China into Africa: Trade, Aid, and Influence

351 Pages·2008·1.99 MB·English

by  Robert I. Rotberg

China
into

afriCa
TRade, aId, Influence
and
Robert I. Rotberg,
editor
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china
into
africa
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ch i na
into
africa
Trade, Aid, and Influence
robert i. rotberg
Editor
brookings institution press
Washington, D.C.
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about brookings
The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organization devoted to research,education,and
publication on important issues ofdomestic and foreign policy.Its principal purpose is to bring
the highest quality independent research and analysis to bear on current and emerging policy
problems.Interpretations or conclusions in Brookings publications should be understood to be
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Copyright © 2008
world peace foundation
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All rights reserved.No part ofthis publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means without permission in writing from the Brookings Institution Press.
China into Africa: Trade, Aid, and Influencemay be ordered from:
Brookings Institution Press,c/o HFS,P.O.Box 50370,Baltimore,MD 21211-4370
Tel.:[phone] 410/516-6956 Fax:[phone]
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Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication data
China into Africa :trade,aid,and influence / Robert I.Rotberg,editor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:“Discusses the evolving symbiosis between Africa and China and specifies its likely
implications.Among the specific topics tackled here are China's interest in African oil,military
and security relations,the influx and goals ofChinese aid to sub-Saharan Africa,human rights
issues,and China's overall strategy in the region”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-8157-7561-4 (pbk.:alk.paper)
1.China—Foreign relations—Africa. 2.Africa—Foreign relations—China. 3.China—
Foreign economic relations—Africa. 4.Africa—Foreign economic relations—China.
I.Rotberg,Robert II.Title.
DS740.5.A34C45 2008
303.48'25106—dc22 2008031155
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets minimum requirements ofthe
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence ofPaper for
Printed Library Materials:ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Typeset in Minion
Composition by Cynthia Stock
Silver Spring,Maryland
Printed by R.R.Donnelley
Harrisonburg,Virginia
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Contents
Preface vii
1 China’s Quest for Resources,Opportunities,
and Influence in Africa 1
Robert I. Rotberg
2 China’s New Policy toward Africa 21
Li Anshan
3 China’s Emerging Strategic Partnerships in Africa 50
Wenran Jiang
4 Africa and China:Engaging Postcolonial
Interdependencies 65
Stephanie Rupp
5 Chinese-African Trade and Investment:
The Vanguard ofSouth-South Commerce in
the Twenty-First Century 87
Harry G. Broadman
6 Searching for Oil:China’s Oil Strategies in Africa 109
Henry Lee and Dan Shalmon
7 Special Economic Zones:China’s Developmental
Model Comes to Africa 137
Martyn J. Davies
v
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vi Contents
8 Military and Security Relations:China,Africa,
and the Rest ofthe World 155
David H. Shinn
9 China’s Foreign Aid in Africa:What Do We Know? 197
Deborah Brautigam
10 Chinese Concessional Loans 217
Paul Hubbard
11 China’s Political Outreach to Africa 230
Joshua Eisenman
12 China’s Role in Human Rights Abuses in Africa:
Clarifying Issues ofCulpability 250
Stephen Brown and Chandra Lekha Sriram
13 “Peaceful Rise”and Human Rights:China’s Expanding
Relations with Nigeria 272
Ndubisi Obiorah, Darren Kew, and YusufTanko
14 China’s Renewed Partnership with Africa:
Implications for the United States 296
Chin-Hao Huang
Contributors 313
Index 319
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Preface
A
frica attracted China as early as the T’ang dynasty (A.D.618–907);
ninth century reports of the meat-eating, ivory-exporting people of
Po-pa-li in the “southwestern sea”may refer to the inhabitants ofwhat is now
modern Kenya or Tanzania.By the eleventh or twelfth centuries,the city-
state dwellers from Pate to Kilwa along the eastern African coast appeared to
have been shipping elephant tusks,rhinoceros horn,tortoise shell,aromatic
woods,incense,and myrrh directly or indirectly to southern China.During
the Sung dynasty (A.D. 1127–1279), Chinese shipping was common
throughout the western reaches ofthe Indian Ocean.Chinese objects from
this period of all kinds, including specie, have been found from today’s
Somalia to Mozambique.Chinese references to k’un lun—slaves as “black as
ink”—are also common from Sung times.But it is from the fifteenth century
that we can date China’s first certain direct involvement with Africa.Between
1417 and 1431, the Ming emperors dispatched three large expeditions to
eastern Africa to collect walking proofofthe celestial approval oftheir vir-
tuous and harmonious reigns.Only Africa could supply a confirmation of
these blessings;the arrival ofunicorns from distant lands would supply the
