Asian Appetite for Raw Materials has Afrika uneasy

[Mekeda7]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...061201506.html

In Africa, China Trade Brings Growth, Unease
Asian Giant's Appetite for Raw Materials, Markets Has
Some Questioning Its Impact on Continent

By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 13, 2006; A14

JOHANNESBURG -- Every time newspaper publisher Trevor
Ncube visits his native Zimbabwe, he said, there seem
to be more Chinese. He sees them shopping at
boutiques, driving fancy cars, picking up their
children from elite private schools.

And as in much of Africa, Ncube said, China's reach
into Zimbabwe's economy is equally pervasive: The
roads are filled with Chinese buses, the markets with
Chinese goods, and Chinese-made planes are in the
skies. Chinese companies are major investors in mining
and telecommunications. The government in Beijing,
meanwhile, is a crucial backer of Zimbabwe's
authoritarian president, Robert Mugabe.

"They are all over the place," said Ncube, 43, who
owns newspapers in Zimbabwe and South Africa. "If the
British were our masters yesterday, the Chinese have
come and taken their place."

Such unease appears to be rising across Africa as
Chinese become powerful players -- and, in some
places, the dominant ones -- in economies across the
continent. In a pattern replicated across the world,
China's voracious appetite for raw materials is
helping push sub-Saharan economies to their fastest
growth in three decades, and inexpensive Chinese-made
products are suddenly available across the continent.
Yet many Africans say the influx, while offering
consumers more affordable goods, has not improved
their economic situation and has hurt local companies.

African and Western activists say China's increasingly
close ties to the troubled governments in Angola,
Nigeria, Sudan and Zimbabwe are undermining efforts to
nurture democracy and improve human rights.

When Chinese President Hu Jintao toured Africa in
April, he implicitly responded to concerns about his
country's growing role on the continent.

"China's development will not bring a threat to anyone
but, instead, will only bring more opportunities and
space for development to the world," Hu told the
Nigerian National Assembly, according to news reports.

He also reiterated China's policy of making business
deals without any expectation that governments will
improve democracy, respect human rights or fight
corruption. He told reporters in Nairobi, the last
stop of his tour, that China follows "a policy of
noninterference in other countries' internal affairs."

China's overall trade with Africa rose from $10.6
billion in 2000 to $40 billion last year and continues
to increase, according to Chinese government
statistics. Sub-Saharan Africa's economic growth rate,
meanwhile, has nearly doubled over the same period,
from 3 percent to an estimated 5.8 percent this year,
the best since 1974, according to the International
Monetary Fund. Among the major factors, analysts and
economists say, is the increasing trade with China.

"Those places that are energy-rich and mineral-rich
are awash in cash," said J. Stephen Morrison, head of
the Africa program for the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, speaking from his office in
Washington. "And that is driven in part by these new,
rapid-growth Asian economies."

China has spent billions of dollars securing drilling
rights in Nigeria, Sudan and Angola, and has
exploration or extraction deals with Chad, Gabon,
Mauritania, Kenya, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial
Guinea and Ethiopia.

The Chinese also have become investors in the booming
copper industry in Zambia and Congo. They have been
major buyers of timber in Gabon, Cameroon, Mozambique,
Equatorial Guinea and Liberia. Chinese companies were
widely criticized for keeping former president and war
crimes suspect Charles Taylor flush with cash and
prolonging Liberia's devastating civil war. The
Chinese also have helped push up the prices of other
African exports such as platinum, iron and coal.

Across Africa, meanwhile, Chinese companies have
outbid other foreign firms on construction projects,
winning contracts to pave highways, build
hydroelectric dams, upgrade ports, lay railway tracks
and build pipelines -- all of which stand to help
Chinese companies more effectively transport African
resources.

Chinese companies have developed a reputation for
going where others won't because of political,
environmental or ethical concerns, or because profit
margins are too slim. State-owned companies in China,
analysts say, have the ability to forgo short-term
profits in pursuit of the government's long-term
strategic interests.

Infrastructure improvements often are explicitly
traded for raw material contracts. In Angola, where
the government has done little to alleviate poverty or
stimulate democracy since the end of a devastating
civil war in 2002, China has promised $2 billion in
aid as part of a deal for oil rights. Human rights
activists say that influx of cash has stiffened the
government's resolve against outside pressure --
mostly from the West -- to reform.

Countries that sign deals with Chinese companies also
win diplomatic protection. China, as a permanent
member of the U.N. Security Council, has threatened to
use its veto power to block sanctions against Sudan,
which U.S. officials and others accuse of committing
genocide in its Darfur region. China also resisted
efforts by the United Nations to investigate and
punish Mugabe for a "clean-up campaign" last year in
which police destroyed slums and markets, depriving
700,000 Zimbabweans of either their homes or their
jobs.

