CHAPTER 7: WHOSE IDENTITY, WHOSE CONSTRUCTS AND WHOSE INTEREST? THE SYNTHESIS OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY DATA IN
2.3 China and Africa’s Liberation
2.3.2 China and Post-Colonial Africa
After the death of Mao Zedong and the almost simultaneous policy of modernization, there was a seeming lull in Sino-African relations. The decline in Sino-African relations characterizing this period became more manifest in the1980s (Hairong and Sautman 2010). This could be connected to the fact that China was seeking to improve its economy and for that reason was more drawn to countries that would help it realise this aspiration. In addition, most of Africa was economically weak and was under unstable governments that could not be used to China’s economic advantage. China cultivated relations with the West to the extent that the issue of human rights, which was the mainstay of the China-West impasse, was skirted around (Mann 2000).
It is also noteworthy that at the time of Mao’s death most of African states had been liberated from colonialism. This development was to China’s benefit as the pressure to help liberation movements with material aid was reduced. China even started promoting a negotiated settlement between South African liberation movements and the apartheid government (Xinhua, September 6 1987). At this stage China was more concerned with promoting national interests rather than
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practicing and exporting revolutionary fervour (Hutchings 2001). It could safely be argued that China concentrated more on courting the developed world for economic growth. However, the Tiananmen Protests of 1989 excited the wrath of Western governments and China had to rely, once again, on Africa for political support (Taylor, 1998). The Tiananmen Crisis proved that though China had concentrated more on cultivating and improving relations with the West, independent Africa was a strategic partner in the international system. China’s own history of Western/imperialist and capitalist domination was exploited to gain Africa’s sympathy (Mohan and Power 2008; Yun 2014). The Western censure that China incurred after the 1989 crisis was dismissed as imperialist interference. All these factors combined to make Sino-African solidarity more pronounced and natural.
From 1989 to date economic and trade relations between China and Africa have grown exponentially (Carmody and Owusu 2007; Rugumamu 2017) and “attracted unprecedented global attention” (Peh and Eyal 2010:4729; Shen 2015). In 2008 China supplanted the European Union and the United States to become Africa’s biggest trade partner (van Dijk 2009). The conditions that China seemingly recoils from attaching to its foreign policy (McCormick 2008) have played a seminal role in cementing Sino-African relations (Lee 2006; Vines 2006). China gives respite to countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe that are under Western sanctions that are perceived as punitive and imperialist tendencies of Western nations and institutions. For other players, however, by having close ties with such countries, China is aiding and abetting rogue regimes and playing an indirect role in perpetuating human rights abuses (Carmody and Taylor 2010; Dreher et al 2016:8). In some quarters China has been called a “rogue donor” (Naim 2007) because its foreign direct investment arguably targets “countries that combine large natural resource endowments and weak rule of law” (Noland 2014:198). In addition to this, some observers do not believe the win-win approach that China claims to promote in its relations with Africa. Dreher and Fuchs (2015:988) have a different view, arguing that “China's aid allocation seems to be widely independent of recipients' endowment with natural resources and institutional characteristics [and hence] denoting Chinese aid as rogue aid seems unjustified.”
Allegations of China being baneful for Africa have been made for decades and from both Africans and non-Africans. Ghanaian Emmanuel Hevi (1963:1967) argued that China was involved in the African liberation struggle not altruistically and certainly not for the benefit of
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Africa but it had decided to also embark on its own imperialism. Hevi argues, quite convincingly, that Africans were mistaken in thinking that colonial tendencies are the exclusive preserve of the capitalist West. That socialist or communist powers can be colonisers, cannot be gainsaid. For this reason, Hevi offers a prescient caution to Africans who might be inclined towards a careless embrace of China and other nations that have no history of colonialism in Africa. As regards current Sino-African relations, much Western literature has been scathing or
“alarmist” (Negi 2008:43; see also Corkin 2014) in its analysis (Ndulo 2008), with some accusing China of seeking to spread its “empire” (Watts 2006) and some considering China as the “new colonial power” (Walsh 2006) while others still considering China’s incursions into Africa as part of a “new scramble” (Downs 2007;Carmody 2011; Marton and Matura 2011) for African resources (The Independent, November 4, 2006; Kamoche, Siebers and Mamman 2015).
