By ELIAS JABBOUR*
Reflections on the Chinese path through Africa
1.
Relations between the People's Republic of China and Africa, particularly its sub-Saharan part, are subject to many paradigms that prevent them from being fully addressed in a single article. I say this because it is not only about relations between trade and investment, but also about the need for a whole new theoretical framework to be constructed to account for the analysis of this relationship.
I say this because powerful categories and concepts of analysis have been deliberately and recklessly used to classify such relations, starting with the category of imperialism and the notion of neocolonialism as a means of supporting certain arguments that are of interest only to the Global North. Our starting point, therefore, is that there is a process of resurgence of anti-colonial struggle in African countries whose target is their former colonizers, starting with France, and China's role in this process has been fundamental, to say the least. Let us comment a little on this.
The first point is that categories and concepts are products of the historical process, and therefore in constant transformation. The concept that manifests itself in the real movement (Hegel) of relations between China and Africa is the result of a historical process that began with the Bandung Conference (1955), the so-called Three Worlds Theory developed by Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping's key idea – in broad opposition to the notions of “manifest destiny” and New Canaan that emerged in the Eastern Mediterranean and which took shape in the idea of US exceptionalism – of building a “Community of Shared Destiny”. The Belt and Road Initiative and the globalization that China delivers from this initiative are concrete expressions of the process described above.
Working with the notion of neocolonialism, we must observe both the painful Chinese experience (“century of humiliation”) and the role of Western countries, the World Bank and the IMF in African destinies – especially since the 1980s. For example, the per capita income of sub-Saharan African countries grew, on average, in the 1960s and 1970s at an annual rate of 1,6%. After the beginning of the austerity policies and radical neoliberalism imposed on the region, per capita income decreased, per year, by 0,3% between 1980 and 2004.
This means that historically and currently Western countries have applied more political restrictions and exercised greater political influence than China over the internal affairs and destinies of the African economy. It is worth remembering that France maintains control over the monetary policies of 14 African countries through seigniorage operations and the obligation to deposit 50% of these countries' international reserves in Paris. The uprisings, backed by Russian and Chinese flags, in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso did not occur “out of the blue”.
2.
China's path through Africa dates back to its open support for the continent's decolonization and the speed with which several countries in the region recognized the People's Republic of China over Taiwan long before its admission to the UN in 1971. African countries were essential at a time of China's widespread international isolation. A qualitative leap in this relationship was made with the founding of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAP). Since then, China has been deeply involved in changing the continent's economic geography, starting with its commitment to boosting African industrialization, initially through massive investments in infrastructure.
China has been instrumental in building the necessary infrastructure on the continent to enable a true unification of the African domestic market and, consequently, a future social division of labor – both of which are fundamental to economic development. Since then, China has positively impacted the production of goods and services on the continent, although some countries still face internal governance challenges.
It is clear that China has invested heavily in the continent to expand the reach of its soft power, diplomatic influence and infrastructure initiatives to consolidate its interests and presence. However, it is worth noting that China has not imposed its governance model on any of the African countries with which it maintains an active relationship.
Through this process, China has become Africa’s largest trading partner, accounting for over $282 billion in trade in 2022. Approximately 16% of Africa’s total manufacturing imports came from China in 2018, a shift in a continent that was so dependent on Europe. Twenty-five economic and trade cooperation zones have been established with China in sixteen African countries. These zones, registered with China’s Ministry of Commerce, have attracted 623 companies with a total investment of $7,35 billion by the end of 2020.
These cooperation zones have boosted local industrialization in a number of sectors, including natural resources, agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and logistics. One-third of Chinese companies are concentrated in manufacturing, one-quarter in services, and about one-fifth in trade, construction, and real estate. With these initiatives, the Chinese presence has grown to approximately 12 percent of Africa’s industrial output, worth about $500 billion per year. In the infrastructure sector, Chinese companies claim nearly 50 percent of the construction contract market in Africa.
However, many issues in this relationship still require more in-depth explanation. One example is the so-called “debt trap” (“debt trap”) so widely touted by governments and academics, both right-wing and left-wing, in the West in order to disqualify the Chinese presence on the continent and its role in its “second independence”.
