China in Africa: Myths and Realities

[twoplustwoisfour]

Extremely informative thread

I request the mods to make this a sticky

 

[Tigershark]

respectfull engaement is a much nicer term that non-interference. No one likes to be told what to do, what to think but then people do not like the way some oil companies act that, its not our problem people are starving or our pipelines foul their villages we dont interfere

If one can integrate these two aspects and find the middle path between them, one will obtain the wisdom of Chan.

I remember having talked to you before and your English was much better before…
It’s like I’m talking to a different person.
But never mind. You seem to be mixing up Chinese political policy of noninterference in the politics of other nations with Chinese international aid and with Chinese companies which do not follow proper environmental standards--“our pipelines foul their villages we dont interfere”. And you ask me to integrate these aspects. But that wouldn’t make any sense, would it? They are entirely separate issues.

International aid should be delivered regardless of whether you like the country’s leader or their system of government—helping people is helping people.

Companies that break the law should be punished, regardless of the how powerful that company’s home country is. Currently, the American oil corporation Chevron is in the news because an Ecuadorian court has ordered it to pay $17 billion in environmental damages for willfully dumping oil for 20 years in the Ecuadorian rivers and jungles. Yet Chevron has sworn that under no circumstances that it will pay—it refuses outright. Moreover, Chevron no longer has any property in Ecuador which the courts can seize to assure payment. Neither has the American government supported the judgment of the Ecuadorian court because of Chevron’s multimillion dollar lobbying team in Washington.

So while Washington is dumping oil in Central America, it tries to criticize China for investing in Africa. That is nothing if not a double standard.

p.s. You can read the article here:
Ecuadorian Court Orders Chevron to Pay $17 Billion for Oil Pollution in Amazon

 

[Tigershark]

Finally, China’s policy of noninterference has long historical roots, reaching back to the days of the Opium war. As you may know, Britain wanted Chinese tea but could not pay it back with anything but opium. And war ensued. Noninterference means that just as China does not want another Opium war or European colonization, nor will it force onto others the grievous history it has suffered under the hands of the Europeans (and the Americans and the Japanese).

One could make the case that the inspiration for the policy of noninterference comes directly from the dictates of Confucius: “Do not do to others that which we do not want them to do to us”

 

[S10]

If it advances China's national interest, I do not see why China must listen to American/European lecture on African human rights. They've had their turn with colonization and their corporations certainly did not care much about the locals before China showed up. It's paramount that China keeps the relationship with African states simple, willing trading partners. The moment you inject politics into a trade relationship is the moment it is ruined.

Hiring local talents may prove problematic. First you must deal with the language difference between workers and managers. Local traditions and habits may force changes in work progress. The biggest problem however, is finding qualified individuals. You cannot take a man from the local village and make him work as welder or electrician without at least several months of training.

As for environmental standard, European companies dumped a bunch of toxic wastes near the coast line of Somalia, taking the lack of government as opportunity. The European nations did not even make a fuss over that. Now that the fish stocks were depleted because of the dumping, the Somali fishermen are resorting to piracy.

 

[Anonymous user]

I do not think Chinese companies are reluctant to hire African. The wages of African workers much less than the Chinese workers!
That is not the problem of Chinese companies!

The most important reason is African workers too lazy.
When they receive a month's wages, many African workers will give up their jobs to enjoy wage, then Chinese companies had to find new workers...

My uncle to work in Africa, He once said to me: "I've had enough of those Africans! They No Credit, No efficient, No culture, No technology, No ethics, even No hard!"
They should review their own why do they not find a job?

There was a BBC documentary on China building a road for Africa, was really impressed the Chinese manager of the operation who stuck with the project just to see it thru despite all the cuts in budget by the African govt. He too commented how the work ethics of the local workers was a big issue and delayed the project.

