What makes you say that?
Posted on 05/10/2005 9:46:44 AM PDT by rdb3
China’s rapid ascension as an influential economic and political force in Africa is raising complex questions concerning the security of the African continent and the future of its people. China’s involvement on the continent has increased dramatically over the past several years, fueled by Africa’s growing demand for cheap Chinese products and the need for greater infrastructure investment in the African energy and transportation sectors.
Africa possesses two key attributes which makes it an attractive investment for an expansionist China. First, it is a continent rich in the high-value, natural resources necessary to propel China’s maturing economy. Second, it offers a virtual sanctuary from American democratic ideology.
To many Africans, the prospect of increased cooperation with China is an exciting development laden with enormous opportunities for growth and prosperity. Many older Africans vividly recall how their homeland was exploited by Western interests who failed to empower local populations, leading to widespread human suffering that still exists today.
But will China, with visions of global influence and economic growth, act in a more constructive manner toward Africa, avoiding the mistakes made by its Western predecessors?
Unfortunately for many Africans, China’s record of resource exploitation and global obstructionism point to an uncertain future. China’s long record of human rights violations in Hong Kong and Tibet; suppression of religious and political freedoms; history of weapons proliferation; support of brutal regimes in North Korea and Iran; and its disregard for indigenous markets, raise legitimate questions regarding its long-term intentions on the continent and its commitment to the African people.
Recently, the London-based Africa Confidential Newsletter, a publication devoted to African issues, noted that it feared African countries would “become more corrupt by doing business with China.” Gal Luft of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) noted in November 2004, “The Chinese are much more prone to doing business in a way that today Europeans and Americans do not accept – paying bribes and all kinds of bonuses under the table, particularly in Nigeria, Angola, Chad, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.”
China’s emerging relationship with all of Africa is extremely important, however, it has taken on particular significance in two countries -- Nigeria and Sudan.
Nigeria
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo’s visit to China in April, his third since being elected in 1999, further solidified relations between the two countries with agreements signed in the areas of political cooperation, telecommunications, bilateral trade and two-way investment.
Chinese President Hu Jiabao expressed his hope that the two countries would improve cooperation in the areas of gas exploration, manufacturing and infrastructure to promote a “fair and reasonable new international political and economic order.” The players involved in Jiabao’s new “order” and its purpose remain a mystery to Western analysts; however, it almost certainly does not include the United States and the spread of democracy on the African continent.
President Jiabao also expressed his deep appreciation for Nigeria’s consistent adherence to China policy and its support of China’s Anti-Secession Law, adding to the unsettling nature of the growing bilateral relationship.
Nigeria’s economy is heavily dependant on oil, with 80 percent of government revenues coming from its sale. Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa and the eleventh largest in the world. It continues to be a major oil supplier to both Western Europe and the United States.
The January 2005 edition of Oil and Gas Journal reported that Nigeria produced 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2004 and was expected to increase production to 3 million bpd in 2006 and 4 million bpd by 2010. Obviously, this has pleased the Chinese who continue to invest boatloads of cash into the country’s energy sector.
In November 2004, China’s Funsho Kupolokum announced a joint agreement with Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to develop two oil blocks in the Chad Basin and construct a pipeline and refinery. In addition, Chinese oil giant Sinopec reached a joint agreement with NNPC in December 2004 to develop and explore two more oil blocks in 2005.
But not all agreements between the two countries have been energy related. In April, Nigeria reached an agreement with China to become the first African nation to purchase a Chinese communications satellite. The Dongfanghong IV will be launched in 2007 from the Xichang Space Launch Centre in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province.
This agreement merits close attention and in many ways is extremely troubling, since it clearly sets the stage for future exchanges of Chinese intelligence and technology between the two countries. Two other customers, Iran and North Korea, have used advanced technology supplied by Chinese firms in the development of nuclear programs. Could Chinese technicians one day work in tandem with a radical, Islamic-led Nigerian government on a plutonium reactor? Let’s hope not.
Adding to fears of a growing Chinese presence in Africa is a recent U.N. investigation which uncovered al Qaeda training and recruiting bases in western Nigeria. The West-hating, Saudi-sponsored Wahabbi strain of Islam has already moved into parts of Nigeria with the hope of establishing a Taliban sanctuary in Africa. Taken together, Chinese instigation and Islamic terrorism pose a serious security threat for the entire continent.