Metaphors like “dragon in the bush” (Large 2008:45) have been used to describe China’s forays into Africa in search of needed resources (Abdulai 2016). Thus, “many Western officials, commentators and academics have been extremely suspicious of China’s growing role on the continent” (Hess and Aidoo 2014:130). Howard French (2014) has advanced the argument that ordinary Chinese who are flocking to Africa are the more potent harbingers of establishing a Chinese empire in Africa “than any carefully planned action by the Beijing government to build state power and reinforce national prestige.”
In 2006, the then Foreign Secretary of Britain, Jack Straw, cautioned his Nigerian audience that what China is currently doing in Africa is reminiscent of the beginning of European colonialism.
Two years later Andrew Malone (2008) wrote that China is agitating to turn Africa into a colony.
He went on to say that the current influx of Chinese into Africa is even more determined than the European invasion of the continent which occasioned colonialism. Peter Hitchens has made the conclusion that “China has created a new slave empire in Africa” (Hitchens, 2008). McLaughlin (2005), almost in the same vein argues that China’s current involvement in Africa is more myopic than the European one in the 1800s which was driven by ideals of “Christianity, civilization and commerce.” Negi (2008:44-45) argues that such sentiments “tend to sanitize the historical colonization of Africa and have the effect of expiating Europeans of their excesses, which are only too recent to be forgotten.” Negi’s argument dovetails that of Taylor (2008) by
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arguing that unlike European invaders who imposed their political practices on Africa, China has steered clear of interfering with Africa’s political inclinations.
The argument that China is interested in taking over Africa and augmenting its influence is strongly tied to realist arguments that have hitherto dominated analysis of China’s foreign policy in general and its ties with Africa (See for example Taylor 2006; Botha 2006). Those who subscribe to the realpolitik are of the idea that China’s rise will have devastating impacts on the status quo as it is unavoidable that rising powers become more assertive and determined to change the existing state of affairs (Mearsheimer 2001; Jonhston 2003; see also Walt 1998 and Kang 2005). Mearsheimer began his 2006 article with a question of whether or not China can rise peacefully. His answer was a definite “no” (Mearsheimer 2014; see also Mearsheimer 2010).
He qualifies his position by saying that if China maintains its “impressive economic growth”, it is likely to engage in a heated security competition with the United States “with considerable potential for war” (Mearsheimer 2006:48; Mearsheimer 2014:160; Mearsheimer 2010:382).
More has been said about this position in this chapter.
The general attitude of those who dread China’s rise and its potential to wreak international order have variously been referred to as Sino-pessimists (Wang 2000). Their opposite number has been referred to as Sino-optimists (Ampiah and Naidu 2008) and by and large, the African elite, who deal directly with China at institutional levels, have often been branded as such. Sino-optimists are guided by liberalism as they argue that it is in China’s best interest to rise peacefully in a world that is more interdependent economically (see Callahan 2013). Furthermore, they are also guided by the conviction that values, interests and social history engender different behaviours in China’s relations with other nations. Much literature has often used what Ampiah and Naidu (2008; see also Mohan and Power 2008) call a Manichaean method of interpreting China’s role in Africa or what Hess and Aidoo (2014:129) call “the existing binary exploitation/opportunity paradigm through which growing Chinese engagement in Africa is often analyzed.”
Yun (2014:1) observes that “with a few exceptions, there is a strong tendency to assert moral judgements” in assessing China’s role in Africa. Those who think of China as a selfish power, out to consume Africa’s resources and a bad political example squandering Africa’s efforts and opportunities to improve governance (Zafar 2007) and assure a sustainable future, consider
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China’s relations as “evil.” Those who perceive China as a timely sponsor of much needed funding and infrastructure in Africa consider China a “virtuous” partner. In their conclusion, Ampiah and Naidu (2008) cited realism as a theory through which Sino-African relations can be analyzed while Hess and Aidoo departed from the aforementioned binary and analyzed Sino- African relations away from China’s alleged benefits and threats to the structure of African institutions. Ofodile (2008) also broke ranks with realist perceptions that see China-Africa relations as a “zero-sum” (Downs 2007) equation meaning the gains in China will ultimately occasion losses for Africa. Ofodile (2008:510) advocates “guarded optimism regarding the deepening relationship between Africa and China.”
