The Dragon in Africa: China’s African Policy

Angola's President Joao Lourenco and China's President Xi © Reuters

Africa is the continent of tragedy and subjugation ever since the rise of European powers, it has been colonised, exploited and carved up. Its situation has only improved after the Second World War but is still considered to be the most undeveloped continent. In the other part of the world, China, an emerging great power rises with distinct governing norms separated from the dominant Western one of democracy and liberty. In 2017, the GDP of China is 12.2 trillion US dollars, a double of 2012 (World Bank, 2017), with its rapidly booming economy, China has been exerting its still soaring influence across the world, especially to Africa. At the moment, countless industrial and construction projects have been introduced to the continent, claiming to be ‘sincere and friendly’ (Zhen Cheng You Hao) and ‘mutually beneficial on an equal basis’ (Ping Deng Hu Li) (2006) by China, but many have questioned the hidden agenda and outcomes of the aid. This article intends to provide a brief examination of China’s African policy. I will first illustrate some salient differences between China’s aid modality and the Western, and explore the reasons why the African countries slide to China, and then suggest some potential risk that Chinese aid might entail, and finally argue that China’s policy toward Africa is mutually beneficial but we certainly should be aware of the hidden dangers under the guise when China is being more assertive in the recent years.

The Development Assistance Committee (DAC), the World Bank and the IMF could be seen as norms of western (arguably also international) aid modality. It acts as an international platform for major aid-providing nations in the world, including 30 member states, Japan and Korea being the only two Asian states. The DAC approach usually requires the aid recipient state to make several political concessions. A research done by Resnick shows that the donor countries have increasingly begun to attach political conditionalities to development aid in the period of 1990s (Resnick, 2011), especially of implementing democratic reform and good governance. Although giving strict conditional aid contradicts the very purpose of aiding the weak, this imperialistic mindset did not fade away. In 1989, a study published by the World Bank stated that a different form of political governance was a crucial requirement for positive development in Africa (Hofmeier, 1991, as cited the World Bank, 1989), converging such historic and imperialistic aid modality. Aid is used as a means by the donors to enforce political reforms on the recipient states and this is reinforced by the British Foreign Minister, Hurd in 1990 addressing the expectation of donors towards ‘demanding greater accountability, political pluralism and more open forms of government in recipient countries’ (Hofmeier, 1991, p.123, cited Financial Times, 1990). As a consequent, the traditional DAC approach is criticised by many as being inefficient and having too many pre-requirements, ‘… a truer way (of aiding) is giving society their basic needs; that is much more powerful than democratic rights’ (Li, 2010 as cited in Corkin, 2014), and therefore many African countries are more willingly to dispose to China’s aid as an alternative of the Western ones.

Why are Chinese aid more accessible to the African countries then? Firstly, Chinese aid has much looser preconditions compare with its western counterparts. According to the official Chinese account, China’s way of aiding is ‘one of humanitarian and development aid plus influence without interference, in contrast to the West’s coercive approach of sanctions plus military intervention’ (Tan-Mullins et al, 2010, p.5, cited Qian and Wu, 2007:1). It focuses on the recipient state’s real needs without being ‘tied-up with a political and economic reform’ (Tan-Mullins et al, 2010, p.5, cited Huang, 2007:82). In other words, no political conditions are needed for the recipient countries to access Chinese aid in which shaped China as a non-ideological and pragmatic donor (Tan-Mullins et al, 2010).

Secondly, China preferred aiding African countries in an infrastructural project-based manner, for example, the hydropower plants and factories in Gabon, the telecommunication equipment in Nigeria, etc, instead of direct budget support which often generates wealth only for the rich. According to the African Development Bank’s estimation, ‘the road access rate in Africa is only 34 percent, compared with 50 percent in other parts of the developing world while transport costs are 100 percent higher’ and ‘only 39 percent of the African population has access to electricity, compared to 70-90 percent in other parts of the developing world’ (Mafusire et al, 2010, as cited in Asante, 2018) which China’s aid could meet the African’s desperate needs and be perceived as more helpful by the commoners than the western aid. This is supported by the Afrobarometer survey result that 63% of Africans says that China’s influence is “somewhat” or “very” positive, and a majority (56%) of Africans also see China’s development assistance as doing “somewhat” or “very” good job of meeting their country’s needs (Lekorwe et al, 2016). This could be explained by the fact that the effects of DAC approach which provides direct capital subsidies to the recipient countries are harder to be noticeable than China’s infrastructure project approach. This shapes China’s aid to be more helpful than the western sources.

Thirdly, China’s political rhetoric directed to Africa shapes herself as an equal one rather than the donor-recipient asymmetrical one which in turn offers her a better image to the African, ie. China’s rising soft power make it more attractive to the African nations (Corkin, 2014). This dates back to 1953 when the then Prime Minister Zhou Enlai proposed the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence: ‘mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, mutual benefits on equal status and peaceful coexistence’. This diplomatic framework was well-received particularly by the African nations which shared a common history of being colonised and conquered. The Chinese discourse argues that their policy toward Africa is founded on the ‘South-South cooperation’ model, underpinned by common development and a partnership of equals which help leverage donor-recipient cooperation model and is less exploitative and more relevant to the basic needs than the North (Western) approach to Africa and could act as a shield against the negative consequences of globalisation (Asante, 2018). This explained why even though China’s aid style is pretty much a replicate of the old ‘oil for infrastructure’ deal (the so-called Angola model), the Africans are still accepting to the cooperation – the Chinese rising soft power. Apart from the official rhetoric, the Chinese experience is also deemed to be alluring to the African states for its rapid economic and social development, and sustainable authoritarian administration which usually has been criticised by the West as impeding the good governance in Africa.

