China denies building empire in Africa

[Ray]

China denies building empire in Africa

China has adamantly denied the oft-repeated charge that it is building an empire in Africa just as the European powers did in the late 19th century.

Beijing is Africa's biggest trade partner and has frequently been accused of an ethically deaf "resource colonialism" – extracting the continent's mineral wealth at knockdown prices to propel its economic growth.

But foreign minister Wang Yi, on a five-nation tour of Africa, insisted: "Politically, we always speak up for African countries and uphold justice. Economically, we help African countries to enhance development to achieve prosperity.

"In China's exchanges and cooperation with Africa, we want to see mutual benefit and win-win results. I want to make clear one point, that is, China will never follow the track of western colonists and all cooperation with Africa will never come at the expense of the ecology, environment or long-term interests of Africa."

The comments were made to Chinese Central Television while Wang was in Kenya, where he met President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday. Chinese firms are carrying out a $653m (£430m) expansion of the main airport in the capital, Nairobi.

China's rivalry with the west on the African stage has been much debated, but it is rare for one side to draw comparison so publicly. Last year, at the biggest gathering of African leaders ever held in Washington, US president Barack Obama said pointedly, "We don't look to Africa simply for its natural resources," but declined to mention China by name.

Only in a diplomatic cable, published via WikiLeaks in 2010 and not intended for public consumption, did a US official admit: "China is a very aggressive and pernicious economic competitor with no morals. China is not in Africa for altruistic reasons. China is in Africa for China primarily."

Previously, Beijing has said its cooperation with African nations ranges across agriculture, health and infrastructure-related projects from schools to stadiums. The $200m headquarters of the Africa Union in Addis Ababa was a present and a "symbol of deepening relations".

China maintains that more than half its foreign aid Рmore than $14bn between 2010 and 2012 Рgoes to Africa. It says the support comes with no strings attached and that it will never interfere in countries' domestic affairs. But by default, critics argue, this means it effectively shores up the rule of Angola's Jos̩ Eduardo dos Santos, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, three of Africa's most tenaciously authoritarian rulers.

Last month, however, Beijing announced that it will send 700 combat troops to join the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, signalling an unusually robust intervention. Speaking to reporters in Sudan on Sunday, Wang defended China's mediation efforts in South Sudan, rejecting the claim that it was acting out of self-interest after investing heavily in oil.

"China's mediation of South Sudan issues is completely the responsibility and duty of a responsible power, and not because of China's own interests," the minister said.

Wang's itinerary spans Kenya, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
China denies building empire in Africa | Global development | The Guardian

China can deny till they turn blue in the face. However, the truth is that they are stealing the natural resources of Africa by buying up the despotic dictators and leaders of Africa.

They are already despised by the people of Africa as so many reports indicate.

 

[Ray]

Southern Africa: Regional block unhappy with China and Vietnam handling of poaching laws

The Governments of southern African has voiced their disappointment in China and Vietnam for not doing enough to stop poaching in the region.

Nairobi / NationalTurk – They registered this protest in a workshop organized by the Southern Africa Wildlife Conservation which was attended by quite a number of countries in the region.

Southern Africa is noted for its vibrant wildlife and natural conservation of animals such as elephants.

Poaching is the illegal taking of wild plants or animals which include local and international wildlife conservation.

Kenya and the Republic of South Africa accused the two countries (China and Vietnam) of being reluctant to enact strict laws to stop their citizens from purchasing elephant tusks and rhino horns from Africa.

Poaching of elephant tusk is common in southern Africa countries where they have a quite significant number of the species.
But Kenya and RSA believes that the two countries are helping in these illegal activities by buying the tusk from individuals.

Kenya Wildlife Service senior assistant director Patrick Omondi disclosed that efforts to engage the Chinese and Vietnamese Government to enact strict laws to prevent the purchase is not successful.

"There are always delays in prosecution. The justice system is too low and there is no consistency in law," added Hector Magome, the executive managing member of Conservation Services in South Africa. "Some poachers are fined very little in certain regions of the country and others fined highly in other regions."

The participants also pushed for tougher sanctions against those who are found in engaging in this activity and encouraged more public education in their respective countries.

Issaka Adams/NationalTurk Africa News
Southern Africa: Regional block unhappy with China and Vietnam handling of poaching laws

China in Africa: The New Imperialists?