propitious signs ofheaven’s mandate,and only in Africa could unicorns—
giraffe—be found.Hence,from Kenya or Tanzania a number ofgiraffe (and
other animals) were strapped to the pitching decks of Chinese junks and
transported across the sea to the imperial palace in distant Beijing.
China and Africa have enriched each other intellectually,culturally,and
commercially ever since. But direct contact and interactive influence have
been episodic.During the middle years ofthe twentieth century,Maoist China
funded and educated sub-Saharan African anticolonial liberation movements
vii
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viii Preface
and leaders,some of which and some of whom later emerged victorious in
their national struggles for freedom;others lost out to Soviet-backed move-
ments. China assisted the new nations of sub-Saharan Africa during the
remainder of the twentieth century, especially by providing military hard-
ware and training,but also by providing Chinese labor and capital to con-
struct major railways and roads.
Africa and China are now immersed in their third era of heavy engage-
ment. This one is much more transformative than the earlier iterations.
Indeed,as the contributed chapters in this book make very evident,China’s
current thrust into sub-Saharan Africa promises to do more for economic
growth and poverty alleviation there than anything attempted by Western
colonialism or the massive initiatives of the international lending agencies
and other donors.China’s very rapaciousness—its seeming insatiable demand
for liquid forms of energy,and for the raw materials that feed its widening
industrial maw—responds to sub-Saharan Africa’s relatively abundant sup-
plies of unprocessed metals,diamonds,and gold.China also offers a ready
market for Africa’s timber,cotton,sugar,and other agricultural crops,and may
also purchase light manufactures. This new symbiosis between Africa and
China could—as this book demonstrates—be the making ofAfrica,the poor-
est and most troubled continent.
There are major cautions, too, which most of the chapters in this book
spell out.China is no altruist.It prides itselfon not meddling and on merely
desiring Africa’s resources.Thus it professes to care little about how individ-
ual African nations are being ruled;nor does it seek to change or improve the
societies in which it is becoming a major,if not the dominant,commercial
influence.China is extractive and exploitive,while simultaneously wanting
friends and seeking to remove any remaining African ties to Taiwan.China
also does not yet understand that,as salutary as competition might be for
Africa’s continuing maturation,importing Chinese labor to complete Chinese-
organized infrastructural and mining projects inhibits skill transfers and
reduces indigenous employment growth.Doing so also breeds resentment,as
does the undercutting oflocal merchants and industrialists by the supply of
cheaper Chinese goods or sharper Chinese entrepreneurial instincts.Africans,
and Westerners certainly,further complain about China’s disdain for human
rights and mayhem in Africa.The fact that China may have been and may still
be morally complicit in the Sudan’s massacring of Darfuri civilians or the
repression ofEquatorial Guineans and Zimbabweans,through the supply of
weapons ofwar to the relevant militaries and through the refusal to employ
its evident economic leverage appropriately on the side ofpeace,weighs heav-
ily in the balance.
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Preface ix
China is opportunistic.The contributions to this book assess the positive
and negative results of its latest move into Africa, and look at each of the
salient issues in turn.Fortunately,in creating a final,mixed conclusion,the
contributors do so by weighing the available evidence dispassionately and
from a variety ofnational perspectives.This is as much an African as a Chi-
nese analysis,with European and American inputs as well.
Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government’s Program on
Intrastate Conflict,the World Peace Foundation,and the Center for Global
Development brought the contributors to this volume,and others,together
at the Kennedy School to discuss China’s impact on Africa in June 2007.
Vanessa Tucker managed that process with uncommon skill. The chapters
that follow mostly grew out ofpapers presented there;others were commis-
sioned subsequently. Several revisions followed, all shepherded and edited
ably and assiduously by Emily Wood.I am very grateful to both ofthem,and
for the constructive comments on my first chapter by Deborah Brautigam,
Harry Broadman,David Shinn,and Chandra Lekha Sriram.Along the way,
Laura Rudert added important findings from her research.
This project could not have been turned into a pathbreaking book without
the detailed involvement and encouragement ofTodd Moss and his colleagues
at the Center for Global Development,and the backing of Graham Allison,
Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the
Kennedy School, and Chairman Philip Khoury and the other always sup-
portive trustees ofthe World Peace Foundation.The editor and contributors
to this volume are enduringly grateful for their beliefin our enterprise.
Robert I.Rotberg
August 12,2008