To the extent that American standards are being lowered in an effort to keep open the pipeline to -- and from -- China, U.S. citizens are just as complicit as their leaders. When Bill Clinton was first elected president, the U.S. trade deficit with China was $18 billion. It is now $256 billion. Ravenous Westerners have become partners in Africa's environmental destruction -- and in financing the political survival of Beijing's one-party regime -- just as the U.S. government and American oil companies are underwriting E.G.'s one-party regime, and just as China is financing that of Sudan.
Oxford's Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion and a former head of research at the World Bank, is a leading expert on African economies. "I think the sad reality is that although globalization has powered the majority of developing countries toward prosperity," he says, "it is now making things harder for these latecomers." In other words, he says, Africa "missed the boat." And on a divided, demoralized continent, one where the United States has lost both its economic leverage and moral authority, Beijing can cherry-pick almost at will. That spells trouble not only for Africa but also for our ability to outthink the global consumption death spiral we have all set in motion.
The rhetoric of globalization has for decades been driven by the logic of so-called cornucopians or boomsters, the pro-growth optimists who argue that human ingenuity always saves the day. In studying farm labor from 1800 to 1967, economist Julian Simon showed that technology increased productivity, driving down the ultimate real cost of every raw material. The price of a cooking pot today, for example, is vastly cheaper by any true measure than it was 100 or 1,000 years ago. The boomsters argue that just as a global shortage of whale blubber for lamp oil led to the discovery of kerosene, and then electricity, as China rises, we will find the kerosenes of tomorrow.
For pessimists -- the Cassandras or doomsters -- China's win-win blitz in Africa conjures the prospect of a hellish lose-lose, a zero-sum competition for finite resources in which one country's gain is another's loss. The doomsters note that nothing like the productivity explosion of the 19th and 20th centuries had been seen before in human history -- and productivity growth has actually slowed in recent decades. Meanwhile, by 2050, 3 billion people will join the 6 billion already here -- the equivalent of adding two-and-a-half Canadas every year.
Humanity, the doomster argument goes, is on a collision course with the natural world, and the signs are everywhere: shrinking forests, croplands, fisheries, and water tables; rising pollution and temperatures. During the next 50 years, if current trends continue, humans will use more energy than in all of previously recorded history. More environmental stress will mean less growth and will trigger more conflict -- bitter clashes among civilizations over a dwindling resource pie, mass migrations, "climate refugees," uncontained diseases caused by "superbugs" impervious to modern medicines, water wars, maybe even food wars. In other words, the world will become like an episode of Survivor, except you can actually die.
The global boom in the cost of commodities is entering its sixth year, with no end in sight. Commodities have always been subject to boom-and-bust cycles, but many economists see a fundamental shift driving the markets now. "In the mining industry, we are all struggling to find new resources because the Chinese have created such a demand," says Anglo-American's Sunter. "For much of my career in mining, management was all about cutting costs to survive in an environment of falling prices. Now the driving issues are, Where are the next resources and we'd better hire some geologists who can find them." Or as one mining executive said to me recently, keeping up with current global demand requires that "a new super-iron-ore mine be commissioned every year -- from now to eternity."
In his Pulitzer-winning Guns, Germs and Steel, UCLA evolutionary biologist and geographer Jared Diamond concludes that life is a struggle for survival in a world of scarcity. His latest best seller, Collapse, slams that message home in a series of historical horror stories of resource exhaustion and societal catastrophe. If China's 1.3 billion people are to live like Americans, he says, China would double the global environmental impact and demand on natural resources. In that scenario, the earth would need another earth to supply its needs. "Either we are going to resolve these problems in pleasant ways of our choice," Diamond says, "or else the problems are going to resolve themselves in unpleasant ways -- not of our choice."
In the doomster scenario, the earth will need another earth to supply its needs.