In the case of Angola, a state which located in south-central Africa, bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the north, Namibia in the south and Zambia in the east, it was a Portuguese colony and had gained its independence in 1975 but that did not pave the way for prosperity. Civil war broke out in 1975 which lasted for 27 years, following the end of civil war in 2002, cities were devastating and a raft of post-war reconstruction was pressingly needed. However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and many western donors required Angola to adopt a staff-monitored programme. Angola refused the conditionality and hence unsurprisingly turned to China which offered a series of oil-backed credit lines with far fewer conditionalities than the IMF and the West (Tan-Mullins et al, 2010, citing an interview with Zhang Bolun). It was agreed in 2003 and 2004 that China would provide USD$ 2 billion financing package for public investment to Angola and Angola would repay over a period of twelve years at an interest rate of Libor plus a spread of 1.5 percent and oil (around 10,000 barrels per day) (Tan-Mullins et al, 2010). Further loans were rendered to Angola in 2005, 2007 and 2009 which amounted to approximately USD$3 billion. The aid created hundreds of projects in different fields of agriculture, water, transport, education, etc (Tan-Mullins et al, 2010, cited Power, 2011) and considerably boost its economy. Besides, China has been the biggest trading partner with Angola since 2007 (World Integrated Trade Solution, 2015). In 2017, 61 percent of Angola’s exports went to China, 5 times more than the second-largest exports country, India (OEC, 2017). The GDP of Angola has soared from USD$ 12.5 billion in 2002 to USD$ 124.2 billion in 2017 (World Bank, 2017) in which China clearly has played an important role.

Despite all these outward profits, China’s natural resources for infrastructure model also contains potential economic and social risks for African countries (Asante, 2018). On the one hand, when China has a surplus of labour force and capital but lacking natural resources, Africa has rich natural resources but lacking the infrastructure and money on the other, but the ‘oil for infrastructure’ model strengthens only both the export of African natural resources and import of the Chinese manufactured goods. In other words, this asymmetrical economic relationship is not healthy in long terms because it fails to enhance the industrialisation of Africa. In fact, they will be even more dependent on foreign export goods, particularly the cheap Chinese goods which in turn hinders the development of local industries and businesses. Furthermore, in the Economist report on Namibia, the boss of China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) says that about half the workers of Walvis Bay were Namibian, nonetheless, there were protests by local workers who failed to get a job from CHEC, complaining about why there are so many Chinese that are able to work on big construction project, why the Chinese company win so many construction contracts (including some government building) and why the Chinese could establish such a stronghold in trade that should have been dominated by locals (Economist, 2018). It is thus questionable on whether the Chinese aid is more beneficial to the African state than China herself and whether the asymmetrical relationship remains just as the old wine in new bottles.

Another criticism contends that China’s loan to the African countries worsens the already fragile economy, diminishing their efforts to reduce poverty. According to Foresight Africa 2018, ‘public debt in the median sub-Saharan African country rose from 34 percent of GDP in 2013 to an estimated 53 percent of GDP in 2017, and the debt service as a share of revenue has doubled’ (Chen and Nord, 2018, p. 105). According to another report by the UK Overseas Development Institute, eight African countries are in ‘debt distresses’ and a further eighteen are at high risk. Average interest payments now approaching one percent of Gross National Income, ‘creeping up to levels not seen for a decade’ (Africa Research Bulletin, 2018) and China today is the largest creditor, amounting for 14 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s total debt stock (Chen and Nord, 2018). Some defend that although China might deepen the African debt issue, the debt is a necessary result of development (Li, 2013, as cited in Corkin, 2014) and surely it will pay off in the future. In addition, China has a record of cancelling debt to African poorest countries: it cancelled US$ 2.8 billion of 35 African countries between the year 2000 and 2009 and China has promised to cancel outstanding debts in the form of bilateral governmental zero-interest loan (Corkin, 2014) and thus, it is evident that China has made considerable effort to improve the indebtedness but whether such attempts contain any hidden agenda remain in doubt.

The argument I wish to make here is largely aligned with Asante in which the China-Africa relationship is mutually beneficial but there are doubts for its sustainability. I might go a step further as to argue that such a relationship is purely materialistic and not sustainable at all. Even with the aid from China, Africa remains a subordinate role by specialising in the production of raw resources to the developed regions and importing from them manufactured goods (Asante, 2018). Also, the debt problem haunted the African countries remained or even worsening. China since President Xi took over, has moved away farther and farther from Deng’s doctrine of ‘hiding brightness and nourishing obscurity’ (Tao Guang Yang Hui) and being more and more assertive in international politics. One of the examples is the leasing of the Sri Lankan Hambantota Port to China due to unable to repay Chinese loans. The most harmed victim of Chinese assertive diplomacy is Taiwan which lost six official diplomatic relations with countries between 2016 and 2019, a total loss of sixteen in the 21st century (The Storm Media, 2019). A Japanese diplomat bluntly points out that such practice is like ‘buy friends’ (Corkin, 2014), implicating the relevance of dollar diplomacy for a wealthy country like China. Agreed by both Corkin and Asante, Africa is viewed by China just as a testing site and scenario for ‘South-South cooperation’ and their diplomats to perfect ‘the art of soft power’. With the tendency of China taking a more and more active role in international politics, this kind of South-South cooperation will soon transform into the exploitative North-South model and China is going to attach more and more political prerequisites for their aid.

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