China in Africa: Invasion or the New Face of Globalisation?

By George Esunge Fominyen

I was perusing Cameroonian papers on the web when I fell on this story in “Eden newspaper” of 2 June 2008: “Two Chinese fishermen have been seriously injured following clashes with local fishmongers the Chinese are alleged to have been using twin trawlers to fish along the Atlantic coast of Limbe. The incident occurred on Thursday 29 May 2008 in Kange Fishing Port, along the Limbe- Tiko creeks.”

According to the report, “six unidentified boats, allegedly owned by local fishermen attacked the Chinese in their twin trawler at sea, subjected them to torture, severely wounded two and carted away about 300 bags of fish, estimated to be five tons in scientific terms. The radio communication equipment, mobile phones and other valuables belonging to the Chinese fishermen were also seized.”

Further reading got me to understand that conflict had been brewing between local fishermen and Chinese industrial fishing boats in the past months. The locals had even threatened a strike that led the government (in May 2008) to issue an order banning twin trawler fishing along the coast of Cameroon. Eden newspaper sources suppose that administrative officials are allegedly benefiting mouth watering sums of money as kickbacks, thus there is a lot of reluctance on their part to implement the government order.

It is clear that a lot has been written and debated on the recent Chines foray into Africa. But this event may once again raise questions about Chinese motivation to be friendly with the continent. Analysts say that the new giant Chinese economy needs oil to tick; about 25-30 percent of China’s oil imports are from Africa.

Others also say the Chinese influx is also due to its willingness to trade without asking about people’s democratic and human rights conditions. In addition to that, they are ready to act quickly in areas of direct human interest. Instead of withholding help on the pretext that of waiting for governments to come up with Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers while thousands of women  are dying during childbirth, China is direct. They build the hospitals for 10 times less, if not for free. Cameroon has tasted of such Chinese largesse.
 
However, some questions have been troubling Cameroonian if not African thoughts? Is it in exchange of such largesse that Chinese citizens are flooding African countries en masse? Do these acts of goodwill explain the fact that Chinese businessmen are left to do as they please in African countries? The fishermen in the Eden story seem to think that there is some connivance between authorities and the Chinese industrial fishing companies that are practically sending them out of business.  When a follow-up story published in the paper on 4 June 2008 and culled from IRN headlined that: “Quarrel over Fishing Rights: Government Spokesman Defends Foreign Fishermen it is easy to assume there’s something fishy about the terms of our relations. A similar string of thought led to a mass protest against Chinese selling beignet (puff puff) in the town of Douala a couple of years ago.

Western governments (for chauvinistic reasons?) have been casting a dark eye on this Sino-African couple.  Economists, international relations experts and other intellectuals have been supplying avid readers with material to feast on. Christopher Alden, Daniel Large and Ricardo de Oliveira who are Editors of a recent collection of essays entitled “China Returns to Africa: A Superpower and a Continent Embrace”, even describe “China's expanding relations with Africa” as “the most important dynamic in the foreign relations and politics of the continent since the end of the cold war.”

Now, African elite have also begun questioning the new romance between China and African countries. A friend of mine actually abandoned me in the middle of a radio production training course we were organizing. He was headed to produce a TV documentary which will be questioning whether China’s step into Africa is the new colonisation of the continent or the success of globalisation?  What are your views on the matter?

Comments

[manyanye paul ikome]

Hello GEF, i read the piece on China in Africa with immeasurable interest. It was thought provocking. Yet, i think the crux of the matter is still unclear: With these recent happenings, what image do the chinese buil for themselves in Africa. This topic is of interest to me for the he short and simple reason that i am presently working on my M.A thesis which looks at " Country branding and chinese public diplomacy in cameroon". In this connection, i wish to know what it takes to have the publication mentioned in your paper: China Returns to Africa: A Superpower and a Continent Embrace.
Keep it up, your blog is becoming resourceful to researchers, i mean my words.
Manyanye Ikome,
Freeland journalist,
Masters student in Public Relations.

