Africabeat

I was asked yesterday to comment on Chinese investment in Africa for Radio France International’s English news service (Broadcast #1, Broadcast #2).  This was in response to comments made on Saturday by Maxwell Mkwezalamba, Commissioner for Economic Affairs for the African Union at the summit currently underway in Kampala.

Reuters ran a sensational headline: ”AU says must replace Western partners with China.”

Here’s the far less controversial thing Mkwezalamba *actually* said (emphasis my own):

“We need to diversify our partners that we work with and hence for us, working with China is something that we have welcomed.”

He’s promoting an idea I first encountered several years back in Uganda, while talking to a government official who dismissed fears of China’s takeover of Africa as overblown.  He said Uganda had and would continue to engage with Western donors, but that China was increasingly giving Uganda the freedom to dictate their own terms.  So, for example, if the flavor of the month, whether it was fighting TB or promoting women’s microcredit or abstinence-only HIV/AIDS prevention, didn’t align with the government’s actual needs or interests, they’d have more room to say: actually, what we really need is funding for agricultural implements or to pay teachers’ salaries, or what have you.  He said what China was increasingly doing for Ugandans was giving them the ability to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Although on the one hand donor coordination is important to give aid policies some semblance of coherence, there are very few markets where monopolies lead to good outcomes.  Considering the West’s track record in ending poverty in Africa, I think Western donors could stand some competition.

I’m aware I often come off as a cheerleader when I should be a critic.  Don’t get me wrong, there are many things that are problematic about Chinese investment in Africa, but many of those same things are what is also wrong with Western investment.  China offers a few unprecedented opportunities that I think at least some countries, if leaders are savvy and the public holds them to account, will make work to their advantage.

Shawel Hailu stands in front of Laphto, a new multi-purpose entertainment
center which will feature luxury apartments, an art gallery, bowling
alley, pool hall, arcade, night club, cafe, fusion restaurant,
shopping, swimming pool, health club, running track, movie theatre (for
indy/art house films), VIP center, rentable shopping/office space, Wifi
hotspots, a Montessori school and, eventually, a world-class pediatrics
hospital. He’s part of the wave of returned Diaspora Ethiopians driving the current building boom.

His materials?  Sourced from China, of course, via Guangzhou.  The foreman on his work site are also Chinese.

Artistic rendering of the new Gottera Junction, a project by a Shanghai-based construction group.  Pretty, isn’t it?

The (now former) Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia, Lin Lin, sits with Mr. Wen, the head of CRBC in Ethiopia at opening of a new road linking a Chinese glass factory to a main thoroughfare.  CRBC, a state-owned Chinese roads and bridge construction company, has broke ground on dozens of new roads in Addis Ababa since it launched its first Ethiopian project in 1998 known simply as “the ring road,” a name and a concept which ought to make residents of Beijing smile.  The mayor of Addis Ababa and the head of the Addis Ababa Roads Authority also officiated.  The mayor thanked the Chinese and compared Ethiopia to the US and China saying, “if there are no roads, there is no development.”  The Chinese officials praised the EPRDF for their wisdom and for bringing development to the Ethiopian people.  (No comment.)

Also originally appearing on Global Voices:

Blog politique au Senegal explains the difference between Senegal and China
[Fr]: “Aside from the obvious differences like the color of their skin,
the enormous disparity in the size of their populations, their
respective demographic differences, I also know that there exists
another fundamental difference…Us, we play football, we dream of
footballs, we talk about football, we worship the professional football
players, we beg in order to pay for this time-wasting game that brings
the country to a halt whenever there is a match. All the while the
Chinese also dream of footballs: those that they will manufacture and
sell to us in cash!”

(I love Blog Politique au Senegal by the way.  One of the most incisive and prolific political blogs in all of French-speaking Africa.)

The Wall Street Journal’s David Wessel on South-South investment:

(via Africa Unchained)

Last week, Dubai World, Dubai’s investment holding company, announced it will invest $230 million in Rwanda’s tourism industry. Dubai World plans to build a five-star tented park at the base of the country’s famed gorilla preserve at Volcanoes National Park, an airstrip and hotel at Akagera Park, and a tea estate adjacent to a proposed four-star hotel at Nyungwe forest. 

