Article on Chinese expansion in Africa

[Seth]

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111102/ap_on_go_co/us_us_africa_china_3

Senators: US losing sway in Africa as China rises




By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press – 1 hr 53 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Senators voiced concern Tuesday that the United States has lost influence with African governments as China has emerged as the continent's main trading partner and a major source of investment for infrastructure development.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations African affairs subcommittee, said the U.S. goal of promoting open societies in Africa was being challenged by China offering no-strings-attached investment for repressive regimes.
Coons said about 70 percent of Chinese assistance to Africa comes in the form of roads, stadiums and government buildings, often built with Chinese material and labor, while 70 percent of U.S. government spending there goes toward crucial but less visible support for people, particularly to fight AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases.
"We may be winning the war on disease, while losing the battle for hearts and minds in Africa," Coons told a subcommittee hearing on China's role in Africa and its implications for U.S. policy.
Coons' comments echo a common theme among U.S. policymakers, that China's rise as an economic and political power challenges America's global predominance.
[ For complete coverage of politics and policy, go to Yahoo! Politics (http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/SIG=10q18uidm/**http%3A//yhoo.it/hDEOiz) ]

Lawmakers criticized China's state-backed support for governments with poor human rights records.
"China is interested in their own goals and has very little concern about the governance of the countries that they deal with," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.
But experts told the panel that by supplying loans for infrastructure development, often in return for exports of commodities China needs for its own economic growth, the Asian power was responding to what African governments want, and filling a need unmet by Western nations.
David Shinn, adjunct professor at George Washington University and former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso, gave the example of Angola, which had unsuccessfully sought Western investment after its civil war, and instead turned to China, which helped develop infrastructure in return for the promise of oil exports.
Deborah Brautigam, a professor at American University, said Chinese investment was often perceived to have a negative impact on human rights and democracy, principally because of Beijing's support of Zimbabwe and Sudan. But she said there was no evidence that political rights and freedom had declined in general across the continent.
Shinn, however, believed Chinese investment had to some degree undermined Western goals of promoting democracy, good governance and human rights. He said there also was evidence of Chinese companies importing technology to enable certain governments, such as Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, to restrict the flow of information on the Internet.
He said China passed the United States as Africa's most important trade partner in 2009. In 2010, China-Africa trade totaled $127 billion, compared with U.S.-Africa trade of $113 billion. China also possibly is investing more in Africa than any other single country, he said.
Stephen Hayes, president of the Corporate Council on Africa, a group representing U.S. businesses in Africa, told the hearing that U.S. embassies should do more to advance American commercial interests. He also wanted the U.S. aid program to promote U.S. businesses as a partner in African development.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

There is definitely a legitimate concern over China's involvement in Africa--

but it certainly doesn't come from U.S. politicians. They're just annoyed they have such a bad reputation.


"China is interested in their own goals and has very little concern about the governance of the countries that they deal with," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.

Funny how that seems to apply to a certain other nation's interest in the region, too...

[Yazman]

I dunno Takayuki, the Chinese approach to investment and expansion in Africa has been very different to that of the US.

What that quote means, is that the Chinese government takes a hands-off approach when it comes to the internal affairs of countries they invest in. Namely, they don't try to act like "world police" and they don't have a billion policy strings attached when it comes to investment. They often keep out of the internal affairs and simply do whatever business they go there to do.

That's why a lot of countries have been preferring Chinese investment over European or US investment, because with the latter two there are usually strings attached - i.e. make these reforms or else we'll take our money and go home.

I think when it comes to expansion in Africa I would rather it be China simply because of this approach. Let Africans run their damn countries and let the people fight their own struggles. Attempts to control their politics lead to far worse colonialism, imo.

I don't think this policy means actual support for reactionary governments.

[Red Future]

If China experiences another Socialist Revolution from its working class , this could lead to the revitalising of Left -Wing politics in Africa because of the contacts that it is now developing.

[RadioRaheem84]

If an actual left wing socialist rebellion took over China, then game over for the West.

[Iron Felix]

Left-wing socialist rebellion in China? Please! There isn't a single worker in China that isn't oppressed by what they perceive as "socialism". Either way, an implentation of old-style socialism would be disastrous to China's economy.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The US politicians are just complaining because they don't like competition.


I dunno Takayuki, the Chinese approach to investment and expansion in Africa has been very different to that of the US.

What that quote means, is that the Chinese government takes a hands-off approach when it comes to the internal affairs of countries they invest in. Namely, they don't try to act like "world police" and they don't have a billion policy strings attached when it comes to investment. They often keep out of the internal affairs and simply do whatever business they go there to do.

