Richard Behar, the American reporter, starts out by answering a question from an e-mail that came in about sweatshop, slave labor in Africa.
Behar says that African consumers can buy cheap goods—that’s the good news.
The bad news is that most developing countries need light manufacturing industries such as textiles to develop, and China is making that almost impossible for African countries.
Riz Khan turns to Dr. John Afele and mentions something Behar wrote in China Storms Africa that claims what China is doing is a replay of imperial colonialism.
Dr. Afele says he sees this as an economic situation and if it is economic, than Thomas Friedman, the author of The World is Flat, is right that economics is not like war and can be a win-win situation.
This is not a time when Africa has no voice, Afele says. This time the world is watching so I do not think we are going back to an era of colonialism. There are international organizations to help that didn’t exist during colonialism.
Then Khan turns to David Shinn, the former US ambassador to Ethiopia, who is now a professor at George Washington University. The question has to do with countries like America that are reluctant to do business in Africa due to Africa’s negative international image.
Shinn replies that the perception of Africa for American businesses is negative. However, he does not think China is bothered by that image.
Referring to Behar’s claims of colonialism rearing its ugly head, Shinn says this infers political control and that is not part of today’s equation. Colonialism is not happening.
Turning back to Behar, Khan brings up the perception of corruption of businesses in China.
Behar uses Mozambique as an example saying that within five years the best wood will be gone as the trees are cut down. He says the same thing is going on in the Congo with copper. (I ask, How is this corruption?)
Shinn responds by saying the upside (or win-win situation Afele mentioned) is that China offers Africa long term, low interest loans that were only being offered by the West with political strings attached.
China doesn’t make the same demands the West does. (What no one said is that China was also a victim of colonialism for more than a century starting with the Opium Wars.)
Return to China in Africa – Part 1
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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