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China and Africa

Chris Alden

The rise of China, from a stalwart of revolution in the 1950s to its emergence as a major global economic and political actor in the last decade, is one of the defining features of the twenty-first century. For the leading industrialized economies of the North, initial praise of China’s gradualist shift to a market economy has evolved into a chorus bemoaning China’s impact on trade competitiveness and growing concern as they are upstaged internationally by Beijing. These developments are most clearly visible in Africa, a continent that was languishing on the margins of international interest after the end of the Cold War.

China’s forthright engagement with the African continent, built upon China’s historic support for the independence struggle and the growing economic power wielded by Beijing, has helped re-ignite continental economies through new investment and trade opportunities. Perhaps more importantly, it has restored African political agency by increasing the choice available to African leaders with regard to with whom they do business and how they wish to do it – although this has inevitably been accompanied by a growing reliance on China itself. Indeed, one of the most striking developments over the past two decades has been the growing convergence between African development needs and Chinese economic interests. The structures and practices of an emerging mutually dependent relationship based on these realities are beginning to take fuller form, led by Beijing’s promotion of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the broadening of strategic dialogue with key African countries at the sub-state level, through national business councils and party-to-party links.

This chapter examines China’s engagement with Africa by looking first at the sources of Chinese engagement with Africa; second, the proliferation of Chinese actors on the African continent; third, FOCAC (the diplomatic cornerstone of the relationship); and, finally, new trends in the relationship.

Sources of Chinese Engagement with Africa

Since the onset of economic reform in 1978, China has had an unmatched record of sustained economic growth that has transformed key sectors of its economy into the global leader in manufacturing and production. To maintain these high levels of domestic output, crucial not only for the Chinese economy but for overall social and political stability in authoritarian China, the economy requires critical energy, mineral, and other resources from abroad (e.g. Downs 2004; Soares de Oliveira 2008). The promulgation of the government’s ‘going out’ strategy – whereby over 100 restructured state-owned enterprises were given the legal and administrative means, preferential access to finance, and diplomatic support necessary to break into markets outside of China – has been the main policy response to this need. Given China’s expansive financial resources, including the world’s largest foreign capital reserves (US$2.4 trillion), carving out a position in the capital-starved energy and minerals markets in Africa was fairly straightforward. Concurrently, the willingness of the Chinese government to provide a whole package of elite inducements – ranging from presidential palaces to large-scale infrastructure projects, alongside leasing and supply agreements for resources – has proved to be crucial to securing deals in Africa (Alden 2007: 11–36).

Underlying this approach is a highly publicized provision whereby the Chinese government forswears any interest in the domestic affairs of African governments, in direct contrast to the European Union (EU) or the United States, both of which have selectively applied conditions to their development assistance programmes and even some investments. In parallel with this state-led drive for resources abroad is a search for new markets aimed at expanding the investment and trade opportunities for Chinese firms. The relatively small size of the African market, however, places some constraints on these ambitions. Finally, there is a diplomatic imperative tied to the decades of competition between Beijing and Taipei over official recognition, with countries in Africa being particularly targeted.

Resource Security

China’s position within Africa’s resource sector has surged in the last decade and a half from that of a marginal player to a significant holder of interests in oil leases from Angola to Sudan, and mining concessions from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to South Africa. Its two-way trade with Africa, exceeding $106 billion in 2008, is overwhelmingly based on the extraction of oil, strategic minerals, and raw materials in exchange for manufactured goods (Goldstein et al. 2006). Reflecting these trends, China went from being the leading Asian oil exporter in 1993, to the second-largest world consumer in 2003 and third-largest global importer in 2004. These statistics justify moving energy security to the core of Beijing’s foreign policy formulation. Not only does China’s continued economic growth depend on a secure resource supply but so, too, does its social stability and ultimately the survival of the Communist Party of China (CPC).1

