China Bids for Africa

...A SUITOR AMID CHAPERONS China Bids for Africa BY RUSSELL WARREN HOWE Rabat Despite the fact that its natural resources are possibly the world's richest, Africa remains a commercial and??leaving aside its Mediterranean coast ?? strategic pigmy But this condition only enhances its appeal...

...Peking is clearly interested in the new militancy of South Africa's 650,000 Asians and 2 million Eur-Africans and Malays (known as "coloreds") Rejecting the weak white-liberal call for integration, they have begun to identify with the bottom caste, the black African majority, and even to propagandize about "black power " Separate development cannot apply to members of this middle caste, since their "homeland" is Cape Town itself, they form the bulk of the city's population and account for virtually all of the descendants of the earliest European settlers White conservatives say that integrating them would be the thin end of the black revolutionary wedge (Russia and China would agree ) It is therefore unlikely that desegregation will be attempted, which leaves these brown millions available for revolution The Leftists among them have always preferred Peking to Moscow, and most of them would probably favor ties to a flexible China over ambiguous links to local liberals On the other hand, Peking's growing naval interest in the Indian Ocean may give Pretoria leverage in its vigorous bid to enter a Western naval alliance...

...In contrast to China's expansionist drive, the Soviet Union is confining its efforts to a particular geographical area Beginning with Algeria, this swings like an Islamic crescent around the Nile Valley, moving down with a pronged effect into the Sudan and Somalia, where the Marxist-Muslim advance is blocked by three pro-Western regimes??Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda Yet even in Arab Africa, Moscow keeps a low profile The exceptions to this policy used to be Egypt and the Sudan, until mistimed support for an abortive Left-wing coup attempt against Gafaar al-Nimeiry's junta last summer brought storm-clouds around the heads of the huge Soviet military mission in Khartoum In Cairo, for all his dependence on massive Russian assistance, President Anwar el-Sadat has joined Libya's man on horseback, Muammar el-Qaddafi, in shaking a fist at atheistic Communism and its pretensions in the Islamic world Indeed, the improbable alliance between Muhammad and Marx has not been happy-as evidenced by the widespread imprisonment of Arab Communists...

...If the Chinese challenge continues to grow??even if it goes so far as to place ground-to-ground missiles aimed at South Africa in Zanzibar or elsewhere??Moscow and Washington will probably have no choice but to accept it Though the U S has viewed Africa as the primary responsibility of Britain and France in the past, it now seems unrealistic to expect more from London than a shopkeeper attitude toward the continent France is more ambitious, but has never shed the pelt of Prospero...

...Since the independence movement of a decade ago, Russia, China and the West have been mainly preoccupied with thwarting each other's designs Africa has not had suitors, merely chaperons Recently, however, Peking has begun wooing the continent with large-scale aid grants Buoyed by its admission to the UN and eager to champion the cause of the developing nations, the People's Republic is certain to intensify a courtship that is rapidly establishing it as the most active and ambitious participant in the tripolar contest over Africa...

...Moscow currently has the support of the small, elite, underground Communist party in South Africa, a nation exemplifying President Kennedy's dictum that "those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable" To date the West, represented by European and American business, has only been able to respond to apartheid by drop-m-the-bucket reforms like better pay for nonwhite workers China has the advantage of a clean slate It is not even responsible for the local Party's mistakes...

...The United States is also reducing and reorganizing its aid program, seeking to make it more productive at less cost The only medium-term U S economic interests on the continent involve raw materials such as Algerian gas and Rhodesian chrome, iron and uranium may eventually be added to the list, but South African gold will probably be dropped now that paper drawing rights" are bringing about its gradual demonetization Strategically, the U S stake south of the Mediterranean shore is limited to satellite communications stations, notably those at Asmara and in the Seychelles Unlike Britain, the U S has no freewheeling business commitments inviting it to find a "strategic" significance in the Cape??Where Edward Heath's "sea lane" is 1,700 miles wide The Cape itself, as Roger Hilsman once noted, would have military importance only for a war on the emperor penguins of the Antarctic America's main protege in Africa is the Congo, where Joseph Mobutu's harsh dictatorship has prepared the ground for attracting badly needed investment by firmly establishing law and order So far, however, it has not given a thought to achieving a democratic government or creating a stable future Like Moscow, Washington is conducting a holding operation in Nigeria, awaiting the end of the unpopular junta there and hoping to befriend its successor Relative priorities are accorded to Ethiopia, Morocco and Kenya, partly because of the U S communications facilities at Kemtra and Asmara Paradoxically, the U S is one of the most favored friends of pseudo-Marxist Guinea and slightly more genuinely Marxist Algeria (with which Washington has no official diplomatic ties) Both countries use their relations with the U S as a foil to rebuff an assertive France, and American officials accept this role on the theory that at least one Western power should try to keep a foot in these inhospitable doors...

...In short, China really wants to prove that Africa is not black, but red The U S seeks to establish that individual freedom is the way to the better life The Soviet Union is primarily concerned about being on the winning side And it is still unclear which formula will appear the least dangerous, hypocritical or cynical to the autocolonialist elites who govern Africa today, while preserving??under the title of "African Socialism" or "parliamentary democracy"??the old pith-helmet principle that the district council proposes but the district commissioner disposes...

...In the eyes of many Africans, China's experience, including its eloquent failures, comes closer to their own situation than does that of the Muscovite bureaucracy Yet Mao himself has few admirers Peking's propaganda would in fact be more effective if it dropped his personality cult and advertised the People's Republic as a Socialist version of Japan Sino-African relations have also been handicapped by China's refusal to allow its technicians to fraternize with blacks, a situation that may soon be altered by greater flexibility in Peking...

...Elsewhere in Africa, Soviet funds are at an all-time low Moscow appears to be chiefly interested in the major markets??Egypt, the Congo (Zaire), Nigeria, as well as South Africa under a different regime??and, of course, the Mediterranean seaboard Russian officials and technicians, mindful of past mistakes, are extremely conscious of their limitations in dealing with Africans...

...Disgusted by the puppet monarchies (lifetime "presidencies") France has installed and backed with its garrisons as a form of anticoup insurance, French Africa's students have become the continent's most solidly Marxist group Presumably for this reason, China has been devoting more attention to the former French colonies than to English West Africa, and is playing an increasing development role in Mali, Guinea and Mauritania (At present, Peking has no relations with Senegal, although these three countries share regional development plans with it ) Elsewhere, too, unlike the Soviet Union's focus on meaningful export markets, China has placed politics first, concentrating on such strategic outposts as Brazzaville and Zanzi-bai In Tanzania it undertook a project that was almost more than China could afford, the $406-millon Tan-Zam Railroad Some 15,000 Chinese laborers are working on the 1,056-mile link between Lusaka and Dares-Salaam, the largest single foreign aid project in Africa's history, topping even the Soviet-built Aswan Dam in Egypt Promised for completion in 1975, it is running far ahead of schedule and is now expected to be opened in 1973 It will give landlocked Zambia's copperbelt an access to the sea that bypasses all of white-controlled Africa...

...Russell Warren Howe, a frequent NL contributor, is the Africa bureau chief of the Baltimore Sun...

...The moderation of French-speaking black Africa seems due for dramatic changes, too, with parts falling into both the Soviet and Chinese spheres of influence But, by and large, Peking, will set the pace for the two long-nosed devils and their running dogs...

...The continent's untapped economic potential is so vast it has attracted all the major powers and many secondary ones...

...Britain outspends the US in Africa, but the money is spread thin, even though most of it is divided among the Commonwealth countries England enjoys the least moral credit on the continent of all foreign powers, and for obvious reasons its pusillanimous retreat before the Rhodesian settlers, its courtship of France's bride, the South African arms market, its introduction of the second-class passport for Asian Britons, and its shabby treatment of other United Kingdom citizens of Commonwealth descent Following the near-fiasco of President Georges Pompidou's February visit to four former French colonies in West Africa, France is now reneging on promises to maintain aid at last year's reduced level Despite the growing criticism of younger French Africanists, Pans has not altered its arrogant and interfering manner of giving assistance (and still insists that about 75 per cent of it return to France in one form or another) Nor is this policy likely to change so long as the sinister, Sidney Greenstreet-like figure of Jacques Foccart rules "independent" French Africa from Pans with a mixture of cudgel and cash...

...It would appear that the last quarter of this century will see the bruised Russian crescent in Africa suffering additional dents caused by Western and Chinese inroads...

...Significantly, black Rhodesia's Russian-funded Zimbabwe Africa People's Union (zapu) fell apart last year in its Zambian exile and China's protege, the Zimbabwe African National Union (zanu), took the lead by forging a unified movement, the Zimbabwe Liberation Front Pro-Russian elements have at the same time eliminated pro-Chinese compatriots from the Mozambique Liberation Front leadership, but this is fluid and reversible...

...Meanwhile Peking is becoming the main force behind southern Africa's black resistance movements Their ultimate course of action, though, is undecided Mao Tse-tung, proud of his Long March to power and eager to further rebut Lenin's belief in urban revolution, has always advised Africa's guerrilla leaders to fight in the countryside And China's aid has been contingent upon the recipients' acceptance of Mao's Thoughts But resistance leaders in countries like South Africa, Rhodesia or Namibia, partly or wholly unsuitable for rural guerrilla operations, have been pointing out that mountain warfare played a secondary role to urban terror in Algeria's successful revolution They feel the 100,000 insurgents who will complete their training in Tanzania by the time the Tan-Zam line is finished would have a greater impact in the settler cities than in the bush (except in Mozambique, where the mam target is the machinery of the Cabora Bassa Dam) It remains to be seen whether China's leaders will agree to so radical a departure from the tactics advocated by Mao...