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Recent Comments | 17 Total
May 17, 2008 at 2:42pm by arnie lerma
Dear Mr BEhar, You have out done yourself. This is an amazingly informative article, thank you. I learned from your words. Regards Arnie Lerma
May 21, 2008 at 3:37pm by Shelley Mosley
Mr. Behar:
An incredibly informative article highlighting that while we focus on how the price of gas impacts Americans' ability to take summer vacations, others are taking the longer view and are out-strategizing us in acquiring the resources we will all require in the next 50 years. We are asleep at the switch.
June 3, 2008 at 4:53pm by James Belle
China is a much bigger player on the world stage than many think, the west better have contingency plans, otherwise competing with them will be much harder in the next 50 years.
June 6, 2008 at 12:38am by CHET WHITESIDE
THANK YOU, AFTER 27 YEARS TRAVELING THROUGHOUT AFRICA YOU HAVE PUT INTO WORDS TO WHAT I HAVE SEEN AND EXPERIENCE AND HAD NOT THE POWER TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. TODAY WHAT IS THE VALUE OF LIFE?
June 6, 2008 at 5:51pm by GEOVANI LUNA
Dear: Mr. Behar
astonishing article.
What can I say. keep up the good work.
Regards. Geovani Luna.
June 6, 2008 at 8:13pm by Afam Edozie
It is the nature of man to exploit his fellow man, whether man on man, village on village, clan on clan or nation on nation. To deny this is a triple failure, failing to understand our history, failing to understand the purpose of law, and failing to understand what goes on in every school yard in the world.
Europeans, Americans, Chinese and Indians all come to Africa with a view to what they can take out, not what they can put in. They have always done so and I don’t see a world in my lifetime where I will expect anything different.
That China is now emerging as did the US, Germany and Japan at the beginning of the last century. And Germany and Japan did again after the war, is obvious. But the fact that China has the scarcity mentality (as did Germany, Britain and Japan at the beginning of the last century – which led them to fight for resources) (and for sure in the short term all things are scarce,) does not mean that energy and food will always be too scarce to support the needs of +10 billion people.
Time and time again, man’s creativity and ingenuity has been up to the task of finding alternatives, that support the continued accession (in some fronts) of our species. And there are alternatives, it is just that they take some years to develop and bring on stream. Natural resource cycles typically last between 15 and 20 years, so six years really is just the beginning – if you stay focused on demand and supply you will be one of the few that will see the market turn, at exactly the same time that everyone else is saying that prices will continue to rise for ever and indeed even the people who are today skeptical about more gains will be in the process of getting into the market just as it truly peaks and goes after another 20 year trough (the greater fools.)
The United States and the West are no more special to Africa than any other country or group of countries that can provide markets for their goods, capital for their industry and expertise for their development. During the cold war the US understood this and took over leadership for Africa from Britain and France, after the cold war they abandoned their puppets in Somalia and elsewhere leaving behind a vacuum resulting in an explosion in conflict across much of the continent, which is only just subsiding as new power equilibriums have been reached.
Before the emergence of Asia, the United States and the West were the only game in town. But the US did not use this power in any positive way. As a result few Africans will cry at the emergence of a new exploiter.
The great mistakes of US foreign policy (if I can call them mistakes) are that the US does not to have a strategy nor to have any 'real' values that they adhere to.
So Africans neither look up to them as a moral beacon (despite the fancy talk,) nor have they built in strategic advantages that will give them an edge in the future.
As a result the US lost the Shah's Iran (where it backed autocracy over democracy; whilst extolling the virtues of democracy), is loosing a host of other countries. And will likely loose much of Africa to China.
The Chinese also have no values worthy of emulation (Ok, they are disciplined and work hard etc. but you know what I mean,) but they do have an effective strategy.