Despite being a major oil producer (4.8 per cent of global production)2 and second only to the United States in refinery capacity and output (8.5 per cent and 8.7 per cent, respectively),3 China is only able to provide for less than half of its domestic oil needs. China’s oil consumption has doubled in the last decade and, according to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), China’s oil demand will show the world’s fastest growth rate in the coming decades, doubling again by 2030 (BPC 2008: 47). Although China became a net oil importer in 1993, it was not until the new century that energy security became central to the political debate. Recent events – including the 2005 creation of the Energy Leading Group (the coordination body headed by premier Wen Jiabao), the publication of a White Paper on Energy (‘China’s Energy Conditions and Policies’, Chinese State Council Information Office 2007) in December 2007, and the White Paper on Diplomacy (Hsiao 2008) – mark increasing uneasiness over this topic among the political elite.

China has become externally dependent on other resources in addition to oil, which has intensified its economic interaction with the African continent in the new century. Over the past decade, China surpassed the United States to become the world’s leading consumer of most base metals. Chinese demand has been growing at a rate over 10 per cent a year since 1990, having only intensified further in recent years (Brett and Ericsson 2006: 22). China has been the major driver behind the soaring prices of metals in the international market. China is the world’s largest consumer and producer of aluminium, iron ore, lead, and zinc, and holds significant shares in all other mineral supply and demand markets.

Finally, food security itself is becoming an area of great concern for China. The years of rapid economic development have, for the first time in decades, exposed China to the vagaries of supply-side and market constraints in agricultural commodities. In terms of overall agricultural imports, China leads the region with its import share of 44 per cent of the world’s soybeans, 35 per cent of the world’s cotton, 20 per cent of the world’s palm oil, and 2.5 per cent of the world’s rice, with Japanese, Indian, and South Korean demand trailing in its wake. Consumption patterns in China have changed dramatically since the gradualist introduction of market capitalism, and Chinese total caloric intake has risen to levels equivalent to the United States. While rising domestic demand would have been expected to open up opportunities for expanding local agriculture by Chinese farmers, China’s physical constraints (despite its geographic size, it has only 7 per cent of the world’s arable land) and the fact that rapid industrialization and accompanying urbanization over the last few decades has removed tens of thousands of hectares of fertile land from production. The result has been a steady rise in food imports, which in combination with Chinese (and Indian) energy needs, has increased food prices worldwide. For China in particular, the fear that inflation and dwindling supplies could contribute to periodic waves of domestic unrest that had begun to gather force was underscored in a report issued by the State Council on food security in 2005, the first year that China became a major importer of food since the CPC took over. In 2008 the National Development Reform Committee produced the preliminary findings of a 20-year Food Security Strategy, setting out the parameters of food security for the country as being met first and foremost through the maintenance of 125 million hectares of arable land and 95 per cent self-sufficiency in grains (Kelley 2009: 94).

The African Resource Bounty

Against this backdrop, Africa has assumed a critical role in China’s search for resource security. The African continent possesses a generous endowment of natural resources – particularly hydrocarbons, minerals, and timber – which remain mostly untapped due to decades of political instability, poor infrastructure, and scarce investment. However, the Chinese foray into this sector had to take into account the prevailing dominance of established interests, primarily from the United States, France, and Great Britain, all of which produced a pattern of investment that replicated colonial-era divisions refracted through the politics of the Cold War. With the end of the bipolar conflict, economic interests rapidly pushed to the forefront and the geographic spheres of influence that had shaped energy investment gave way to direct competition between, for instance, French and American interests in West Africa (Schraeder 2000). Among the most prominent newcomers are Asian states – China, India, Malaysia, and Singapore – and Middle Eastern countries – Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. This scenario sets the ground for growing competition for economic and political influence over the continent in the coming decades, something that is particularly astounding considering that less than a decade ago the African continent was suffering from a sharp decline in interest by its traditional Western partners.

