Introduction
Nowadays, we live in a world that is converging in a fast-paced as a result of globalization with its active forces—leading to the tremendous rise in global capitalist economy. The demand for energy continue to sky-rocket in this modern world whilst major players in the world today; such as the United States, countries in the European Union and Japan are at alert in the sense that, China, one of the world fastest growing economy has been considered as a new competitor in the competition of securing a long term energy supplies around the globe. As China’s economy is rapidly growing and in other to acquire the needed resources to support its rapid growth, the government have taken a great step in focusing in other part of the world to secure oil which they deemed necessary coupled with other raw materials across the world. The rising economy of China was stated to have grown in an extraordinarily large number of nine (9) per cent per annum in the last twenty five (25) years whereas its consumption of energy has been said to have doubled to the extent that it outstripped the production of domestic energy. (Africa-practice report, 2007, p.2)
Significantly, to catch up with the demand of its market, the economic powerhouse has channelled its attention to Africa. A continent widely known for its social and political unrest, though Chinese active involvement in Africa is a necessary mission in other for them to secure new export market for their manufactured goods, there are several strategic ways adopted by the Chinese government in their bilateral relation with African states; however, amongst the strategic ways is by significantly carrying out investment in the continent thereby increasing and securing a mutual relationship with various African nations they made contact with. On one hand, this article will pinpoint and elaborate on the strategized Chinese aspect of engagement with African States while on the other hand, the article will also detail the US response to Chinese engagement in the continent.
China-Africa Relation Firstly, the Chinese government observed and adopted the means of visiting Africa constantly to strengthen their mutual relation with African nations. They send their political official to make significant use of “public diplomacy” coupled with a triennial forum known as “China-Africa Co-operation” (FOCAC) to lure African elites in maintaining a rigid relation with China base on the fact that both the government of the involved African states and Chinese government are all benefiting from the mutual relation build on investment. The year 2009 was the last forum of the China-Africa Co-operation and according to the Africa-Practice report, prepared for Jetro-London, it was stated that President Hu of China, visited a total of seventeen African States within ten months interval in 2007. Not only that, another high-powered political official of the Chinese government –namely, premier Wen Jiabao of the people’s republic of China including with other prominent officials of the Chinese government have all travelled to Africa contributing immensely in solidifying the mutual co-operation and trade relation with African countries. Their safari trip to the continent have had much of a success in the sense that it played an utmost role in deepening the engagement with African States, setting up a solidarity with African governments and looking forward to presenting itself as a worthy “interlocutor between developing countries and the developed West” (Africa-practice report, 2007, p.2). However, there were various discussions on the Chinese African summit in 2006 which acted as the actual platform where the Chinese government laid-out plan for next three succeeding years. In the summit, the Chinese government made various promises to African countries—firstly, they promised to set-up preferential loan package of three billon US dollars ($3 billion) plus another preferential buyer’s credit of two billion ($2 billion) for African nations. Princeton Lyman (N.D)
Nevertheless, among the pledge China made to African countries during the 2006 summit was to double its aid to the continent and the cancellation of all the debts that African countries owned which was due in 2005. Secondly, they also made a promise to set-up another amount of $5 billion specifically for “China-Africa Development Fund” which will enable them to make the provision for “start-up capital” to their industries operating in Africa. In addition, the final promise made by the economic powerhouse in the African Summit of 2006 was to train ten thousand professional, establish 10 centres with the purpose of providing agricultural excellence plus “five trade and economic zones on the continent”, Furthermore, since 2006 after China’s pledge to African countries; they have effectively engaged themselves with contract that at least is as large as they promised during the summit—keeping to its promise, China have committed itself with trade partnership worth billions of dollars, In some cases, especially that of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where eight billion US dollar credit offer by China overwhelmed them.
Chinese Strategic Means of Securing Africa’s Oil
Although China has long been in Africa, but its primary purpose in more recent years has been driven by its exploration and production deals, targeting and carrying out even smaller deals with African States such as Gabon. While also striking and maintaining bigger deals with African oil leading producing countries—who has long been in a good relationships with the European countries and the United States. One would contemplate on how possible it is that China, a newly emerging economic powerhouse is surprisingly dominating African market knowing that the United States and other European powers have long dominated the region long before the Chinese recent arrival in the continent. Exceptionally, in the past years China has become more active and warmly welcomed by African States because of its “offering of integrated aid packages”. Alessi and Hanson (2012)
Considering the case of Angola, the leading exporter of oil to China, it was clearly observed that Chinese integrated aid packages was highly successful given the fact that its oil business with Angola was successful by Chinese infrastructural projects to the country coupled with other things such as credit lines and loans. According to Shelly Zhao (of the Chinese Briefing magazine) China and Angola first signed their bilateral trade agreement in the year 1984 which was followed up by another trade agreement in 1988 known as “the Joint Economic and Trade Commission”. However, since the Chinese first Trade deal with Angola, the government of China have remained an active player in Angolan market; in fact, their bilateral trade have significantly and steadily sky-rocketed. For instance, since the year 2005 to more recent year 2010, Chinese Corporations have overwhelmingly achieved strong foothold in Angola regardless of the presence of America, the United Kingdom, France, and Italian Multinational Corporation in Angola. Shelly Zhao (2011).