That's why a lot of countries have been preferring Chinese investment over European or US investment, because with the latter two there are usually strings attached - i.e. make these reforms or else we'll take our money and go home.

I think when it comes to expansion in Africa I would rather it be China simply because of this approach. Let Africans run their damn countries and let the people fight their own struggles. Attempts to control their politics lead to far worse colonialism, imo.

I don't think this policy means actual support for reactionary governments.

On the contrary, this is no less Imperialistic. The Chinese approach empowers the local bourgeois and corrupt government officials and turns them into servants of Chinese interests. Their "no-strings attached" approach also means that they support governments which are often genocidal, IE the Sudanese government, or are just generally anti-democratic states like Zimbabwe. Their lack of "strings attached" means that they are willing to invest in countries like Zimbabwe, no matter what bigoted views their government uphold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Zimbabwe).

Also, like other "3rd-world" Imperialist states like India, the Gulf states and the former Libyan regime, China purchased vast amounts of land from 3rd world governments for food export (ie, import to China) (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/58809). This is an imperialist land grab plain and simple. It drives subsistence farmers off their land, usually with little serious restitution of course. So the Chinese method of Imperialism is better for the national bourgeois, but no better for the working class or the subsistence farmers, or quite often also for various social minorities (like ethnic groups, gays etc).


How about both the PRC and USA stop viewing Africa as a place with limitless exploitable resources?

[Ocean Seal]

Its just US fearmongering. Honestly, yes, China is expanding into Africa, but they don't hold a candle to the US in terms of control. Its probably just their excuse to go into Africa and save Africa from the Chinese who don't care about helping Africa develop. Nevermind that the US was in a war less than a month ago where they installed an incredibly backwards, religious fundamentalist, racist regime in North Africa.

[Seth]

Please! There isn't a single worker in China that isn't oppressed by what they perceive as "socialism".

Do they really? I'd imagine modern China would leave no room for mistaking it as a socialist society, regardless of what the government says.


Either way, an implentation of old-style socialism would be disastrous to China's economy.

There's a couple things wrong with this, but most importantly why do we care about China's economy as it is currently constituted?

[Seth]

Seriously, China has been the leader in the "land grab" going on in various regions of Africa. Saying it's less imperialistic is nonsense.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I dunno Takayuki, the Chinese approach to investment and expansion in Africa has been very different to that of the US.

What that quote means, is that the Chinese government takes a hands-off approach when it comes to the internal affairs of countries they invest in. Namely, they don't try to act like "world police" and they don't have a billion policy strings attached when it comes to investment. They often keep out of the internal affairs and simply do whatever business they go there to do.

That's why a lot of countries have been preferring Chinese investment over European or US investment, because with the latter two there are usually strings attached - i.e. make these reforms or else we'll take our money and go home.

The Chinese are building up leverage. They are not dumb, they have learned from the mistakes the U.S. and European powers have committed in the region (particularly with taking sides), for this reason they avoid it and just sprinkle some support hither thither wherever they think it suits them the best. They are also benefiting from not being associated with the pasts colonial and neo-colonial endeavours (they are working on it, though, obviously, but they don't have it in the baggage just yet).


I don't think this policy means actual support for reactionary governments. Not directly, no. But they are not moralists. They don't even pretend to be - like Europe and the U.S. do, speaking of "democracy" and "freedom" as they do. They put their money where there is the most return, is all, and when this is a democracy, they do that, and when this is a corrupt dictatorship, it's all the same.

Yes, China invests in some local infrastructure. So? They rebuild the old railways that the British and other colonial powers built. For the very same reasons: to export raw materials and resources to satisfy the needs of the industry at home, in China. Capitalism reaching out with its tentacles and grabbing the nutrients it needs to feed its machinery.

[Jose Gracchus]

China's investment may seem superficially less reactionary but...

1.) It literally constitutes imperialism by Lenin's definition and theory, which most board members probably support.

2.) By what qualification is China's capitalist international self-interested policies substantively "not as bad" as U.S. policy? They're more straight business. No one seems to have come up with any political argument justifying or qualifying this. For instance, if you're a Leninist on the imperialism question picking amongst rival imperialisms seems dubious.

3.) As does preferring Chinese investment because it has "fewer strings"--in a word, so? Why should revolutionary socialists sympathize anymore with the spokesperson of 'independence'--do we have a political stake in the preferred development of local capitals as communists?

[Yazman]

The Chinese are building up leverage. They are not dumb, they have learned from the mistakes the U.S. and European powers have committed in the region (particularly with taking sides), for this reason they avoid it and just sprinkle some support hither thither wherever they think it suits them the best. They are also benefiting from not being associated with the pasts colonial and neo-colonial endeavours (they are working on it, though, obviously, but they don't have it in the baggage just yet).