In regional terms, Africa possesses the third-largest oil reserves, an estimated 9.5 per cent of global known deposits in 2007, behind the Middle East (61 per cent) and North America (11.6 per cent), and ahead of South and Central America (8.5 per cent). Africa boasts the fastest growth rate in oil reserves, having doubled in the past two decades (BPC 2008: 6). In sub-regional terms, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa each account for half of the continent’s known reserves. Libya (35 per cent), Nigeria (31 per cent), Algeria (10 per cent), and Angola (8 per cent) possess the largest reserves. In production, Africa comes fourth with a share of 12.5 per cent of the world total, but the rankings change a bit from those of oil reserves, with Nigeria as the main African oil producer (25 per cent), followed by Algeria (21 per cent), Libya (20 per cent), and Angola (18 per cent) (ibid.: 8). In recent years northern African countries’ production has been showing signs of stabilization, while other countries have been expanding their share. For instance, Angola has registered the fastest growth rate in production during the past decade, having even overtaken Nigeria as sub-Saharan African’s major oil producer in mid-2008.4

Africa’s endowment of non-fuel minerals further complements the attractiveness of this picture, with South Africa possessing one of the world’s richest mineral beds. Among other minerals, South Africa is the leading producer of platinum (80 per cent of total production and 90 per cent of world reserves), manganese (the country holds over 75 per cent of the world’s reserve base), and the world’s second gold mine producer (overtaken by Australia in 2007). Moreover, South Africa is a major coal producer and has developed the world’s leading technology in converting coal to synthetic fuels (synfuels), introducing new possibilities for the coal-rich Chinese state. Recognition of this has factored into the joint venture between two Chinese firms and the South African parastatal, Sasol. By way of contrast, despite decades of neglect and internecine conflict, the DRC’s mineral wealth is notoriously underutilized. Even so, the DRC has the world’s most plentiful cobalt mines, providing 36 per cent of the world’s cobalt and possessing half of the world’s known reserves. DRC is also the world’s leading diamond producer, with 33 per cent of the world total. Together with South Africa and Botswana, they account for over half of global diamond mining output and 60 per cent of known deposits (figures from 2007; USGS 2008). The African countries with significant mineral reserves that have attracted the most Chinese interest are Gabon (manganese), Zambia (copper and iron ore), Zimbabwe (platinum), and Angola (diamonds, copper, and iron ore).

Finally, African agriculture and forestry resources remain underdeveloped. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), only 14 per cent of Africa’s total 184 million hectares of available land is currently cultivated. Over 90 per cent of cultivated land is dependent upon rainfall, and few farms make effective use of modern fertilizers (Diouf 2008). African agriculture, which continues to serve as a mainstay of employment, suffers from low productivity, chronic under-investment and limited access to foreign export markets. Moreover, the environmental constraints that African agriculturalists face are familiar to Chinese farmers. Private Chinese farmers have already set up farms in Uganda, South Africa, and Zambia (23 in the latter case) (Spieldoch and Murphy 2009: 42), while larger agricultural firms are in negotiations with African governments to lease larger tracts of land for production. In forestry, hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of virgin timber abound in parts of tropical Africa and have inspired China’s small and medium-sized companies to set up logging operations – both legal and illegal – across the continent.

These economic complementarities have spurred a dramatic increase in trade. Between 1995 and 2000 commercial exchanges more than doubled from $4 billion to $10 billion, and then quadrupled in the following five years ($42 billion in 2005), before the figure surpassed $106 billion – a full year before the 2010 target established by Hu Jintao during the FOCAC III summit in Beijing in 2006 (Chinese Ministry of Commerce 2008; WTO 2006). Even if in relative terms Africa represents only a meagre 3 per cent of China’s overall foreign trade, it shows the highest growth rate among all regions. While Africa’s share in Chinese exports grew from 1.7 per cent in 1996, to 2.7 per cent in 2006, the share in imports expanded from 1 per cent to 3.6 per cent in the same decade, revealing the nature of exchanges (World Trade Data 2007).