 

[Anonymous user]

Hiring local talents may prove problematic. First you must deal with the language difference between workers and managers. Local traditions and habits may force changes in work progress. The biggest problem however, is finding qualified individuals. You cannot take a man from the local village and make him work as welder or electrician without at least several months of training.

As for environmental standard, European companies dumped a bunch of toxic wastes near the coast line of Somalia, taking the lack of government as opportunity. The European nations did not even make a fuss over that. Now that the fish stocks were depleted because of the dumping, the Somali fishermen are resorting to piracy.

Ultimately locals will still needed to be hired to give a favorable impression that the local person benefits from the jobs given to them. Also visa for workers are usually delayed so the company has no choice but to use local labor or risk delaying the project.

As for Somalia I am not 100% certain but I believe one main reason for the instability in Somalia today was when the US went in to topple the government which was seen as too pro Islam. Apparently the government implemented the sharia law and stability ensued and piracy dropped to near 0 but after the US toppled them it resulted in the instability that we have today.

 

[no_name]

There was alot of hidden stuff with the shell company in nigeria, even though they spend huge amounts of ad money on promoting a green environmentally friendly image.

 

[milvipes]

Isuppose what supprised me about Gaye's comments is i had alwaysthought non-interference was a sensible policy that the "paternalisation" of previous western adventures in africa had done more harm than good .
What he made me realise is non interference is in a way imaginary, you are in a county you spend 10 billion dollars on projects, you have interfered, the leaders of a country expect China to respect the status quo, the people expect China to make their life better.
Just because it isnt China's job to fix countries, it doesnt stop the man in the street from having that expectation, unrealised expectations fuel resentment that then has to supressed or bring change.

Well said. Although China has no intention of presenting itself as the cure for all perceived "wrongs" presumably (rightly or wrongly) done by the West, it does not stop these countries from having unrealistic expectations.
Here in Mexico, it's not uncommon for people to harbour unreasonable expectation on China as the counterweight against perceived excessive US economic & political clout over Mexican internal politics. And I've been inquired more than once on the price of J-20, as if I work for CAC.

 

[madooxno9]

Africa was "sick and tired" of having its natural resources exploited by China and getting little development in return, Zimbabwe's deputy prime minister said on Friday.



"We are sick and tired of the old model, where China comes to Africa and extracts raw materials and goes back to China," Arthur Mutambara told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "Now we are not interested in that."



China is one of the few countries close to the long-embattled Zimbabwe government, but that did not deter Mutambara from challenging Beijing to do more to help development.



"We are not going to produce raw materials in Zimbabwe for China. China will come on our terms as partners," he said during a trip to China to attend the World Economic Forum in the northeastern Chinese port city of Dalian. "We want to manufacture cars with China in Zimbabwe. We want to manufacture computers with China in Zimbabwe."



China and African nations will gather for their latest summit later this year in Egypt.



While Mutambara does not stand at the front ranks of Africa's leaders, his strong comments may suggest some of the ambitious expectations that Beijing must address as that summit approaches.



Mutambara leads a faction of the Movement for Democratic Change, the opposition group that has secured a place in Zimbabwe's government, which is struggling with deep economic malaise, inflation and scant investment.



Zimbabwe has asked the world for help for its devastated economy, and says it needs $10 billion to rebuild dilapidated infrastructure and ease a 90 percent unemployment rate.



More investment sought
Zimbabwe has urged Chinese mining companies to invest in that sector, but Mutambara said his government also wants China to channel investment into building the manufacturing plants that are China's strength, for products such as catalytic converters and computers, and funding the country's banks.



While Beijing has shown more support for Zimbabwe's government than Western powers, Chinese investors have remained skittish about investing amid the recent unbridled inflation and political turmoil.
China's trade with the African continent has jumped by an average 30 percent a year this decade, reaching nearly $107 billion in 2008.



