Transcript Human Rights, Trade & Investment and the China-in

Forest from the Trees: Development, Trade & Investment
and the China-in-Africa Discourse
Barry Sautman, HK Univ. of Science & Technology
Yan Hairong, HK Polytechnic University
China-in-Africa Discourse
• Emerged around 2004
• Spread out from US, UK, France
• Mainly focuses on China’s claimed
negative influence on African governance
• Other focus: effects of PRC trade &
investment on Africa’s development
• Exemplified by February, 2007 New York
Times editorial, “Patron of African
Misgovernment”
New York Times says China:
• Takes African resources; gives big money to
corrupt, authoritarian African leaders
• Partners with genocidal Sudanese leaders and
Zimbabwe’s despotic president
• Impoverishes Africans by exporting cheaplymade goods
• Lends money to African governments without
applying social and environmental standards
• Exploits Zambian miners.
Raises Question: Is Africa’s Right
to Development:
• mainly impaired by China’s “neo-colonial”
or “amoral” activities in Africa or by Africa’s
imbrication in US-led neo-liberal system?
• China and West have many common
practices in Africa. Also have differences
that make China’s presence often more
appealing to Africans.
Discourse of China’s Imports from Africa
• 1995: US$3 billion; 2007: $70+ billion
• China-in-Africa discourse focuses almost
exclusively on oil
• China’s purchases from Africa: oil 62%; ores &
minerals 17%; agricultural raw materials 7%;
others 14% (US: oil 80%; other primary products
about 17% manufactures, about 3%).
China, West and Oil
• China: oil from Africa = 14.5% of all oil PRC
consumed in 2006; US: oil from Africa = 13.2%
of all oil US consumed.
• China: received 8.7% of Africa’s oil exports in
2006; US: 33%; Europe: 36%
• China: 70% of oil imports used for industry; US:
70% of oil imports for motor vehicles.
China’s buys much African oil with
infrastructure loans
• Builds infrastructure at much lower cost
than West
• More than $8 billion loaned to Africa in
2006
• World Bank, IMF, US, UK criticize China
for indebting Africa
• Africa still in debt $300 billion to Western
states and institutions
PRC loans to Africa
• Western loans at commercial rates;
China’s loans at very low or no interest
• Example: infrastructure loan of billions to
Angola at 0.25%, repayable with oil
• PRC loans for infrastructure thought to be
less subject to being skimmed than
Western all-purpose loans.
Transparency Issue:
• Western oil firms pay hundreds of millions
in “signature bonuses” for African oil
blocks, but refuse to reveal amounts
• Western governments make such
revelations voluntary
• China can’t compete with Western oil firms
in Africa, so has relations with all
producers, including Sudan.
Darfur Issue:
• China vilified as accomplice of Sudan
regime in genocide in Darfur
• Only US speaks of genocide in Darfur.
UN, EU, MSF, Africanists disagree
• China instrumental in persuading Sudan to
agree to UN forces in Darfur
• US has ties with Sudan military &
intelligence leaders.
China’s Exports to Africa
• Discourse portrays China’s exports as
poor quality basic consumer goods
• PRC-made imports are much cheaper
than other imports to Africa
• Cheaper also than locally-made goods,
made expensive by poor infrastructure
• Only seven African countries receive
significant share of imports from China
• Basic consumer goods almost always < a
fifth of PRC imports to African countries
• PRC imports mainly displace other
imports; little effect on local production
• As to African exports, discourse focuses
only on textiles & clothing (T&C)
• African T&C industry in sharp decline
before Chinese T&C came to Africa.
African T&C damaged by forced
trade liberalization
• Influx of 2d-hand and new clothing from N.
America and Europe
• African T&C has high transport and utility
costs, low productivity, lack of skilled labor
• Up-tick for African T&C with US African
Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA)
• Downturn when quotas on PRC exports to
developed countries ended on 01/01/05.
• Recovery from downturn by most national T&C
industries through finding niche markets
• Quotas on PRC T&C exports to S. Africa
• S. Africa T&C decline mainly due to strong rand
and informalization of T&C production
• Balance of gains and losses to Africa through
PRC trade less negative than discourse asserts
• Main decline in T&C due to Western-imposed
trade liberalization.
