Did you know? China is taking over Africa

I read a very interesting article in The Atlantic the other day about Chinese investment in Africa, and then just today the New York Times published an article about China’s investment in Niger’s oil. It’s something that most people in the West probably don’t realize, but these days China’s role in Africa is huge…which is not necessarily a good thing. China is willing to invest in areas no one from the West will touch, which is good and bad – yes the West is ignoring a lot of development opportunity and investment that Africa desperately needs, but on the flip side, China is willing to work with whatever regime happens to be in power, largely ignoring any political implications, and their influence can have an edge of exploitation.

The Times article talks about how much the government in Niger was reliant on the influx of Chinese money, and how after a coup in that country, China didn’t hesitate to keep on working on their development projects, readily joining sides with the new regime. As the article says, they just don’t care who is in power, as long as they are still able to get what they want. And their influence – such as allowing for stipulations in a large development contract that call for payment of millions of dollars to an anonymous account to be chosen by the Niger government (an example in the article) – well, it often significantly helps those in power, though it might not help the country as a whole. The article also talked about how, despite some very negative impacts stemming from the Chinese backing the old regime in Niger, the new regime couldn’t do without China’s money either and sought to maintain the relationship. China’s not going away anytime soon…

The other Atlantic article is very long, but a really interesting read, and it does a good job at talking about both sides of the issue. For one thing, Western aid to Africa over the past many decades has not had the impact in jump-starting African economies like everyone wants to believe, and maybe there is strong reasoning for focusing on not just aid, but real investment, in Africa. Which is where China steps in. They certainly are not afraid to invest here. And China really does help build important infrastructure in some areas…the problem is, the infrastructure they agree to build for a developing nation often comes with significant stipulations. For example, China may build roads, but only to the primary mining areas, so that once China gets its resources, it’s out of there and you’re left with a road that no longer goes to anywhere of importance. Or they build hospitals in exchange for mining contracts that allow them to take away significant amounts of resources from a country, resources that might be better worth holding on to. Or they make deals with shoddy leaders who use money to prop themselves up while China gets to take away resources from the rest of the country. And when it comes to building infrastructure, most often the Chinese import their own labour so there isn’t even the temporary benefit to local people of having a job from the construction or mining work. The whole time I was reading this article, all I could think about was how, in some ways, it’s like a new colonialist period is occurring in Africa. China is outpacing the resources available in its own country, so it has to look elsewhere, and it has no problem taking what it can from Africa. Obviously the West has and still is continuing to do its fair share of that too; I don’t mean to be completely one-sided. And as I said before, Western aid hasn’t exactly made Africa rich (a topic which could be a whole other 20 pages or so, but I'll spare you for now), so maybe it’s time we start looking to other methods of jump-starting economies. But I do think there are significant differences compared to the West in how China approaches development in Africa, and to be honest, it just really scares me. I don’t know – you read the article and decide.

While I was travelling in Lesotho last week, Carey, a woman I was travelling with, pointed out a neighbourhood we were driving through and said “I call this China Town because no one speaks English here.” I bet you didn’t know there is an all-Chinese neighbourhood in the middle of Lesotho. And that if you get on an airplane coming into Lesotho, you might find yourself amongst many, many Chinese. No, I certainly didn’t know that either. Yes, I have read about Chinese influence in Africa before, but it doesn’t really occur in South Africa (or certainly not that I know of or have seen, anyway), so to see it first-hand in Lesotho was interesting. And the weirdest thing is, it all seems like a big secret. I kind of get the feeling that we’re all going to wake up a few years from now and realize China owns Africa and no one will have noticed it happening. Of course that’s rather extreme, but I do think it’s a huge issue, with multifaceted implications, that many people, particularly in the West, are completely ignoring.