China in Africa - examples to follow?

Since my last post on China in Africa, the comments kept me investigating the development of Africa. My practical experiences on African development is from the project Bongo Camping.

So this week I went to a guest lecture at Africa Studies at Copenhagen University with Fantu Cheru, Professor and Research Director at The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala.

Fantu Cheru has a pro-active, but not naive, perspective on the development of Africa. This lecture was on the potential benefits and risks of the evolving China-Africa relations, and what Africa could learn from the Chinese development since 1980.
I just like to submit my notes on Cheru's findings:

China in a new global system
There has been a fundamental shift in the configuration of global power. The world is upside-down and talking about first, second and third world nations no longer make sense. China was once part of the periphery but is now driving changes in the center and turning globalization in its favor by governing the market and controlling the transition to a new system. China has developed through a strategic integration between experimenting and finding unorthodox solutions and still preserving national security and independence – for instance on subjects like the interest rate and the political space. China brings about an example to rethink the way of development studies.

China in Africa
China has always been in Africa but with the the rise of the east their level of engagement has grown widely - also as part of the wider globalization plan for China.
The research on China in Africa is divided between paranoia:
The Chinese are coming! (taking Africa's oil that the West needs)
and naivety:
China is going to save Africa! (the next sexy thing after democracy and development).
But what is actually going on in the relations between China and Africa?

The Chinese Africa-strategy
China has an African policy while Africa does not have a Chinese policy. So it is a big challenge for the African countries to come together and formulate a regional approach through NEPAD.
The Chinese government strategy supports investment in Africa with:
investment promotion: offices helping Chinese investments all over Africa
bilateral agreements: double taxation treaty
interest free loans: little conditions, debt relief
intense diplomatic efforts: China-Africa cooperation forum

The tensions between the Chinese and the Africans
China has a supply chain cost advantage because of cooperation between Chinese firms (insourcing). But there is an unwillingness to subcontract to African companies which is bringing tension to the relationship between China and Africa. Also the dumping of cheap Chinese products on the African market is hard competition for the African manufacturing sector. Also culturally, the Chinese establishment of sub-societies and resistance to integration is bringing out angry African voices.
Nevertheless China has brought an opportunity and a threat to Africa – and Africa has an active role in deciding the outcome.

The hope for Africa
The African economies are too small to control international relations on their own which is why the avenue to a sustainable African growth lies in the regional integration. The African countries simply have too little negotiation power when doing bilateral agreements.

NEPAD can provide a way to deal with the world giving Africa:
- a stronger platform
- a common regional framework on industrialization
- a common framework on resource exploration
- a regional strategy
- common regulations on investment
- trade as opposed to bilateral agreements

The African leaders must push and be pushed towards these goals by a major mobilization of the people and the private sector in Africa.

Can Europe learn from China in Africa??

Well, I am no expert on China or Africa. But I've been to Tanzania twice and I've seen Chinese people constructing roads (at a fraction of the cost charged by Western companies) and doing all kinds of business there. China is really going all in on Africa.
In Europe there is a widespread suspicion that China must be up to no good, but I do think there are two sides to that picture. But like in any other Western coverage of China nowadays the media prefers to show us the ugly side.

Hong Kong-based researchers Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong argues about China:

“The Western characterisation of China as engaging in an amoral, neo-colonial scramble in Africa has developed out of the larger ‘China Threat’ discourse. The discrediting of China in Africa serves to contain a perceived strategic competitor and to negate the notion of a pluralism of paths of development. This new discourse also retroactively vindicates European colonialism in Africa and constructs the Western self-image as ‘promoters of democracy and good governance’ on the continent—despite US, UK and French continuing support for most of Africa’s authoritarian regimes.”

I believe in trade, business and infrastructure (physically and mentally) as the means to development in Africa. If Europe did not subsidize the farming we could buy cheaper agricultural products from Africa who in turn would have money to buy knowledge-based products from Europe. Instead African markets are flooded with excess EU produce at prices below that the African farmer can compete with.

United Nations acknowledges the steps taken between China and Africa for a liberalised trading partnership:

"More Ethiopian agricultural products would be allowed into China duty-free, he revealed, and China had pledged some $500 mn for various development projects in Ethiopia. “China is an inspiration for all of us,” he added. “What China shows to Africa is that it is indeed possible to turn the corner on economic development.”

I know that China, like USA and EU, are also supporting some terrible regimes in Africa. And this harms all the good development China is bringing to Africa. But I do believe that Beijing these days are choosing the right way. In the end the trading strategy that China is promoting in Africa would benefit more from stable economies than war and corruption. Because the economic relationship matters to China, its government has a vested interest in long-term stability, and China's current rhetoric suggests an understanding that this is best procured by “harmony” and the careful balancing of interests, not by force.

Now I hope that EU will learn from China's policies in Africa making it easier for the citizens of Europe to do business with Africa. Cut the toll barriers and scrap the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy). Let us through social entrepreneurship or just common import-export make money while we make up for our colonial debt to Africa. I got a lot of entrepreneurial friends in Tanzania who are impatiently waiting for the wall to fall.

But like the president of Senegal said at the EU-Africa summit December 2007: "Europe is close to losing the battle of competition in Africa." It was the first EU-Africa summit since 2000 because of Europe's worries about human rights abuses, so it actually seems the EU is waking up. So Europe and Africa are talking again, but it has given no trade results yet, partly because Europe does not have one voice (some countries are still reluctant to engage in free-trade and to remove agricultural subsidies) and Africa now has greater negotiating power.

China Development Brief knows a lot more about this case than me, so I will let them say the last words here. A bit provocative, but it is still the bitter truth:

"Westerners typically believe that although China has the largest society in the world it has no civil society worth mentioning. But this is at least to some extent because China is not easily visible or comprehensible to Westerners, who have a long tradition of finding the Chinese “inscrutable”—a quality that, of course, depends on the cognitive powers of the observer, not the observed. Africans should not be so short sighted."