At the same time, the onset of the world’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has challenged the newfound certainties of Chinese engagement in Africa. Some are already declaring that the withdrawal of dozens of Chinese firms from the mining sector and Beijing’s push to re-open negotiations on the purported $9 billion investment package in the DRC signify that the high watermark of China–Africa economic ties has been reached. Western donors even criticized this investment package and pressured Kinshasa and Beijing to reduce it from $9 billion to $6 billion in February 2009 (Lokongo 2009). This pessimistic interpretation is misplaced, however. China’s involvement in Africa remains a priority, albeit one that is subject to changing international and domestic economic circumstances, as well as the emergence of a reconsideration of risk in selective African environments.

New Markets and Diplomacy

Though resource security impulses are at the forefront of the contemporary push into Africa with China’s energy state-owned enterprises (SOEs) taking the lead, there is also a desire to exploit commercial opportunities with increased trade. Using Chinese finance to support Chinese construction firms building infrastructure in Africa mitigates risk for these firms and, concurrently, provides incentives for them to seek new business opportunities abroad. Indeed, survey data suggest that once established in the African market, Chinese firms ‘anticipated that they will secure further contracts’ (Davies and Corkin 2007: 246). The over-supply of infrastructure firms and labour within China itself provides an additional rationale for this expansion into new markets. The appeal of this approach for African governments, despite some concerns around the use of Chinese labour, was that these were ‘turnkey’ operations; they placed few demands on the African recipients and produced a relatively inexpensive and functioning road, railroad, bridge, or dam quickly (Fletcher 2010: 7).

The need for Chinese manufacturing firms to find new outlets for their products, especially those at the low end of the consumer market (which were losing favour domestically and held little appeal in the more sophisticated Western markets), has also contributed to a surge in two-way trade (Broadman 2007). With manufacturing accounting for 32 per cent of China’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 89 per cent of its merchandise exports by 2005, the importance of opening up new opportunities abroad was paramount (Biacuana et al. 2009: 10). At a different level, a new wave of Chinese migrants to Africa have opened up wholesale and retail shops across the continent, bringing low-cost goods to the African consumer and contributing to a boom in the purchase of items such as bicycles, radios, and watches which were once out of reach of ordinary Africans (see Dittigen 2010; Park 2009; Dobler 2008).

Diplomatic concerns, including the longstanding competition for recognition between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), have also led China to become more involved in African affairs, since Taiwan had been able to win recognition from a number of African states over the years (Rawnsley 2000). Beijing’s drive to isolate the rebel province internationally meant that it actively sought to provide inducements for African governments to reconsider their links with Taipei.

As international pressure increased on China to play a more activist role on the global stage, building international alliances with like-minded states became imperative. Africa’s position as a friendly environment for Beijing was underscored by its unwillingness to join in the Western sanctions campaign against China in the wake of Tiananmen Square. African states supported China in international fora as varied as the International Olympic Committee (where African votes helped secure Beijing’s hosting of the 2008 Olympic Games) and the United Nations’ (UN) Human Rights Commission. Sharing a common view on sovereignty and human rights – though one that was arguably in the process of changing through the African Union (AU) and the emergence of the UN’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) initiative in 2005 – enabled China to work in tandem on many issues with African states, the largest regional voting bloc in the UN (Alden 2007: 16). To address these complex diplomatic ends, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs established the multilateral FOCAC in 2000.

The Chinese in Africa: From State-Owned Enterprises to Retail Shopkeepers

Capturing the diversity of China’s engagement in Africa is necessary to achieve any understanding of the complex and sometimes contradictory reactions that its presence inspires across Africa. Ranging from global parastatals like the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to thousands of retail shops, the Chinese have made inroads in the economic life of ordinary Africans in an extraordinarily short period of time. Moreover, the rapidity with which these Chinese actors adapt to changing circumstances in Africa – in some part a product of the fast pace of change in China itself – challenges assumptions about what China’s presence really means for the continent.

