Global Issues: Poverty and Development: Africa-China relations mutually beneficial.

Much has been made of the fact that China is engaged in a ‘re-scramble for Africa’ scooping out its resources and giving deals governments can’t refuse, thus fuelling skewed development and corruption. However, there is an interesting article in China-Africa relations seen as mutually beneficial: analysts in China’s People’s Daily which gives a different picture. The gist of it is that China-Africa relations will continue to grow mutually in the coming years, benefiting the two partners without either taking undue advantage of the other, foreign policy analysts have said. A greater deal of mutuality means that XChina is not exploiting Africa and that the relationship is beneficial and aiding development - especially in funding infrastructure projects the west has vered away from or attached conditions to [such as guarantees of oil] while getting this stamped by World Bank. A recent report by Chatham house on China’s ‘soft Power’ highlights China’s emergence as an alternative economic partner and this seems to be the major source of attraction for other developing states

At a recent talk here by Gen. Jasbir Singh Lidder, Deputy UN Special Representative to Sudan, he was asked what he thought about Chinese as opposed to western investment/aid in Africa - his response was simple ‘Developing countries want one thing - to develop. To them it doesn’t necessarily matter where the investment comes from’.

Here is the text from the article:

Here is the text from the article:China-Africa relations will continue to grow mutually in the coming years, benefiting the two partners without either taking undue advantage of the other, foreign policy analysts have said.

Tom Cargill, assistant head of the African Program at the London-based think tank Chatham House told Xinhua recently that the notion that Africa may not be getting enough benefits from its relations with China are misplaced. Our report on China-Angola shows that on the contrary. Some African countries are making maximum gains from relations with China,” he said in an interview. “If you have a government that knows how to make deals, it can get lots of gains from relations with China,” Cargill said. Analysts have said China has provided funding for strategic post-conflict infrastructure projects in Angola that Western donors declined to fund.

The shift toward China was partly because non-Chinese credit lines that Angola secured in 2004 demanded higher guarantees of oil, according to a working paper by the Chatham House.It said China’s investments in rehabilitation of hyro- electricity dams, construction of roads, hospitals and residential houses have helped to ease poverty levels in the formerly war- ravaged African country. Cargill said the idea that China is big and is therefore taking advantage of Africa is wrong. “Africa is like any other player in the world today, with its own interests to take care of and has the capacity to negotiate better deals.”

He said there is a growing convergence of China-Africa private sector through mergers and acquisitions and this will mark the next phase of these relations that have been dominated by government to government contact. “Overall, I will say that China-Africa relations are very important and beneficial to Africa,” Cargill added.

East African Community Secretary General Juma Mwapachu has said that China and India are providing new markets to Africa and this is reflected in Africa selling less and less to previous key trading blocs like the European Union. “China is not exploiting Africa because there is a big deal of mutuality,” he said in a recent interview.

He said EU and the United States have for example persistently dragged their feet to invest in infrastructure in Africa by giving several conditions, a trend that has been stamped by the World Bank. This meant that even when Africa leaned towards the EU and the United States, investments in infrastructure, the key catalyst of economic growth, was sluggish, and this affected the pace of development. “But now China has come. it is building the infrastructure and there is a win-win situation between the two entities,” Mwapachu said.