Mozambique's is a sad story. At its independence from Portuguese rule in 1975, the country was one of the world's basket cases. It still is. Soaring violent crime and growing organized-crime networks. Systemic corruption. A police force as crooked as the crooks they chase. Little or no government transparency. A devastating AIDS crisis. Annual flooding of entire provinces. Years of socialist mismanagement and a brutal 16-year civil war that killed a million people before it ended in 1992. More than 70% of Mozambique's 20 million citizens live on less than $2 a day, and only 8% have electricity.
The Bush administration nevertheless lavishes Mozambique with praise (and a recent $500 million aid package) for making progress on economic freedom, good governance, and transparency. And the World Bank recently called it "one of the greatest success stories anywhere in the world." Yet U.S. companies largely ignore the place. The country remains one of the most difficult in the world in which to do business, according to the World Bank's own annual index.
The Chinese, though, are suddenly omnipresent. Trade between the two countries has expanded sixfold since 2001. Steel factories. Textiles. Shoes. Motorbikes. Auto products. Hotels. Banking. A $2.3 billion soft loan for a controversial dam the World Bank deemed too risky to fund. A new soccer stadium. A glittering convention center. A parliament building. A state-of-the-art airport makeover. The humongous headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, perhaps the most modern structure in the capital city of Maputo.
China is providing science equipment to the country's main university and helping build a satellite campus. Its embassy here is a sprawling gated complex of six huge yellow buildings that dwarfs its sleepy American counterpart. China's government blithely calls its relationship with Mozambique a "win-win" situation by two undeveloped countries that have endured similar abuses, a sentiment echoed by Mozambique's government, at least publicly. "Mozambique has a socialist past," a Western diplomat based in Maputo points out, "so it is closer to China politically than other countries. And [Mozambicans] say they remember that 'the Chinese were with us' when they were fighting for independence."
Rafique Jusob heads the Mozambican government's center for promoting investments. "China treats us like a peer," he insists. "They have a culture of respect for other people. They don't interfere, they don't invade countries. Americans? They don't even know where Mozambique is. And you [Americans] are trying to export morals which even in your own country didn't work."
Many observers, however, see China's deals here as emblematic of the imbalance of power between the two countries, what the head of the African Development Bank recently described as Africa's lack of "capacity to negotiate." That sentiment is echoed by Jim LaFleur, senior economist for Mozambique's largest business association and a longtime American resident of Maputo. "The Chinese are building things in exchange for mining rights, timber rights, fishing rights, and these are absolutely bad deals," LaFleur complains. "We've lost an asset, and in exchange we got a ministry building, which is just an opportunity cost for China." Stellenbosch University's Corkin is more categorical still: "China is very clear about what it wants from Africa," she says. "Africa has absolutely no idea what it wants from China."
In some cases, China's extractive work is clearly orchestrated and paid for by its central government or leading state-owned institutions; in others, it's more amorphous, driven by Chinese private operators -- but with government-funded sweeteners or incentives. Some of the activity is legal and some clearly not. Chinese-made counterfeit products proliferate, cannibalizing embryonic local industry -- or aborting it altogether. Illegal fishing along the 1,500-mile coastline is done mainly by the Chinese; Mozambique's authorities, with just 10 patrol boats, can't even begin to make a dent. And then there is the timber problem.
China introduced widespread logging bans at home in 1999, after deforestation was blamed for soil erosion and severe flooding. Now China is staging a virtual holdup on the rest of the planet's wood. It is the world's largest importer of unprocessed logs and tropical timber; of every 10 tropical trees traded in the world, 5 are destined for China. And its exports of wood products such as furniture and flooring are growing at a faster clip than domestic consumption, with the United States by far its best customer.
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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.