By Edward Paice and Jonathan Bhalla of the Africa Research Institute
China Africa Project - August 16, 2013
“China: friend or foe?”
was the title of a special Q & A session with the BBC’s World
Affairs Editor, John Simpson, on Tuesday 30 July. Of course loaded
leading questions – cast in binary terms – tend to produce answers that
are of little value. “China is neither good nor bad. China is a
combination of these things”, says Zhong Jianhua, China’s Special
Representative on African Affairs – a far more satisfactory starting
point for discussion.
Nowhere is the debate about China’s motives and practices more live
than in Africa. China is either the saviour the continent has long
awaited, or neocolonialist gargantuan solely intent on sucking up oil
and minerals as fast as it can in the murkiest possible fashion. The
reality is more complex – and it is evolving far more rapidly than the
stilted relations between Africa and the West.
In March 2013, Lamido Sanusi, Governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria, delivered the boldest assessment to date of China-Africa
relations by a senior African policymaker. In an open letter to the Financial Times,
he argued that Sino-African trade patterns were “a significant
contributor to Africa’s deindustrialisation and underdevelopment” and
smacked of “the essence of colonialism”. He called on Africans to
“remove their rose-tinted glasses through which we view China”. The
dragon-slayers cheered. The immediate response from China was muted and,
when it came, more considered.
Zhong Jianhua is the most senior Chinese government official to have
voiced his reaction to Sanusi’s accusations in detail and on the record.
In an interview with Africa Research Institute,
an independent and non-partisan think-tank in London, Zhong was
characteristically urbane. “I would argue that Mr Sanusi made a number
of important points that have been overlooked”, he says. A highly
respected career diplomat, Zhong knows the form. But his take on the
broadside from Nigeria, China’s fourth largest trade partner in Africa, is also illuminating.
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