Both China and Africa were literally dragged into the order established by the Industrial Revolution by force of arms, colonial violence and a war to free up drug trafficking (Opium Wars – 1839-1842). We can also say that the difference between the Third Reich and the colonial powers that raided Africa and Asia lies in geography: Adolf Hitler did in Europe what the Europeans were already doing on an industrial scale in their colonies. This is a chalk line on the ground to divide European colonialism and the forms of relationship established between China and the African continent, especially since 2000.
As I have already stated, a new African anti-colonial awakening is taking place. Moreover, under the auspices of a growing Chinese economic presence in the region. Western narratives of “neo-colonialism” and “debt trap" are frequent and have become common sense in discussions on the subject. What is not realized is that even the layout of the infrastructures built by the Chinese in Africa does not follow the logic of "export corridors" and is more like investments aimed at unifying internal markets and inaugurating superior forms of social division of labor.
Chinese infrastructure investment schemes in Africa increasingly follow a logic of connection with the formation of industries. This is not a case of Chinese benevolence; something that does not exist in the real world. It is a question of growing demands from its African partners to link infrastructure investments with industrialization, the establishment of special economic zones and the addition of value to raw materials in Africa itself. Let us look at some examples.
The Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway. In 2016, the Chinese government instructed its state-owned and non-state-owned companies to set up industrial plants and special economic zones around this railway. Industrial parks were set up in Hawassa, Dire Dawa, Kombolcha and Adama. The outskirts of the Ethiopian capital are dotted with Chinese industrial plants.
Similar agreements were signed with Kenya to transform the area around the Mombasa-Nairobi railway into a large industrial cluster. The tendency for this type of operation is to spread. This is due to a joint motion by African leaders to China in 2022 to expand economic relations towards the industrialization of the continent. The Chinese response came in 2023 with the launch of the African Industrialization Initiative, with clear and demarcating results in relation to European colonialism.
The case of Zimbabwe, one of the most sanctioned countries in the world, is paradigmatic of the new type of international relations that China has been developing. The Asian country announced investments of around US$2,7 billion in an industrial plant for the exploration and processing of lithium. It is worth remembering that, in a gesture of national assertion of independence, in 2022 Zimbabwe banned the export of raw lithium, which led the Chinese government to adapt to new rules imposed by the aforementioned African nation.
3.
Finally, a few words about the myth of “debt trap“In our view, there are three problems with this narrative. The first problem is that this myth assumes that China has broad powers to unilaterally dictate how projects involving the Belt and Road Initiative should operate, with the intention of forcing signatories to accept these predatory loans. In reality, Chinese development financing is largely guided by bilateral agreements; converging with a finding that links Chinese adaptation to autonomous national projects. In reality, infrastructure projects are determined by the recipient country, not by China, based on its own economic and political interests.
The second problem is the assumption that it is a Chinese policy to grant predatory loans with onerous terms and conditions to recipient countries. In reality, China often lends at lower interest rates than those offered by institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. And the empirically proven tendency is that China is repeatedly willing to restructure the terms of loans.
The fact is that in August 2022, the Chinese government announced that it was forgiving 23 interest-free loans in 17 African countries. Before that, between 2000 and 2019, China had also restructured a total of $15 billion in debt and forgiven $3,4 billion in loans granted to African countries.
The third issue is that China has never confiscated any asset from a country for non-payment of its debts. Cases such as those that occurred in Sri Lanka, Zambia and Kenya – three countries that defaulted – have already been duly refuted by a series of articles and research, notably those led by Professor Deborah Brautgam.
We conclude by saying that yes, relations between China and Africa are far from being a bed of roses where contradictions do not exist. But as German philosophy itself teaches us, contradiction drives the process. In this case, if both parties manage to jump from one imbalance to another in their relations, they will be able to bequeath to the world what has already been said here: international relations of a new kind.
*Elias Jabbour is a professor at the Faculty of Economic Sciences at UERJ. Author, among other books, together with Alberto Gabriele, of China: Socialism in the XNUMXst Century (Boitempo). [https://amzn.to/46yHsMp] Originally published in International Observatory of the XNUMXst Century
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