The Rwanda Investments and Export Promotion Agency (RIEPA) is aggressively courting ICT and tourism investments as part Vision 2020, an ambitious plan to transform Rwanda into a middle-income country by the year 2020. 

When I was in Kigali last summer, I spoke to some officers at RIEPA about Vision 2020, and they showed me these really beautiful sketches of luxury cabins, best described as castles of glass, perched over a lake.  I believe they had commissioned an American architecture firm to do the drawings.  "All we need is an investor," they said.  It was one of the many moments during my three weeks in Rwanda where I thought, "Damn, I can’t help but admire the sheer audacity of this government’s dreams."

Looks like audacity is paying off.

Here’s some info on the Dubai World investment in French and English.

See also: Notes on Rwanda, Democracy & Authoritarianism

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Acquires Stake in South Africa’s Standard Bank

• Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the most valuable bank in the world, bought 20% of South Africa’s Standard Bank for 36.7 billion rand ($5.5 billion)
• largest foreign investment by a Chinese bank–ever
• largest foreign-direct investment of any country in South Africa–ever
• Plan to create a common $500m fund to invest in oil and
  mining

Almost everything that happens in China these days is the largest thing ever.  Reason for caution; moment of opportunity.

Read all about it in the Economist

Matías Zibell from BBC Mundo contacted me about doing another interview about Chinese in Africa, this time in Spanish!  Apparently I wrote on my website that I speak Spanish, which is technically true in the way it’s technically true that I am Egyptian.

Moral of the story: be careful what you write on your resume!

Fortunately, BBC decided not to do an on-air interview, but rather a news article where Zibell lovingly translated the answers to his questions, which I gave in English, into Spanish.

It’s called "Chinos en África: por una oportunidad."

Zibell was really fascinated by what I
was saying about ordinary Chinese in Africa, the working class who come
to Africa seeking their fortunes which I think is an aspect of the "China in Africa" story that is underreported.

My Spanish is good enough for passive translation, so I will translate the article when I get a chance.

Back to China, From Africa

But right now, I’m in Doha and they’ve just announced my flight to Beijing is boarding.  Almost home! 

I spent 3 and a half months in Africa, and as expected, it changed my life.  So much to say.  Fortunately, I’ll now have an internet connection and the time to write!

I’d also like to say thank you so much to all the new readers that came to Africabeat the last few months.  I’ve learned so much from your comments and really look forward to continuing the discussion.

I’ve just read a headline I’ve been anticipating for some time.

China, Zimbabwe’s biggest trading partner and source of aid (in no small part because the rest of the world has embargoed it!) announced it will cut off all
non-humanitarian support for Robert Mugabe’s regime according to Lord
Malloch Brown, Britain’s foreign minister.

This is BIG NEWS, at least from where I’m standing. 

China’s also gotten tougher on Sudan of late. Perhaps the powers
that be in Beijing believe they might gain more by playing better with
the international community. 

At the very least, they can smell change in the air.  Zimbabwe’s no
longer bankable, no longer a country in which to make long-term
investments in industries or in people. Politically, I get the sense
that things could turn in any number of directions at any moment. 

This isn’t the Cold War anymore.  China was cozy with Zimbabwe and sold
them all the neat internet filtering and radio jamming technologies its
own government so enthusiastically employs.  But it was never about
ideology.  It was about strategic interest.  And for whatever reason,
China’s decided it’s no longer in its interest to throw its weight
behind Robert Mugabe.

(From the Daily Telegraph) Lord Malloch Brown said he had been informed of the
change by Liu Guijin, China’s new special envoy on African issues. He
said he hoped China would join the rest of the international community
in refusing to "offer a lifeline" to Mr Mugabe’s failed regime, which
has led to near universal unemployment and record inflation.

Privately,
diplomats believe that while Zimbabwe once seemed like an opportunity
for China to make diplomatic gains in an area abandoned by Western
countries, Beijing had been unable to avoid the evidence of the harm
being done to Zimbabwe’s people.

It was hard to see what long-term result China could get when Zimbabwe failed to meet basic standards of economic discipline

• "Zimbabwe: China to Withdraw Support for Mugabe Regime" (SW Radio Africa)
• "China is to withdraw backing for Mugabe" (Daily Telegraph)