Where China’s engagement in Africa might stoke additional conflict is with Chinese SOEs that have begun to gain access to resources and markets formerly dominated by Western and South African firms. Using a package of high-profile diplomatic and substantive financial incentives, these SOEs have been able to secure leases for oil in Angola, Sudan, and Nigeria, as well as deals gaining access to strategic minerals in countries such as Gabon, the DRC, and Zimbabwe. The proximity of top management of these SOEs to leading party officials, according to one study, ‘affords certain strategic SOEs vital political connections and a measure of input into foreign policy decisions pertaining to their particular business interests’ (Jakobson and Know 2010: 26). For developmentally minded African leaders, the attractiveness of Chinese support for infrastructure development, an area neglected by traditional Western donors in recent decades, is rooted in the visible and immediate impact that provisions for transportation and communication have on enhancing the economic potential in their respective countries, as well as improving livelihoods within beneficiary communities. These ‘resources for infrastructure’ deals, often involving billions of dollars-worth of low concessional loans by China ExIm Bank, have been carried out for the most part by Chinese construction firms, the use of contracted labourers and even basic supplies of which has been criticized in some African circles.

Moreover, the overall competitiveness of Chinese firms has meant that once exposed to the African environment, they have been able to capture a growing portion of the open tenders for infrastructure projects. According to one study, Chinese construction firms have succeeded in recent years in winning 30 per cent of the combined value of infrastructure contracts tendered by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and World Bank (Foster et al. 2007: 5–6). This trend is evident in the conduct of Chinese infrastructure and engineering firms operating in Africa as early as 1988, where in countries like Liberia, for example, the China State Construction Engineering Corporation was able to stay on and win contracts from the Liberian government to renovate the local hospital (Bräutigam 1998: 214). There are numerous contemporary examples of Chinese construction firms entering African markets via a Chinese-financed project and winning public tenders. As these contracts finish, an undetermined number of Chinese labourers brought in to work on these construction projects have stayed on in Africa to seek employment opportunities or open up small businesses.

While Chinese SOEs captivate the attention of the international media, there is an equivalent drive by Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into the continent that has made as much or more impact on local African economies and the China–Africa relationship than aspiring multinationals. Many of the medium-sized companies are drawn from the ranks of the rehabilitated SOE sector, which has been undergoing a painful restructuring process that has cut it back from 300,000 to 150,000 firms over the last decade (CSIS/IIE 2006: 23–24).5 In some cases these businesses were motivated by a desire on the part of a relatively large Chinese company to establish foreign subsidiaries so as to guarantee access to Western markets should protectionism take root (Hong and Sun 2006: 624). For many smaller businesses, the motivation, as noted above, is to make use of China’s competitive advantage relative to the African companies where they possess the relatively advanced technologies and cost-effective production needed to give them a price advantage over other local and foreign firms (ibid.: 625). Surveys of 80 Chinese SMEs working in Africa confirm that gaining access to the continent’s markets is the top business motivation (Gu 2009).

At the same time, the poor conduct of some Chinese firms operating in Africa has threatened to tarnish the overall reputation of China. China has been willing to ignore basic health and safety regulations, local labour laws, and even environmental standards within the industry by a number of Chinese mining companies based in Katanga province, DRC, which has inspired substantial criticism (Clark et al. 2008). That a collapse in commodity prices in late 2008 caused many of these companies to pull out of the DRC highlights these companies’ opportunistic and exploitative character. While Zambia has been an exemplary partner in many ways, the poor practices of a leading Chinese mining firm resulted in a flurry of accidental deaths in 2006 and, in 2010, the shooting of African labourers by Chinese managers during a labour dispute, causing the opposition political party to use anti-Chinese feelings as a mobilization strategy in their election campaigns.

