Multiply that workaday scene a hundred-thousand times or so, and you begin to get a sense of how the game is played here -- by all parties, from the East and the West. As one Western money-laundering investigator told me, "Every project in Africa has to have a politician involved. In big ones, it has to be the president or foreign minister. I don't know a country in Africa that doesn't have that, except maybe South Africa."
In Beijing's checkbook diplomacy, African governments receive multibillion-dollar deals in return for mining, timber, or oil rights. (The Chinese aren't interested in owning the land itself, only what lies within or on top of it.) The money is offered as a mix of cash, investment, cheap credit, and aid; some of it is earmarked for infrastructure projects -- dams, airports, bridges, power plants, pipelines. Significantly, much of that infrastructure is crucial to China's ability to operate effectively in the country, but it can also provide a much-needed stimulus to the local economy. Of course, China's closed books make it impossible to see where the money actually goes, opening the door to all manner of inducements to local and national officials. These cash-heavy "no strings attached" offers make China's projects very hard to imitate for public companies from the West -- and all but irresistible to the cliques sitting atop most sub-Saharan countries.
For the outside world, Beijing markets its efforts with flowery rhetoric -- reminiscent of Mao Zedong's in Africa in the 1960s -- touting China as a "selfless friend" intent on fostering a "harmonious" relationship. But China doesn't hesitate to create more lasting symbols of its benevolence: parliament buildings in Uganda and Congo, a presidential palace in Sudan, the Supreme Court in Namibia, an entirely new administrative capitol rising in Equatorial Guinea -- and lavish soccer stadiums everywhere. These monuments not only distract restive local populations but are also, as one of the continent's best-known businessmen sees it, part of a subtler "psychological strategy: When the people are recreating, they will automatically revere the Chinese. And when the parliament is sitting, they will automatically revere the Chinese."
In a pinch, China's leaders revert to invoking the memory of "colonial aggression" and their common history with Africans as the subjects of outside oppression. China will never, Beijing constantly reminds them, "impose its will" on another country -- a welcome relief after years of Western loan offers inconveniently premised on good governance and respect for human rights, and spending directed to alleviate poverty. In reality, there are often other strings attached. In December, for example, Malawi promptly cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan after 41 years, in exchange for an expected billion-dollar package from Beijing. And, just like projects from U.S. government agencies, the big PRC projects in Africa are "tied" -- meaning that mainly Chinese companies, materials, and labor are to be used.
Few would argue that the sub-Sahara doesn't need all the big projects it can get. But with the exception perhaps of South Africa, the region is so desperate and defeated, and the forces of globalization so severe, that China undoubtedly has the upper hand in its deals. During a stopover in Johannesburg, I met with George Nicholls, who runs Pasco Risk, the largest Africa-exclusive corporate intelligence agency. Nicholls says he has studied 30 Chinese deals in Africa over the past two years, hopping from country to country, looking for a pattern. "The question is, What is the Chinese endgame in Africa?" he says over our traditional dinner of steak and boerewors (farmer's sausage) at Nelson Mandela Square. "My guess is they are trying to opt out of the international system for commodity prices. They are saying, 'Instead of the Western way, we'll go direct to the source and get it cheaper and more easily.' Western companies fight to own 20-year concessions. But it is irrelevant to the Chinese who owns the concessions -- they want the commodity, the offtake, and will do whatever they can to get it."
"Chinese corporations and crime syndicates have been accused of bribery, smuggling, counterfeiting, corruption, and dumping," Nicholls says. "By the time the Americans come to the party, the Chinese will have taken it. That's the risk the West runs." Nicholls knows his "clients want to outsmart the Chinese," but the Chinese are "opaque, they go everywhere, they operate outside the international system. And they are thinking 50 to 100 years out." As to where China's role in Africa will lead, Nicholls suspects it is "analogous to the colonial drive for assets and territory. Chinese policies may ultimately do nothing to develop Africa in anything other than the short term."
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Recent Comments | 26 Total
May 25, 2008 at 4:59am by Frank Lowe
China buy from everyone, not only from Africa. Australian have been busy digging up what have you all over their continent to sell to china. Similarly American and Canadian gurard their export of agricultural and farm products zealously. They even secretly financed research to smear their competitors from the third world to get ahead.
The real problem in Africa is the meddling of westerners who don't allow the African to learn their lesson one step at a time. while the west took two hundred years to move from savagery and slavery to segregation/apartheid to equal right, they expect the african to change overnight.
The solution in Africa is stop meddling the politic there, stop export of weapons, no smeaky support of agents provocateur. Let them decide where they want to go, anyhow its their continent.
June 3, 2008 at 4:04pm by James Belle
I fear for africa, just as it struggles to recover from the exploitations of colonialism here comes the Chinese to deliver some more exploitation.
June 3, 2008 at 4:54pm by Christopher Scherer
Africa is in a very difficult spot. The need for money, jobs and some sense of security far out ways the fear of losing their natural resources. Hopefully, articles like this can shine a spotlight on the region and call more attention to what is happening there before it is too late. Maybe the will of the UN, the African Union or the Southern African Development Community, all of which Mozambique is a part of, could stem the tide of what appears to be a lopsided trading agreement.
June 4, 2008 at 2:37am by Long Pan
I was a Fast Company subscriber for a year and stopped doing that because of the poor quality of the articles. This one is no exception. There is no solid facts. Simply just a collection of highly biased second hand materials, which have no relation to his personal experience in Africa whatsoever. I don't even bother to comment on his amateur writing.
Fast Company editors, if your goal is to provide trash, congratulations, you are getting there!
June 9, 2008 at 10:28pm by sanch indigo
China Supplies America's demands. America's appetite for inexpensive poor quality products transformed China as the New Colonial Power in Africa. The Chinese are doing exactly what the europeans did, rape africa of her natural resources to develop there our country. Its a cycle the chinese didn't start it , they are just beating the Europeans at their our game. Lets all be socially responsible consumers and investors ,that will solve the problem. Americans cant afford to boycott chinese products, Gas price is out of control, Cheap Chinese goods is all we have left. We cant afford to buy products made in america , thanks to Nixon and Bush. The Flag on White House is made in China , not America. So the cycle will continue until africa saves herself or its natural resources go dry and when that happens there's Mars waiting to be exploited
June 19, 2008 at 4:42pm by Darrick Smith
Long Pan, you shouldn't be commenting on anyone's "amateur writing", given the multiple errors in your post.
September 4, 2008 at 12:58pm by Patrick Keller
Africans are so stupid. Can't they see that history is repeating itself. The same thing that happen during the The Renaissance and the Commercial Revolution of Europe in the 15th-18th centuries is happening again. It is just a repeat of the transatlantic slave trade. Human flesh then was a great resource that outsiders such as Europe and the Middle East were taking advantage of to grow their wealth and power. Now China is taking the rest of what is left of Africa. Africa continues to settle for sin(corruption, greed and violence) as it did before by selling their own people to the Europeans. They need to acquire wisdom, understanding and knowledge unless they perish.
June 5, 2009 at 1:46pm by M Claxton
I have noticed a lot of shrill China bashing in the western press these days. It seems to make western European based people's uptight to see non European descended people getting together , working out deals and approaching their level of development. I remain highly skeptical and suspicious at the emotional manipulation that is implied in these articles. To equate China in Africa and the Chinese with the Euro Americans is really ridiculous. When did China commit a Holocaust like the middle passage? No European descended person can point a finger, and after all of the years of Africa's suffering from this group what does it have to show for it? China is bring some of its money to set Africa up and plug it into the world development chain. That is a good thing.