that does not play by their rules.
Sadly, even some media organisations in the Global South have also been swept off by the pervading narrative that depicts China as new colonial power in Africa.
This characterisation largely fuelled by a social media frenzy that targets the impressionable must be resisted and debunked.
It is commonplace to hear supposedly learned fellows writing profusely and coining phrases such as “debt trap diplomacy” to describe China’s relations with Africa.
There is so much gibberish that is couched as facts about China’s investments in Africa.
Many of those who cast aspersions on China have never attempted to discern why in the 21st century, the so-called free enterprise countries like America feel piqued by China’s blossoming relations with Africa.
We need to refuse the blurring of memory and unravel the core of China-Africa relations and why the US’s foreign policy towards Africa has failed to evolve from blackmailing any country that decides to chart its own political course different from the dictates of Big Brother.
Yes, China is not irreproachable but much of what people are fed with is nothing but mere hoopla.
A good example is the fib that Zambia’s power utility, Zesco, as well as the country’s airport were taken over by China over default loans.
This is actually untrue and can easily be verified.
There is also the widely peddled notion that China is the new coloniser in Africa.
This characterisation totally disregards the fact that African leaders’ have the ability to strike deals that benefit their citizens.
An impression is created of a cursed Africa bereft of leadership capable of negotiating in the best interest of the people.
Americans would want everyone to believe that African governments are passive in negotiating contacts with the Chinese and are regularly coerced into accepting bad deals.
The truth is that over the 15 years of increased Chinese activity on the continent, African governments have been well aware of Chinese interests and have refined their negotiating tactics to better advance their development objectives.
Despite criticism that Chinese firms depend on Chinese labour, the truth is that most infrastructure projects are completed primarily by African workers, with Chinese nationals providing the technical know-how.
A comprehensive 2017 McKinsey report on Sino-African economic relations reported that Africans comprised 89 percent of labour on the projects surveyed.
Local content and job training are regularly included as part of contract negotiations between African countries and Chinese investors.
Claims that Chinese firms only employ expatriate workers are therefore misguided.
Another newly published survey by a Hong Kong-based academic institute found that while senior positions may be held by Chinese citizens, more than 80 percent of the workforce is always local.
The Economist also highlights systematic changes in corporate culture, such as “investing in corporate social responsibility programmes, hiring African managers and doing scrupulous due diligence.”
Chinaphobia would make us believe that Chinese loans are dominating Africa and yet research reveals that China’s US$115 billion loan book in Africa between 2000 and 2016 for example, is still less than two percent of the total US$6,9 trillion of low and middle income countries’ debt stock.
China is clearly not the biggest driver of debt grief on the continent.
Another lie that is also peddled to portray China in bad light is the idea that Chinese loans are leading us to a jumble, which forces African countries to forfeit their mineral resources.
Seven years ago, Mark Curtis undertook a research titled, “The New Colonialism: Britain’s Scramble for Africa’s Energy and Mineral Resources” that revealed the extent to which British companies control Africa’s key mineral resources, notably gold, platinum, diamonds, copper, oil, gas and coal.
The report documents how 101 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) — most of them British — have mining operations in 37 sub-Saharan African countries and collectively control over US$1 trillion worth of Africa’s most valuable resources.
United Kingdom’s firms hold mineral licenses across 37 African countries covering a massive 1,03 million square kilometres. This is four times the size of UK and nearly one-twentieth of sub-Saharan Africa’s total land area.
The criticism about Chinese loans deliberately ignores decades of damage done by the IMF and World Bank loans across Africa and the rest of the developing world.
Chinese loans are not inherently good or bad.
It all depends on what we choose to make of them. What is clear is that unlike the Americans, China’s foreign policy towards Africa seeks multi-polarity and not just conditional aid.
The truth is that Africa-US relations are marked by clear difference in value system born out varying historical perspectives.
In contrast, China has succeeded in creating a mutually beneficial economic platform far different from America’s conditional aid.
Most African nations find China’s foreign policy dynamic, constructive and flexible especially as it seeks to intensify its involvement in security matters and in multilateral organisations.
What is often missed in the framing of China-Africa relations in comparison with the United States is that the latter is stuck in immortalising its self-importance in world affairs. America appears to be stuck in 1782 when its writers and poets waxed lyrical of its being the “first nation.”
Ralph Waldo Emmerson boastfully viewed the United States as a “last effort of the Divine Providence on behalf of the human race,” while Herman Melville considered his country a “peculiar chosen people, the Israel of our times: we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.”
This kind of thinking clearly distracts the United States from seeing an evolving world in which its superpower status is gradually declining.
Even after coming up with its own US-African Leaders Summit to counter FOCAC, America has failed to change in its foreign policy.
There are no tangible deals brokered during the summits that have so far been held.
The meetings still take on the format of a “Big Brother” imposing his weight on lesser beings on issues to do with democracy, human rights and governance. These are fuzzy words that do not deliver economic emancipation to African citizens long held back by slavery and colonialism.
On the contrary, China’s presence in Africa began with Beijing’s support of liberation movements fighting colonial rule.
Beginning in the late 1990s, China’s commercial engagement intensified and was pragmatically brought to life in 2013 with the Belt and Road Initiative, a well-resourced effort to build political influence and grow commercial relationships throughout the developing world. Some of its key activities include lending for infrastructure development and resource extraction.
It is a fact that China is Africa’s largest two-way trading partner surpassing the United States and had hit US$254 billion in 2021, exceeding by a factor of four US- Africa trade.
The Asian country is also the largest provider of foreign direct investment supporting hundreds of thousands of African jobs. This is roughly double the level of US foreign direct investment.
Until the United States’ foreign policy towards Africa changes from being fixated on blackmailing and blacklisting “deviant” states through imposition of sanctions and even waging wars, its hegemonic dominance will continue to wilt and China will remain an all-weather friend to most African nations.
Online Reporter