Finally, the growing trend of Chinese migration in parts of Africa has not passed unnoticed in communities unaccustomed to hosting foreigners from beyond the continent. Much of the Chinese immigration has been undocumented, leading to wild speculation as to the numbers of Chinese settling in the continent, a situation further compounded by the African tendency to identify all non-Indian Asians as being ‘Chinese’. Within the continent’s leading migration destination, South Africa, the Chinese community has surged from 80,000 in the 1980s to an estimated 350,000 in 2006, though overall migration to Africa is declared by Beijing to be only 750,000 (with other estimates higher) (Park 2009: 3). Concurrently, the lack of financial means and weak skill base of many of the migrants has raised concerns amongst educated Africans and small business owners alike. The proliferation of Chinese retail shops in urban and rural communities, bringing low-cost consumer goods to African markets for the first time, is driving African-owned businesses out of the retail trade and stoking resentment in local communities.

In short, during the last decade and a half, the Chinese presence in Africa has been marked by diversity in composition and depth, defying the easy stereotypes that have accompanied many portrayals in the Western and even African media. This spectrum of Chinese actors has been further matched by changing approaches to Africa at the highest levels by authorities in Beijing and, more prosaically, by individual migration strategies. Africa’s resources may be the instigator of Chinese interests but it is clear that China’s ties with the continent are increasingly set to be anchored by an expanding cast of characters and changing relationships. The opportunities are there for enhanced African influence aimed at addressing problems or managing conflicts through direct engagement with this array of Chinese actors, if applied with a strong sense of strategic purpose. So far, this sort of approach has been best mobilized by political parties in pursuit of their narrower and more parochial interests (Corkin 2012).

The Diplomatic Cornerstone of the Relationship: The FOCAC Process

A special dimension of China’s engagement with the African continent has been the founding of a regionally tailored multilateral platform, the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). This regularized structure provides a public setting for celebrating the achievements of the relationship, an opportunity to formulate a raft of economic targets aimed at fostering mutual development interests, and a stage on which to endorse common perspectives on global issues. While some might call this multilateralism, most of the substance of economic ties (notably aid and investment agreements) continues to be rooted in bilateral relations between China and individual African states.

The FOCAC process originated with the convergence of various economic and political factors. As noted above, the economic context of China’s ‘going out’ strategy was significant, bringing with it a need for key resources which Africa could readily supply. Politically, there was a renewed push to counter Taiwan’s so-called ‘dollar diplomacy’ on the continent, which had succeeded in winning back official recognition from a number of African states by the early 1990s. This corresponded with the broader aims of revitalizing diplomatic ties with the developing world in the wake of Tiananmen and the accompanying Western opprobrium and sanctions. However, the shape of Chinese engagement as it manifested in FOCAC mirrored Japan’s Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) process, which, as interpreted by the CPC’s Central Committee, had found a successful way of responding to African requests for changes to aid policy (Ling 2010: 13). This initiative came against the backdrop of the longstanding Franco-African Summit process and a new US-led approach that culminated in a ministerial conference on Africa in 1999 and a widely touted continental tour by US President Bill Clinton.

The first FOCAC ministerial meeting, held in Beijing in 2000, organized African ambassadors as an ad hoc unit within the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The agenda ranged from strengthening development cooperation through expansion of Chinese credit facilities, to monitoring and reducing the flow of Chinese small arms. The second FOCAC ministerial meeting took place in December 2003 in Addis Ababa and produced a firm commitment to raise two-way trade to $30 billion by the next FOCAC meeting, to forgive the debt owed by 31 African countries, and to combat ‘hegemony’ in international affairs. It was, however, FOCAC III – designated a ‘summit’ by Chinese and Africans due to the invitation and participation of top political leadership – held in Beijing in November 2006, that attracted the world’s attention by bringing together the largest-ever number of African leaders in a summit outside the continent. Indeed, in that same year, both top Chinese leaders visited the continent and the Chinese government released its first-ever ‘White Paper on China’s Africa Policy’ (January 2006).

