Back to the Maoist Future
BROOKES, PETER
Back to the Maoist Future China's African ambitions. BY PETER BROOKES AMID FESTERING CONCERNS about China's burgeoning global power, Beijing has set its sights on expanding its influence in...
...This generous assistance will not only protect Beijing's $3 billion oil investment in Nigeria, but will likely lead to additional lucrative oil concessions from Abu-ja...
...The comment of Chinese ambassador to the United States Zhou Wen-zhong, while he was deputy foreign minister, reflects Beijing's Africa policy: "Business is business...
...While the United States, the European Union, Japan, and others sought to impose U.N...
...Tragically, Khartoum has doubled its defense budget in recent years, spending 60 percent to 80 percent of its estimated $500 million in annual oil revenue—half of it from China—on weapons...
...China is rapidly expanding its influence in Africa to secure natural resources, expand Beijing's influence, and even isolate Taiwan through generous but self-serving diplomatic, financial, and military assistance...
...nations, and others to protect its interests in Africa—and elsewhere...
...sanctions on the Sudanese regime over Khartoum's support for the genocide in Darfur, China strenuously opposed Security Council actions...
...We try to separate politics from business...
...Nothing is driving china into Africa more than its insatiable appePeter Brookes, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow, is the author of A Devil's Triangle: Terrorism, WMD and Rogue States...
...Last summer, Britain and the United States backed yet another U.N...
...china has invested billions in resource development and infrastructure— and written off billions more in debt—to help build cozy relationships with dozens of African countries...
...Many authoritarian African regimes, desperate to invigorate their lackluster economies while maintaining a strong grip on political power, find China's modernization model preferable to the difficult free-market and democratic reforms advocated by the United States and the European Union...
...Seeking new markets for its export-driven economy and unimpeded access to Africa's abundant natural resources, china lavishes African leaders with diplomatic pomp and circumstance as well as financial, commercial, and military assistance...
...in Angola, another African energy giant, a $2 billion credit line for much-needed infrastructure projects secured Chinese access to coveted offshore oil fields, making China Luanda's second-largest oil customer after the United States...
...For instance, facing rebel attacks against their country's oil infrastructure and foreign oil workers, and disappointed in the U.S...
...Meanwhile, Mugabe flew to Beijing, seeking a handout for his beggared economy and Chinese support at the U.N.— which Beijing gave, killing the resolution...
...Otherwise, China's broad energy, trade, political, diplomatic, and, yes, military interests threaten to undermine long-standing efforts to promote peace, prosperity, and democracy in Africa...
...China's ideological support for African despots like Mugabe lends these leaders a kind of pseudo-legitimacy both at home and abroad, blunting pressure for human rights, economic openness, and political freedom...
...Secondly, I think the internal situation in the Sudan is an internal affair, and we are not in a position to impose upon them...
...Not surprisingly, Beijing pubChina strenuously opposed U.N...
...Africa's traditional European colonial and American partners now find their vision of a continent governed by free-market democracies and the rule of law challenged by Beijing's scramble for influence and resources...
...Today, Africa provides china with 30 percent of its energy imports...
...Beijing's response was to sell Zimbabwe over $200 million worth of fighter aircraft and military vehicles...
...strategy that encourages democratic principles, human rights, free markets, and cooperation in regional security and energy development in concert with like-minded partners, looking beyond traditional European friends to democratic Asian and Latin American nations for support...
...Chinese firms underbid local companies, and PRC contractors often use cheap, imported Chinese labor, adding little to local employment or skill development...
...In fact, while 4,000 Chinese People's Liberation Army troops guarded oil pipelines, Sudanese government forces and government-aligned militias attacked rebels and hundreds of towns and villages around oil installations, forcing the dislocation of hundreds of thousands...
...instead, it's wholly concerned with international trade...
...Chinese policies are endangering U.S...
...Moreover, cheap Chinese goods flood African markets, especially textiles, shuttering factories across the continent...
...While China-Africa trade soared to $30 billion last year, bringing critical revenue to some of the world's poorest nations, Beijing also actively promotes its development model, based on a limited market economy controlled by a totalitarian government...
...Beijing also provided equipment for jamming antigovernment media broadcasts and gave electronic surveillance equipment to Harare's security services to monitor political opponents...
...response, Nigeria (the world's eighth largest oil exporter) turned to China for military aid...
...Other African countries are regular purchasers of Chinese weapons and military equipment, too, providing political and economic access for China while allowing African authoritarians to quash political opposition and stifle democracy...
...Zimbabwe, the world's second largest exporter of platinum, also gets China's support internationally...
...In a throwback to the Maoist revolutionary days of the 1960s and '70s, Beijing has once again identified the 53-nation African continent as an area of strategic interest...
...As China's power grows, Beijing will become more willing to challenge the United States, the E.U...
...action against Sudan...
...Sudan presents the most pernicious example of China's new Africa policy, where Beijing combines its drive for exclusive access to natural resources with an aggressive political campaign to ingratiate itself with the continent's despots...
...licly praises Mugabe, who impoverished the once-prosperous Zimbabwe, as "a man of great achievements, devoted to world peace and a good friend of the Chinese people...
...Beijing is building ties with African energy suppliers through investment, aid, high-level visits, and a strict policy of "noninterference in internal affairs" that Africa's strongmen find comforting...
...While some Africans see the Chinese as kindred spirits who understand Africa's development plight and welcome the Chinese infrastructure projects, the PRC presence is also a source of consternation...
...goals by supporting African dictatorships, hindering economic development, and exacerbating conflicts and human rights abuses in troubled countries such as Sudan and Zimbabwe...
...What is needed is a comprehensive U.S...
...Moreover, with Chinese assistance, the Sudanese government recently built three weapons factories, complicating international arms embargoes against Khartoum...
...Unfortunately, the policies of the People's Republic of china are aiding and abetting oppression, human rights abuses, poor governance, and economic stagnation, while shoring up some of Africa's most odious regimes...
...Security Council resolution condemning Mugabe's policies...
...In Zimbabwe, for example, President Robert Mugabe's repeated political and human rights abuses led the United States and the E.U...
...But this time it's not interested in exporting communism...
...tite for oil and gas...
...china is already the world's second largest energy consumer, leading Beijing to Africa's door in an effort to reduce its reliance on volatile Middle Eastern sources...
...In return, China receives support at the U.N...
...To prevent international economic sanctions from interfering with China's $3 billion investment in Sudan's oil and gas industry...
...BY PETER BROOKES AMID FESTERING CONCERNS about China's burgeoning global power, Beijing has set its sights on expanding its influence in Africa...
...And concessionary PRC loans have put International Monetary Fund and other bank projects on hold because of concerns about economic mismanagement and corruption...
...and in other forums for its causes, such as isolating Taiwan...
...to impose punitive sanctions against the regime...
...For the past decade, the chinese economy has expanded annually at near double-digit rates, requiring an enormous influx of resources...
...Across the planet, china is aggressively seeking new friends and allies, and proving to be a less-demanding alternative to the more scrupulous United States and European nations...
...To prevent sanctions from interfering with China's $3 billion investment in Sudan's oil and gas industry...
Vol. 11 • April 2006 • No. 29