Specifically, Shelly Zhao for the Chinese Briefing Magazine also acknowledged that – in 2010 Chinese bilateral trade with Angola exceeded the amount of US$120 billion, and their steady business partnership significantly plays an important role in granting Chinese Corporations such as NOCs and China Exim-bank an edge in Angola. In other to establish a rigid relationship with the Angolan government—Chinese companies have actively executed a series of infrastructural projects such as; building of new hospitals, railroads, bridges, motorways, offices, and also engaging in training “Angolan telecommunication workers” . Alessi and Hanson (2008)
Support from African States
China’s engagement with Africa is not only for economic purpose, though there were lots of promises of aid to Africa but one has to note that amongst what was discussed during the 2006 summit—was both economic and political goals. There was range of political matters that was discussed at the summit which is of utmost significance to China and also being amongst China’s policy in Africa. First and foremost, at the summit, China clearly outlined condition to any African country willing to benefit from its large aid promise and debt relief pledge. Princeton Lyman an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Council on Foreign Relations wrote that; both African countries and China at the Summit agreed to work together in foreign policy issues. The agreed multilateral cooperation between Chinese government and its African partner is to take same stand at the United Nations; it was proven to be truth that since the agreement at the summit, the number of African countries that previously acknowledged Taiwan as the legitimate government of China has dramatically reduced to four African states.
Furthermore, the partnership with its African guest has boosted China’s influence in the international organization in the sense that it now has approximately 53 African states on its side—meaning, China is confident because its presence and collaboration with 53 African nation’s amount to 53 votes in the United Nations and other international organization, this votes is obviously enough to deny Taiwan from being a member of the above international organizations. It is also important to note that China’s partnership with the respective 53 African states would also stop criticisms of their abuse of human right in the UN Human Rights Council. The prime example to prove that China’s special relations with African states has a huge impact in their sphere of influence around the world today is the case of South Africa, being amongst African states that’s in partnership or bilateral relation with China, particularly; during the reign of President Thabo Mbeki’s government, China’s influence on South Africa coupled with its BRIC countries alliance with (Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa) had a huge impact on South Africa to further strengthen their relationship collaboration with China. This close relationship with China was tested when “China-India and Brazil” which once cooperated with the US turned against the US and the EU in the “Doha trade round”, moreover, South Africa which is amongst the BRIC countries as well turned against the US by taking the position of China-India and Brazil against that of the US and the EU. Princeton Lyman (N.D, p. 3)
The Demand for Energy
China’s Africa-policy is not mainly about securing or dominating the African oil supplies but one have to understand that the demand for African energy is in fact the leading mission of Chinese economic agenda. Although its demand for African energy resources is rapidly rising and in some cases it has been exaggerated as a zero-sum struggle. Competitively, there has been the presence of the United States and the European States in African energy market making China to remain amongst the small players in its Africa energy engagement. However, the United States still remain the world’s largest oil consumer whilst China remains the second runner-up, China’s hunt for oil isn’t only in Africa—the Middle East supplies China with half of its oil import with approximately 4.8 million barrels per day in the year 2010 which amounted to 47 percent of China’s Middle East crude oil import while Africa account for 30 percent of its oil import with 1.5 million barrels per day making Africa the second runner-up continent exporting oil to China. Alessi and Hanson (2012)
At this present day, one third of China’s oil import is from Africa—and according to IEA (the International Energy Agency) 2011 World Energy Outlook projected that the year 2020 will be the actual year China will overtake other countries to become the net importer of oil in the whole world. As China’s economy continue to boom, their hunger for oil supplies remains increasingly high and this is the exact reason why they decided to diversify their oil pursuit to regional African states in other to secure both Africa and Middle Eastern energy market. To be critical of this, China’s scramble for energy could be seen as both political and economic struggle as mention previously, the political aspect could be viewed as China trying to compete with the world super-powers and traditional oil consumers, and their move of pursuing and trying to secure both Middle Eastern and African oil market is to have a rigid influence on the continents that hold the top position in the world’s oil reserves ( Middle East hold about 62 percent, while Africa hold 9 to 10 percent of world oil reserves) Alessi and Hanson (2012)
China’s demand for energy in Africa have thus made them make several move in negotiating and buying out regional African government, given the fact that they have made huge amount of loans to Angola whilst helping them to erect several infrastructures; this strategy have influenced so many African state to turn and welcome Chinese deals seeing it as more appealing than that of the traditional oil consumers in Africa (the united states and the European countries). Specifically, Zambia is another African country that China is actively involved in; they have successfully acquired two major copper mines in the country. Moreover, in Sudan, China has ownership to about 40 per cent of its major oil industry and has been investing in pipelines plus other supports for the company. Princeton Lyman (N.D, p. 3)
China’s Policy of Non-interference
