Africa apprehensive about excessive Chinese involvement
5 Aug 2007
With the US$55 billion Afro-Chinese trade deal and more than 700 active companies operating in the continent, the Africans are bit suspicious about the Chinese deal. China gets roughly a third of the African oil and many other important natural resources from the continent. These assets have helped fuel China's remarkable economic growth. But China has been accused of exploiting Africa's wealth of natural products.
To counter this, China has pledged to overtake the World Bank as Africa's main financial provider. At the November 2006 summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), China pledged US$5 billion to set up a China-Africa development fund encouraging Chinese companies to invest in and provide financial support to Africa.
It also promised to train 15,000 African professionals, send 100 senior Chinese agricultural experts to Africa and set up 10 agricultural technology demonstration centres over the next three years.
In February this year, the Chinese president Hu Jintao visited eight African countries (Angola, Cameroon, Liberia, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Sudan and Zambia) and pledged millions of dollars worth of investment. For instance, China promised US$800 million over the next three years to Zambia. With some of this money, it plans to establish an economic zone in the country.
Cephas Mukuka, assistant national executive secretary of the Zambia Federation of Free Trade Union says little has been done by China to support the growth of local industries. He reportedly said that the Zambian government should come up with a policy to compel Chinese investors to help set up infrastructure to aid technology transfer in Zambia. He also added that China should commit to long-term investment and set up a university of science and technology in Zambia to help build local capacity to ensure that China does not gain more from the African deal.
"Current investment is not working to build our local technology expertise, but aims at using (Zambia for) casual labour," Simwanza says.
Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa says now that plans for the economic zone are in place, a policy for transferring expertise and technology should be developed. The move would help create much needed training and employment opportunities for local people.
There is growing criticism about fake imports from china to the continent, which is aggravating the continent’s problem instead of solving them. Also the Chinese labourers are facing resistance from the local trade unions as well as other activists in the continent.
In Nigeria, China has gradually eclipsed the United States as Nigeria's import partner with 11 per cent of trade and about 20,000 Chinese presently living and working in the country.
The average Nigerian resents the use of Chinese labourers in construction projects and perceives the Chinese as harsh employers. Nigeria's pharmaceutical and textile industries are suffering from what appears to be 'dumping' of Chinese pharmaceutical and textiles and from counterfeit goods originating in China.
The Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, rejects criticism that his country is only interested in Africa because of its raw materials. At a meeting of the African Development Bank in China in May, Wen said his country is committed to helping Africa develop in all sectors of the economy.
Some of the problems arising from China's investment and donations have been caused because China is a newcomer to international aid issues, says Zeng Aiping from the African Research Centre at the Peking University in China.
Zeng says China's low level of activity in African science and technology so far is because the country is still learning science from the West and is not accustomed to exporting its science to developing countries such as Africa.
At present, Zeng says, Chinese economic activity in Africa is very business-centred, and research is still highly connected to Chinese companies.
Xue Hong, director of development assistance research at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, agreed. He told SciDev.Net that China's scientific presence in Africa is highly enterprise-oriented, mainly existing in telecommunications, and sometimes in the mining or oil industries. He says that Chinese enterprises are the main source of Chinese money in Africa, but this is mainly because China has not developed a mature foreign assistance system that can operate independently.
Xue added that many Chinese companies have not been in Africa long enough to develop the capacity to involve local people. He added that China is also inexperienced in the culture and politics of Africa.
To aid this technology transfer Mwananyanda Lewanika, President of the Zambia Academy of Sciences, believes that it is up to African policy makers to make sure that Chinese funding is directed to priority areas.
Namibia is already taking steps to set up priorities for Chinese investment. The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that Namibia has asked China to consider seconding experts in infrastructure development in sectors such as agriculture, health, training in information and communication technology and human resources to the African country.
Although layered with a range of suspicions and apprehensions, given the amount of trade that takes place between China and Africa, it looks as if China's presence in Africa is for the long term. What remains to be seen is the kind of relationship that the continent would be sharing with China in near future.
Released on: 5 August 2007
Resource: www.allafrica.com