PRC investments in Africa
• Valued at some $8 billion in 2006 (of
perhaps $130 billion total FDI in Africa)
• No recent breakdown on sectors, but from
1979 to 2000: manufacturing 46% (T&C
15%); resource extraction 28%; services
(mostly construction) 18%; agriculture 7%
• Some 800 major PRC enterprises in
Africa, 100 of them large SOEs
Discourse focuses overwhelmingly
on Chambishi copper mine, Zambia
• “The Chinese” portrayed as superexploiters, compared to whites and Indians
• Zambian NGOs find that privatization of
mines is main cause of deterioration of
miners’ living standards
• Working, living conditions, at Chambishi
deplorable, but other Zambian mines also
worse since privatization.
Coal Mining Team: Tanzania
• White South African and Canadian mines
oppose raising super-low royalty rates
• Chinese mine-owners pay higher royalties, taxes
• Discourse often quotes Zambian opposition
leaders who endorse racial hierarchy among
mine-owners and are backed by Taiwan
• Profits for Chinese enterprises in Africa much
lower than for Western firms
• PRC enterprises, but not Western firms,
mainly equity joint ventures
• Chinese firms less concentrated in
resource extraction, more in infrastructure
and manufacturing than Western firms
• PRC represented in discourse as backing
authoritarian regimes to protect extraction
• But Western states back most African
despots, militarily and politically.
N’guema (despot of Equatorial Guinea) received by US
Secretary of State Rice at White House, 2006
Trade in Money and People
• 40% of Africa’s private wealth in Western
banks, due to corruption and tax evasion,
but no capital flight to China
• Many African professionals lost to Africa
through emigration to West, while China
trains African professionals
Conclusion
• China-in-Africa discourse de-contextualized,
because not comparative
• Reflects Western elites’ perceptions of national
interests (strategic competition with China) and
sense of moral superiority
• Western government “democracy and “good
governance” rhetoric seldom challenged in
discourse
• Discourse proponents search for all examples of
negative Chinese activities in Africa
• Many Africans wary of binary of “civilizing”
Westerners versus “amoral” Chinese
• Discourse heats up because China’s
actions in Africa not fully compliant with
tenets of Western neo-liberalism
• Many African’s reject discourse as
diversion from reality of Africa’s
subordination in US-led system with builtin exploitation and human rights violations.
National Leaders on Africa
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“The African has never really entered into history. They have never really
launched themselves into the future. The African peasant has lived
according to the seasons, whose life ideal was to be in harmony with
nature, only knew the eternal renewal of time. In this world, where
everything starts over and over again, there is room neither for human
endeavor, nor for the idea of progress.”
-- Nicholas Sarkozy 2007
“We all know that African countries used to have a tradition of eating their
own adversaries. We don’t have such a tradition or process or culture and I
believe the comparison between Africa and Russia is not quite just.”
-- Vladimir Putin 2005
“The people of China and Africa have created great and brilliant cultures in
the long course of history and have made important contributions to the
civilization and progress of mankind.”
-- Hu Jintao, 2007
Drive Out New & Old Colonialism
from Africa!
US and Chinese officials on Africans and AIDS
• “[Africans] don’t know what Western time is. You have to take
[AIDS] drugs a certain number of hours each day or they don’t work.
Many people in Africa have never seen a clock or watch their entire
lives. And if you say one o’clock in the afternoon, they don’t know
what you’re talking about.”
• -- Andrew Natsios, head, US Agency for International Development,
arguing against providing anti-retroviral drugs to Africans, 2001.
[Note: A subsequent study found that Sub-Saharan Africans are
better at following drug regimens than North Americans. Edward
Mills. “Adherence to Anti-Retroviral Therapy in Sub-Saharan Africa
and North America,” Journal of the American Medical Association,
Aug. 9, 2006; vol 296: pp 679-690].
• “China must learn the lessons from countries like South Africa.”
• -- Hao Yang, Deputy Director, AIDS Control and Protection Office of
China’s State Council, 2007