Since 1996, a notable year--former president Jiang Zemin of the People’s Republic of China officially commenced China’s re-involvement with Africa – the Chinese government explicitly adopted the policy of non-interference which they have tried to maintain up to this date. The Chinese policy of “non-interference” according to Donald L. Sparks is basically the Chinese strategic system of engagement in Africa that prevents them from involving themselves in the “domestic affairs” of African states. Christopher Alessi (2008) In comparison, it is clear that China’s policy of non-interference with African countries defer from that of the United States, Chinese government took a different route knowing that the US which is amongst the leading African oil consumer have a foreign policy of interfering in African countries to try to change their system of governance to a democratic system more like the duplicate of American political institution. Nevertheless, in a liberal understanding –the US desire to build democratic institution in Africa is based on the view that democracies rarely fight each other because of trade and interdependence which is of significant importance to states. The US foreign policy in African oil producing countries also incorporated humanitarian intervention while China’s African policy remain strictly on non-interference.
China’s policy of non-interference has triggered several debates—to some point, scholars monitoring the Chinese engagement in Africa have tried to come up with specific reason why the world fastest growing economy decided not to interfere with host country’s domestic affairs knowing quite well that Africa is a continent prone to conflict, high rate of corruption and bad political governance. However, an attempt to un-earth the reason behind China’s policy of non-interference, Richard Dowden stated in his book “Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles” that the Chinese adopted such foreign policy toward Africa because it opened a way for them to “sell weapons” to African countries like Zimbabwe and Sudan—states widely known as rogue states by the US and some international theorists. Alessi and Hanson (2012)
Although, inasmuch as China tried to maintain their policy of non-interference, recently; there have been issues that challenged China’s foreign policy in a country like Sudan. China being an active player in Sudan violated its policy in 2007 when the peace keeping troops authorized by the United Nation Security Council Resolutions was blocked by China, whilst on the other hand, their non-interference remained controversial when they revised their policy towards the rebels of southern Sudan by becoming the actual negotiator trying to settle the oil disputes between the Sudanese.
China Helps African Countries that receive little or no attention from Western investors
In this modern capitalist world almost every organization western or non-western has the vision of expanding their business to other parts of the world with the simple purpose of taping into different market and making high profit. However, before investing in a particular foreign market, every western investor carries out a risk analysis that will determine the country’s risk that could potentially threaten their business. But in the case of Chinese government and its companies—their investment in Africa clearly shows that they don’t care taking a country business risk assessment to determine the level of risk in the country they are willing to do business in. Unlike the western investors who mostly avoid doing business with African countries with high-risk, the Chinese government are always ready to invest in war thorn African states regardless of its high-risk including Burundi; a country where rebels are pretty much active compare to most African countries.
In various conflict thorn countries, great number of indigenous population is very excited to see new infrastructures such as new roads, new bridges, stadiums, hospitals, railway lines, schools, and community water scheme being built by the Chinese government as part of their aid and also a means of strengthening their relationship with African states. For instance, the African report prepared for Jetro London contain information on how the Chinese government won the trust of large sections of the population coupled with the country’s policy-makers especially in “post-conflict” country like Sierra Leone—which have been said to have benefited massively from Chinese financing projects that immensely erected new infrastructures such as new military headquarters, new government buildings and tractor factory helping to generate jobs for the local population of Sierra Leone. (Africa-practice report, 2007, p.18)
The US Response to Chinese Presence in Africa
China’s activities in Africa have triggered criticisms in “Western capitals”, media and Western institutions. The US and its Western alliance are specifically concerned as China stepped up its public diplomacy and range of activity in Africa, China being the host and the backbone of the “forum of China Africa cooperation that brought the attendance of 48 leaders of African countries to Beijing; promised to doubled its aid to African countries doing investment with the Chinese government, this move basically caused a wave of reaction from the US who criticized and referred China as being “very aggressive and pernicious economic competitor with no morals in Africa”. Eric Murray (2011)
The activities of the Chinese government in Africa have been represented as practicing “irresponsible global leadership” given the fact that they are mainly interested in securing Africa’s oil. They have been labelled as a country in Africa with the mission of securing its self-interest while abandoning the issues of corruption plus conflicts that’s engulfing the continent. The US fears that China’s involvement in the continent will contribute to lack of transparency because of its non-interference policy to pursue Africa’s resources. Although, the October 2011 International Monetary Fund report, reported that Africa’s economic ties with China has triggered the consistent growth of high economy with an estimate of “5.3 percent and 5.8 percent for 2011 and 2012 respectively”. Alessi and Hnason (2012), its engagement in Africa and its efforts in constructing new roads, erecting new stunning buildings, and cancellation of African debts are seen by some analyst as a strategic means of building a formidable alliance with African nations.