The declaration made at FOCAC III called for an increase in trade to $100 billion by the next ministerial meeting, as well as commitments to reduce tariffs on 440 items produced by Africa’s least developed countries, the creation of a $5 billion investment fund, and numerous small grant and training programmes. More recently, FOCAC IV, held in Egypt in 2009, included commitments to: a $10 billion package of concessional loans; raise African agricultural productivity; reduce or eliminate tariff barriers for Africa’s poorest countries; build hospitals and schools; establish new or expanded training programmes to address human development; provide for 100 clean energy projects; and increase support for peace and security.

What is striking about the contents of the FOCAC IV declaration is the degree to which, building upon the first three FOCAC meetings, this process reflects a growing and deliberately constructed convergence between African development needs and Chinese economic interests. It is a convergence that reflects the obvious economic asymmetries between China’s activist form of state-led capitalism and Africa’s exploitation of its under-developed resource base to attract Chinese investment and, concurrently, the paradoxical political symmetry implied in the mutual commitment to sovereign equality. For instance, in agriculture – a sector long recognized to be an area where Africa’s potential comparative advantages have remained under-invested and under-utilized (and one in which the Chinese have provided technical assistance since the 1960s) – the Chinese propose to introduce new techniques, seed varieties, and training programmes, derived from their own experience of raising productivity amongst Chinese farmers.6 To facilitate this process, the Chinese government is rolling out an additional 10 agricultural training centres across the continent in countries like Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Senegal. Coupled with this are additional financial means aimed at providing financial support for commercial enterprises. Raising Africa’s agricultural productivity will not only dramatically enhance the livelihoods of rural communities in Africa through improvements in income generation and employment, but it can address the growing food security problem in China itself.

Another example is the targeting of Africa’s SMEs for development and growth through a special $1 billion fund. Moreover, signalling that they understand that a focus on the supply side is not enough to make real development gains, Beijing has agreed to end tariffs on 95 per cent of all products from Africa’s less developed countries. Opening up China’s market to African commerce has the potential to set off a virtuous cycle of development when linked with the support for African business. At the same time, it could end up like the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which gave preferential access to the American market in sectors like clothing which contributed to a surge not so much in African but rather Asian-based investment. Africans will nevertheless have to be nimble investors to make the most out of what seems to be genuinely liberal terms on offer. Indeed, they may even find that they are competing with the growing Chinese communities within their midst who have proven entrepreneurial acumen and understanding of how the Chinese domestic market has fuelled China’s own economic transformation.

Moreover, the diversity of Chinese actors in Africa – contrary to the presumptions of the notion of ‘China–Africa’ as two unitary entities – poses a dilemma in structuring and managing the relationship. Once shaped and led by Beijing’s political elites at the top in conjunction with their African counterparts, the steady diffusion of economic power to semi-autonomous SOEs, provincial authorities and a sometimes rapacious profit-seeking private sector has introduced a diversity of interests and practice that are as often at odds with Chinese unitary foreign policy aims. The actions of murky investment houses like the China International Fund and the state-owned Angolan national oil company, Sonangol, raise troubling questions about the long-term impact of China’s role on the continent. Sonangol has leveraged Chinese (Hong Kong) finance to advance Angolan political interests and secure a huge stake in the illegal military regime in Guinea. Operating on the margins of respectability, these organizations can damage the positive intentions on display at FOCAC IV in their unwavering pursuit of profit and wilful distain for African sensibilities.

