Will China be the donor who cares?

Interesting quick take on Chinese – African relations from Africa-Asia Confidential:

When China evacuated 400 construction workers from Mongomo in Equatorial Guinea in early April, it marked the culmination of a labour dispute with a difference. In several African countries, notably Zambia and Congo-Kinshasa, Chinese companies have been criticised for their treatment of local staff. In other African countries, like Sudan, Ethiopia and Nigeria, Chinese technical staff have been kidnapped by dissident groups. But in Equatorial Guinea the tension was generated by the local authorities clashing with labourers imported from China.

China and Taiwan in Africa: Who pays when Africa plays diplomatic musical chairs?

Are the Chinese trying to pull Burkina Faso and Gambia into their camp? It would seem so as mainland China (or Red China, for those with longer memories) has invited West Africa’s only two states with diplomatic relations with Chinese arch-rival Taiwan to the upcoming China-West Africa Summit.

With China’s well publicized incursion into Africa, the one big loser, of course, is Taiwan. China’s diplomatic maneuverings on the continent is just another play to limit Taiwan’s international space in an attempt to limit the country’s allies and coerce the island into reunification with the mainland, according to the proceedings of a discussion sponsored by Taiwan Thinktank after the country lost diplomatic relations with Chad in 2006.

Chinese policy in this aspect has been very successful during the past few years as Taiwan’s diplomatic relations around the world has been whittled down to only 23, including four in Africa: Swaziland, Sao Tome and Principe, Gambia and Burkina Faso, countries with a total population of less than 17 million (on a continent of 900 million people).

The summit will take place March 25-28 in Beijing. Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaore has apparently declined the invitation. It is unclear whether Gambian President Yahya AJJ Jammeh or other officials will attend the summit. Jammeh refused to attend a meeting of West African Presidents held in Ouagadougou because of fears of over a presidential coup that would take place in his absence.

On January 15, Malawi became the latest African state to switch allegiances from Taiwan to China. Like other states officially opening diplomatic relations with China, Malawi must recognize there is one China in the world and Taiwan is an “inalienable part of China’s territory.” It also means that Malawi must cut off its 41-year relationship with Taiwan. In doing so, the Malawi government gave the Taiwanese 30 days to pack up and go home.

Caught in the crossfire
There’s another group losers in this game of diplomatic musical-chairs: poor people. If, say, Burkina Faso were to switch allegiances and join Team China, thus forcing the Taiwanese to pull out, it would put in jeopardy Taiwan’s numerous development projects.

I bring this up because over the weekend I visited the village of Bingo, where I saw a woman sporting a goiter the size of a baseball. She said that the Chinese clinic – meaning, Taiwanese clinic – will remove her goiter free of charge if she can only make the 60 km journey to get there. I have to wonder if the Chinese would keep afloat a clinic that had been run by Taiwanese doctors, and I came to the conclusion that it’s doubtful: They’d have different priorities and would most likely want to distance themselves from the former Taiwanese aid regime and all their shiny white trucks.

It’s easy for me to say African countries shouldn’t be so cavalier with diplomatic relations. But I understand how leaders can see the competition between the two Chinas as very similar to balancing benefactors during the Cold War: allow each side to wow a country to see what kind of money will be put on the table. (I have to think that China’s move into Africa is much more about securing resources for its future than putting the squeeze on Taiwan.)

The question we have to ask is who benefits when countries put themselves up for sale to the highest bidder? There’s more than a few half-witted cynics who would claim that a country’s leaders and elites may benefit from making the diplomatic change. (In fact, let’s hope the Malawian press is busy investigating possible kickbacks.) With all the largesse thrown around through a diplomatic relationship going through a honeymoon-period, others further down the economic ladder may also profit through jobs and greater development. However, if a country as generous as Taiwan is suddenly forced to leave a country, this bargain is not a complete win-win for everyone. Taiwan, of course, pays a price in the international arena. But, what will happen to the nice lady with the huge goiter?

Winners lose: U.S. and the final defeat of the Cold War mentality

David Ignatius (yes, I know that I’ve quoted him twice during the same week) makes the argument that the U.S. is the final country still applying the same, tired Cold War mentality to the rest of the world: Point in case, the very experienced Bush foreign policy staff that invaded, defeated, and subsequently lost the aftermath of the Iraq war. (My argument: they were fighting the previous war.)