[Patience Ntemgwa]

Thanks for the article George, very thought-provoking and insightful. Seems the China-Africa relationship is a kind of real life situation where there are advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand they go "direct" as you put it, providing just what you NEED without conditions. On the other hand they flood your continent with low quality but affordable goods (mostly the quality not sent to the west and the rest) and their population too is fast growing in Africa. At the end of the day, I say we should look at and appreciate what is working in this relationship and our policy makers should find ways to relook what is not working!
Cheers

[GEF]

Patience,

Hope those to re-work what is not working are reading you.

Gef

[Muambo Oben]

My Dear George,
I have read and listened with increasing interest your articles and interviews on the Sino-Africa relationship.
I must say i am quite impressed by your writings.
But in my opinion, this relationship no matter the so call gains been reaped by Cameroon, and other African countries is detrimental to the growth of the continent. I am not a believer of trade protectionism, but after living in the US for the last seven years, and seen the effects of the so call globalisation, I am of the opinion that Chinese expansion in Africa is nothing but the death of African enterprise.
How does Africa expects to compete in an enviroment where the cost of production is so low in terms of labor, so much so that the products been sent to Africa have the effects of stifling, and subsequently kill local enterpreneurs in these ventures. I am not opposed to trade, but trade which does not protect the growth of local industries is not good trade.
That's my take. Thank you.

[GEF]

Dear Muambo,

Trade or no trade? Open markets or protected markets? It is the delimna we face in our attempts to development. Local business persons have made the same arguments as you. reason why there has been resistance among some in the business class in Cameroon (that I know) regarding the Chinese push.

But how can they compete without adequate policies and proper economic backing from the state?

The Chinese goods are so cheap and serve the mass of Cameroonians and African who are so poor they can only afford these products.

On a recent trip to Mali, I discussed the issue with some retailers and consumers. And what i got was a series of anecdotes:
1. "everyone wants to have a DVD player. With the Chinese, you can have a DVD player at the price you can afford"
2. "we produce beautiful loins but if you do not spend thousands of CFA you cannot afford a really good one; but jeans and shirts made in China are cheap and ready to use"

Muambo, would you propose that we close our markets to goods from China that we produce locally and subsidise our local industry to make our products competitive in other to stump this "unfairness" that you perceive?

Gef

[Nathan Taku]

Hello GEF, thanks for your articles and keep them coming.
My view concerning the Chinese is that not all will benefit, the elites will
definitely benefit from being bribed but the ordinary man will not.
The Chinese are one of the most brutal race when it comes to making money.
They will work all day for it; they will bribe in order to make even more money.
They will kill for it and remember that no other people in the world gamble as much
as the Chinese - that's how far their appetite for making money goes.
There is a story in Angola where they are involved in constructing a road and in return
they get paid in oil barrels - well millions of barrels. The story goes that the road
is constructed of such poor quality that the Chinese will be in Angola until the oil
runs out. This is because, by the time a stretch is completed, they have to return to the
beginning to make repairs/maintenance. This cycle gets repeated all the time, to ensure that the Chinese stay in the country and keep their oil supply/flow going.
There is nothing like a free lunch or largesse, whatever you get, you will have to pay for it one way or another, even if the gift is from the Chinese, American or British government. While I am on this GEF, please try and enlightened our African people on this thing called CFA. How the French are still colonising Africa through so-called actions on supporting the CFA. Why is it that every other African country which is not French speaking has its own currency while the majority if not all of the former French speaking countries still do not have a currency of their own. France is backing the CFA at what cost to the economy of African countries concerned? The French are not stupid to back something that they are not benefiting from. When will French speaking African countries be good enough to operate their own currency and break freely and completely from this strangled hold by the French? If you insist on holding your 2-year-old’s hands while he/she takes his/her first steps forever, there comes a point where he/she will wrench his/her wrist free from your hands in order to enjoy that freedom of walking alone un-aided and taste what it is like. French speaking African countries should do likewise and taste the freedom of having their own currency and supporting it without the costly support from France. Please GEF write more on this and get a few economists to express their views.
Current estimates are that each African country in this arrangement pays a figure close to 70% GDP to the French treasury to support the CFA – why? What are we getting in return? Africans are being taxed by the French when they receive no services from the French government. In the current credit crunch market in the West, that amount of cash amounts to receiving ‘liquid gold’. May be that explains why the French banking system has not experienced any liquidity problem because it is getting ready cash from its former African colonies. If France is that rich, why does it need money from poor African countries?