China’s willingness to invest in Africa’s has benefited the continent as well as itself. But if it doesn’t respond to growing mass political consciousness, it may all unravel.
China is accustomed to being welcomed across Africa, by democrats and dictators alike. Recent changes of government, however, have exposed a vein of resentment that could crimp Beijing’s resource safari.
The collapse of the Gaddafi regime in Libya and South Sudan’s independence have upended the long-standing relationships that China has used to gain advantage over western competitors. Most recently, a change in leadership in the former British colony of Zambia has rattled China’s resource investment ambitions.
In September, Michael Sata swept to power in Zambia following an electoral landslide over Rupiah Banda, the incumbent. The vote also ended the grip on power that Banda’s party, the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD), had held over the country since 1991.
The MMD’s lengthy tenure may have lulled China into a false sense of security. The end of the Cold War had introduced a measure of stability to African governments, and rulers have therefore tended to measure their tenures in decades. Even where ballots have been held, they’ve tended to favor those in power. But, as the Arab spring has shown, nothing lasts forever.
The upturning of the ruling class in Zambia, Africa’s largest copper producer, would have come as a particularly nasty shock to China, one of the largest consumers of the metal. Sata’s election platform leaned heavily on anti-Chinese sentiment, which, considering China is the country’s biggest investor, may have seemed a risky gambit to have taken.
But Sata, who once worked as a platform sweeper for British rail, understands his audience. “The Chinese are very crafty. I know the Chinese very well,” he said in an interview with a Danish radio station earlier this year, comments that drew wide attention in the country.
In the run-up to the previous election in 2006, which he lost, Sata referred to Taiwan as a sovereign state. China was reportedly outraged at his comments, and threatened to pull out of the country if he was elected. There were even suggestions at the time in the Zambian media that Beijing was providing covert financing for the MMD’s coffers.
Sata’s campaign this year was only slightly less confrontational. And this time, it worked.
China’s commitment to Zambia is substantial. It has invested around $2 billion in the country, mostly in copper mining projects. The metal is used mainly for electrical cabling, and China’s vast infrastructure programs have made it a voracious consumer of copper.
Under the MMD, Zambia went all-out to woo Chinese state enterprises and ease their access to the country’s wealth. Zambia is home to two of China’s six Special Economic Zones in Africa. Recently the capital, Lusaka, became the first African city to offer Chinese banking allowing the deposit and withdrawal of yuan.
While Banda and his predecessors did everything possible to make the Chinese welcome, ordinary Zambians have come to resent the competition from a flood of expatriates, many of whom compete directly with low-skilled local workers.
Some of Zambia’s markets, particularly the chicken market in downtown Lusaka, are now almost entirely Chinese run.
And, in April this year, Zambian prosecutors declined to pursue charges against two Chinese supervisors who had fired into a crowd of demonstrating miners, injuring 13. The incident, which occurred at the Chinese-owned Collum Coal Mine in 2010, caused widespread anger. The decision to suspend the investigation wasn’t unexpected, but only added to the perception that Chinese companies enjoy a privileged status in the country.
Photo Credit: Uniphoto Press
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Sravan
A day will come when free Tibet will be seen, a day will come when Tibetan army will clean the foreign stench in their country surely a day will come when India will repay the death of young martyrs for fighting her wars a day will come for sure, China may show off its diamond mine but we alone can see its dirty work. Mind you China we may need to tank porkistan and its fancy weapons but India will do for its Tibetan brothers, its not just their battle it is our battle too
Ekuson Debango
My understanding is that the safari has just begun. As an African I think I am in a much better position to speak on this matter which has so much roiled the West to the point of very childish name calling directed at China. Ironically the Africans themselves are open to business with China while the West pretends to speak for Africa. One wonders why!China’s invsetment approach as opposed the West’s dead aid makes China a winning development partner. The more I listen to the West’s laughable lamentation of China’s attempt to take over Africa the more I want to ask what did the West do while it rampaged through the continent as colonial masters few years back. China sure is welcome to invest in Africa and African leaders like Mr. Sata are about to destroy their country by not going along with the programme of bilateral cooperation with China- obvious a win-win relationship and a much needed departure from the West’s take-over of the continent. Yes, we Africans welcome China on the continent.
ari
I am greatly inclined to think that the CIA and the MI6 are busy stirring up trouble against China on the African continent. Do not imagine for a moment the cold war ended. It has just only begun. it’s all about Anglo-American domination of the world. It has always been that.
hk
you Huang, John Chan, Frank, etc… You are paid by Chinese Government Propaganda division…… Listen, Chinese are Good … your Communist Party Stinks…….