It happened in Zambia like it could happen elsewhere in Africa. Chinese investors made deals with the government to mine its natural resources, filling federal coffers with billions of dollars. Chinese immigrants moved into cities and rural towns. They started construction companies; opened copper, coal, and gem mines; and built hotels and restaurants, all providing new jobs. They set up schools and hospitals. But then instances of corruption, labor abuse, and criminal coverups began to set the relationship between the Chinese and the Africans aflame.

The Chinese have managed to accomplish at least one impressive thing in Africa—they have made everyone else uncomfortable. The Americans are uneasy, worried about (and perhaps jealous of) China's rapid and profitable investments throughout the continent, and the developmental assistance that it has started to provide in some areas. Europeans have only to look at trade figures: the share of Africa's exports that China receives has shot from one to fifteen per cent over the past decade, while the European Union's share fell from thirty-six to twenty-three per cent. China is now Africa's largest trading partner.


Some Africans have become resentful, though, unhappy with unbalanced relationships in which China has taken proprietorship of African natural resources using Chinese labor and equipment without transferring skills and technology. "China takes our primary goods and sells us manufactured ones. This was also the essence of colonialism," Lamido Sanusi, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria,
wrote in the Financial Times earlier this year.

The threat (whether real or imagined) of a looming Chinese imperialist presence in Africa has given way to what has been called "resource nationalism," in which countries aim to take control of the exploitation of their natural resources. But this idea potentially fails to address the fact that the Chinese in Africa are people, and not just part of a faceless imperialist mass. I've spoken to Chinese investors in Zambia who appear to genuinely want to not just make money but integrate into Zambian communities and run responsible companies. One complained about how immoral businessmen ruin the efforts of others who want to pay fair wages and keep their workers safe.

In Zambia, a copper-rich country in southern Africa and the beneficiary of the continent's third-highest level of Chinese investment, persistent unemployment and poverty have left Zambians wondering where exactly the fruits of their government's lucrative deals with the Chinese have gone. President Michael Sata was elected in 2011 partly thanks to anti-Chinese sentiment (he likened work at Chinese mines to slave labor and said he would deport any abusive investors), but immediately forged close ties with Chinese leaders. Still, his government has tried, at least on the surface, to even its playing field with China by launching criminal proceedings against former government officials who made corrupt deals with the Chinese, and by reforming the way foreign investors have to do business in Zambia. It is likely that the country will be only the first of many to do so.

"The people of Zambia have been complaining," the country's finance ministry said last month, "about lack of reliable and accurate information on the resources that are generated in the country or which come from foreign sources, to develop Zambia." Under a new law, the Bank of Zambia will create an "electronic reporting and monitoring system" tasked with overseeing the collection of royalties and taxes from foreign investors. Those same investors—who, the legislation notes, are benefiting from numerous business incentives—are now required to open and keep active taxable foreign-currency bank accounts. If they export their goods, as the Chinese owners of copper, coal, and gemstone mines do, they must deposit their profits in Zambia within two months of the date the goods are shipped abroad. The ministry added, "This is the way to go for a country that is so richly endowed with resources but whose capacity to unroll development to higher echelons has been hampered by poor transparency and accountability practices."

Chinese owners of copper mines in Zambia regularly violate the rights of their employees by not providing adequate protective gear and insuring safe working conditions, according to a Human Rights Watch report. When Zambian employees of the Chinese-owned Collum Coal Mine protested these poor conditions three years ago, their Chinese managers, who said they feared for their lives, fired gunshots at the miners, injuring thirteen of them. After Chinese business interests put pressure on the then-government in Lusaka, the director of public prosecutions suddenly dropped its criminal case against the managers. Last year, renewed protests at Collum led to hundreds of miners pushing a mine trolley into a Chinese manager. They killed him, and injured two other Chinese supervisors.

In the murky aftermath of the violence, the current government finally wrested control of the mine from the Chinese brothers who ran it and promised never to let such incidents happen again, partially resulting in this new legislation. Zambia, along with all of its copper and gems, had been especially attractive to China because it had let investors take their profits abroad. That policy has become too expensive, both financially and politically. (Tax avoidance by foreign investors is reportedly costing Zambia close to two billion dollars a year.)

"There will be a big fight with the mines," Mooya Lumamba, Zambia's director of mines, told me in May. The government has had battles with the mines before. Despite fears of scaring off investors, leaders, then recently elected, doubled the mine royalty rate nearly two years ago. Investors, including the Chinese, stuck around and even increased their direct inflows. This time, Lumamba didn't seem worried.
China in Africa: The New Imperialists? - The New Yorker

China is in Africa to basically loot.

