THE SHEER scale of China's investment, trade and aid programmes in sub-Saharan Africa makes them one of the most important inter-regional developments in the world today, not only economically but politically as well.
China is set to become Africa's largest trading partner, mainly through the exchange of raw materials for cheap manufactured goods. Many African states have benefited from Chinese partnership agreements in which huge infrastructural projects are provided in return for access to oil, copper, nickel, agricultural land or logging, with little of the conditionality imposed by their post-colonial benefactors. China has now become a real factor in African states' foreign policy concerns, competing for influence with the United States and European powers.
As has been made clear in a series of articles on the subject this week, this is a not an unalloyed good from the African point of view. Despite the undoubted economic and developmental stimulus brought by Chinese capital and labour at a time when the rest of the world dismissed African potential, there are deep asymmetries of wealth and power in the emerging new relationship. This can readily be seen in how Chinese manufactured goods undermine African produce, in the exploitation of cheaper labour, in the Chinese willingness to co-operate with brutal and corrupt regimes or in its disregard of local human rights and environmental standards.
But the picture is uneven between states such as Zambia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Angola or Sudan. There is considerable evidence that these problems are better seen as growing problems in what will be an enduring Sino-African relationship rather than products of short-term opportunism. China has devoted much diplomatic and political effort in recent years to becoming more sensitive to such criticisms and shows some willingness to listen and learn. It is under pressure for supporting oppressive rulers in Zimbabwe and Sudan. More scope has been made to allow quota and tariff-free African exports into China. And even though Chinese companies traditionally employ mainly Chinese personnel and live apart from African communities, the large numbers of people involved have made a real difference in everyday life throughout the continent.
As one commentator has put it, African governments need to enter such relationships with their eyes wide open. There is usually a mutuality of interest between them and the Chinese investors, especially since they came at a time when the rest of the world tended to regard large-scale investment there as economically unjustifiable, politically ill-advised and insecure. Chinese talk of win-win scenarios based on south-south solidarity and non-interference in internal affairs had an obvious appeal in these circumstances. However rough and ready were the original deals, in most cases they have kickstarted economic development more effectively than many conventional aid policies. This gives African states and leaders a new self-confidence that should make them stronger and better able to defend their interests in future dealings with China.