Typhoon
@HK
I think you are under the payroll of CIA.
Huang
Zambia is one African country among many that China invested heavily in recent years. Investments and economic cooperations between China and Zambia are ongoing long-term undetakings that at some point will inevitably be encountering some problems here and there. Hence, problems or mis-understandings are expected and these factors are to be dealt with and resolved so as not deviate too far from the mutually shared path of positive developnments.
Accordingly, China will have to be more aware of many factors relating the social environments within the country or countries where Chinese businesses operate so that problems affecting both Chinese and the host country’s interests can be prevented before they turn into crisis.
Flexibilities and adaptive approaches should and will be China’s new investment model in the changing and shifting national and international environments. After all, China’s goals and intentions are trades and other developnmetal cooperations.
In short, what China pursuing is economic and developnmental relations–nothing more and nothing less.
jonas
Nothing lasts forever. China’s trip to Africa was short indeed.
Reason
@John Chan and Yangzi and any other CCP follower
You guys are as credible as the Libyan regime – You’re as deluded as Gadaffi pronouncing that the “Libyan people love me”
The CCP’s day is coming – and China and Chinese people will be free of this cancer that has kept them hobbled since 1949.
Every time the CCP gets out the way – the chinese people flourish
YOU KNOW NOT YOUR OWN COUNTRY OR ITS HISTORY –
Tibetans are Chinese – you’re F**cking deluded beyond belief.
Yang Zi
First of all, editor should clean up your language.
@reason, you are comical.
Just like US has African Americans and White Americans, China has Tibetan Chinese and Han Chinese, what is wrong with that? It is international law you know. Tibetans are Chinese citizens.
a_canadian_observer
@YangZi: In this 21st century…
- Do you find any African American setting themselves on fire in protest?
- Do you find any place in the US where monks/priests are locked up and starved to death in their monasteries?
Well, those are what have happened to Tibetans in china. And that’s the difference. I can add more to the list if you want, although I’ve come to accept that you people are cold-blooded and denial. You’re being apologetic because it serves you some sense of power, to overcome your inferior complex.
MostJustWantPeace
Well, I remember back in the 20th century, an African-American boy named Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi after coming down from Chicago to visit relatives. He was murdered because he looked at a white lady in a corner store funny, so said lady’s relatives lynched him and mutilated his body. Of course, the lynching of African-Americans did not either begin or end with him. The last lynching was in 1981 – just look up Michael Donald.
The Chinese government never instituted official discriminatory policies against the minorities – quite the contrary, it thought of ways to improve their living standards and make them have a greater voice in society. For example, the Chinese government helped the Evenks set up an industry to export their reindeer antlers for medicine. When reindeer herding became unsustainable, they helped them transition to farming, and now, the Evenks are better off than ever. And they didn’t force them either, because there are still a couple of Evenks who stick to reindeer herding, and the government accommodate that as well.
Of course, since you are Canadian and are a 3rd party in all these events, I don’t expect you to understand all that I have said. There is Google though, if you are interested in educating yourself. And please, educate yourself with more balanced materials. I used to be a fiery Chinese nationalist back in the day/ However, after forcing myself to watch both positive and negative (plenty of that out there) news reports about China from all sorts of media outlets (American, British, Al Jazeera, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean), I have developed a more nuanced view in all my positions.
Well, I am just talking to a wall, then at least I tried.
yang zi
@observer, immolation is sad and Chinese gov need to figure out how to prevent that, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are Tibetan Chinese and I feel sorrow for the acts.
actually, monks burn themselves happened in Vietnam before. Chinese monks burned themselves 2000 years ago, but thankfully, it was rare occurrence.