 

[Ray]

Southern Africa: Regional block unhappy with China and Vietnam handling of poaching laws

The Governments of southern African has voiced their disappointment in China and Vietnam for not doing enough to stop poaching in the region.

Nairobi / NationalTurk – They registered this protest in a workshop organized by the Southern Africa Wildlife Conservation which was attended by quite a number of countries in the region.

Southern Africa is noted for its vibrant wildlife and natural conservation of animals such as elephants.

Poaching is the illegal taking of wild plants or animals which include local and international wildlife conservation.

Kenya and the Republic of South Africa accused the two countries (China and Vietnam) of being reluctant to enact strict laws to stop their citizens from purchasing elephant tusks and rhino horns from Africa.

Poaching of elephant tusk is common in southern Africa countries where they have a quite significant number of the species.
But Kenya and RSA believes that the two countries are helping in these illegal activities by buying the tusk from individuals.

Kenya Wildlife Service senior assistant director Patrick Omondi disclosed that efforts to engage the Chinese and Vietnamese Government to enact strict laws to prevent the purchase is not successful.

"There are always delays in prosecution. The justice system is too low and there is no consistency in law," added Hector Magome, the executive managing member of Conservation Services in South Africa. "Some poachers are fined very little in certain regions of the country and others fined highly in other regions."

The participants also pushed for tougher sanctions against those who are found in engaging in this activity and encouraged more public education in their respective countries.

Issaka Adams/NationalTurk Africa News
Southern Africa: Regional block unhappy with China and Vietnam handling of poaching laws

China in Africa: The New Imperialists?

It happened in Zambia like it could happen elsewhere in Africa. Chinese investors made deals with the government to mine its natural resources, filling federal coffers with billions of dollars. Chinese immigrants moved into cities and rural towns. They started construction companies; opened copper, coal, and gem mines; and built hotels and restaurants, all providing new jobs. They set up schools and hospitals. But then instances of corruption, labor abuse, and criminal coverups began to set the relationship between the Chinese and the Africans aflame.

The Chinese have managed to accomplish at least one impressive thing in Africa—they have made everyone else uncomfortable. The Americans are uneasy, worried about (and perhaps jealous of) China's rapid and profitable investments throughout the continent, and the developmental assistance that it has started to provide in some areas. Europeans have only to look at trade figures: the share of Africa's exports that China receives has shot from one to fifteen per cent over the past decade, while the European Union's share fell from thirty-six to twenty-three per cent. China is now Africa's largest trading partner.


Some Africans have become resentful, though, unhappy with unbalanced relationships in which China has taken proprietorship of African natural resources using Chinese labor and equipment without transferring skills and technology. "China takes our primary goods and sells us manufactured ones. This was also the essence of colonialism," Lamido Sanusi, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria,
wrote in the Financial Times earlier this year.

The threat (whether real or imagined) of a looming Chinese imperialist presence in Africa has given way to what has been called "resource nationalism," in which countries aim to take control of the exploitation of their natural resources. But this idea potentially fails to address the fact that the Chinese in Africa are people, and not just part of a faceless imperialist mass. I've spoken to Chinese investors in Zambia who appear to genuinely want to not just make money but integrate into Zambian communities and run responsible companies. One complained about how immoral businessmen ruin the efforts of others who want to pay fair wages and keep their workers safe.

In Zambia, a copper-rich country in southern Africa and the beneficiary of the continent's third-highest level of Chinese investment, persistent unemployment and poverty have left Zambians wondering where exactly the fruits of their government's lucrative deals with the Chinese have gone. President Michael Sata was elected in 2011 partly thanks to anti-Chinese sentiment (he likened work at Chinese mines to slave labor and said he would deport any abusive investors), but immediately forged close ties with Chinese leaders. Still, his government has tried, at least on the surface, to even its playing field with China by launching criminal proceedings against former government officials who made corrupt deals with the Chinese, and by reforming the way foreign investors have to do business in Zambia. It is likely that the country will be only the first of many to do so.