Not directly, no. But they are not moralists. They don't even pretend to be - like Europe and the U.S. do, speaking of "democracy" and "freedom" as they do. They put their money where there is the most return, is all, and when this is a democracy, they do that, and when this is a corrupt dictatorship, it's all the same.

Yes, China invests in some local infrastructure. So? They rebuild the old railways that the British and other colonial powers built. For the very same reasons: to export raw materials and resources to satisfy the needs of the industry at home, in China. Capitalism reaching out with its tentacles and grabbing the nutrients it needs to feed its machinery.

I actually totally agree with you - I don't dispute that it is imperialism. I was more trying to differentiate the approaches of the US and China as they are quite different. Realistically though reactionary is still reactionary and we shouldn't support either.

[A Marxist Historian]

Left-wing socialist rebellion in China? Please! There isn't a single worker in China that isn't oppressed by what they perceive as "socialism". Either way, an implentation of old-style socialism would be disastrous to China's economy.

Until this year, the Chinese working class was the most militant in the world lately. And it's still the only place in the world where the economy is making real progress, for the masses not just for the elite like in India or Brazil, and the standard of living of the working class is going up not down. Reason being the obvious, that China is the only really significant country in the world which isn't capitalist. Sure, there's plenty of capitalism and a rising capitalist class, but the central components of the economy, and especially the banks, are run by the Chinese Communist Party not by all the new millionaires. Politics not Adam Smith's invisible hand in command.

Going back to oldstyle Maoism would indeed be disastrous, which is why the Chinese left, most of which is Maoist, isn't making a lot of headway. There's a reason why the Chinese government is just about the only one in the world actually popular with the average citizenry, as Gallup polls have illustrated. Economically, Deng's policies just work better than Maoist dogmatism.

That Chinese investment in Africa, though certainly self-serving and with little actual concern for African working people, is non-imperialist and therefore actually benefits African countries unlike the vampire methods of the US, is yet more evidence that China is still not a capitalist country, despite the "capitalist roadist" political line of the Stalinist bureaucrats running China. (And they are definitely Stalinist, they even say so, unlike a lot of our shy "M.-L."s here on Revleft.)

For more, here's an excellent analysis of China'r role in Africa:

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/wv/987/china-africa.htm

-M.H.-l

[A Marxist Historian]

China's investment may seem superficially less reactionary but...

1.) It literally constitutes imperialism by Lenin's definition and theory, which most board members probably support.

2.) By what qualification is China's capitalist international self-interested policies substantively "not as bad" as U.S. policy? They're more straight business. No one seems to have come up with any political argument justifying or qualifying this. For instance, if you're a Leninist on the imperialism question picking amongst rival imperialisms seems dubious.

3.) As does preferring Chinese investment because it has "fewer strings"--in a word, so? Why should revolutionary socialists sympathize anymore with the spokesperson of 'independence'--do we have a political stake in the preferred development of local capitals as communists?

Well, no. By Lenin's definition, imperialism is the export of capital to gain superprofits by superexploitation. What the Chinese are basically after is access to raw materials. They *are not* investing in Africa due to lower wages of African workers, indeed one of the biggest criticisms made of them in Africa is the tendency to export Chinese workers, at Chinese wage scales, to do a lot of the work instead of hiring Africans.

Now, a lot of Chinese private businessmen latch onto this like leeches, and there you definitely have Chinese microimperialism, with brutal treatment of the African workforce on the western imperialist model. But most of the investments are by state owned companies, and there it is very well known that the Chinese companies pay the African workers a lot better than US companies. This is particularly glaring in Sudan, where you have Chinese companies that workers flock to work for side by side in the same industries companies owned by western investors that are horror stories.

This is not because the Chinese bureaucrats are nice guys, but simply because profit is not the main objective of the investments, so they don't *need* to cut wages below the livability point, and political considerations of good relations with the Sudanese government and not pissing off the general population are more important.

-M.H.-

[Jose Gracchus]

Lenin's say-so don't make it so. Glad I guess you think U.S. imperialism to access Chilean copper is principled.

[maskerade]

Chinese aid to Africa is very dubious, and I've been unfortunate to see it first hand. Labour is imported from China, and by that I mean boatloads of Chinese prisoners who construct everything for no payment, virtually securing Government contracts due to extremely low labour costs (read: none). Not to mention the fact that Chinese aid is the very essence of dependency theory - in consumerist terms, for example, cheap Chinese products flood the market, but don't last very long and thus secure continued import from the same source which provided the imports in the first place. In other words, the informal economy in most African countries - the source of almost all 'employment' - is reliant on Chinese capitalism. If this isn't a capitalist's wet dream, I don't know what is.

