When China Rules the World

Perhaps the country that most exemplifies this inequality is Zimbabwe, where the Chinese enjoy a powerful presence in the economy, controlling key strategic areas like the railways, electricity supply, Air Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. [1083] The fact that China has a carefully worked-out and comprehensive strategic approach to its relationship with Africa, while the African response, in contrast, is fragmented between the many different nations, poorly informed about China, and based on an essentially pragmatic rather than strategic view, serves only to exacerbate this inequality. [1084] The danger is that African nations enter into agreements with China over the exploitation of their natural resources which are too favourable to China, or use the revenues gained in a short-term fashion, perhaps corruptly, to benefit various interest groups, or possibly both.

Although China ’s presence has been hugely welcomed across the continent, and has generated considerable enthusiasm, [1085] there is also unease and concern. This has been most manifest in Zambia, where in the last presidential election in 2006 the opposition candidate propounded a strongly anti-Chinese line, declaring that ‘Zambia is becoming a province – no, a district – of China’, and gained 29 per cent of the vote, prompting the Chinese ambassador to imply that China might withdraw its investments in the event of his winning. [1086] One of the strongest and most persistent criticisms is that Chinese companies prefer to employ Chinese rather than local workers, with the proportion of Chinese workers sometimes reaching as high as 70 per cent. [1087] There are also frequent complaints that Chinese managers display negative attitudes towards local people. [1088] Both of these, of course, touch directly upon the problem of Chinese attitudes towards those of darker skin, and especially Africans, which I discussed in Chapter 8. The evidence is still too sparse to draw any proper conclusions as yet, though the problem is unsurprising. There is a widely held view, especially in the West, that China ’s refusal to require any conditionality in terms of governance means that it is prone to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses, such as those in Darfur. [1089] That has certainly been the case, but the Chinese have recently shown growing sensitivity towards Western criticism, as well as that from within the continent, and as a result have helped to pressure the Sudanese government into accepting the presence of a joint United Nations/ African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur. [1090] There is little evidence, however, that China ’s record in Africa is any worse – and in fact is almost certainly far better – than the West’s own miserable catalogue of support for corrupt and dictatorial regimes on the continent, not to mention its colonial legacy. [1091] Finally, in a rather different vein, the Chinese have become the target of terrorist groups, for example in the Niger Delta and Ethiopia, a phenomenon which is surely set to grow as the Chinese presence and influence expands and they assume the role, visibility and responsibilities of a global power not only in Africa but elsewhere too. [1092]