Teyie Report

China's detractors say these bridges and superhighways serve primarily to export Africa's resources as efficiently as possible. PHOTO: Mwangi Kabiru

Sliding through the slick mud or bumping along the dusty lanes that run parallel to half-built roads from Kenya to Ghana and from Zimbabwe to Sudan, the sight of the Chinese foreman in a wide-brimmed straw hat with the seemingly ubiquitous cigarette hanging from his lips is an increasingly familiar one.

China’s champions say Beijing is revamping Africa’s decrepit infrastructure, connecting the continent to the rest of the world. China’s detractors say these bridges and superhighways serve primarily to export Africa’s resources as efficiently as possible.

The answer is a bit of both and illustrates the deliberately amoral pragmatism that China brings to its relationships with African countries, a relationship that is changing the way Africa does business with the world.

“The whole world is out to grab Africa’s resources, not just China,” explains Patrick Smith, publisher of the fortnightly Africa-Asia Confidential.

That’s true, but China and the Chinese are the most visible new emissaries of this global push to invest in Africa.

At an Africa-China summit hosted by Egypt in November, Prime Minister WenJibao called China a “true and trusted friend” of Africa as he announced cheap loans to the continent worth $10 billion, double the amount pledged at the previous summit in Beijing three years earlier attended by over 30 African leaders. This time more than 50 states sent representatives.

Wen’s speech at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation was full of talk of “mutual understanding”, “friendship” and “development”. He promised to fund 100 clean energy projects such as biogas, solar and hydropower to help Africa deal with the effects of climate change. He said China would introduce zero tariffs on some African imports to encourage more balanced two-way trade and would offer bank loans to small businesses to encourage more investment. With promises like this, who wouldn’t like China?

He also reiterated the stance that so worries observers in the traditional Western powers.

“The Chinese government and people have always respected the autonomous right of the African people to choose their own social systems. China’s support and aid for Africa has never and will never attach any political conditions,” he said.

Where Western states – and most especially former colonial powers such as Britain or France – tend to approach contemporary Africa with a mix of guilt, charity and patronisation, China goes straight for the money signing billion dollar deals that commonly swap roads and railways for minerals and oil, all with no political strings attached.

These former powers are watching their stars increasingly wane in Africa as China asserts its economic strength. China’s sky-rocketing investments in the continent has caused nervousness among traditional Western powers and especially among commentators in the US which increasingly relies on West African oil to feed its energy needs.

But Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs, says the new competition from China can be a good thing. “It is already encouraging the West to have more focused Africa policies that move away from paternalism and humanitarianism and that’s got to be a good thing for Africa,” he explains.

Last year China outstripped the US as the continent’s biggest bilateral trading partner with imports and exports worth $107 billion, an increase of more than tenfold since the start of the century.

The fact that 70 percent of that trade is made up of barrels of African oil is proof, some argue, that China is only interested in stripping Africa of its resources to fuel its own domestic economic boom.

China’s apologists are quick to point out that the West hardly has a glowing record in Africa. From the days of the colonial carve up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US, Britain and others meddled in the affairs of African states with little regard for the desires of African people.

What China’s interest in African resources does is to put Africa’s leaders in the driving seat when it comes to negotiations. These leaders have the authority and opportunity to strike deals that can translate into more investment in infrastructure, schools and hospitals. Even so, it is an opportunity that some unscrupulous leaders will surely seize to enrich themselves; visionaries will use China’s money to fuel their country’s development. Perhaps one key outcome of China’s investment in Africa will be that discerning African people will really get to see of what their leaders are made.

For a model of what the new age of African development should look like, it might not be surprising if African leaders again look East, instead of West.

“Western liberal democracies, multiparty systems and capitalism haven’t worked in many places except the old traditional colonising powers,” argues Smith. “China’s development model has lifted 400 million people out of poverty and that is a powerful message in Africa.”

In return for its financial investment, China seeks political support on the world stage. In the 1960s Mao Zedong supported Africa’s socialist liberation movements and was rewarded when African states voted China onto the United Nations Security Council in 1971.

As a contemporary voting bloc, China-friendly African states can vote down censure of China’s awful domestic human rights record and do their bit to keep Taiwan – an island that China regards as a dangerous breakaway – in the diplomatic cold.

How is this new continental dynamic playing out in Kenya? According to China’s ambassador Deng Hongbo, bilateral trade between the two countries was worth $1.25-billion in 2008—up almost a third on the previous year.

But the imbalance is stark: a few raw materials such as sisal or cotton, a little scrap metal and some leather leaves Kenya, which is in turn flooded with Chinese-made electronics, chemicals and plastic kitchenware. Kenya’s government statistics show that in 2008Kenya exported Ksh 2 billion worth of goods to China, but imported Ksh 63 billion of Chinese Products.From drugs to phones, plastic kitchenware to articulated lorries, Chinese products are increasingly to be found in markets, offices, homes and roads in the country.

China is playing a growing role in Kenya’s burgeoning energy sector drilling for oil in the north and for geothermal power in the Rift Valley. Prime Minister Raila Odinga has hinted that China may step in to fund a new deep-water port in Lamu and, of course, roads are being built, perhaps most notably the new multi-lane highway linking JKIA to the city centre and the under-construction Nairobi Ringroad.

But the presence of teams of Chinese workers is not always welcomed. Some complain that deals signed with Chinese companies include provisions that Chinese workers will be employed doing local Africans jobs, while unsettling stories are emerging of the role that China’s emigrant citizens play in damaging Kenya’s valuable wildlife stock. [See Separate Story | Is China Killing Africa's Wildlife?]

The social and cultural influence of the influx of Chinese to Kenya and to Africa is also important. Restaurants, shops and hotels designed with the expatriate Chinese businessmen in mind are just as popular with Kenyans and other foreigners. More and more Chinese tourists (over 15,000 in the nine months of 2008) are choosing Kenya for their holidays and those that come for business are increasingly choosing to stay.

The long term impact of this new Chinese engagement remains to be seen. But if, at the very least, it means more roads, few Kenyans will complain. However, the extent to which Kenya can take advantage of its new wealthy trading partner will depend on Kenya’s leaders and the choices they make.

By Tristan McConnell | UP Magazine Nairobi

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