Unfortunately, the problem is much more complex than 'China vs. USA'. African states are modelled on the colonial administrations, which were set up for the sole purpose of exploitation. Combined with a mimicked culture of kleptocracy amongst many African politicians, and an international trade regime which perpetuates African misery, there isn't much scope for change in Africa's contemporary role in world politics.

[Fedorov]

Well ok first off yes the labour is Chinese but it is not prison labour, (although if you have sources I'd be more than glad to take your point) but rather regular Chinese accepting higher pay through a glorified image of working abroad. As stated before the primary reason most underdeveloped countries prefer Chinese investement is precisely as stated before, NO STRINGS ATTATCHED. Whether these funds end up in their proper places or whether the governments of these countries are indeed popular or legitimate does not concern the PRC. Essentially the Chinese are just playing a better game at aggressive capitalist enterprise so hats off to "outcapitalizing" the original captialists if that makes sense. I mean who cares really in the end, I don't see the West or Chinese investment as being more "progressive" than the other in the end.

[maskerade]

Well ok first off yes the labour is Chinese but it is not prison labour, (although if you have sources I'd be more than glad to take your point) but rather regular Chinese accepting higher pay through a glorified image of working abroad. As stated before the primary reason most underdeveloped countries prefer Chinese investement is precisely as stated before, NO STRINGS ATTATCHED. Whether these funds end up in their proper places or whether the governments of these countries are indeed popular or legitimate does not concern the PRC. Essentially the Chinese are just playing a better game at aggressive capitalist enterprise so hats off to "outcapitalizing" the original captialists if that makes sense. I mean who cares really in the end, I don't see the West or Chinese investment as being more "progressive" than the other in the end.

Yea, you've got your conclusion right, but the causes are eschewed. It is prison labour, this is common knowledge, I can't satisfy your need for a 'source' because there is no reporting on it that I am aware of, I can only present eye witness accounts of their living and working conditions; that doesn't mean that serious investment isn't being pursued. Undoubtedly, China takes its mission in the African continent very seriously, but that isn't reflected in the labourers, rather in the diplomatic presence and gestures offered by the Chinese state. In Mozambique, for example, China constructs almost all government projects outside the direct influence of the EU (all European aid has to be channelled towards European companies), such as the waste of money that is the recent hosting of the All African Games. This was traded for most of the timber in Northern Mozambique, the same story can be seen in Madagascar.

Ultimately, this is capitalist interest taking shape in the form of 'no strings attached' exploitation. The leaders of the postcolonial states are just as much to blame as the Chinese; they have betrayed the postcolonial aspirations for revolution and have become internationally legitimized through their adherence to neoliberal hegemony.

EDIT: there is a very real and serious reason why there isn't reporting on this: our Western notions of capitalist 'freedom of speech' are not respected by most African states (I, unfortunately, can only speak from experience in Mozambique, where I have spent a substantial amount of time). Most people live beyond the sphere of influence of newspapers and media, so most government dealings go unnoticed, if not unreported. The best source is to look up trade agreements and statistics between individual African countries and China, and with our leftist sentiments, dots can be connected.

[A Marxist Historian]

Lenin's say-so don't make it so. Glad I guess you think U.S. imperialism to access Chilean copper is principled.

"Access"? Who is denying them access? There is nothing more any Chilean government would like to do than sell copper to anyone who wants to buy it. This would be equally true if Chile were a workers state.

Now, if the Chinese were staging coups in African countries to guarantee themselves access to African raw materials, after the Kissinger/Pinochet model, that'd be imperialism. But that's exactly what they don't do, to the point that liberals criticize them for trading with nasty, nasty governments like the Sudanese without practicing US style "humanitarian imperialism" on them.

Ya know, like in that song so popular when Clinton was Prez, "we rule the world, we kill the children..." Or was it "we are the world"? I forget...

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Yea, you've got your conclusion right, but the causes are eschewed. It is prison labour, this is common knowledge, I can't satisfy your need for a 'source' because there is no reporting on it that I am aware of, I can only present eye witness accounts of their living and working conditions; that doesn't mean that serious investment isn't being pursued. Undoubtedly, China takes its mission in the African continent very seriously, but that isn't reflected in the labourers, rather in the diplomatic presence and gestures offered by the Chinese state. In Mozambique, for example, China constructs almost all government projects outside the direct influence of the EU (all European aid has to be channelled towards European companies), such as the waste of money that is the recent hosting of the All African Games. This was traded for most of the timber in Northern Mozambique, the same story can be seen in Madagascar.