"The people of Zambia have been complaining," the country's finance ministry said last month, "about lack of reliable and accurate information on the resources that are generated in the country or which come from foreign sources, to develop Zambia." Under a new law, the Bank of Zambia will create an "electronic reporting and monitoring system" tasked with overseeing the collection of royalties and taxes from foreign investors. Those same investors—who, the legislation notes, are benefiting from numerous business incentives—are now required to open and keep active taxable foreign-currency bank accounts. If they export their goods, as the Chinese owners of copper, coal, and gemstone mines do, they must deposit their profits in Zambia within two months of the date the goods are shipped abroad. The ministry added, "This is the way to go for a country that is so richly endowed with resources but whose capacity to unroll development to higher echelons has been hampered by poor transparency and accountability practices."

Chinese owners of copper mines in Zambia regularly violate the rights of their employees by not providing adequate protective gear and insuring safe working conditions, according to a Human Rights Watch report. When Zambian employees of the Chinese-owned Collum Coal Mine protested these poor conditions three years ago, their Chinese managers, who said they feared for their lives, fired gunshots at the miners, injuring thirteen of them. After Chinese business interests put pressure on the then-government in Lusaka, the director of public prosecutions suddenly dropped its criminal case against the managers. Last year, renewed protests at Collum led to hundreds of miners pushing a mine trolley into a Chinese manager. They killed him, and injured two other Chinese supervisors.

In the murky aftermath of the violence, the current government finally wrested control of the mine from the Chinese brothers who ran it and promised never to let such incidents happen again, partially resulting in this new legislation. Zambia, along with all of its copper and gems, had been especially attractive to China because it had let investors take their profits abroad. That policy has become too expensive, both financially and politically. (Tax avoidance by foreign investors is reportedly costing Zambia close to two billion dollars a year.)

"There will be a big fight with the mines," Mooya Lumamba, Zambia's director of mines, told me in May. The government has had battles with the mines before. Despite fears of scaring off investors, leaders, then recently elected, doubled the mine royalty rate nearly two years ago. Investors, including the Chinese, stuck around and even increased their direct inflows. This time, Lumamba didn't seem worried.
China in Africa: The New Imperialists? - The New Yorker

China is in Africa to basically loot.

 

[Redhawk]

China is in Africa to basically loot.

Exactly. And the weak and corrupt African governments will let them.

 

[Dark Sorrow]

I feel sorry for the Africans. Its like an cursed continent. First exploited by Islamic caliphate, then by Europeans, then by Americans and not by Chinese.

 

[Redhawk]

How exactly did the Americans exploit Africa?

 

[Ray]

Given the chaos in Africa with corrupt dictators, anything happens.

American Companies Exploit the Congo
19. American Companies Exploit the Congo – Top 25 of 2003

 

[s002wjh]

Typical antichina from the member here if ppl notice the investment there are in the form of building construction. Roads hospital power station. There will always complain about these thing. Remember they ask China to be there if they don't like it they can kick them out. The fact is China did not force any country into the deal

 

[sorcerer]

Typical antichina from the member here if ppl notice the investment there are in the form of building construction. Roads hospital power station. There will always complain about these thing. Remember they ask China to be there if they don't like it they can kick them out. The fact is China did not force any country into the deal

They set up schools and hospitals. But then instances of corruption, labor abuse, and criminal coverups began to set the relationship between the Chinese and the Africans aflame.

Isnt corruption a form of force? China is not that clean, everyone knows that. They force their way by corruption.

 

[s002wjh]

Isnt corruption a form of force? China is not that clean, everyone knows that. They force their way by corruption.

If u want talk about corruption might want look at Philippine India. Forced what way bribery? If so I would think the leader in that country share most blame. For every antichina article relate to Africa there are also ones said good thing about it. Pity ppl can only see others shortcomings and criticized. China use its soft power pretty successfuly. China is not giving cash for resources but invest much needed construction in Africa

 

[sorcerer]

. China is not giving cash for resources but invest much needed construction in Africa

Everyone knows that China is not in any country to develop that nation. It is there to get raw materials at cheap cost using a set of civilian issues to its advantage. Meaning, it takes more than it invests, not just profit, but a whole lot more.

The article is very right about neo colonialism.

Its not soft power, soft power is when you can convince a country without corruption to award a project in your favour. I take it as lack of comrehension on words in peope living in different diaspora.

When the civil unrest breaks loose against China , preventing its projects and the anti-china sentiments in all places where China has its presence, it doesnt matter much if the leader of that country took cash or not.

