Response to the China-Africa Summit and What it says About Africa
By Stembile Mpofu
Having established itself as the hub of global manufacturing, China is embarking on a project that President Xi Jinping has called the project of the century. On May 14 2017, world leaders gathered in Beijing to hear China’s plans for global trade, the One Belt One Road Initiative (BRI). BRI will link China to countries that make up 62% of the world’s population and account for 30% of the world’s economic output. Close to 70 countries have signed up for this multi trillion-dollar infrastructure project that will see China linked to more than 60 countries across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa.
The project will focus on transportation, communication and energy, involving the construction of roads, bridges, gas pipelines, ports, railways, airports and power plants.
Fast-forward to Beijing 2018 and China is hosting The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit. This annual meeting has taken place since 2000. The 2018 FOCAC is the third such summit since the 2015 upgrade from conference to Summit status. The main objective of the 2018 FOCAC Summit is for the Chinese and African Head of States to discuss and ratify two key documents, the Beijing Action Plan 2019 – 2021 and the Beijing Declaration. The Summit ends with the ratification of these documents and they become the official guide for China-Africa relations for the next 3 years. According to Xi Jinping the adoption of these documents sends the “strong message that China and Africa will go hand in hand in years to come”. China’s intent will be to synergise their BRI plans with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the United Nations 2030 Agenda For Sustainable Development and the national development strategies of the individual African countries involved. The result being a win-win for all parties involved. China and Africa will benefit from industrial promotion, infrastructure connectivity, trade facilitation and peace and security among other things.
As good as this sounds other world players are not seeing things in the same way as the Chinese and African leadership. In the west the China-Africa partnership has triggered tangible panic in Western leaders. The week just before the FOCAC Summit, from 28th – 31st August, we witnessed the leaders of Britain and Germany scrambling to scent mark their African territories and make their marketing pitch to be Africa’s first choice investment partner. Emmanuel Macron had already made his pitch in July when he visited Nigeria. He was faster off the block than his European counterparts.
Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Nigeria was his first as President. He is however no stranger to the African continent. A mere two weeks after his inauguration in May 2017, he made his first Presidential trip and his destination was Mali. Since then he has made seven trips to Africa and visited eight countries. This visit to Nigeria was more focused on cultural events than government policy. He visited the New Afrika Shrine, a concert venue owned by the family of African icon Fela Kuti. While there Macron climbed on stage to dance with Fela’s son Femi Kuti. More importantly, he announced the launch of the African Cultures Season 2020 event. This event is to be hosted by France and financed by African businesses and is aimed at “changing clichéd perceptions of Africa”. Macron also stated the need for Europe and France in particular, to build a new commonality. He said that, “this new commonality is not based on what is important for Europeans but what is important for Africa: about their culture, how they build their culture and promote the culture”.
While Macron was dealing with the softer issues and caressing the African cultural ego, Angela Merkel and her governmental team focused on the hard issues of economic engagement. During the early part of August, Chancellor Merkel hosted leaders from Niger and Angola in Berlin. Soon after that she made her way to West Africa, visiting Nigeria, Senegal and Ghana. The reason for her visit was to strengthen Africa’s economy. There was also the obvious hope that an improved economic environment will stem the tide of young Africans making their way across the Mediterranean into Europe. At the same time two other German Government delegations visited various African states.
Zimbabwe was one of six African nations visited by German Development Minister Gerd Müller, the first such visit in 20 years. He also stopped in Mozambique, Botswana, Chad, Ethiopia and Eritrea. The message delivered to all these African countries was that Germany was open to strengthening economic ties with Africa. This intention was buttressed by pledges to dispatch billions of dollars worth of development funds in loans and aid. Zimbabwe in particular was promised new lines of credit and a deepening of bilateral relations. Müller’s counterpart, Minister of State Michelle Müntefering, was dispatched to Namibia and her assignment was the repatriation of the remains of the Herero and Nama Peoples killed under German colonial rule. Germany has been in possession of more than 4600 skulls from various indigenous populations across the world, including Rwanda and Tanzania. Nineteen skulls belonging to the Herero and Nama people taken to Germany at the beginning of the 20th century were returned. These visits took place on the backdrop of the German initiative “Compact Africa” launched by Angela Merkel at last year’s G20 Summit.
It will be important for those who saw Müller’s visit as a diplomatic victory for Zimbabwe’s new government and thought Germany was getting closer to acknowledging their genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples of Namibia, to re-evaluate those assumptions. The timing and messaging of both events were more likely than not, attempts to counter the China charm offensive in full display in Beijing.
Not to be outdone by their European counterparts, the British sent Theresa May off on her own African charm offensive. She may have stolen the show from her European counterparts with her dance moves in South Africa and Senegal. Her main objective was to prepare the ground for post Brexit trade. After breaking from the European Union the British intend to create a trading block within the Commonwealth. Their intent is to re-establish their dominance by reviving their ties with countries that were part of their colonial empire. Of the 52 Commonwealth countries, 19 are African. The British investment offering of four billion pounds was much less than other players, a fact not lost on Theresa May. She addressed this by emphasising the quality of the investment rather than the quantity, saying, “ While we cannot compete with the economic might of some foreign governments investing in Africa, what we can offer is long term investment of the very highest quality and breadth”.