This situation also highlights one of the most notable gaps in the FOCAC process: the role of non-state actors. While much media attention was focused on what happened within the halls of the FOCAC ministerial and the press conferences, the FOCAC Business Forum met on the fringes of the event. Missing, however, was the once-mooted inclusion of a parallel Chinese-African civil society process. In the Western context, vibrant civil societies guard the underlying values that inform national foreign policies. Unabashedly critical of the state and private capital – and undoubtedly the bane of authoritarian and, at times, democratic governments alike – these sometimes self-appointed ‘voices of the people’ nonetheless serve a tremendously important function in reasserting the moral purpose of foreign policy actions. In Africa, China has seemingly exported many features of its domestic setting (such as opaque business and financial practices), including a weak civil society, the boundaries of action of which are circumscribed to varying degrees by the state. Whether the current situation, which places the burden of responsibility solely on the party leadership and bureaucracy to anticipate, manage, and ameliorate the conduct of a plethora of Chinese actors in Africa, is sufficient remains to be seen.

Conclusion

China’s emergence as a leading trade and investment partner with Africa has had a number of impacts upon the continent that suggest interesting lessons for other regions, such as Latin America. China’s economic engagement has revived the flagging fortunes of Africa’s resource-based economies, providing new investment and new markets that have contributed to the global commodity boom. China’s demand for resources has helped drive up commodity prices, while its focus on infrastructure has brought about a renewal of donor interest in financing vital improvements in that neglected sector. At the same time, the Chinese approach to financing its expanding role in the resource sector through provision for hard infrastructure, it could be argued, is crucially dependent upon the very dearth of that in the target country. As the South African case demonstrates, middle-income countries with reasonably well-developed infrastructure, existing local company expertise, strong labour unions, and an established regulatory environment can be less attractive investment destinations. However, other Chinese actors – notably those in the financial sector – are drawn to these settings as they provide a stronger institutional framework that supports their pursuit of profits.

In political terms, the African example suggests that China can provide a welcome alternative to the established sources of trade and investment, not least because they are less concerned with using the development process as an instrument for the imposition of normative transformation on target states, and more concerned with using mutual economic interests (cf. Williams, this volume). The revival of African economic fortunes has had a direct impact on the international stature of African leaders, allowing them to challenge the certitudes that informed the approach adopted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ‘donor cartel’. The result is not, as some critics have feared, a shift away from the North, but rather a diversification of development partnerships which – at least in those African countries with sound and committed political leadership – offer an unprecedented opportunity to use all means available for achieving development.

Change and adaptability remain the hallmarks of China–Africa relations and – to the credit of the Chinese government’s willingness to revisit and revise specific initiatives in light of experience on the ground – give the relationship a dynamism lacking in many other trans-regional initiatives (see Khadiagala; Mshomba, both this volume). China’s experience in Africa in many ways has provided a short, sharp lesson in the ease of breaking into the relatively neglected African terrain (by China) and, at the same time, the increasing difficulties for African countries in securing their interests over the long term. Africa should welcome China’s willingness to maintain its focus on building long-term economic relationships on the continent, despite obstacles encountered on the ground and, more recently, the adverse global economic climate. Africa has long complained about its investors’ limited interests, but now it has met a different kind of partner. While there are many potential benefits for African states from their relationships with China, Chinese actors’ narrower, and often self-serving, interests are a challenge to ensuring that this carefully constructed relationship with the continent stays on course.

Notes

1For a detailed account on energy security emergence as China’s foreign policy major driver see Zweig and Jianhai (2005).

2China occupies the fifth position as producer after Saudi Arabia and the Russian Federation (both with 12.6 per cent), the United States (8 per cent) and Iran (5.4 per cent) (BPC 2008: 9).

3US refinery capacity and output share are 20 per cent of total, over twice China’s share (BPC 2008: 18).

4Although Angola’s production has been increasing exponentially, this situation is partly due to increasing unrest in Nigerian southern oil fields.

5At a cost of 25 million unemployed, this sector having formerly employed 80 per cent of all Chinese workers.

6For an overview of Chinese technical assistance in agricultural sector in Africa, see Bräutigam (1998).

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