Ultimately, this is capitalist interest taking shape in the form of 'no strings attached' exploitation. The leaders of the postcolonial states are just as much to blame as the Chinese; they have betrayed the postcolonial aspirations for revolution and have become internationally legitimized through their adherence to neoliberal hegemony.

EDIT: there is a very real and serious reason why there isn't reporting on this: our Western notions of capitalist 'freedom of speech' are not respected by most African states (I, unfortunately, can only speak from experience in Mozambique, where I have spent a substantial amount of time). Most people live beyond the sphere of influence of newspapers and media, so most government dealings go unnoticed, if not unreported. The best source is to look up trade agreements and statistics between individual African countries and China, and with our leftist sentiments, dots can be connected.

do they use prison labor? Not in most African countries, there's been plenty of reportage in the Western press denouncing the Chinese for this that and the other thing that I've read, and that's the first time I've seen any mention of that. But, come to think of it, I've seen stuff about Angola and the Sudan and Peru and Kenya, but never anything about Mozambique. Mozambique could easily be an ugly exception, and you were there and you're an eyewitness.

That is Stalinism at its very worst, the old gulag model of the 1930s. I wouldn't put it past the Chinese leadership at all. This is not however necessarily capitalism.

Of course there is a large and growing Chinese capitalist class, they do invest overseas, and they are notorious. But the central elements of the Chinese economy are state, and don't operate necessarily on capitalist principles, except when the party leadership wants them to.

Capitalism isn't just an attitude and a policy, it's a system. The US is a capitalist country, China is not, and the Chinese capitalists are very aware of that and want to change it.

-M.H.-

[Yazman]

Yea, you've got your conclusion right, but the causes are eschewed. It is prison labour, this is common knowledge, I can't satisfy your need for a 'source' because there is no reporting on it that I am aware of, I can only present eye witness accounts of their living and working conditionsSo you have no hard evidence whatsoever and can't even provide a basic source talking about it, and you want us to accept it on face value? This is a forum full of people who rely on reason and evidence. It's why we are mostly atheists.

So, unless you're going to provide some sort of evidence, I think it's fair to say that we aren't likely going to believe this claim.


Ya know, like in that song so popular when Clinton was Prez, "we rule the world, we kill the children..." Or was it "we are the world"? I forget...We Are The World was when REAGAN was president, not Clinton. it came out in 1985. Seriously though it seems pretty silly to criticise that of all things, considering WATW was mostly just to generate funds for food aid. Nothing particularly imperialist there. Now, development certainly you can call imperialist but WATW? Come on, that's really a big stretch, imo.

[Jose Gracchus]

So now it is how 'bellicose' the foreign policy is, that makes imperialism? And here I thought it was an inevitable by-product of a globalized exchange economy, necessarily reproducing the capitalism's tendencies, like turning zones into particular monoculture economies due to 'comparative advantage', or keeping wages low, etc.

[A Marxist Historian]

So you have no hard evidence whatsoever and can't even provide a basic source talking about it, and you want us to accept it on face value? This is a forum full of people who rely on reason and evidence. It's why we are mostly atheists.

So, unless you're going to provide some sort of evidence, I think it's fair to say that we aren't likely going to believe this claim.

We Are The World was when REAGAN was president, not Clinton. it came out in 1985. Seriously though it seems pretty silly to criticise that of all things, considering WATW was mostly just to generate funds for food aid. Nothing particularly imperialist there. Now, development certainly you can call imperialist but WATW? Come on, that's really a big stretch, imo.

But it *stayed* popular when Clinton was Prez, and all those liberals involved with WATW were supporting terrorbombing Serbia and starving and terrorbombing Iraq. And helping the starving with food aid for Somalia, till Black Hawk went Down.

The soggy Democratic Party liberalism of the '80s was just prep for the pseudoliberal imperialism of the '90s, when Hillary's husband started the whole WMD crap, and was only prevented from invading Iraq by Monica Lewinsky. So he had to make do with wagging the dog and bombing Serbia.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

So now it is how 'bellicose' the foreign policy is, that makes imperialism? And here I thought it was an inevitable by-product of a globalized exchange economy, necessarily reproducing the capitalism's tendencies, like turning zones into particular monoculture economies due to 'comparative advantage', or keeping wages low, etc.

SWounds vaguely Luxemburgist, or one of those once-fashionable New Left theorists like Wallerstein. I'll stick with Lenin and Hilferding. Highest stage of capitalism, superprofit due monopoly combined with lower organic composition of capital in the Third World, etc. Science not moralism.

-M.H.-