Ordinary Africans have not celebrated the FOCAC summit either. It has inspired fear of the imminent colonisation of Africa by the Chinese. This fear has been bolstered by the myriad of negative stories flooding social media and formal media platforms. The western media has unleashed a barrage of negative stories warning of the debt trap that China is setting up for Africa. The aim of the propaganda is to protect western interests in Africa by creating a hostile environment for Chinese cooperation. The western narrative is that Chinese loans seek to burden African countries with unsustainable debt. Once the African country defaults, China takes control of national assets in lieu of the debt resulting in the Chinese colonising that country. Media reports claim that this has already happened in Zambia. It is being called the “first Chinese colony” with reports that national assets have been taken over as a result of defaulting on a Chinese loan. Despite providing factual information contradicting this story, the Zambian government has found it difficult to counter it. China is yet to develop the media savvy required to counteract the western propaganda machine and therefore the western narrative goes largely unchallenged.
The response by global players to the FOCAC Summit has been fascinating to observe because it provides very tangible evidence of the strength of Africa’s position in the global economy. It contradicts all the “facts” that are fed to Africa and the world on a daily basis. We are told that African countries dominate the rankings of the poorest countries in the world. Data from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the UN and International NGO’s report this “fact” and the media confirms it daily. If this is true why has China put such great effort into courting Africa? Why has there been this sudden frenzy by European leaders to get the attention of Africans and their leaders because Africa’s relationship with China is getting stronger? If the African continent is so poor why is France suddenly concerned with creating “new commonalities” that promote African culture? Why are European leaders attempting to dance their way into African “hearts and minds”? A report entitled the “The New Colonialism” published earlier this year by an organisation called War on Want, states that 192 billion dollars are extracted by foreign businesses from Africa each year. How is it possible to make such large sums of money from an impoverished continent? Why is China providing 60 billion dollars for major capital projects, over and above the 136 billion dollars already invested? Why is Germany offering billions more in development aid and loans?
If you think about it, how much money would you lend a poor person who is living in the street? Would you expect to get anything back from such a loan? Yet Europe, the Bretton Woods institutions and China are competing to be the ones to lend money to that poor person on the street. All are competing to hold African debt because by doing so they guarantee their access to Africa’s resources.
If these countries continue to grow wealthy as a result of their financial association with the poorest countries in the world are those poor countries genuinely poor? They are poor according to the “facts” provided by the data, but in “real life” they are not. African poverty is not real but it is created by the economic models that we have been trained to use and whose results we are conditioned to accept. The models will measure Africa’s worth according to what Africa does not have. They will ask if Africa has infrastructure, road networks, electricity, housing etc. The answer will be “no” and therefore it is poor. A simple example is to imagine a conversation between a 10 year-old African child from the rural areas and a 10 year old from New York City. If the rural child asks the city child if his father can farm, how much land they have to grow their food, how big their herd of cattle is or how many chickens and goats they have, the city child will say his father does not own land or even know how to farm. He will also say that they do not have any of these things the rural boy is talking about. The rural child will go back to his parents and tell them that the the New York City child is poor because his father has no farming skills, no land to farm and no livestock.
This is how Africans and Africa’s wealth is assessed. The economic models used to assess a country’s wealth do not include indicators that measure what Africa actually has. The mineral resources, land, water and forests are not being exploited in a way that conforms to these models and can therefore not be measured as part of a country’s wealth. In such a context they will have no value. They only attain value and are measureable once they come under the control of an investment company. The value of that company is then measured according to the value of the unexploited African resources it controls.
The question is why has Africa agreed to be assessed using these models that psychologically and economically impoverish it? The psychological effect of using these models is that Africa is unable to assert itself on the global economic stage because it has bought into the narrative that it is poor. Africa has accepted that it is that poor person living on the street and yet it plays a fundamental role in the global economy? It has failed to take full advantage of this power and use it as leverage when negotiating with its global partners.
It is clear from the global leaders’ response to the FOCAC Summit that the narrative of African poverty is a false one. It is time that Africa reassesses itself and claims its place as a trading partner equal to its global counterparts. Africa must look after its own interests in the same way China and the West are looking after theirs. It must refrain from seeing itself as a recipient of foreign aid and loans. The deals that are to be negotiated must be in the continent’s best interest.
This however, is easier said than done. We are likely to make the assumption that Africa’s problems begin and end with its corrupt leaders. This is not the case because corruption is a mere symptom of Africa’s problems. The real problem and its solution lie within the minds of African people. African minds have been subjected to psychological manipulation over a long period of time and are now convinced of African inferiority. This makes Africans unable to recognise and reject a global system that works to impoverish their continent. Continuing on this trajectory will indeed lead us to a new phase in our colonisation where China will join the West in the exploitation of the African continent. It will now be China’s turn to eat.
The next article will analyse the effects of this psychological manipulation and discuss how Africans can begin to counter the false narrative of the “Poor African Continent” and take their place as a global player.
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