Yang zi
@MostJustWantPeace, Canadian-observer is a Vietnamese living in Canada, he makes a good Stalin, Mao or McCarthy, he usually confused about issues, for example, he would use the fact that monks tried setup set them on fire to argue that these monks are not Tibetan Chinese.
Reason
@Yang zi and John Chan
You’re Blind…
When the CCP begins to crack – Tibet and Xinjiang will go into open revolt. The Tibetans hate the fact that the Han Chinese dominate their land and destroy their culture…. this is fact… only Han brutality stops this from happening today.
Tibet as we speak is a police-state — after decades of CCP occupation the country is still in lock down…. what does that tell you???
I think if the CCP could be so honest as to let Tibetans be Tibetan/Chinese then this would be a huge improvement…. but anyone who has been to Tibet knows that the authorities force on the Tibetans that they are Chinese first, Tibetan second. It’s is the most brutal form of colonialism..
But you know what? Go believe what you want…. and in the future when the Tibetans or the Uygurs rise up again in revolt and you’re left scratching your heads as to what you have to do to make these people civilized…..?
Well at that point… you will have the perfect mind of a Imperialist. And then you can slip into the old comfortable thought of blaming other people…. like the US or the Dalai Lama or the British or the Flying Spaghetti Monster… but never the CCP…. they could never be to blame..??? Never… despite them inflicting huge, evil campaigns upon everyone they come into contact with for the last 60years…. the CCP could NEVER be to blame…. they are only the solution…. never the problem
D E L U D E D —- B E Y O N D —– B E L I E F
And as regards to my language… an expletive to express how deluded you guys are is well placed.
China is NOT the CCP – the sooner the Chinese people lop off the cancerous growth that is the CCP the better for China and the world
Yang zi
@reason, actually I totally disagree with CCP’s minority policies. But that is exactly why Tibetans should be respected and treated as any other Chinese in China. Equality, community, not segregation. Instead of pouring money, let Tibetans be themselves. But CCP is a product of ideology, just like you are, it wanted to social engineer Tibet, it caused damage to its traditions. Now CCP caught in a dilemma, has to continue on to pour money into Tibet, free housing and universal health care, preferential treatment in college admission, not only many Tibetans not grateful, many Han Chinese are resentful. To me, it is making the problem worse.
When CCP goes out, there will be turmoil in Tibet and XinJiang, but nothing on the scale of Chechnya, Tibet can not sustain its own native population without money from central government. Tibetan elite are relied on Central government support. Dalai lama has strong appeal, but these elite will not surrender the power. The exiles are not welcome back because their land and property are all given to serfs and poor Tibetans.
Xinjiang is different, Uyghurs are not masters of XinJiang, their traditional land is only a small part of XinJiang. Han Chinese settled in there much earlier than Uyghurs. Later, Mongols dominated there for many years until Qing defeated the main tribe there. Currently, Han, Mongols and others have a bigger population than Uyghurs.
So don’t worry or hoping China will split. It will never. Even if CCP collapses, the armed forces are still there to protect the country’s integrity.
hk
China colonized Tibet to exploit Tibet’s resources
Observer
The biggest impediment to progress of ethnic Tibetans is the dali lama and his pimping machine that seeks to turns Tibet into a petting zoo for Westerners.
Tibetans in fact enjoy substantial “affirmative action” preferences in China. Some do quite well and adapt to changing times. But really most people have to work for a living instead sitting on their butt and chanting all day.
Immolation is proof of dangerous cult mentality embodied by the dali lama.
John Chan
@Reason,
Sun has set on British Empire long time ago, even the Indian won’t let the Brits set a foot in the Himalaya region, but you still dreaming to interfere Tibet like your forefathers is really deluded beyond belief.
European and USA bombed and killed the hapless Libya into destruction from an orderly and comfortable living standard society because of its oil, now Libya is embroiled in tribal civil war, but EU and USA wiped their hands and left the Libyans in the hell of civil war. Instead of showing remorse for the inhumane acts the westerners committed in Libya, you are bad mouthing the hapless Libyan people in the comfort of your home on the other side of the hell, if it is not deluded and wicked, then I don’t know what it is.