Anyway, here is Ignatius:

The intellectual matrix formed by the Soviet threat, and before that by Hitler's rise in Germany, needs to be reworked. There is a new set of problems and personalities -- and if America keeps trotting out the same cast of characters and policy papers, we will fail to make sense of where the world is moving.

The piece is an argument about McCain, a candidate truly enmeshed in the Cold War frame; Hillary Clinton, who was part of the first, erratic decade that followed the Cold War; and, Barack Obama, who comes lacking baggage from either time period.

Let’s recast this argument in terms of Africa. One could say that the Pentagon’s desire to secure a base in Africa is an idea straight out of the Cold War. (However, don’t you think its plan for U.S. soldiers to perform development work is quite modern: A willingness by the Americans to accept the importance of non-state actors?) Let’s look at the work of a potential U.S. “foe” on the continent. Instead of stationing soldiers, or writing checks for questionable development projects, the Chinese are investing heavily in Africa (and in mucky places no Western nation dares go), securing minerals for their future and simultaneously helping build some African economies from the ground up. More than a few Africans argue that the Chinese come to the continent as partners, and the U.S., and other European powers, waltzes in with airs of former colonial masters.

My comparison is a little too pat, granted. But there does seem to be something missing from the U.S. African policy; a lack of moving past conventional wisdom or something. (I’d make the same argument about the Europeans, too, the death of Françafrique aside.) Yes, George Bush has progressed beyond simply signing development checks by attempting to tie aid to certain indicators (human rights, business climate, etc.). But is this a true revolution of thought? Or is it just attempting to fix what want went wrong in the past? (One could make an argument that fixing the mistakes of the past is a revolution in itself. But that sounds very bureaucratic, doesn’t it?)

Let’s be honest: African countries of certain serious consequence (i.e. countries that are possible terrorist havens or strident allies in the fight against terror) the administration has thrown those seemingly vital indicators out the door: Uganda, Ethiopia, Niger all come to mind. Angola, I guess. Does Egypt also count?

Although all signs point to a growing, confident second world (and some of these countries are African), the U.S. is finally getting around to paying these countries the attention they deserve. (Another holdover from the Cold War is the concentration of resources on the Middle East.) We could be realistic and say that Africa will very rarely pop up on the radar screens of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. Perhaps that is reason enough for the need of storming the Bastille. (Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their ties.)

China and Africa, the interview

The Council on Foreign Relations recently published an often-interesting and fairly-ho-hum interview with Yang Guang, director of the Institute of West Asian and African Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Before we get to ho-hum, which admittedly is a little harsh of me, the interview did net a few interesting facts.

• Guang called China a “relative latecomer” to investing in Africa. The country did not begin spending on the continent until the late 1980s, but by the end of 2006 the investments totaled $11.7 billion, which he claims in terms of all countries investing in Africa “is not a big number.”;
  
• Chinese firms producing labor-intensive goods cannot be made cheaply enough for its domestic market, which is why many looked to manufacture those products in Africa;
  
• China counts about 800 different enterprises investing in Africa, 100 of those are state owned;
  
• Much of the push for African investment exists because much of the continent is now more open to investment;
  
• Chinese investment has created 70,000 jobs in Africa;
  
• He did not think African countries should look to China as a model of economic development because each country has its own national circumstances.

Now, the bad news
These tidbits aside, Guang danced around a lot of issues, including the question of oil-centric investing, the place of corporate responsibility in Chinese firms and the country’s arm sales to Sudan. Part of his evasion of these question may be due to the fact that I can’t see CFR asking American businessmen about corporate responsibility (and receiving an honest response), or pressing a U.S. government official on the scope and breadth of American arms sales to foreign countries.

Anyway, I found his answer regarding China’s relationship with the Sudanese government very illuminating.

There are different understandings about the issue of Sudan, but the Chinese understanding is for a country as poor as Sudan, the first priority is the basic needs of the people, and to see their living standards increase. Economic development is the top priority for this country. Therefore, if we want to help these people to resolve their problems, then we have to start by resolving their development problems.

