Beware the dragon
Last night I took time out from writing my book on Libya to chair an Intelligence Squared debate called Beware the Dragon: Africa should not look to China.
It’s been a topic that raises passions for several years now. The US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson, said last year that he thought China had “no morals” in its dealings with Africa. Unlike everyone else who has always had scrupulous morals, I’m sure. He and many others believe Chinese investment is shoring up corrupt and abusive African governments. The opposing view is that Africa is benefitting from China’s growth, at a time when Europe and the USA see the continent only in terms of aid.
In the blue corner, speaking for the motion, were the Ghanaian free market economist George Attiyeh, and the Portuguese MEP Ana Maria Gomes. In the red corner, championing China, were two academics: Deborah Brautigam, who wrote an influential book The Dragon’s Gift, and Stephen Chan from the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Polled as they came in, a majority of the 450 strong audience agreed with the motion – Africa, they believed should NOT look to China. But the red corner persuaded them, and by the end, 100 of 125 “don’t knows” and 5 of those who had initially been anti-China, had decided that maybe Africa should look to China after all. So China won.
Why was that? I think partly because Deborah and Stephen effectively challenged the conventional wisdom with facts and figures suggesting that African countries were getting good deals on infrastructure projects. Also, I suspect that the audience decided that there was no point being anti-China – however much concern you might have about human rights and democracy, China now has US$155 billion annual trade with Africa, and it’s only going to grow. So it’s a question of how African governments and people manage that, as resistance is futile.
Ana Gomes raised an interesting question at the end. We in Europe are now looking to China to bail us out of the economic mess we’ve got ourselves into. So should we ‘beware the dragon’? Is there anything Africa can teach us about working with the Chinese? Or are we Europeans and Americans so clever and so morally correct, that we already know what’s best for Africa and ourselves.
There are 2 comments on this post
I think, as far as I can see, the Western governments want to keep Africa’s problems in Africa and leave it to the future to properly sort out as they are too pre-occupied in other places right now.
It’s not just that Africa represents an opportunity to China, it’s actually mutual. I am in Guangzhou, a massive trading city in South China, where there are approximately 200,000 Africans trading in the city, not all of them legal. Why are they here? Because that’s where the opportunity lies. What opportunities has the West offered Africa for the last 500 years?
The Africans here are nice guys, they suffer terrible racism with the locals, and yet they stay because the going is good.
Lindsey,
When I hear “The US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson, said last year that he thought China had “no morals” in its dealings” it’s all I can do not to choke on my coffee.
Lest we forget, the USA is the country that paid for the assassinations of Patrice Lumumba and Salvador Allende, that has tried over 400 times to kill Fidel Castro, whose School of Americas trains thugs in murder and torture, who runs at least one concentration camp (Guantanamo), who routinely invades and massacres tens of thousands – millions even – in mostly defenceless countries across the world, ignores the limits of UN resolutions, whose internal police forces have arranged the murders of leaders such as Martin Luther King Junior and Malcolm X, and whose CIA is involved in running drugs into major US cities.
And THEY want to lecture everybody else on morals? Pass the sick bag, Alice.