Their strategy is to
i) use loss leaders (and leverage their low cost base) to get a foot hold into a country - offering to support good projects for cheap (foreigners bearing gifts policy),
ii) Ignore national politics, you do just what you want we’re only here for business (which may seem shocking, except when you compare it to the US rhetoric (from the perspective of us natives) which is ‘be just like me’ (I see no evil policy),
iii) corrupt the locals (despite Nigeria's reputation as a den of corruption I know many people who don't take bribes, regardless the Chinese still try to bribe them and when they don't accept they try even harder, like they were programmed to do this in head office, and
iv) invade the country
I live in Nigeria and the Chinese are moving in here at an alarming rate, there are more Chinese living here than any other minority group and they are coming in at every level. Large, Medium and Small sized Chinese companies. As well as sole Chinese traders. They have factories in almost every corner of the country.
They go to the middle of no where, ask the locals for land to build a $10 million processing plant (or something) (why should anyone say no, no one else - not even our own govn - has come to do anything to provide us with jobs) and in any locality outside of the major cities even $1 million investment is a big deal. They then import hundreds of Chinese workers for every job except the most menial and go ahead to treat all their workers (Chinese and Nigerians) like slaves.
They do not transfer skills, they do not train, they do no even die (I kid you not, Chinese do not die in Nigeria), when one dies his death is kept secret, his body is shipped back to China in bulk using refrigerated containers and another Chinese comes to take his job.
The only part of their colonialisation strategy that is failing is that they are not allowed to marry local girls. But I think they have a shortage of girls of their own, so we see an increase in the number of 'secret' wives. How this one will pan out is anyone's guess. But I guess they will get shipped home and we will be left with lots of half Chinese babies.
Few policy makers in Africa understand the Chinese strategy and even fewer of them have the capability of doing anything about it. In 20 years, the Chinese will be a big minority in Africa, with significant participation in industry and economic life. I think it is in the Prince by Machiavelli that it is explained that one of the best ways to bind a country to you is to relocate a sizeable number of your loyal subjects there (as the English did in Northern Ireland.) Tensions and civil turbulence come with the territory, but exploiter seldom care.
The west has not had a coherent strategy since neo-colonialism failed in the 70s (another exploitative system that replaced colonialism which was also exploitative, which replaced slavery.) The US attempt to establish an African command is laughable and is seen in Africa as a desperate attempt to introduce a military strategy.
No doubt a charm offensive with promises of dollops of aid will eventually get them the base, and no doubt they will be able to establish a naval presence through their planned deep water port in Sao Tome. But as you can see it does not stand up to the Chinese strategy which involves feet on the ground and involvement in the community.
On Richard’s last point, the ‘development’ boat has not left, there are always opportunities for people who have land, can acquire skills and live in a stable environment, to begin the process of creating capital and becoming more productive.
Unfortunately, mainly due to geography, all the races did not develop productivity at the same speed (Negro Africans were still taking the continent from Khoi Africans in the mid fifteenth century,) and our nature is to exploit rather than help those that are weaker than us. Within nations this predatory behavior is controlled by law, but between nations, peoples and races it remains the order of the day. So any African expecting that the Chinese (Americans or any one else from the outside) are here to help would better spend their time making their own chains.
Richard and other observers may be surprised to see Africa tackle many of its political problems over the next 30 years (just as China was able to tackle its ideological problems between the 1940s and 1970s, which has led to their emergence now,) After which it is a short trip to get on the boat or if the boat has truly sailed then to make our own.
I apologize if I have rambled on too long for a comment on an article, but the Richard’s brilliantly researched article brought out many issues that I could not help but comment on. And if you really want to help Africa keep your aid dollars in your pocket and instead invest them in African business, not only will you be increasing productivity of Africans (leveraging their labour with capital) you will make a better return than you would from the S&P500. You can read about African companies that are building boats at www.smartinvestorafrica.com.
June 9, 2008 at 2:52pm by david wayne osedach
This is an eye opening article.
Does it leave any doubt that there will be devastating global wars in the near future over commodities such as oil, water, or copper, and iron?
Can or, will the US instigate them?
June 16, 2008 at 9:52am by Sowande Tichawonna
I applaud Richard Behar and Fast Company for shedding light on this global issue. If there was ever a justification to boycott the upcoming Olympics this qualifies in spades.