Sudan
The current Sudanese government consists of an alliance between the military and the National Congress Party (NCP) which promotes an Islamist platform. Recently, Islamic Sharia law was forcibly applied to all northern Sudanese states. “The current government is now a very pragmatic police state,” said Ghazi Suleiman, a Sudanese human rights lawyer.
Like Nigeria, Sudan has enormous natural resources making it attractive to foreign investors like China, the European Union and the United States. An improved currency and sustained GDP growth of 6 percent have been encouraging, but Sudan remains crippled by $24 billion in external debt. This has forced the country to look to foreign investors for the development of its domestic industries, in particular, its oil and natural gas sectors.
In 1993, the U.S. designated Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism. In response, Sudan fostered a close relationship with China using oil revenues to buy Chinese tanks, planes and guns. These weapons were then used to suppress the country’s southern, non-Muslim minority. The military relationship between the two countries has gradually evolved to include economic issues, namely, energy exploration and production.
In August 2005, Sudan is expected to begin exporting oil from the Melut Basin as a result of cooperative work with Petrodar, a consortium of companies dominated by China’s state-run Sinopec. Sudanese Energy Ministry officials estimate proven reserves in the Melut Basin at 700 million barrels and total reserves at five billion barrels. Petrodar also helped build the Sudanese owned Khartoum Oil Refinery, recently investing $340 million to expand the facility.
Construction of the 2,500 megawatt Merone facility scheduled for completion in 2008 has been funded by China’s Harbin Power and several Arab interests. In addition, the Chinese government is financing 75 percent of the $200 million Kajbar Dam construction project which has received stinging criticism from environmental groups noting that the project is damaging the Nile ecosystem.
But Chinese involvement in the Sudanese energy sector has not come without a price. A 2003 Human Rights Watch report examining human rights abuses by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), a majority owned Chinese energy concern noted, “GNPOC did not hire local southern Sudanese laborers [non-Muslim], even for the most menial work. Instead, Chinese and northern [Muslim] Sudanese workers were hired. Furthermore, such construction often entailed the violent displacement of local agro-pastoral people from their land, so that the necessary infrastructure could be put in place to develop the oil fields.”
China’s deliberate support of the Sudanese government in the face of continued human rights violations in Darfur is disturbing not only to the Sudanese, but also to Africans and the international community. The country’s twenty-one year civil war between its northern Sunni Muslim population and southern non-Muslim population has taken the lives of more than 2 million people.
In early April, Harvard University responded to the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region and Chinese support of the Sudanese government by divesting from PetroChina, a subsidiary of Chinese Natural Petroleum Company (CNPC). “Oil is a critical source of revenue and an asset of paramount strategic importance to the Sudanese government and PetroChina is a leading partner of the Sudanese government,” the university noted.
Christian Aid, a United Kingdom-based human rights organization, recently noted, “CNPC’s oil roads and airstrips were used to conduct bombing raids on southern Sudanese villages and hospitals.” The organization also accused the Chinese company, through its continued investment in Sudan’s oil industry, of being “complicit in some of the worst scorched earth policies.”
In the end, African leaders must assess their relationship with China very carefully, balancing the challenges of accelerated resource extraction with the future needs of the African people. It will also be important for Africans to hold China accountable for its actions on the continent. To ensure the fair treatment of all Africans, solidarity should be pursued through the African Union (AU) or the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).
By taking this cautious approach, a destabilizing “re-colonization” of the continent will be avoided.
Frederick W. Stakelbeck, Jr. is a freelance journalist based in Philadelphia.
Ping!
In 50 years, there will be more Chinese than Africans in Africa.
What makes you say that?
I think the Chinese are going to colonize Africa, they are just now putting out the advance scouts. They need the living room (lebensraum), military bases, and the resources, and don't suffer from European post-colonial guilt complexes.
It's about the oil, and who will control the worlds economic engine. We know how the UN feels about genocide already. We know how the lefties of the world feel about genocide, they don't. Seems to me China is NOT going to be held hostage by OPEC or the UN. If you get in their way... well, the title of this article is right. RED, BLOOD RED.
They're being very generous with loans. Wait till that nut comes due!
And they never will.
<< Many older Africans vividly recall how their homeland was exploited by Western interests who failed to empower local populations, leading to widespread human suffering that still exists today. >>
Bullshit.