China has been a significant supplier of jet fighters,
military vehicles and guns to Zimbabwe, Sudan and
other repressive governments.

"Wherever there are resources, the Chinese are going
to go there," said Peter Takirambudde, head of the
Africa division for Human Rights Watch. "They see no
evil. They hear no evil. That's very bad for
Africans."

The Chinese influx does have benefits to African
economies. Commodities used in manufacturing, such as
oil, copper and platinum, are surging because of
demand from China and other Asian nations. Copper
prices have increased sixfold since a 2001 low,
topping $8,000 per ton in some recent trading.
Platinum prices have tripled over that time.

The availability of Chinese motorcycles, air
conditioners, T-shirts and kitchen utensils has meant
lower prices for consumers across the continent. In
South Africa, two companies are planning to introduce
Chinese automobiles to the bustling domestic market at
discount prices.

Even the blue glazed tiles on top of Mugabe's newest
presidential palace, north of the Zimbabwean capital
of Harare, are from China, according to news reports.

But the payoff to ordinary Africans -- especially
those who are poor or unemployed -- is mixed.

In South Africa and Lesotho, low-cost Chinese imports
have been blamed for tens of thousands of layoffs in
the textile industry. And as the rates of economic
growth have climbed, Africans have reported that both
their national economies and the financial conditions
of individuals seem to have stagnated, according to
Afrobarometer, a polling project that has sampled
public opinion in 12 sub-Saharan countries since 2000.

In the latest numbers, released last month, only 27
percent of those polled expressed satisfaction with
their own finances, a drop from 31 percent in 2000.
The sharpest decline was in Nigeria, where upbeat
ratings of personal finances fell from 68 percent in
2000 to 45 percent. The decline came despite surging
oil profits there and growing trade with China.

Other factors, including political turmoil, likely are
affecting views of economic circumstances, but
Nigerians also complain that growing ties with Chinese
businesses have come without major new investments in
manufacturing.

Even supporters of expanded ties between Africa and
China express concern. "They are selling. They are
trading. They are not producing locally," said Victor
N. Chibundu, a former Nigerian ambassador to China who
is now chairman of the Nigeria-China Friendship
Association, based in Lagos.

In that way, analysts say, burgeoning Chinese business
interests are following a pattern long established in
Africa: Foreign powers treat the continent mainly as a
source of raw materials and a market for finished
goods.

Those with money to spend benefit from the cheaper,
more abundant products, but most of the jobs are
created elsewhere, in factories thousands of miles
away.

"There's no question that for upper classes, it's a
boon," said Neva Seidman Makgetla, an economist for
the Congress of South African Trade Unions, speaking
from Pretoria. "The problem is any lower-class South
Africans would rather have a job."

� 2006 The Washington Post Company

[Kweku_Omowale]

wowww! they are now eyeing the land mines, in and chinese goods gonna flood afrikan streets
what we gonna see next,afrikans trying to learn chinese!!

and i was told that we diasporans are not allowed to be part of ghanian politics no matter how long we live there.this is sad mekeda7* sadface*

[Mamazen]

When is the lesson finally gonna be learned?

[Mekeda7]

Originally Posted by mamazen

When is the lesson finally gonna be learned?

When they see the harsh realities to come, perhaps...

[APUAT WAH]

Htp

China Is Not The Only Countries That Want These Resoures. Since I Really Only Watch Ony One Channel On Tv (cnbc) Jim Cramer On His Show Last Night Was Talking About The Same Thing. He Called It B.r.i.c. Brazil, Russia, India, And China, He Said Their Economy Is Moving So Fast That They Needed These Resources. And That This Company In Brazil Is The The Second Largest Exporter Of Minerals Out Of Afraka.

Beware Of Strangers Bearing Gifts.

[manifestdestiny]

We have to moblize ourselves to protect afrika..The four thousand year gang rape has went on long enough

[Pain]

Everyone leaches off of Africa. I hate hearing about stuff like this. Can't understand when people are going to get fed up and stop this madness. It seems sometimes like it's gonna take for the earth herself to rise up because we just aren't showing that we really care about any damn thing.

[Kweku_Omowale]

Originally Posted by APUAT WAH

Htp

China Is Not The Only Countries That Want These Resoures. Since I Really Only Watch Ony One Channel On Tv (cnbc) Jim Cramer On His Show Last Night Was Talking About The Same Thing. He Called It B.r.i.c. Brazil, Russia, India, And China, He Said Their Economy Is Moving So Fast That They Needed These Resources. And That This Company In Brazil Is The The Second Largest Exporter Of Minerals Out Of Afraka.

Beware Of Strangers Bearing Gifts.

wow apuah thanks for the heads up,brazil has just the same,gold,diamond and minerals,the thing is that they let amerikkka rape their resources,brazil dont need to go to afrika omg! whuts wrong with dem,brazil has cocoa beams,coffee and what not,it is shamea damn shame...