Chinese Take a Turn at Turning a Sub-Saharan Profi
Friday, August 18, 2006
Through all the iterations of the world?s engagement with Africa, most of its nations have remained stuck in an economic trap in which they primarily supply valuable raw materials to the developed world while serving as a marketplace for cheap manufactured goods.? But China seems to be offering Africa something new, a straightforward business relationship between equals based on mutual interest and noninterference in the internal affairs of its allies.
Excerpts: China, it seems, is suddenly everywhere in Africa, not just in oil-rich states. Trade between Africa and China has almost quadrupled since 2001, and last year reached almost $40 billion.
China is hardly the first nation to seek its fortune in Africa. First the Arabs and then the Europeans built empires on African riches and sweat, followed by the cold warriors, fighting proxy ideological battles for influence and profit.
Through all the iterations of the world?s engagement with Africa, most of its nations have remained stuck in an economic trap in which they primarily supply valuable raw materials to the developed world while serving as a marketplace for cheap manufactured goods.
But China seems to be offering Africa something new, a straightforward business relationship between equals based on mutual interest and noninterference in the internal affairs of its allies. Or as the economist Jeffrey Sachs put it at a conference in Beijing this week, ?China gives fewer lectures and more practical help.?
But is China?s interest in Africa truly different from that of the earlier powers? Or is Beijing, as some are beginning to say, peddling the same exploitative formula in an attractive dressing of third world solidarity?
Certainly, China sees itself as offering something superior to the standard Western prescription. ?Now African countries have more choices,? said Lu Shaye, China?s ambassador to Senegal. ?They have the panaceas of the World Bank and the I.M.F., and at the same time the experience of China. They can compare and choose the best.?
China?s recent history presents seductive possibilities for sub-Saharan Africa. In the past two decades, China has pulled hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty and transformed itself from an agrarian backwater into the world?s fastest-growing economy.
Its presence is certainly greatest in the resource-rich countries like Nigeria, Angola and Sudan (where its role has been criticized as contributing to the crisis in Darfur).
But China?s growing presence is also manifest in less obvious spots. In Sierra Leone, Chinese companies have built and renovated hotels and restaurants. In Mozambique, Chinese companies are investing in soybean processing and prawn production. At the African Union summit meeting in Banjul, Gambia, last month, the Chinese delegation dwarfed the ones sent by France, Britain and the United States.