It has been true, in my view, that in practice the Chinese understanding is correct, because during the past few years this country went from a net oil importer to a net oil exporter. The fiscal budget has improved significantly, the economic growth rate is also rapid and, interestingly, the oil income has also contributed to the resolution of domestic conflicts. If you look at the CPA [Comprehensive Peace Agreement], you may find that one of the components is the distribution of oil income. It is distributed on the basis of 50-50, so in other words the black people in the south can also benefit from this and poor people can also benefit from this result of oil development.

Chinese companies are very proud of this contribution to the Sudanese people. The United States argues that this is not a good regime, with a dictatorship and things like that, but Chinese foreign policy is non interference in domestic affairs and actually it is very hard to see whether a regime is a dictatorship or not. You have to find a commonly acceptable standard, so if this kind of standard does not exist, you cannot impose a one-sided view onto the others.

I believe that, due to the different cultural backgrounds, due to the different levels of economic development, it would be hard to find a uniform model of political development for the African countries. The best way is probably to observe and respect the efforts of the African countries in exploring their own way of political development. Otherwise, if you try to impose a model on them, there is little chance to succeed.

It’s China’s world. The rest of us are just renting space

I stood near the front lines recently. The frontlines on the battle for the soul of Africa, that is. My wife and I visited a Chinese store here in Ouagadougou, located down by the barrage, about a 1 km behind the old Sofitel (for those who know town).

We’d always wanted to go there and pluck down a few of her hard-earned CFAs. My wife wanted to visit for the voyeuristic idea of searching through all those goods from China that one could just as easy find in any Burkina market, but with the added pleasure of being served by someone Chinese. Look at this as diversifying our retail experiences, my wife said, an insight that may tell you a thing or two about the present state of our lives.

I had other thoughts. Mostly I wanted to test my theory that China was winning the hearts of minds of Africa not by pouring its riches into the continent, but the old fashioned way: One piece of cheap plastic crap at a time.

Look at that doggy in the window
Many words have been spilled about the Chinese ritual mating dance with Africa. Either, people are blaming the Chinese for appropriating African oil or setting up shop in rogue states or selling their funky-named weapon systems to any dictator with the proper PIN code for a Swiss Bank account.

You don’t have to be in major denial like Jerry Wang from Yahoo to understand some empire-sized fear mongering is going on here. The British and the French pulled the strings for years on the continent and nobody said peep. Nobody but Africans, that is. You could make the argument that the French still have a pretty good say of what goes on in these parts, and the developed nations continue to collectively look the other way.

I say this legacy doesn’t matter much today. People can’t miss the argument that as a whole Africa is progressively becoming more confident; Fueled by expanding economies, plenty of resources and better-run governments, many states now join together to take care of themselves against foreign encroachment. This manifests itself in many ways: Look at the cold shoulder African nations give AFRICOM. Witness the hard negotiating that took place between the Europeans and different blocks of African countries to hammer out trade agreements.

Can we dance with your dates?
Let’s just say Africa isn’t as naïve and supplicant as it once was. What’s interesting is how outside actors now react to the excessively more confident Africans. It’s here where we skip ahead to the conversation about China’s rise occurring in direct relation to America’s decline. The thinking goes like this: Sometime between farting around in Afghanistan and getting sold that bill of goods in Iraq, the U.S. let the Chinese move in. Don’t pity the States, most will say. If Americans were more vigilant, more caring, more sympathetic to the plight of ruling Africans, the Chinese would most likely be looking elsewhere for friends and petroleum products.

The good news is that China is now on the hook for plying African strongmen with new suit coats and hookers and suitcases full of cash. The expense account for the U.S. has long been overdrawn in that department, so the more the newbies want to ante up, the better.

What the Chinese seem to have done, however, is take their game one step further and directly cultivate the people – you know, regular Africans. They’re building roads, bridges, buildings, railroads: anything that takes place when big trucks and engineers get together. The Chinese have most likely banked a lot of goodwill this way: ameliorating the standard of living for run-of-the-mill Africans, those people who never feel the direct benefits of debt relief or well catered Friendship Summits or satellites in orbit.

Who’s zooming whom?
The Chinese have something else up their sleeves, though. Once they grab peoples’ attention with bridges and schools, they hook them in with cheap crap. Walk through any dusty African market and you’ll find piles of Chinese goods for sale. Like those suckers from the First World, Africans are now investing heavily in plastic futures: cups, dishes, garbage bins, picture frames, see-thru containers of every sort and size. With the “special friendship deals” signed in African capitals, the Chinese provide “duty free” status for African goods (read: oil) and the Africans duly provide the same for Chinese plastic.

That’s not to say there isn’t backlash among Africans. At lest a argue that the Chinese advance on the continent resembles nothing different from previous European and U.S. commercial invasions. The math usually works like this: Africa exports raw materials to foreign country only to turn around and reward foreign country by buying finished goods produced in said foreign country.

That all may be true, but here is why the Chinese way tastes at least a little different. The Chinese offer Africans something real and concrete while American (and to a lesser extent, European) promises are abstract, remote even: democracy, participatory government, rule of law – whatever you want to call it. The U.S. says, if you follow through on the first goals, the good stuff will follow. Later. Maybe much later.

The Chinese appeal to Africans’ base needs. This translates simply: If you have enough plastic crap, you won’t care about what junk the Americans peddle. In the end, everyone is happy: the stalwarts who get to remain in power; the family with their new tools to make their lives a little easier; and, the guy at the end of the street schlepping this stuff.

Retail dreams
And thus brings us to the store, which happens to be just off this cute brick road, surrounded by gardens (watered by hand from the man-made lake). Take caution entering by auto, because visitors must descend a steep driveway to get into the parking lot, a very large knock against the store, my wife claims, along with its location in the middle of retail nowhere. Descend we did, and exited our family sedan to be greeted by a friendly young Chinese guy also climbing down from his 4x4, which, oddly enough, sported Benin license plates.

The man turned out to be the owner/manager of the store as could be witnessed by the staff jumping to attention when he walked into the building. Once inside, I noticed the shop area was much smaller than the building’s footprint. This, along with a complete lack of customers and irregular hours, led my wife to speculate whether the store is a front for something illicit.

The proprietor, who spoke very good English, told us he came from Shanghai and had been living in Africa for the past 12 years. He wasn’t a big fan of Shanghai, he said, because it was too noisy, crowded and congested: words one doesn’t usually reserve for Ouagadougou. (Although my wife’s young brother asserted Ouaga was too noisy, but how much do you believe a kid who at the time only had the vanilla suburbs of Houston as a reference point?)

After exchanging pleasantries, the boss retired to a sofa to the back area of the store to catch a movie on DVD with a young Chinese woman, leaving the Burkinabé staff of two to remain on alert for us, following our every move as we walked through the tight isles. The fore-area of the store was made up of three rows of these shelves, chocked full of:

• Shoes
• Tea
• Equipment for preparing tea
• Small cooking utensils
• Baby clothes
• Underwear (in strange packages.)
• Toys
• Candy

To the left of the cash register, lies the clothing section, offering a selection of sport coats, button down shirts, shiny ties. Behind a display of mats and baby accessories lay the back area, an airy space full of (my guess) Chinese-made televisions sets, stereos and mostly pleather furniture. It was here where the patron retired to.

I mostly kept among the product shelves (although I disturbed the patron and his friend by walking through their movie a number of times). At one point, I asked my wife in English the purpose of some product and both eager sales clerks used French to answer the question in unison.

If this newfound enthusiasm of sales clerks is the product of the Chinese Revolution in Africa, it may be a little disconcerting, but not wholly a bad thing. For the most part, enthusiasm beats waking up the shopkeeper in the middle of the day, even though I am one of those people who doesn’t usually mind doing that. It’s the surly clerks at the larger stores that bother me, though. But these guys at the Chinese shop were anything but surly. The two young men were a little overzealous, yes, but who can fault them? We were the only people in the store.

We quickly ran out of good things to gawk at, which is a sad thing. I’d had such high hopes for this store – passing by so often, only to stare down at its shuttered doors. Now that we finally caught it open, we were more than let down. We chatted with the amiable proprietor a few more minutes and bought cans of Nescafe, a product we’d never seen before.

Climbing the hill back to the brick road, my wife told me that Burkinabé would never shop there. “There’s nothing interesting for them, maybe sacks and bags,” she said. “But it’s not close to anything.”

The conversation continued a couple minutes until we passed the state prison and noticed a truck with a load of desks waiting entrance at the front gate. Was forced labor for prisoners getting a new life in Ouagadougou? Perhaps the forces of globalization were already taking over, much like the stories of call centers staffed by prisoners killing time in those private prisons in the U.S. (Can I get that credit card number again, sir?)

