2024-09-05 13:22:32
No one remembers China rolling up its sleeves to remove a reserve in Africa. But it’s not an installation either. Beijing’s non-interference has earned it the good will of leaders and bosses on the continent. And after two years of intensive planting in a harsh climate, today China is harvesting in the Great Hall of the People. More than fifty African countries, half of which were represented by their heads of state or government, heard this Wednesday the opening speech of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum by President Xi Jinping
The man whose favor the court has promised them the day of 360,000 million yuns (45,700 million euros) between loans and investments. “Africa and China,” the Chinese president said, “are experiencing the best time in their relations.” Xi, who has put his finger on the wound of colonialism, has received the praise of the audience as a confirmation of his dream role as an advisor of the Global South, in their “joint way” of “modernity.” It doesn’t matter that Chinese cities are already as modern as those of the West.
The checkbook contributes to the compliment, but not everything. China has announced tariffs on goods from 33 of Africa’s poorest countries. In addition to military aid and training in China for six thousand soldiers, one thousand policemen and as many politicians and officials. Because Beijing fills its mouth with peace, while replacing Russia as the supplier of arms to Africa (19% of the total).
Similarly, the new Silk Roads did not always go smoothly in Africa. Since Chinese loans in 2016 increased by six of today’s, from China that has scale. Because of corruption, late payments and interest rates themselves, which are higher today. Therefore, the current loans will no longer be in dollars, but in yuan, a step forward in the slow but unstoppable world of its currency.
19% of the market
China has replaced Russia as the leading arms supplier to Africa
Yesterday, Thursday, President Xi Jinping gave them a welcome party. While today he has celebrated the meetings of countries with the presidents of Nigeria, Ghana and Rwanda, among many others, although on Monday he already received his colleagues from Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo in Beijing, among other dignitaries. South African Cyril Ramaphosa is one of the few who has the courage to say but. “Trade with China must be more balanced and create more jobs, especially in the industry,” he explained.
The fact is that the trade between the People’s Republic of China and each and every African country is not different from the North-South relationship, no matter how it is summarized as an equal relationship, between the two countries “of the global south .”
China buys hydrocarbons and raw materials from them for its industry and sells them manufactured products with added value. It also prevents many agricultural exports in Africa due to strict food regulations.
There is at least a grain of truth in the supposed camaraderie. Xi Jinping has visited Africa five times. The last two presidents of the United States, no. The United Kingdom – whose support for apartheid is not forgotten – is losing its footing, as is France in the Sahel at a faster pace. A place where old players – like Russia, followed in the footsteps of the USSR – and new ones, like Turkey, are occupying. But especially Beijing.
China already has 60 teams in Africa – four more than the US – and Turkey is not far behind. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, holds the record for the number of visits to the continent and has tapped Turkish Airlines to turn Istanbul into the best-connected city in Africa in the world. Likewise, he put a cherry on top this week by receiving in Ankara the Egyptian president, Abdul Fatah al Sisi, his staunch enemy for ten years.
Egypt and Ethiopia already exist
Xi welcomed Turkey’s request to join BRICS this week
A mediation welcomed by China, whose company is building the new capital of Egypt. And not to be left out by this country, Erdogan has also asked for Turkey’s entry into BRICS, an organization founded by Brazil, Russia, India and China, which also includes South Africa and – as of this year – Ethiopia.
China, which in the Maoist period had good relations with Eritrea, Somalia or Tanzania, today does not make political differences, with the exception of the old Swaziland, the only African country that today accepts the Republic of China (Taiwan) as a copyright. representative from China.
Although Chinese cultural influence is minimal in Africa compared to the West, Beijing is counting on winning African countries to its technological standards. Two of the four important agreements signed today by Angola, oil energy, have been signed with Huawei, the US bête noire It is of little importance that the West has been warning African governments for years about the risk of getting into debt on Chinese projects. as if loans from several financial institutions are interest-free).
However, in the same way that Beijing has reformed its policy – and is now betting on “smaller, greener, more beautiful and cheaper” projects – Brussels and Washington have done the same. To the great delight of governments such as that of Angola mentioned earlier, the joy is that the EU and the US want to reactivate the Lobito road, to bring cobalt and copper essential for electric vehicles from Zambia and Congo to the Atlantic coast.
Competing with the experience, cost and speed of execution of Chinese construction companies – criticized for the large use of Chinese labor – seems difficult. Europe, in addition to carrying its own historical burden, considers Africa on the defensive and with limited resolve.
China, meanwhile, completed a railway line between Nairobi and Mombasa on the coast years ago. In poor countries they distinguish between projects that fail and those that do not. They wanted first. Although it is said that another part has been left in the middle of where the President of Kenya is asking this week for the resumption of the work. The Chinese railway between Ethiopia and Djibouti, on the Red Sea, is also in operation. The country where China has the only naval base is the border.
Xi Jinping’s speech this morning in Beijing before fifty African countries, half of them represented by their head of state or government.
Occasionally, the petro-dictator of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, has to come to terms with the details of the brand new continental port of Bata, built by a Chinese company – as well as a hydroelectric plant – is going from one day to serve as. a base for the Chinese navy.
But there are many more Chinese business cards. The Center for African Unity, in Addis Ababa, is a gift from the People’s Republic of China, as is its Center for Epidemic Prevention. Less than a year ago, Zimbabwe opened its Parliament, a gift from China. As Mozambique, Lesotho and Guinea Bissau have already done.
The other side of the coin is China’s trade surplus with Africa, which rose to 58 billion euros last year. Imbalance by Chinese investments in the continent, worth 36 billion in the same period. For fifteen years, China has been the main trading partner, the main investor and the main creditor of Africans.
North-South relationship
China has a trade surplus with Africa of 58 billion euros
In any case, if Brazil will always be the country of the future, Africa will be difficult to sell the symbol of the continent of the future. And the Chinese, it seems, prioritize their potential market of a billion consumers – tomorrow more – to reduce the new waves of tariffs from the US and the EU. Although the latter is the main interest, some things are going well for China in Africa, if only to reduce the wave of migration from the most fertile continent, on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar.
Although Mandarin cannot overshadow French, English or Arabic in Africa, Chinese foreign policy with its Third World rhetoric is seen favorably by governments that are often reminded of their struggle for liberation. Especially when it comes to diplomacy. While Europe is doing its part in Palestine, Xi Jinping received representatives of all Palestinian parties in Beijing this summer. Including Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, whom Israel would kill in Tehran a few days later.
This ninth China-Africa Cooperation Forum, which continues tomorrow Friday – previously held in Dakar in 2021 – in the presence of the UN Secretary General, António Guterres. He has warned that African countries have “lack of access to debt relief.” Something he describes as the perfect cocktail “for social tensions.” Faced with such ideas, the views in the past turned to the West. Now, towards the East, because on the smallest area, China is now.
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