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Is China Africa-s best friend?
Anver Versi, African Business
May 2006

On the surface, China’s President Hu Jinto’s visit to the US last month appeared to be nothing more than a friendly ‘getting to know you’ trip during which a few key issues, such as the value of the country’s currency the yuan and its human rights record would be discussed. Under the surface, however, the visit has set off as many explosions as a spark in a fireworks factory.

China’s phenomenal growth, which many analysts believe is only just gathering full momentum, is beginning to cause real worry, if not consternation, in the West. Sooner or later it is felt, there will be a head-on collision between the West and China as both battle it out for the resources they need to maintain their respective economic growths.

One of the prime, if not the prime, battlefields is Africa. China has moved stealthily but speedily into Africa and is winning new friends and influencing policy by the month. Trade between China and Africa has increased by 400% since 2000. China is now Africa’s third largest commercial partner after the US and France and the second largest exporter to Africa after France.

The pace of trade is also accelerating. In the first 10 months of 2005, according to Chinese customs figures, trade with Africa registered an amazing 30% growth to $ 32.17bn. Following the 2000 Sino-Africa Forum in Beijing, China scrapped tariffs on 190 kinds of imported goods from 28 of the least developed countries in Africa. China’s imports from Africa over the 2005 10-month period amounted to 16.96bn pounds while its exports, which are also growing, were worth $15.25bn.

China is also rapidly becoming one of the most significant investors in Africa. Although its primary interest is oil - China now accounts for 40% of the total growth in global oil demand over the past four years - it is heavily engaged in infrastructure and manufacturing projects.

Perhaps more significantly, China appears to be offering African countries an alternative to their reliance on the IMF and the Paris Club of Donors. According to the London-based Africa Confidential newsletter, China provided Angola with a soft loan of $2bn and this could increase to $6bn in exchange for favorable oil contracts.

Making friends and influencing people
China’s influence is growing in Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Tanzania and Libya.

China now gets between 25 and 30% of its oil from Africa. It is also importing an increasing amount of natural resources such as metals and timber and commodities like coffee, tea, and tobacco from Africa. Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has said that China, which he describes as Africa’s oldest friend, is the country to look to. "We look again to the East, where the sun rises, not to the West, where it sets."

Chinese companies are involved in a vast array of activities, from power generation, to arms manufacture, to mining, to supplying electronic equipment and even to setting up vast agricultural and ranching joint-ventures.

Brian Smith, writing on the World Socialist website, says: "Like the former colonial countries, China backs its trading relations with aid, debt relief, scholarships, training and provision of specialists. It is also a major supplier of military hardware, like the West, and has supplied peacekeepers to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia."

Smith also points out that Chinese investments and loans have an advantage over the West "in that most are through state-owned companies whose individual investments do not have to make a profit so long as they serve overall Chinese objectives."

The West has consistently criticised China’s human rights record and appears to be displeased with its cosy relationships with some so-called ‘pariah’ states such as Sudan. The Chinese counter by saying that few nations can claim the moral high ground and that, as a developing nation, it views the problems of other developing nations with greater degree of sympathy and understanding.

What are we to make of this Chinese "invasion" of Africa? China has indeed been a friend of Africa during the struggle for independence and was there to help any who asked in terms of building economies. They constructed railway lines, roads, bridges and stadiums at a fraction of the cost that was demanded by the Western contractors and they have trained tens of thousands of African doctors and scientists.

Their attitude has also been largely straight and honest. They want to do business and are prepared to bargain and compete. They have not tried to push ideologies down African throats nor lectured them on how to run their affairs. Most of their dealings have been above board – the system is such that it is virtually impossible to engage in corruption without being detected. They have not used military power or engage in invasions of any African country and they are now responsible for the high prices that African resources and oil fetch on the open market.

What are we to conclude? Is China now Africa’s best friend?

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