Euro Trash
Our next stop was a place called Euro d’Occasion, where a couple of local guys bought a few shipping containers of used goods and hoped to force the stuff onto other people. Unlike the Chinese, the owners chose a good location – right on the busy beltway that circles the city. Also different is the fact that the store looks small, but once inside, it is actually cavernous. Much of the stock sits on tables beneath what looks like a covered courtyard, something like you may find in North Africa, countries well known for their flourishing flea markets.

Flea market is not a bad way to describe this place. Electronic goods of all eras clamber up the walls and spill over onto a few of the tables. Fax machines, copy machines, personal computers, you name it. Boomboxes of every make and model. My wife pointed out that there were even a few real Walkmen, kept under lock and key beneath cages set on a table.

I was partial to the different typewriters with French keyboards. These were orderly stacked next to some adding machines. Aesthetically, I loved the wall of waffle presses.

Like rummaging through the outdoor flea markets of Morocco, I spent a lot of time at Euro d’Occasion looking at the household goods: coffee cups and the multiple pan and kitchen sets (good for bachelors).

Once circling through the various rooms a few times, however, I started losing energy. Buying containers of used goods is a hit-or-miss proposition: you don’t really know what you’re getting until you unseal it. For these guys, the inventory is mostly sellable, but they did receive some real oddities: cans of paint, some new, but most of them were already opened; joysticks for old Atari games; Bells; a plate full of teeth molds (you read that right); car lights (mostly rear and taillights); pasta makers.

“The place was full of appliances from 1976,” my wife said afterwards. She did find a nice little knick-knack, a little sign with the title “Things that are never true”

• Let’s stop for just one beer
• This won’t hurt a bit
• The doctor will call you right back
• Gee, that’s a cute little baby

Euro d’Occasion was worth the trip, the same way going to the rummage sale is worth spending a Saturday morning. It would be interesting to note the horror on most Burkinabé faces when they enter the store: Yes, producing that much junk is what every civilization aspires to. Africans have their own cultures and religions and natural drugs; we have our waffle irons. You wonder what happens when the Sahara finally snows this area under; what will the archeologists say when they dig this place out in 150 years?

I ain’t lost yet, so I gotta be a winner
Most likely, the increase in African standard of living will bring howls of fear from certain corners. We’re teaching them to be just like us, people will say: Gluttons for any shiny piece of trash. Businesses will certainly learn that Africans with cash are just like anybody else. If that’s true (which I believe it is), what fate awaits their culture? What will happen to their souls? What will they do with all those waffle irons?

The truth is that they’ve probably always been just like us. They’ve just never had the chance. Or, better yet: Nobody ever treated them like soulless consumers before.

That’s why, if I had to pick a winner, I’d have to go with the Chinese. In many ways, it’s already their world. With their global reach and promises to elevate the standard of living of Africans, the Chinese have already won. Sure, they’re not pulling in too many customers to their store down by the barrage. Like I pointed out before, though, you can buy those goods anywhere in town. If it’s a toaster you’re looking for, though, you’re going to have to make a special trip. It will be interesting to see how many people take it.

Big question III: Do the Chinese and Indians get Africa better than others?

Yes, says Jonathon Power

As Chinese — and Indian — investors almost pour into Africa one wonders if their European and North American competitors have woken up to the fact that Rip Van Winkle is waking up in Africa? The fact that a top Chinese banker brackets Africa with Asia is one more sign that the Asians themselves see what is happening in Africa, a repeat of what happened to them twenty and thirty years ago. They can see the potential while western commentators, their spurious words tasting of sour grapes, point an accusing finger at China in particular, accusing it of planning to rape Africa as the Europeans did a 100 years ago.

This is not rape, by any stretch of the imagination. This is business opportunities. Africa in many countries is on the way to booming and Africa is looking for marriages of convenience with willing investors in railroads, toll roads, ports, motorbike and cement factories. Already there are over 900 Chinese companies working in Africa.

…

[D]espite the promise to double aid at the Gleneagles' G8 summit held in 2005 they are not getting anything like it, although the increasing role of private global funds, like the Gates' Foundation, is plugging some of the gap. Perhaps this has something to do with the western mindset — Africa is a war-torn, aid-wasting continent. But most of it is no longer. Ask the Chinese and Indians.