Source: Reuters

 

[madooxno9]

I think I am probably going to die any minute now. An inflamed, deceived mob of about 50 desperate men are crowding round the car, some trying to turn it over, others beating at it with large rocks, all yelling insults and curses.
They have just started to smash the windows. Next, they will pull us out and, well, let's not think about that ...
I am trying not to meet their eyes, but they are staring at me and my companions with rage and hatred such as I haven't seen in a human face before. Those companions, Barbara Jones and Richard van Ryneveld, are - like me - quite helpless in the back seats.
If we get out, we will certainly be beaten to death. If we stay where we are, we will probably be beaten to death.
Our two African companions have - crazily in our view - got out of the car to try to reason with the crowd. It is clear to us that you might as well preach non-violence to a tornado.
At last, after what must have been about 40 seconds but that felt like half an hour, one of the pair saw sense, leapt back into the car and reversed wildly down the rocky, dusty path - leaving his friend behind.
By the grace of God we did not slither into the ditch, roll over or burst a tyre. Through the dust we churned up as we fled, we could see our would-be killers running with appalling speed to catch up. There was just time to make a crazy two-point turn which allowed us to go forwards and so out-distance them.
We had pretty much abandoned our other guide to whatever his fate might be (this was surprisingly easy to justify to myself at the time) when we saw that he had broken free and was running with Olympic swiftness, just ahead of pursuers half hidden by the dust.
We flung open a rear door so he could scramble in and, engine grinding, we veered off, bouncing painfully over the ruts and rocks.
We feared there would be another barricade to stop our escape, and it would all begin again. But there wasn't, and we eventually realised we had got away, even the man whose idiocy nearly got us killed.
He told us it was us they wanted, not him, or he would never have escaped. We ought to be dead. We are not. It is an interesting feeling, not wholly unpleasant.
Why did they want to kill us? What was the reason for their fury? They thought that if I reported on their way of life they might lose their livings.
Livings? Dyings, more likely.
These poor, hopeless, angry people exist by grubbing for scraps of cobalt and copper ore in the and dust of abandoned copper mines in Congo, sinking perilous 80ft shafts by hand, washing their finds in cholera-infected streams full of human , then pushing enormous two-hundredweight loads uphill on ancient bicycles to the nearby town of Likasi where middlemen buy them to sell on, mainly to Chinese businessmen hungry for these vital metals.
To see them, as they plod miserably past, is to be reminded of pictures of unemployed miners in Thirties Britain, stumbling home in the drizzle with sacks of coal scraps gleaned from spoil heaps.
Except that here the unsparing heat makes the labour five times as hard, and the conditions of work and life are worse by far than any known in England since the 18th Century.
Many perish as their primitive mines collapse on them, or are horribly injured without hope of medical treatment. Many are little more than children. On a good day they may earn $3, which just supports a meagre existence in diseased, malarial slums.
We had been earlier to this awful pit, which looked like a penal colony in an ancient slave empire.
Defeated, bowed figures toiled endlessly in dozens of hand-dug pits. Their faces, when visible, were blank and without hope.
We had been turned away by a fat, corrupt policeman who pretended our papers weren't in order, but who was really taking instructions from a dead-eyed, one-eared gangmaster who sat next to him.
By the time we returned with more official permits, the gangmasters had readied the ambush.
The diggers feared - and their evil, sinister bosses had worked hard on that fear - that if people like me publicised their way of life, then the mine might be closed and the $3 a day might be taken away.
I can give you no better explanation in miniature of the wicked thing that I believe is now happening in Africa.
Out of desperation, much of the continent is selling itself into a new era of corruption and virtual slavery as China seeks to buy up all the metals, minerals and oil she can lay her hands on: copper for electric and telephone cables, cobalt for mobile phones and jet engines - the basic raw materials of modern life.
It is crude rapacity, but to Africans and many of their leaders it is better than the alternative, which is slow starvation.

next part 2moro guys.. coz i am reading...lol.... till then see you

 

[marshall]

Isuppose what supprised me about Gaye's comments is i had alwaysthought non-interference was a sensible policy that the "paternalisation" of previous western adventures in africa had done more harm than good .
What he made me realise is non interference is in a way imaginary, you are in a county you spend 10 billion dollars on projects, you have interfered, the leaders of a country expect China to respect the status quo, the people expect China to make their life better.
Just because it isnt China's job to fix countries, it doesnt stop the man in the street from having that expectation, unrealised expectations fuel resentment that then has to supressed or bring change.

