Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

China Offers Zambia Investment Package
ap ^ | Saturday February 3, 3:42 pm ET | Joseph J. Schatz,

Posted on 02/03/2007 6:59:53 PM PST by BenLurkin

LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao on Saturday offered copper-rich Zambia a multimillion dollar investment package aimed at boosting ties with a longtime African ally. Facing mounting accusations of Chinese exploitation of African labor and resources -- an issue during last year's Zambian presidential elections -- Hu stressed that Beijing was motivated by partnership rather than purely profit.

"China is happy to have Zambia as a good friend, good partner and a good brother," Hu said at a joint news conference with President Levy Mwanawasa.

Speaking through an interpreter, Hu said that China's relationship with Zambia "represents a new type of strategic partnership" in Africa.

The two-day visit to Zambia is Hu's fourth stop on an eight-nation African tour intended to boost Chinese investment in -- and returns from -- the resource-rich but desperately poor continent.

A banner at Lusaka airport greeted the Chinese president as "our all-weather friend."

But while many Zambians welcome the Chinese presence, there also has been a backlash, fueled by workplace accidents, concerns over poor working conditions and low pay at Chinese-run copper mines, and resentment over an influx of Chinese traders into the apparel industry.

China's involvement in Zambia, which was the first country to recognize China's Communist government, dates back to the early 1970s, when China built a railway linking central Zambia to the nearest port city of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Since the late 1990s, Chinese investments in the southern African nation have soared and now total $500 million -- the third largest after those of South Africa and former colonial master Britain.

China has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Zambia's copper sector, which accounts for 60 percent of the country's exports.

At a ceremony Saturday, the two presidents signed an accord to set up an economic cooperation zone in Zambia's Copperbelt province, aiming to draw $800 million in new investments to the Zambian mining industry.

China will cancel $61 million of Zambian debt and provide more assistance in the form of agricultural training, educational scholarships, a hospital, flood relief funds and money for a new soccer stadium. China also promised to increase the number of Zambian products it imports duty-free.

"I am totally satisfied," Mwanawasa said. "The Chinese government has truly demonstrated consistent commitment in assisting Zambia in overcoming the challenges of development."

Clothing shop owner Joan van Otterdijk, however, said that Chinese traders selling cheap, low-quality textiles were "destroying our business" in Lusaka and should stay out of the local market.

The influx of cheap Chinese goods, as elsewhere in the world, triggered political debate in Zambia's September elections. Opposition challenger Michael Sata won support in urban areas after criticizing what he called "exploitive" Chinese investors.

"They're not here to develop Zambia, they're here to develop China," said Guy Scott, a Sata ally who represents Lusaka's central district in parliament.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: africa; ccp; china; copper; copperbelt; zambia

1 posted on 02/03/2007 6:59:55 PM PST by BenLurkin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin
China is happy to have Zambia. as a good friend, good partner and a good brother...

Fixed.

2 posted on 02/03/2007 7:47:33 PM PST by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All
"I am totally satisfied," Mwanawasa said. "The Chinese government has truly demonstrated consistent commitment in assisting Zambia in overcoming the challenges of development."

"They're not here to develop Zambia, they're here to develop China," said Guy Scott, a Sata ally who represents Lusaka's central district in parliament.

Mr. Scott did not have to read "The Coming China Wars" he's living it.

One review of the new book, "The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won," by Peter Navarro says:

"China's tentacles reach throughout Africa to every country that has oil, copper, cobalt, chromium, timber and other raw materials, Navarro says. He illustrates how China is behaving as the former European colonial regimes did.He points out that China provides loans and grants, mostly siphoned off by corrupt leaders, and in what he terms a policy of 'mass construction,' makes major infrastructure improvements for the purpose of transporting the extracted raw materials to the ports for shipment to China.

"China then ships back value-added products, causing unemployment and poverty in those countries. Only the elites in those countries benefit from the cozy relationships with China.

"Navarro puts it this way: 'Ultimately it is because of these dynamics that China's African strategy is a threat that will colonize and economically enslave the vast majority of the continent's population that lives outside the elite circles. It is an imperialist marriage manufactured in China and made in hell.'"

3 posted on 02/03/2007 10:54:08 PM PST by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin
2004 : (LIKASI, CONGO : BUSINESSMEN FROM AFRICA, INDIA, CHINA & ELSEWHERE HAVE SET UP SMELTING MILLS TO PROCESS ORE INTO HETEROGINITE; FROM THERE IT GOES TO ZAMBIA ) Today at Shinkolobwe, some 5,500 Congolese using shovels, hoes and bare hands haul ores overland to nearby Likasi, where businessmen from Africa, India, China and elsewhere have set up 13 smelting mills. The end product, and just as often the raw material itself, known as heteroginite, is shipped south by road to neighboring Zambia, and then abroad.
Industry officials say the heteroginite primarily contains high-grade cobalt. But "trace quantities of uranium are being exported unwittingly" along with it, said Skinner, the mining engineer, a Zimbabwean who is a longtime Congo resident. The diggers, uneducated, hungry and fearful for their jobs, deny any uranium is being mined.
Provincial governor Aime Ngoy Mukena confirmed to The Associated Press that the heteroginite contains uranium, but he and other officials declined to say precisely how much. ---------- "AP: Miners Drawn to Illegal Congo Uranium," TODD PITMAN, The Las Vegas Sun, | SHINKOLOBWE, Congo (AP) -May 31, 2004 at 14:31:41 PDT

* My note: remember Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein offering the former Zambian leader Kenneth Kaunda, a place on the "Council of 12 Wise Men" back before saddam hid in the spiderhole?

4 posted on 02/03/2007 11:03:30 PM PST by piasa (Attitude Adjustments Offered Here Free of Charge)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson