China’s Diplomacy and Economic Activities in Africa: Relations on the Move

119 Pages·2018·1.46 MB·English

by  Anja Lahtinen (auth.)

CHINA’S DIPLOMACY
AND ECONOMIC
ACTIVITIES
IN AFRICA
Relations on the Move
Anja Lahtinen
China’s Diplomacy and Economic
Activities in Africa
Anja Lahtinen
China’s Diplomacy
and Economic
Activities in Africa
Relations on the Move
Anja Lahtinen
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland
ISBN 978-3-319-69352-1 ISBN 978-3-319-69353-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69353-8
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To Karine and Mikko
A
cknowledgments
When I took my first trip to China in the mid-1980s, it was like arriving
on another planet. After a long and tiresome flight, I stepped into the
transit hall. Young officers in green uniform stood in front of the round
table in the middle of the room. Loud Chinese music was playing. It took
a long time to get my suitcases. The bicycles on the road from the airport
were reluctant to give way to our bus. Beijing was grey, damp and monot-
onous, with a lot of concrete administration buildings. The air was pol-
luted, smelling of charcoal. Mountains of Chinese cabbage were piled on
the kerbsides. The principal vehicle in use was the bicycle, and there
seemed to be millions of cyclists. All Chinese people appeared to be young.
They laughed at us in a kindly way while showing curiosity. China was
opening up, and it had invited us, a group of Finnish small and medium-
sized enterprises, to learn about its economic and social plan to modernize
the country, and to invest in the country. Since my first visit, China has
experienced a remarkable transformation. In the space of 30 years it has
become an economic world power. In turn, I have become more familiar
with Chinese culture and people, politics, and society. My journey to
Africa, ten years later, followed a similar pattern, starting with an initial
visit to South Africa. The country was filled with hope as Mandela Nelson
had become president just a few months earlier.
China’s entrance into Africa began to pop up in international news
from mid-2000, at the same time as research on the latter country began
to evolve. At that point, although I was working on my dissertation,
“Governance Matters: China’s Developing with a Focus on Qinghai
Province,” this topic attracted my interest greatly. The idea of combining
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
my previous knowledge of and encounters with Africa and China, and
learning more about both, became the plan for my next research topic.
Many books have been published about China in Africa. Most of them
deal with economic relations. This text, despite having a limited pagina-
tion, tries to paint a fairly relatively comprehensive picture that explores
the past, present, and future of the China–Africa collaboration. The book
would not have come into being without my seeing China as a world pow-
erhouse, including both good and bad aspects, and also acknowledging
Africa’s importance to the world, not least in its unlocked potential.
I am indebted to many Chinese and African scholars, officials, China-
watchers, and all who have taken the time to discuss and debate ideas, and
to share their knowledge and views with me. I wish to thank the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, Peking University, Renmin University, Fudan
University, and the University of Hong Kong for welcoming me on my
trips to China as a visiting scholar and as a director of the Confucius
Institute. I warmly thank He Wenping, Director of African Studies at the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Professor Li Anshan at the Centre
for African Studies at Peking University, for fruitful discussions that pro-
vided the Chinese perspective for China’s presence in Africa. I am particu-
larly grateful to my friends at the China Centre at Stellenbosch University,
to Sven Grimm and Anthony Ross for hosting my visits and sharing their
knowledge. And my special thanks are reserved for Bronwyn Steyn Grobler
and Lydia du Plessis at Stellenbosch for their kind help with the practicali-
ties during my stays. I am most thankful to Professor Eric Mitema for
hosting my visits at the University of Nairobi, and to Professor Adam Oloo
for sharing his views and for his visit to the University of Helsinki to talk
about China–Africa relations at the Transforming China: New Leadership
and Foreign Relations conference on November 7, 2013. I also express my
sincere thanks to Dr Jenny Fatou Mbaye at the University of Cape Town,
and the Chinese directors and teachers at the Confucius institutes at the
universities of Nairobi, Kenyatta, Cape Town, and Stellenbosch.
Writing this book, China’s Diplomacy and Economic Activities in Africa:
Relations on the Move, has been influenced by my admiration and concern
for both China and Africa. The text has been written with the support of
friends and family in ways they may not even be aware of. I am most grateful
to the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation’s grant for this book, as well to
the University of Helsinki for the research exchange visits which allowed me
also to work in situ. It has been a remarkable exercise of new learning that
has taken me down unforeseen paths and continued my academic journey.
c
ontents
1 China–Africa Relations 1
2 China in Africa 17
3 Soft Power 33
4 Culture 53
5 Relations on the Move 67
6 Conclusion 83
Bibliography 89
Index 101
ix
A A
bout the uthor
Anja Lahtinen is an independent researcher. She has a PhD in East Asian
studies from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and an MBA from Henley
Business School, UK. She has experience of China spanning more than 30
years, first within business operations and then in academic research. Her
recent job as director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Helsinki
has offered valuable insights into the Chinese government. Her wide expe-
rience and in-depth knowledge of China provides a broad perspective from
which to understand its cultural, economic, and social life better. Witnessing
the country’s transformation and its opening up has allowed her to recog-
nize the links and consequences of tremendous change and thus to attain a
big-picture view of China’s aspirations in both Africa and the wider world.
Moving the research focus to Africa has been an energizing process, intel-
lectually and emotionally. It has given her a chance to see the world in dif-
ferent settings and different environments. It has also been a motivation to
write a book about China in Africa, to seek an understanding of the essence
and trajectories of development in the China–Africa relationship.
xi
I
ntroductIon
Africa was long portrayed as “The Hopeless Continent,” as, for example,
on the front page of The Economist in an issue in 2000. For years, global-
ization had bypassed the continent because of its poor infrastructure, low
income, and political instability. Then came China, which needed resources
and oil for its expanding manufacturing capacity and to secure its growth
as a global manufacturing powerhouse. Chinese leaders headed business
delegations to every major African capital, landing infrastructure projects
and trade deals. The country’s state-owned enterprises, private corpora-
tions, and entrepreneurs all ventured to Africa.
In the decade since 2007, it seemed as China was building everything in
Africa. It constructed roads, schools, hotels, and conference centers. It
built a huge shopping mall in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, in Mozambique
it constructed a ring road around Maputo, and it invested billions in
Nigeria’s newly refurbished Lagos–Kano rail line. African leaders welcomed
China. Their country needed to improve its infrastructure deficit to accel-
erate growth. African governments were attracted by China’s pragmatic
approach and its “no strings attached” conditions to do business. This was
in stark contrast to the conditions imposed by Western countries, the
International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, which demanded good
governance. China’s engagement helped African countries to accelerate
economic growth while Africa turned into China’s “second continent.”
McKinsey’s (2010) report predicted a growth trajectory for Africa’s econo-
mies, and by 2011 (within ten years of the aforementioned article), “Africa
is rising” was how the continent was depicted on the front page of The
Economist.
xiii