Beware the dragon
Lindsey contemplates one of the major questions facing Africa: whether China’s influence in the continent a good thing.
Last night I took time out from writing my book on Libya to chair an Intelligence Squared debate called Beware the Dragon: Africa should not look to China.
It’s been a topic that raises passions for several years now. The US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson, said last year that he thought China had “no morals” in its dealings with Africa. Unlike everyone else who has always had scrupulous morals, I’m sure. He and many others believe Chinese investment is shoring up corrupt and abusive African governments. The opposing view is that Africa is benefitting from China’s growth, at a time when Europe and the USA see the continent only in terms of aid.
In the blue corner, speaking for the motion, were the Ghanaian free market economist George Attiyeh, and the Portuguese MEP Ana Maria Gomes. In the red corner, championing China, were two academics: Deborah Brautigam, who wrote an influential book The Dragon’s Gift, and Stephen Chan from the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Polled as they came in, a majority of the 450 strong audience agreed with the motion – Africa, they believed should NOT look to China. But the red corner persuaded them, and by the end, 100 of 125 “don’t knows” and 5 of those who had initially been anti-China, had decided that maybe Africa should look to China after all. So China won.
Why was that? I think partly because Deborah and Stephen effectively challenged the conventional wisdom with facts and figures suggesting that African countries were getting good deals on infrastructure projects. Also, I suspect that the audience decided that there was no point being anti-China – however much concern you might have about human rights and democracy, China now has US$155 billion annual trade with Africa, and it’s only going to grow. So it’s a question of how African governments and people manage that, as resistance is futile.
Ana Gomes raised an interesting question at the end. We in Europe are now looking to China to bail us out of the economic mess we’ve got ourselves into. So should we ‘beware the dragon’? Is there anything Africa can teach us about working with the Chinese? Or are we Europeans and Americans so clever and so morally correct, that we already know what’s best for Africa and ourselves.