China’s hunger for Africa’s resources grows stronger

China’s trade with Africa, and thirst for natural resources which includes oil and other minerals, is, according to the Chinese, growing by more than 20 percent a year.

China’s demand for oil has focused the international communities attention, but according to the China Business Daily, more than 500 000 Chinese businessmen and merchants have set up shop in Africa.

China is now, arguably, Africa’s biggest trading partner after America and has cancelled the debts of 33 poor African countries a a gesture of goodwill. Last July, China cut import tariffs on 454 items from 32 “least-developed countries”.

The Shanghai Business Daily recently published an account of Chinese business interests in Africa, quoting commerce minister, Bo Xilai in defence of the state-run China National Offshore Oil Coroporation (CNOOC), the biggest foreign investor in Sudan.

“Its investment has made a big contribution to the African people,” said Bo. “It has provided 4 000 local jobs, built hospital and schools, and constructed an oil refinery with an output of 5m tonnes a year.”

The link, as the Sunday Times points out, “has drawn bitter criticism because China has consistently used its diplomatic influence at the United Nations to protect the Sudanese regime against international pressure over starvation and mass killings in the province of Darfur.

Similarly, in other African countries with appalling human rights records, China has, unlike Western nations, overlooked this, in favour of doing business with those countries. Zimbabwe is a case in point. China is said to have carved out agricultural deals with Zimbabwe, as well as Zambia and Kenya. The China Agricultural Cultivation group claims to have transformed grain production in Zambia and saved the country a fortune in transport costs by reducing the need to import grain from South Africa.

China is quite open about its policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of another country, and makes a virtue of its refusal to link trade with human rights or democracy. A situation that is gaining particular favour and acclaim from heads of state in Africa. 

China’s state=controlled arms merchants have followed the trail of African conflicts to weapons-hungry regimes denied overt supplies by more easily embarrassed weapons suppliers in the West.

A US Congressional Research Service estimates that China got only 10 percent of the conventional arms market in Africa between 1996 and 2003. Its customer base, the Sunday Times claims, is however “distinctive.”

Sudan’s Islamic regime bought £50m worth of Shenyang combat aircraft, including 12 F-7 jets, plus helicopter gunships used in the Darfur conflict.

Zimbabwe too reached a deal in 2004, to buy 12 fighter jets and 100 armoured vehicles. Chinese technicians have set up sophisticated jamming devices at a base near Harare to block critical news broadcasts from abroad. SWRadio, based in London, has been subject to these blocks.

Although African heads of state often voice their resentment towards Western countries who have made it policy to link democratic reform and trade, and repeatedly accuse Western countries of ‘raping’ their continent of its resources. Quite how Africa sees the Chinese invasion as being any different in this regard is anyone’s guess.