The only people expecting China to FIX Africa's problems are those with the "paternalistic" attitude that you just said is not sensible. According to this logic, does this mean that China is responsible for FIXING the problems of every country it does trade with? If not, then why is this sort of patronizing attitude applied to Africans? My suggestion is, stop insulting Africans with this condescending attitude. China obviously respects Africans and their respective nations. This is why it has achieved so much together with their African partners instead of serving up platitudes over good governance that has done nothing but accumulate debt on the shoulders of Africa while delivering next to nothing. Let's just hope African countries don't attract the attention of various foreigners intent on subverting their success.

 

[marshall]

It's a cultural thing probably, they probably think Chinese bosses are too demanding.

It's cultural. In Europe, Italians and especially Spanish and Portuguese are known to have a much more laid back attitude than Germans. In those countries, they often take 2-3 hour lunch breaks. This looks like laziness to the Germans but to their countrymen the Germans seem uptight and overly demanding. Outside of China, the Chinese seem like workaholics. Even the well known Korean and Japanese work ethic pales by comparison.

 

[marshall]

Well said. Although China has no intention of presenting itself as the cure for all perceived "wrongs" presumably (rightly or wrongly) done by the West, it does not stop these countries from having unrealistic expectations.
Here in Mexico, it's not uncommon for people to harbour unreasonable expectation on China as the counterweight against perceived excessive US economic & political clout over Mexican internal politics. And I've been inquired more than once on the price of J-20, as if I work for CAC.

This is the first time I've ever heard Mexico expecting China to save it from America. All the news from Mexico almost always involves some sort of trade dispute with China. Are you sure you're not just hanging around alot of Chinese-Mexicans?

 

[marshall]

Africa was "sick and tired" of having its natural resources exploited by China and getting little development in return, Zimbabwe's deputy prime minister said on Friday.

"We are sick and tired of the old model, where China comes to Africa and extracts raw materials and goes back to China," Arthur Mutambara told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "Now we are not interested in that."
.
"We are not going to produce raw materials in Zimbabwe for China. China will come on our terms as partners," he said during a trip to China to attend the World Economic Forum in the northeastern Chinese port city of Dalian. "We want to manufacture cars with China in Zimbabwe. We want to manufacture computers with China in Zimbabwe."
.
More investment sought
Zimbabwe has urged Chinese mining companies to invest in that sector, but Mutambara said his government also wants China to channel investment into building the manufacturing plants that are China's strength, for products such as catalytic converters and computers, and funding the country's banks.
.

Mutambara is the opposition to Mugabe, which means he's obviously trying to dislodge China's position vis-a-vis Mugabe. Demanding catalytic converters, computers, etc??? Totally unrealistic given Zimbabwe's current state of development, which means the only reason he is saying these things is because he knows it cannot and will not happen. It's a political game being played to convince regular Zimbabeans that he's the one to turn to instead of Mugabe because he can deliver the goods, catalytic converters, computers, etc from China that Mugabe cannot.

 

[milvipes]

This is the first time I've ever heard Mexico expecting China to save it from America. All the news from Mexico almost always involves some sort of trade dispute with China. Are you sure you're not just hanging around alot of Chinese-Mexicans?

1) I have a grand total of 0 Chinese contacts in Mexico. The bulk of them are Canto-only speakers that neither can nor care to communicate with me.
2) Didn't know you get to watch Telemundo or TV Azteca in Canada. Seriously, do you believe 3rd-hand news from Anglophone media are painting the whole picture?