Additionally, the United States and the European Union are not the only ones criticising Chinese influence in Africa, even some indigenous people of Africa themselves have also taken active part in lashing out criticisms at the Chinese government, in fact, they accused the Chinese government of bolstering incumbent regime that constantly violate Human right by inflicting pains on their citizen and restricting freedom of speech. Another accusation aimed at the Chinese government and its industries in Africa is that—they underbid local companies, plus not employing Africans because they bring their own workers to do the jobs themselves, more also, those that were fortunate to be hired by the Chinese firms are pretty much likely to do a hard labour, thereby failing to uphold fair labour relations. Particularly in Zambia, managers working in Chinese mining industries have banned union groups and found guilty of opening “fire on workers protesting over back pay and working conditions injuring several employees”. Howard W. French (2011)
On the other hand, the US has repeatedly exercise ill feelings towards the role that the Chinese authority is playing in Africa. Though, Washington is fully aware that China is far from being a strategic threat to the US in Africa but they are also aware that China’s influence is undermining their influence in the continent. And in other to counter Chinese influence, the US have adopted various aggressive strategies to destabilize Chinese foothold in the continent, -- firstly, to mention a few; the US have successfully extended its department of defence by launching a new US-Africa Command known as AFRICOM, the US-Africa command is opened in other to see how fast it would take the US to deploy its military in regions of Africa in terms of enhancing peace and stability but the Chinese government already referred it as being arrogant and unpleasant. The launching of the US joint military force with Africa has also caused China to move from oil endowed regions like Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Nigeria, and “Libya through war” Eric Murray (2011)
In addition, another strategy initiated by the US to counter Chinese influence is the use of “propaganda welfare” through which Western officials have heavily criticized China for its self-interest in Africa as a new form of imperialism in the continent. Furthermore, America constantly watching the Chinese as a watch-dog, continue to come up with new ideology so as to minimize Chinese influence in the continent once ignored by the Western economy. Now that most African countries if not all have warmly embraced and moved their attention to the new fastest growing economy, it has been a thing of a surprise for the Western leading Capitalist economies especially the world hegemon (the US), prompting them to go as far as considering to use the war on terror to acquire more controls over main ports and oceans around the continent in other to prevent and counter China’s growing influence in Africa. Eric Murray (2011)
Conclusion
This research paper has examined China’s influence in Africa which is engineered by its strategic step to satisfy its increasing demand for oil, the paper argues that China’s Africa policy enable them to gain strong ties with African nations especially the sub Saharan African’s which is natural endowed with oil making them the dominant states in Africa’s “oil-producing nations”. The paper also addressed the US response to the growing Chinese influence in Africa—the US being a hegemon that doesn’t want to lose its influence in the Continent; they initiated several programs to counter China’s influence and in other for china not exerting too many influence in Africa. Nonetheless, the US needs to accept the Beijing government as a “legitimate competitor” in Africa and also work closely with China to set up a model which will be of a beneficiary to Africans— Washington and Beijing possesses lots of influence in Africa and it will definitely go along way if both countries partner in setting up a program that will counter Africa issues like (HIV/AIDS, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping operation and malaria) Eric Murray (2011).
Conversely, China’s oil deals with African countries have contributed a lot in developing several needed infrastructures in Africa. With a clear observation, these deals are unparalleled compared to oil deals made by western countries, in that case, China’s involvement in Africa and its surplus oil deals are the most benevolent; farther than what Western or any multinational cooperation’s can offer to African countries. China understood that Infrastructural development is among the top things wanted by Africans and they stick to it--that is why many African states embraced China rather than the US or their Western colonial masters.
Works Cited
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