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African Affairs, 106/422, 127–132 doi:10.1093/afraf/adl060© The Author [2006]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved127COMMENTARYCHINA AND AFRICAHOWARD W. FRENCHSIX YEARS AFTER the turn of a new century, Africa finds itself courted withan intensity of interest unrivalled perhaps since the turn of the last century.To go back a century in time, of course, puts one roughly in the era ofthe great scramble for Africa, a euphemism for what might more properlybe called an invasion mounted on a continental scale by rival Europeannations eager to expand their mercantile interests, to compete with oneanother strategically on a global checkerboard and, where they saw fit, toimpose their values, religious or otherwise. With China rediscoveringAfrica, and expanding its interests there at a breathtaking pace, malicioustongues have not hesitated to call what is happening today a new invasionof the continent.The statistics on what China has accomplished in very little time inAfrica speak eloquently of the vast scope of the world’s incipient super-power’s undertaking. China recorded $40 billion in trade with Africa in2005, a four-fold increase since 2001. In the process, it surpassed theUnited Kingdom to become the continent’s third leading commercial partner,after the United States and France. Just as suddenly, Chinese can be seenalmost everywhere in Africa. With about 100,000 nationals living andworking in the continent, the newcomers have become more numerousthan Britons in places such as Nigeria, long London’s most prized WestAfrican possession. This year, China has committed $8.1 billion in lendingto Nigeria, Angola, and Mozambique alone. By comparison, the WorldBank has committed $2.3 billion to all of sub-Saharan African in the sametime span. By one tally, China currently has about 900 investment projectson the continent. These range from the highly controversial, such asChina’s 40% controlling participation in the Sudanese oil company,Greater Nile Petroleum, and mining projects in Zimbabwe, to the con-struction of a new national rail network in Angola.Howard W. French ([email protected]) is the Shanghai bureau chief of the New YorkTimes and was previously the West and Central Africa bureau chief of the newspaper. He isthe author of A Continent for the Taking: The tragedy and hope of Africa (Alfred A. Knopf,New York, 2004).128 AFRICAN AFFAIRSAll this, while rehabilitating the Tazara Railway project of the 1970s, awinner of immense goodwill for Beijing on the continent in another era.But if comparisons with the arrival of Europeans roughly a century ago arewarranted, to think of China’s new presence on the continent as an invasionobscures as much as it reveals.1 The Chinese bristle at any such comparisons,especially considering the country’s well-known insistence that its riseshould not be seen as threatening anyone, as well as the corollary claim,taught to every Chinese school child, that their country has never practicedimperialism — and by implication never will. Certainly, China cannot sofar be accused of using its advance into Africa to bolster its strategic posi-tion in the world. Indeed, military concerns have played a remarkablysmall part in China’s return to the continent as a major player.Instead, wave after wave of high-level visitors to the continent fromBeijing stress the ‘win-win’ nature of China’s engagement. Long gone arethe days of the Cold War, when the continent was divided between clientsof East and West, and depending upon one’s perspective between ‘goodguys’ and ‘bad guys’. ‘Our attempts and efforts to develop relations are notdirected at entering any alliance and will not compromise the interests ofother countries’, said Premier Wen Jiabao, during a June 2006 visit toEgypt, which says it expects China to become its largest trading partner.During a tour of West Africa earlier in the year, President Hu Jintao hadmuch the same message. ‘China’s development will not bring a threat toanyone but, instead, will only bring more opportunities and space fordevelopment to the world,’ he told the Nigerian national assembly.What does this mean for Africa?Months ago, some scoffed when I wrote in a column in the InternationalHerald Tribune that the emerging relationship between China and Africa isas important as any relationship in the world.Few are accustomed to thinking that Africa could be central to theworld’s concerns in any regard. Moreover, many in the West have beenlocked in a kind of vain mood of disbelief about China’s own rise. Globalagency has for so long meant Western agency that even otherwise well-informed people have been very slow to grasp the significance of China’srise, and on its heels, that of India. It is not difficult, however, to count theways that China’s involvement with Africa can seriously, even critically,affect the broader global community.The most obvious of these is in regard to the environment. China is anextraordinarily resource-inefficient economic power, consuming 3.28 times1. Cf. Jedrzej George Frynas and Manuel Paulo, ‘A new scramble for African oil? Historical,political and business perspectives’, African Affairs (2007, forthcoming).CHINA AND AFRICA 129the world average for the amount of energy needed for each new dollar ofgross domestic industrial investment (and 7.2 times the Japanese rate).Although there is increasing awareness within China of the consequences ofall-out economic growth along such wasteful lines, growth remains theoverriding priority of a government that has associated a fast-expandinggross national product with its ability to maintain social peace.For China, pursuing this strategy means securing a constantly expandingand uninterrupted supply of resources: oil and gas, copper, cobalt, tin,aluminium, iron, uranium, timber, and one could go on and on. The hun-ger for raw materials has sent Chinese companies scurrying to every conti-nent, from the oil sands of Canada to the oil fields of Venezuela and ironmines of Australia. It was all but inevitable that Africa should become aspecial target of focus, though, and this is for at least two reasons.For one thing, Africa, second only to Asia in vastness, is unique amongthe continents for remaining relatively unexploited. Africa’s resources havebeen surveyed by the West — a fact that makes China’s task all the easiertoday — and they have occasionally been


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UW-Madison POLISCI 362 - Commentary - China and Africa

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