Does China have a neocolonial relationship with Africa?

IN RECENT years there has been a seemingly endless stream of complaints about Chinese imperialism in Africa.

Western journalists and politicians tell us that China has become a new colonial power; that China is attempting to dominate African land and resources; that Africa is becoming entangled in a Beijing-devised debt trap; that Chinese investment in Africa only benefits China.

Establishment politicians enthusiastically embrace the idea of China as a neocolonial power, for the obvious reasons that it diverts attention from their own imperialism and helps promote disunity and mistrust within the global South.

Hillary Clinton says China is engaged in a “new colonialism” in Africa. John Bolton believes China is using “predatory practices” to stunt Africa’s growth.

Yet these accusations are not exclusive to the professional defenders of imperialism.

Adrian Budd, writing in Socialist Review (purveyors of finest Third Camp ideology since 1950), points to “Chinese investment in Africa, long dominated by Western imperialism, was $36 billion in 2016 against the US’s $3.6 billion, Britain’s $2.4 billion and France’s $2.1 billion.” This apparently is evidence of Chinese imperialism.

But if there were an equals sign between investment and imperialism, then we would have to start condemning Angola’s imperialism in Portugal, where it has extensive investments.

As discussed in the previous article in this series, the key ingredients of an imperialist relationship are domination and coercion.

China’s investments in Africa are welcomed in the recipient countries, because they serve to address critical gaps in infrastructure.

Expanding infrastructure investment is enabling economic development of a continent that has been actively and forcibly underdeveloped by the colonial powers over the course of centuries.

Deborah Brautigam, director of the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, has done extensive research on the question of China’s economic engagement with Africa.

Addressing accusations that China is setting a “debt trap” to capture African resources, she writes: “On a continent where over 600 million Africans have no access to electricity, 40 per cent of Chinese loans paid for power generation and transmission. Another 30 per cent went to modernising Africa’s crumbling transport infrastructure.”

Indeed the reluctance of Western development banks to take on risky loans means there’s a heavy demand for Chinese finance.

And China tends to be more flexible with debt relief, restructuring and cancelling unsustainable payments.

Brautigam’s team found that Chinese loans “generally have comparatively low interest rates and long repayment periods.”

Loans and investment can certainly constitute part of a relationship of imperialism.

Such has been the case with the IMF’s notorious Structural Adjustment Programme, which offered emergency aid in exchange for a set of neoliberal economic reforms based on “fiscal responsibility” (austerity) and “maximisation of market efficiencies” (privatisation).

China’s development loans do not come with economic policy conditions, and as a result debtor countries are not forced to accept the unfair terms that have been imposed by Western financial institutions for so long.

As former South African minister of trade and industry Rob Davies put it, China’s expanding presence in Africa “can only be a good thing … because it means that we don’t have to sign on the dotted line whatever is shoved under our noses any longer … We now have alternatives and that’s to our benefit.”

Martin Jacques addresses this issue in his book When China Rules the World: “Chinese aid has far fewer strings attached than that of Western nations and institutions.

“While the IMF and the World Bank have insisted, in accord with their Western-inspired ideological agenda, on the liberalisation of foreign trade, privatisation and a reduced role for the state, the Chinese stance is far less restrictive and doctrinaire.”

China, which knows from bitter experience what an unequal treaty looks like, has been abundantly clear that its deals will never seek to compromise other countries’ sovereignty.

Speaking at the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation, President Xi Jinping outlined China’s “five-no” approach: “No interference in African countries’ internal affairs; no imposition of our will on African countries; no attachment of political strings to assistance to Africa; and no seeking of selfish political gains in investment and financing co-operation with Africa.”

If only the US, Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, Italy and Germany had adopted such an approach in their dealings with Africa.

According to the progressive Greek economist and former government minister Yanis Varoufakis, “the Chinese are non-interventionist in a way that Westerners have never managed to fathom … They don’t seem to have any military ambitions … Instead of going into Africa with troops, killing people like the West has done … they went to Addis Ababa and said to the government: ‘We can see you have some problems with your infrastructure; we would like to build some new airports, upgrade your railway system, create a telephone system, and rebuild your roads’.”

What Varoufakis describes isn’t a relationship of charity. Although China does give significant aid to Africa, the vast bulk of its investment is commercial and aims at making a profit.

But there is no element of coercion, no element of domination; rather there is a relationship of equals, from which both sides stand to benefit.

The benefits to Africa are clear to see. Liberia’s former minister of public works, W Gyude Moore, writes that under European colonialism “there has never been a continental-scale infrastructure building programme for Africa’s railways, roads, ports, water filtration plants and power stations”; meanwhile “China has built more infrastructure in Africa in two decades than the West has in centuries.”

Chinese investment is accelerating the digital revolution in Africa. Chiponda Chibelu notes in an article for Deutsche Welle that Western governments have been unwilling to help move African technology forward; however, in recent years “African countries have largely turned to China to help them build and expand their digital infrastructure.”

Meanwhile Chinese companies are investing in green development projects throughout the continent — and indeed the world.

China has been the top investor in clean energy for nine out of the last 10 years, according to the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences is heavily involved in supporting research projects in Africa, including agronomic research aimed at ending food shortages.

Tens of thousands of African students attend universities in China, which now offers more university scholarships to African students than the leading Western governments combined.

Mohamed Hassan, president of the World Academy of Sciences, says that China is “doing better than any other country for Africa” when it comes to training scholars.

There is a popular myth that Chinese companies only employ Chinese workers.

Brautigam’s team took a deep dive into the data: “Surveys of employment on Chinese projects in Africa repeatedly find that three-quarters or more of the workers are, in fact, local.”

Brautigam also takes up the accusation that wealthy Chinese are engaged in a “land grab,” buying up large tracts of African land in order to grow food for China.

These stories “turned out to be mostly myths … China is not a dominant investor in plantation agriculture in Africa, in contrast to how it is often portrayed.”

Instead of parroting US State Department talking points, socialists might think about whether imperialist politicians have a vested interest in vilifying China’s relationship with Africa.

On that basis, our friends could consider whether they really want to join in with that propaganda campaign.

The Senegalese-American musician Akon demonstrates a far greater insight than most in the West when he states that “no-one has done more to benefit Africa than the Chinese.”

Morning Star