Posted on 11/05/2006 2:06:18 AM PST by MadIvan
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has hailed China as his “second home” and praised Beijing for its refusal to link aid and investment to human rights or democracy as it scrambles for assets in Africa.
Mugabe’s remarks came in an “exclusive interview” with the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, which rarely boasts of its exclusives but was eager to publicise his appreciation of China’s friendship in contrast to “western hostility”.
The red carpet has been laid out for 48 African leaders, including Mugabe and Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, as China revels in hosting its biggest summit with the continent since the foundation of the People’s Republic in 1949.
“In most recent times, as the West started being hostile to us, we deliberately declared a Look East policy,” Xinhua quoted Mugabe as saying.
“These were the friends we relied upon during the liberation struggle and they will not let us down,” he added. “For Zimbabwe, going to China is going to our second home. We regard China as a part of us.”
Xinhua said China had just extended a £2.7m loan to Zimbabwe to refurbish its biggest stadium, which was built by a Chinese company.
It has also offered £110m to finance agricultural production and the purchase of three Chinese-made passenger planes.
Opposition groups and human rights activists say prestigious projects such as the stadium refurbishment are inappropriate when millions of Zimbabweans have been impoverished by inflation and disastrous economic policies.
But the Zimbabwe deals are emblematic of China’s refusal to let political criticism stand in the way of its demand for oil, minerals, diamonds and timber from Africa.
Xinhua frankly admitted that China invested billions of pounds in Zimbabwe because it is “keen to secure strategic natural resources to help sustain its mouth-watering economic growth of more than 10%”.
Mugabe said such investment was welcome because it made Zimbabwe less vulnerable to “pressure and political manipulation” by the West.
That theme was underlined yesterday when China promised to double its aid to Africa and pledged billions of pounds in loans to forge a “strategic partnership” between the two giants as a political and economic counterweight to western power.
The announcement came in a speech by President Hu Jintao to his guests that also challenged the West’s attempts to link human rights and democracy in Africa to aid and development.
Mugabe and Sudan’s Bashir listened with evident approval as the Chinese leader talked of “a regular high-level political dialogue . . . to enhance mutual political trust”.
In Sudan, China’s strategic interest in securing oil supplies has led it repeatedly to block any efforts by the United Nations Security Council to intervene in the conflict in Darfur, where aid agencies say a human catastrophe has occurred.
Hu blandly told the Sudanese leader last week that he hoped Bashir’s regime “can find an appropriate settlement, maintain stability, and constantly improve the humanitarian conditions in the region”. Chinese diplomats have also frustrated any UN sanctions against either Sudan or Zimbabwe.
Hu preferred to focus on “win-win” economic growth — China and Africa conducted £22 billion worth of trade in the first nine months of this year, up 40% on a year earlier — and of “cultural enrichment” through exchanges of ideas.
The latter has baffled many Beijing residents as their capital has abruptly been plastered with propaganda posters promoting all things African — although some of the African visitors may not be wholly pleased by the visual emphasis on elephants, jungle, warlike tribesmen and colourfully clad women of ample proportions carrying outsize bundles on their heads.
However, both sides are determined to overlook any unfortunate cultural misunderstandings in their enthusiasm for doing business without strings attached.
The Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao said China’s aid to Africa would, as always, be “sincere and altruistic” and China has just announced it will cancel about £1 billion in debts owed by some of the poorest African nations.
However, China has also revealed itself extremely sensitive to accusations that it is behaving like a modern colonial power. Xinhua yesterday dedicated a commentary to refuting what it called “the fallacy that China is exercising ‘neo-colonialism’ in Africa”.
“The forces that are circulating the fallacy are fearful of China’s fast growth and the positive development of Sino- African relations,” it said, identifying the culprits as “some people from the West”.
Their aim, said Xinhua, was to “block China’s peaceful development so as to maintain their established interests in the world arena”.
China has devoted an extraordinary effort to make Beijing pristine, pollution-free and devoid of traffic jams for the summit, in a useful dress rehearsal for the 2008 Olympic Games.
For Mugabe, the reference to China as a “second home” may be more than a pleasantry. Some diplomats in Beijing think the Zimbabwean leader would be assured of a safe refuge there should he ever fall from power.
And there is a very easy way to prevent Chinese inroads into Africa: Western countries should offer Africa BETTER deal. Simple like that!
Won't happen because:
A)Western good too expensive for Africa to ever become a large market.
B)Voters are short-sighted and think that Africa is just a sink hole of charity dollars.
C)Being a commie country the Chinese can move official aid programs in parallel with opening markets.
Southern Africa particularly fits the bill. It's climate is temperate, the land is fertile (when farmed by people who know how to farm), and it's not in the malaria zone.
If the Chinese settled a few million energetic young men who knew how to shoot a gun as well as farm, they would do well
The Chinese aren't interested in land, they're interested in things like coltran and oil, and access to markets.
You can now add a deployment to Beruit to their world mission.
Rhodesia has incredible farmland. The Chinese farmers can take over and make their own plantations once the whites are all dead and driven out. The blacks will work under Chinese who will be ruthless compared to the white farmers
http://www.amazon.com/Farmers-Forty-Centuries-Organic-Farming/dp/0486436098
Looking at African history, it seems the best way to be sure that you get products out of Africa is to exclude the Africans from being involved
Siberia is too cold. Africa has lots of climate zones similar to China
No,in fact the stats you indicated would justify some of the Asian claims.
And the only reason I put the race card in play was because I think that Chinese involvement in Africa is going to present some racial strife of a very interesting nature should they "colonize"that part of the world.
Looking at African history, it seems the best way to be sure that you get products out of Africa is to exclude the Africans from being involved
Mining coltran and other rare earths is labor intensive. Africa has relatively cheap labor, something the Chinese understand. Other exports require intimate knowledge of the area and people, something the Africans understand.
As I've stated in previous posts, there really are fortunes being made in Africa today for those with the gumption. Probably one of the last places on earth that require very, very little start-up money.
I agree with you on the Western option being the better choice.
I think Africa will never succeed till they clean up their massive corruption and tribalist inclinations.
True,China has changed a lot since Mao.Yet their forced abortion policy and totalitarian Communist control of the media still means they have a long way to go before being a country I can respect.
You are mostly correct but millions of overseas Chinese live in tropical nations. Tropical Asian nations. Chinese can thrive in hot climates. Chinese would be right at home in Uganda's climate if they could somehow colonize it and drive the Africans out. AIDS will help the Chinese
Africans hate the white man who is seen as a colonizer and exploiter. But will welcome the Chinese who will turn out to be more ruthless colonizers and exploiters.
As I read more on the Japanese in WW2,I can see that if they had played their cards right,junked their racial superiority delusions and eased up on the brutal depredations of their occupation troops,they could have very easily had their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperiy Sphere and perhaps been the leaders of an"anti-imperialist"movement before the Communists hijacked them Post WW2.
I had a History teacher in Junior College who swore if the Nazis had not been so rabidly anti-Semetic,they could have won WW2 with the aid of their very talented Jewish Germans who could have added tremedously to the war effort.
Chi-coms can have that basket case Haiti. And yes the did send in troops. Kind of funny it was.
Billions wasted on Haiti. Fears, psudo religions, intimidation and ignorance is all a factor there. Add to the fact the people have used up every bit of resources available, fish, trees everything and there is nothing there but misery.
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