I’ve just learned about the Centre for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University in South Africa which bills itself as "the first institution devoted to the study of China on
the African continent." They offer a weekly briefing on China-related African news and a research report on Chinese investment in African infrastructure and construction sectors. They also appear to be doing some work on Indian investment on the continent.
This is an absolutely fantastic and important undertaking. In fact I know of no other academic center dedicated to China-Africa studies in the world, even in China. I will follow their work with interest!
From an opinion piece from the Ugandan newspaper New Vision:
Due to Africa’s lack of understanding of the character and real
intentions of China, its relationship with the emerging Asian giant
remains largely unbalanced and unfavourable to the interests of the
African people
* * *
Uganda: African Governments Should Study Communist China
Dr. Kiggundu Amin Tamale Kampala
MUCH
has been- written about China’s burgeoning global influence and
pervasiveness as well as its seemingly insatiable desire to establish
and maintain strong economic ties with several African countries. Some
top-notch analysts have also described Beijing as a new Mecca for
global trotting- cap in hand African leaders.
However,
before declaring China as a close and dependable friend, African
policymakers need to ask themselves one important and valid question,
that is, does Africa understand communist China well? If the answer is
no, then, Africans need to find a way of understanding this hitherto
insular emerging Asian economic giant.
(I am kicking myself for missing this since I happen to be in Kampala now):
KAMPALA, June 29 (Reuters) – Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called on rich and middle-income nations on Friday to stop wasting Africa’s time with aid pledges and instead open their markets to African products.
Fair trade campaigners say rich nations such as the United States and European Union countries give aid with one hand whilst refusing to cut subsidies and tariffs with the other, making it impossible for poor countries to compete. "The Europeans waste a lot of our time coming here talking about aid," he said. "We told them: if you talk about aid, I go to sleep. What we need is market access — open your markets to our products." Billions of dollars of aid pumped into Africa in the past 30 years has sparked debate over whether money was wasted.
Museveni was speaking at a meeting on India-Africa trade in Kampala, hosting delegates from African countries and 30 Indian multinationals investing on the continent.
I was interviewed in Kampala last week on Chinese investment in Africa for the BBC program Business Daily.
Sadako Ogata, the head of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and former head of the UNHCR, was the lead interviewee. It was my very first radio appearance and I have a somewhat, let’s say, "thinner" CV than Ms. Ogata, and so understandably I was more than a bit nervous.
Fortunately, the BBC is awesome. They cut out the stupid things you say, eliminate the uh…umm….,tone down the Americanisms, and make you sound smarter and more articulate than you actually are. They even promoted me: I’m a political scientist, and I haven’t even started applying to grad schools!
You can listen to my portion of the Monday, June 25th edition of Business Daily by clicking here.
How did things reach this pass? During the long tenure of Jacques Chirac, France underestimated Africans and China alike, while mistaking America as its rival in a part of the world where Washington has never had grand ambitions or even much vision. (Read more)
Maybe it was because I was leaving, but my last week in Beijing all the customs and habits that still get under my skin–the spitting a little too close to my feet for comfort, the full-body tackle method of securing a seat on a subway (I’ve gone head to head with a 5′2", eighty-something year-old women and learned my lesson the hard way)–started stirring warm and fuzzy feelings in my heart. When I left Beijing on Friday night, I felt for the first time like I was leaving home.
The "China in Africa" and the "China in the Developing World" RSS feeds, I have just discovered, have not been working for perhaps the last six months. My apologies if this has prevented you from receiving content from this site or if you are now suddenly flooded with a few dozen backlogged entries. Please let me know if you encounter any further technical problems.
Jeffrey Sachs criticizes the "extreme free-market ideology of structural adjustment" promoted by the IMF and the World Bank while praising Chinese investment in Africa. Here’s why he is both right and incredibly wrong.
Sachs attended the African Development Bank meeting in Shanghai a few weeks ago, and from his participation in high level meetings observe,s "The advice that the African leaders received from their Chinese
counterparts was sound, and much more practical than what they
typically get from the World Bank."
Here, I’ve attempted to translate the reactions of a Chinese blogger to the film Blood Diamond. She runs the gamut of feeling: shock, sadness, horror, pain, grief, guilt and finally relief (of a sort) that whatever her problems, they pale in comparison to the misery and suffering of Africans. Sounds like White Guilt to me.
But what of the Chinese living in the countryside?
I’ve been thinking a lot (and writing a bit) about the role of Africa in the popular imagination of Western Europeans (similar, I would argue, to the role of the Black man in the popular imagination of Americans). Europe could never have considered itself "civilized" if there were not also people to call "savage." Whites could never have considered themselves "superior" if there were not also races that were intrinsically "inferior." Enter the African.
As more and more, China and Chinese people come into contact with Africa and Africans, I predict a similar dynamic will develop. You already see it in the contributions of the Chinese media, businessmen and some officials to the emerging discourse. Africa is "backwards" (落后）. Africa is "poor" (贫穷). Africans ascribe to quaint tribal traditions that we, the forward-looking Chinese, have long abandoned.
These characterizations come with an implicit pat on the back. China – still light years away from being "developed" if we apply Western standards – can consider itself "modern" because others are "backwards." Enter the African.
I just unearthed this Danwei TV segment from last fall’s China-Africa summit. At the Delhi Hibiscus meeting in December I remarked how the billboards – which featured photographs of pyramids, Kenyan safaris, and scantily-clad Africans – showed just how little the Chinese know about Africa. Here, you can see some of them for yourselves. Apparently one billboard features an "African native" who is actually, Jeremy Goldkorn tells us, from Papua New Guinea. But he has brown skin so that counts, right?
Danwei TV regularly produces cool and informative clips on social and cultural happenings in Beijing and around China.