The depth of current China-Africa relations controverts arguments that put a very low premium on Africa’s importance to China and the world at large. In 1992, for example, Gerald Segal started off an article with the statement: “It is hard to make a case that Africa matters very much to China” (Segal 1992:115). Segal’s argument was driven by the priorities that China adopted after Mao, most especially the growing connections with developed states who were considered essential for China’s growth and integration in the global economy. With the passage of time, however, observers have noted Africa’s importance for China and vice versa. While China has helped to place Africa back at the focal point of global attention, it has also played a big role in improving “Africa’s fortunes” (World Bank 2011) in the second decade of the new millennium, as exhibited by the impressive recovery of Africa economies after the global recession (Shaw 2012). In other words, growing Sino-African (and South-South) relations have also prompted interest of other actors in the international system, leading others to state that Africa has latterly assumed the centre stage in current international politics (Modi 2011).
Departing from reductionist analyses that consider Africa as having a single importance for China i.e. provider of much needed resources, Yun (2014) gives at least four interests that China seeks to pursue in its interactions with Africa. The continent is strategic in satisfying China’s national interests in terms of politics, the economy, security and ideology. In terms of political support, China intends to convert the whole of Africa into adopting the One-China policy entailing the incorporation of Taiwan as a part of mainland China (Alden 2005). Africa is vital in boosting China’s economy as it is a consumer of China’s products as well as the fount of resources needed to keep China’s domestic economy afloat. Security wise, Africa could play a
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big role in securing China’s foreign investment and curbing criminal activities and political instability which are inimical to China’s “commercial interests” and the safety of its personnel (Yun 2014:1). Ideologically, even though China has departed from the Marxist zeal that was characteristic of the Mao era (Mensah 2010), the country has sought to promote its “socialism with Chinese characteristics” paradigm as an effective economic system that refutes claims that Western economic systems are universally applicable.
In sum, China-Africa relations have brought Africa to the centre of global attention. It is no wonder that Segal’s (1992) claim that it is far-fetched to argue for Africa’s importance in China’s case becomes harder to sustain. Calderisi (2006:4) also mentioned that in recent times
“Africa has fallen almost completely off the map.” The zeal with which China has courted Africa, especially after the 2006 FOCAC summit wherein China crafted the Africa Policy, accentuates Africa’s importance. The rise of China-Africa relations has also aroused the interest of Western players. After the Cold War, there was little incentive for Western countries and the former Soviet Union to continue competing for African favours. The reduction of European and Russian presence in Africa created a space which other actors filled, China being the most prominent of these (van Dijk 2009). As has been shown, the attention that Africa is currently enjoying is characterized by Western fears over China’s influence in Africa on the one hand and Africa and China’s undertakings to deepen their relations, on the other.
From what has been presented thus far, realist interpretations of China’s identity and interests become explicable. The fact that post-Mao China sought relations with countries that could aid its material aspirations justifies realist claims of pragmatism. China’s partial relegation of Africa’s importance in the 1980s portrays China as a practical and pragmatic power that puts a low premium on players that are not materially viable. Courting Africa after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crisis also shows that China uses Africa for expediency. In essence, this kind of behaviour comprises the fundament of realism. However, amid all these factors, the current research identified certain gaps in one-dimensional interpretations of China’s foreign policy behaviour and the likely forces behind it. In addition to the practical reason shaping China’s relations with other players in the world, there is a social dimension which constructs China’s and other players’ identities and interests through social processes. For this reason, the study used constructivism to analyse how socially constructed identities have also played a part in
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influencing China’s foreign policy posture. To look at China’s relations with a particular state will also prevent generalizations of what China wants as it relates with its partners. Furthermore, the growing number of non-state actor Chinese adds a new dimension to the “China in Africa”
discourse and makes necessary the question of which China one is talking about and what interests it is pursuing.