Every older African/Rhodesian-zimbabwean/Kenyan/Tanzanian/Nyasalander-malawian/Northern Rhodesian-zambian/etceteras whom I know [Just like my every older Malaysian, Singaporean family-member and/or FRiend, every Once-FRee-British-Hong Kong Citizen etceteras [Fill in the name of almost any former colony] -- every single one of them -- longs for the days of colonization when every last one of them was relatively FRee, every last one of them and his every child was well educated and well-fed and well taken care of insofar as his medical and hospital needs were concerned -- and every last one of them had a job, the protection of Law -- and its consequence: his dignity.
And the Peking-based pack of predatory gangster bastards that so grandiosely calls itself "china" goes nowhere well intentioned and/or bearing gifts!
[Thanks for the ping, C&S]
Brilliant!
<< When Idi Amin kicked out the Asians in the 70s, some of the older ones just wanted to go home .... >>
To their former homes in what was by then India and Pakistan.
But most of them; in the erronious belief there'd be something there for them somewhat reminiscent of the relative FReedoms they'd known in colonial East Africa; opted instead for once-great Britain.
The poor bastards!
[I was in East Africa throughout most of the time in question -- and am at a loss, investigateworld, as to where you found your story's Chinamen]
Blessings -- B A
BUMPping
You do realize how stupid that sounds, right? Relatively free? Hmmm...
That's like being relatively pregnant.
Right, there were no chinamen in Africa for Idi Amin to kick, his actions were targetted against South Asians, mainly Indians.
But now one is seeing a lot of them, basically running takeaways or peddling cheap plastic chinese artefacts at flea markets which nobody buys twice. But Chinese government and its actions are a different story, I would recommend interpreting unrelated incidents/actions through Sun Tzu and you will see a pattern.
They are targeting neglected yet critical countries and forming a set of alliances which will come into play at the right time. examples- Railway line to carry resources from Central Africa through Tanzania to the Indian Ocean. Investments in South America. Panama Canal. Ports in Pakistan and Burma.
LOL...Does US long for being recolonised by Britain too?
He's got the right idea but the wrong population.
The inmigration to Africa that will replace the Black population will come from the Indian sub continent, not China.
<< LOL...Does US long for being recolonised by Britain too? >>
The question is a bit disingenuous in that America never was "colonised" in the sense that, say, India was -- or as are Tibet and the other Peoples' lands and territories and sovereign states that comprise 68% around 68% of what the Peking predators that call themselves "china" so brutally and mass-murderously colonise and enslave.
As were Australia and New Zealand and Singapore and others, America was discovered, settled and developed by men like my ancestors, who were essentially escapees from old and dead and decadent Europe, including from once-great britain. [And who in the case, thank God, of my ancestors, ran as far FRom once-great britain as it was possible to get before beginning to head back around the other side!]
When the time came every one of those, except poor raped and looted and pillaged Singapore, which becomes less FRee by the minute, instituted a government among its settlers and FReed itself FRom the once-great [Or so THEY say :-) ] brits.
<< ..longs for the days of colonization when every last one of them was relatively FRee...
You do realize how stupid that sounds, right? Relatively free? Hmmm... >>
Don't have any experience with stupid, so you have the decided advantage of me there.
My experience is with former colonials throughout Oceana, Polonesia, Melanesia, Australasia, Timor, South-East and Southern Asia and all of Africa, North Africa, the Mid-East and the Persian Gulf -- every one of whom, except the Australasians and including my every Asian family member, is less FRee now in most aspects of his being than he was during the days when his country was colonised.
That is, he is relatively less FRee now than he was while his government was provided by a colonial authority.
once-great [Or so THEY say :-) ] brits
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The Great in Great Britain stems not from an attempt at superioirity but to distinguish in from Brittany, formerly known as Lesser Britain.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~merrie/Arthur/brittany.html
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Apart from your comments on the UK on this thread I have to say I agree with a lot of what you say about countries "freed" from colonialism being less free now then they were then. Polls in Jamaica and Sierra Leone show that the majority of the population would happily return to the colonial fold.
There are a lot of people in the UK that really like America and are happy to be your ally. Remember in the election in May 70% of the vote went to parties that voted for the Iraq War.
We have our problems and our liberals and our MSM but please do not judge us all by their "standards".
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