So what are the Chinese up to in Africa?

So what are the Chinese up to in Africa?

Not trying to imply that their actions are necessarily sinister. But, at a time when the Prez has just been down there pondering the West’s next moves, it may be as well to look closely at the burgeoning Chinese operation. We might learn something.

Chinese presence in Africa isn’t new; they were there frustrating the Soviets in the Sixties. And, on my own first visit to darkest Africa in 1993, I visited the in-house casino at my hotel in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. It was chock full of Chinese, who all over the world will gravitate towards gambling-hells like moths to a lamp. Is Africa still to be China’s casino?

One’s first reflection on Chinese aid to Africa is that its motivation must be cynical, that the Chinese can’t possibly really care about poverty in Africa, that they’re just sucking up to Third World governments by offering aid without political strings attached. This is not quite true, incidentally – following the PRC line on Taiwan is de rigueur for recipients. But the kind of “good governance” criteria we try to apply are, of course, totally ignored by the Chinese.

But perhaps there is no need to be so negative. The Chinese are, after all, pretty good at large infrastructural projects; like other dictatorships, they can build autobahns. They can be much more hands-on than Western agencies, as they can provide their own labour at rock-bottom cost.

At first they made mistakes, treating Africans with a rather high hand (there is no political correctness in China and their view of African capacities is not high). But they are now more circumspect, and of course they understand the culture of the kickback as well as anyone, whereas we have to pretend not to.

And as for good governance, yes we know that bad governance is the single biggest cause of Third World poverty, but how much have we really achieved with all our efforts in that direction?

So perhaps we should look more kindly on China, while not forgetting that their main foreign policy objective is to create a solid bloc of sovereignty-obsessed non-interventionist dictatorships (”Tyranny International”) with the aim of thwarting any drive towards global democracy.