 

[s002wjh]

Everyone knows that China is not in any country to develop that nation. It is there to get raw materials at cheap cost using a set of civilian issues to its advantage. Meaning, it takes more than it invests, not just profit, but a whole lot more.

The article is very right about neo colonialism.

Its not soft power, soft power is when you can convince a country without corruption to award a project in your favour. I take it as lack of comrehension on words in peope living in different diaspora.

When the civil unrest breaks loose against China , preventing its projects and the anti-china sentiments in all places where China has its presence, it doesnt matter much if the leader of that country took cash or not.

No duh. They are there to trade. Whole a lot more? Source? It's call "investment ". The article is typical antichina for audiences like u

 

[sorcerer]

No duh. They are there to trade. Whole a lot more? Source? It's call "investment ". The article is typical antichina for audiences like u

Trade: "China takes our primary goods and sells us manufactured ones."
A whole lot more: "China has taken proprietorship of African natural resources using Chinese labor and equipment without transferring skills and technology.
Source: http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/china/66228-china-denies-building-empire-africa.html#post992901

Ofcourse, when any country does screwup without regards to local disaporat it becomes that anti-visiting country. It happened to be Chinese .

 

[s002wjh]

Trade: "China takes our primary goods and sells us manufactured ones."
A whole lot more: "China has taken proprietorship of African natural resources using Chinese labor and equipment without transferring skills and technology.
Source: http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/china/66228-china-denies-building-empire-africa.html#post992901

Ofcourse, when any country does screwup without regards to local disaporat it becomes that anti-visiting country. It happened to be Chinese .

Yes thats what China trade for manufacturers goods. Obvious Africa still want China investment otherwise China won't be there. Also there are many other country doing business in Africa including India. if China deals is so bad why didn't they choose other countries as partners.

Also as for skills and tech When you buy iPhone do u expect Apple to transfer it's tech too. If they want tech they can purchase or watch and learn how China doing it. China been reversing western tech for years no one sell high Tech to them,. They did by reverse engineering it that's man of their manufacturing capability from

 

[sorcerer]

if China deals is so bad why didn't they choose other countries as partners.

This is where the bribe comes in

 

[s002wjh]

This is where the bribe comes in

Right. And India dont bribe. Also ur sorce of bribe?

 

[s002wjh]

I suggest u dig deeper rather cherry pick articles. China got the deal because it's low cost and free interest loan from it's gov.

 

[sorcerer]

I suggest u dig deeper rather cherry pick articles. China got the deal because it's low cost and free interest loan from it's gov.

Its low cost when you employ chinese labour, that is one source of the problem. Ofcourse if you are squeezing the blood out of host country, you can give them free interest on loans.
Nyways... I pick articles thats neutral to get a good picture.

 

[s002wjh]

Its low cost when you employ chinese labour, that is one source of the problem. Ofcourse if you are squeezing the blood out of host country, you can give them free interest on loans.
Nyways... I pick articles thats neutral to get a good picture.

No u pick article that's obvious antichina. as for labor yes it's cheap but no one force them to choose China. And where is ur source of China briber all over Africa to get deal. U just counter ur own arguments by saying China deal is cheaper. As for squeeze lol seriously China buying resources everywhere not just Africa. If deal is bad the host will choose other investors

 

[J20!]

China can deny till they turn blue in the face. However, the truth is that they are stealing the natural resources of Africa by buying up the despotic dictators and leaders of Africa.

They are already despised by the people of Africa as so many reports indicate.

The actual colonizers(panicking over the loss of their ill-begotten African resources) are calling Sino-African trade "neo-colonialism, how quaint..

Thank you for your usual neutral reporting of western conventional "wisdom" on China.

Anyone who would like an expert's (ie a qualified academic scholar who's carried out years of data collection IN AFRICA, on China) take of the China-Africa relations and trade, what this intelligence squared debate:

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLE7865CD7C141D230&v=qHEpsXmmD48[/video]

A link to the full debate:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE7865CD7C141D230

1. China has contributed more towards poverty alleviation, industrialization, and desperately needed infrastructure development than the Europe or the United States in the past decade. Who BTW have been militarily and economically colonizing parts of Africa from the 1800's to the present day.

2. Polls of African opinion on China reflect a generally positive view, comparable to opinion figures on The US etc circa 70% +. So I don't know where you get your "Chinese are despised by Africans". China has improved African economic performance more than any other foreign investor in the past decade.

So forgive me if I find your articles and assertions a tad one-sided and lacking informational depth.





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