Jottings from the Granite Studio

Nearly six centuries after Zheng He first reached the Horn of Africa, China once again turns its attentions to the African continent.

Leaders of 48 of the 53 African countries, including 40 heads of state, plan to arrive this weekend for perhaps the biggest diplomatic event China has ever organized.

The official purpose of the three-day China-Africa Forum is to expand trade, allow China to secure the oil and ore it needs for its booming economy, and help African nations improve roads, railroads and schools.

The unofficial purpose is to redraw the world’s strategic map, forming tighter political ties between China, now the fastest-growing major economy, and a continent whose leaders often complain of being neglected by the United States and Europe.

This is of course not the first time in recent memory China has courted African leaders. During the Cold War, China would frequently reach out to Socialist states (shaky though they were) and the bidding wars between the PRC and the ROC for UN votes too often focused on cash-poor African nations.

This time though, the Chinese want trade and commerce. They want raw materials. And they’re not particularly finicky about with whom they do business.

“The Western approach of imposing its values and political system on other countries is not acceptable to China,” said Wang Hongyi, a leading specialist on Africa at the China Institute of International Studies. “We focus on mutual development, not promoting one country at the expense of another.”

Economically, Beijing’s outreach aims to secure Africa’s abundant supplies of oil, iron ore, copper and cotton at the lowest possible prices, delivered through a supply chain that China controls, analysts say. Chinese companies also view Africa as an open market, neglected by Western multinationals, that they can cultivate with their trademark low-priced goods.

China’s leaders blame the West for failing to successfully engage African nations in mutually beneficial trade, but China’s goals seem to have more in common with the Western imperialism and neo-imperialism of the 20th century than Beijing’s leaders would like to admit. The goal is raw materials, cheap and a-plenty, along with markets for finished products. Strategically, China may not overtly seek to impose its will on its African “partners,” but several African nations are deep in China’s debt, leading the G7 last year to chastise China for the practice of overlending to African nations with wobbly credit. Anthony Kuhn reported on NPR this morning that China claims its aid won’t be burdened by the political demands of Western nations. The PRC continues to sell arms to states, such as Sudan, that probably don’t need any more guns floating around their borders or cities. China also continues to resist intervention in Darfur. While China has provided aid and infrastructure projects in Africa, “with no political strings attached,” Kuhn’s report notes that China expects continued support in the UN against attempts to censure the PRC for human rights violations and it also requires its African “partners” to reject Taiwanese membership in the UN and other world bodies. This seems somewhat stringy to me. Maybe it’s just “stringy with Chinese characteristics.”

Perhaps just as telling is the way China has recycled old colonialist tropes in “welcoming” the African leaders to the capital. In a circular requesting Chinese investors and traders behave better while in Africa, China calls itself–apparently without a trace of irony–an “angel in white.”

The Chinese–not exactly known for their enlightened racial views of Africans or African-Americans–decided to roll out the red carpet by decorating parts of the capital as if they were shooting a 1930s “Tarzan” movie.

Streets are lined with promotional materials extolling Sino-African ties. Many emphasize the continent’s primitiveness in Chinese eyes. Giant posters depict jungles, wild animals, native warriors and women toting big packages on their heads.

If China is sincere about fostering mutually beneficial patterns of trade in a part of the world sorely in need of help and aid, then I am all for it. European imperialists of the 19th century and American and Soviet cold warriors of the 20th century were more interested in their own strategic and economic objectives than dealing with the crushing poverty, warfare, and health crises that afflict many parts of the African continent. I’d like to think that there is somebody in this century who can do a better job providing help to Africa. I’m just not sure–given the signs out of Beijing this week–that that “somebody” is going to be China.

Updated 11/03/06.
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Top right picture: Giraffe brought back by Zheng He and presented as a gift to the Yongle Emperor

Cross posted at The Peking Duck along with a spirited alternative viewpoint from the ever provocative Ivan.