Andy Rowell, 21 November 2006 

Earlier this month there was a political event that shifted the status of global power politics. Whilst the world’s media crawled over every detail of the first Democrat-controlled Congress for twelve years, few column inches were devoted to a far more important event that occurred in Beijing.

China’s leaders hosted a huge China-Africa Co-operation Forum that was attended by no less than forty heads of state from Africa’s fifty three countries. This was Chinese diplomacy on an unprecedented scale.

Yes – the defeat of the Republicans in both House and Senate is hugely significant – especially in the short-term. It means the end of twelve years of a ruthless Republican domestic agenda. But whilst the Democrat’s victory will hopefully see short-term policy changes on American policy on Iraq, Iran and Palestine as well as issues such as climate change and nuclear proliferation, a bigger seismic political shift is taking place.

China’s courting of Africa is the latest move in the huge post-Cold War power play taking place. What we are witnessing is the beginning of the end of America’s global dominance as its influence steadily declines and China’s grows. Africa could be the tipping point of that power struggle and the front-line in Chinese ascendancy.

The Chinese deal-making certainly pleased the guests. “African leaders left Beijing smiling like crocodiles,” noted one British journalist. “Never before have they been fêted as they were at the China-Africa summit last week”. The size of the diplomatic event shocked western diplomats who privately conceded the Chinese has pulled off a major diplomatic coup.

The official reason for the forum was to expand trade and give China greater access to Africa’s rich resources. However, the New York Times, noted “the unofficial purpose is to redraw the world’s strategic map by forming tighter political ties between China … and Africa, a continent whose leaders often complain about being neglected by the United States and Europe”. 

China spoke of a joint approach on "global security threats", including Africa in rebalancing the post-colonial, post-cold war, post-Iraq world.  The harsh reality for America is that “China is systematically dismantling America’s sphere of influence in Africa”, an advisor to President Obasanjo in Nigeria told Alkhaleej.

The old-colonial powers in Africa, such as the French and British are slowly losing their power of influence. America has tried to increase its influence on the continent as it sees the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea as “the Next Gulf” - a counter-balance to the Middle East. However political insiders have told Alkhaleej that its influence is waning. America’s image has been badly damaged by the failure of the Iraq war and the hypocrisy of its Middle Eastern policy.

For example, Ali Aujali, Libya’s ambassador to the United States recently gave an interview to the influential Council on Foreign Relations. “The situation in Iraq, the American invasion of Iraq, the role of America in the Middle East, I think that is what has to really be addressed with courage. You have to tell yourselves, ‘Yes we did something wrong’”.

Whilst American foreign policy is criticised, African leaders will not dare attack China’s foreign policy. The reality is that Africa and China both have something the other wants. China has a growing, thirsty economy that needs feeding. Its trade with Africa is now growing faster than with any other region except the Middle East, and has increased tenfold in the past decade, to just under $40 billion last year.

China also has vast amounts of money at its disposal - some $1 trillion in foreign currency reserves. These are being used to buy up Africa’s valuable natural resources. It now imports oil from Angola and the Sudan; timber from the Congo; iron ore from South Africa and cobalt and copper from Zambia. Saudi Arabia used to be China's largest foreign source of oil – not any more. It is now Angola.

Its huge foreign currency reserves are available for loans. China now lends four times as much to Africa as the World Bank does: $3bn in preferential loans, $2bn in export credits, and a recently announced $5bn fund for Chinese investment in Africa. Also at the summit China promised to double this year's aid by 2009 providing loans to the tune of $3billion. Chinese aid comes with no strings attached, unlike aid from the West.

In return China is making friends and building up influence on the continent. It is getting preferential treatment over resources and is supporting a permanent African seat on the UN Security Council. The probability is that Africa would support the Chinese not the American position.

Africa, in turn, apart from getting access to cheap loans, sees a new business partner, free of the baggage of colonial history. President Festus Mogabe of Botswana, seen as a friend to the West, was extremely positive after the Summit. “China treats us as equals, while the west treats us as former subjects. That is the reality. I prefer the attitude of China to that of the west.”

In their strategic hunt for resources, the Chinese do not have concerns over human rights or corruption, a fact that is worrying many in the West. The western media criticized China’s President Hu for hosting “oppressive regimes of Sudan and Angola” and “some of the continent's controversial figures like Robert Mugabe”.

China is also criticized for not doing more to intervene in the human rights catastrophe in Darfur in Sudan where it has huge oil assets. “China insists that it will not interfere in other countries' domestic affairs, but it also claims to be a great friend of the African people,'' says Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch. “But that doesn't square with staying silent while mass killings go on in Darfur”.

American think-tanks in Washington are also complaining about Chinese conduct on the continent. Earlier this year the influential Council on Foreign Relations published a report by its Independent Task Force on Africa. One of the Co-Chairs of the Task Force was Anthony Lake, who had been an assistant to the national security advisor in the Clinton administration. Lake said that although China was not America’s enemy in Africa, what it was doing was “undercutting” efforts for greater transparency, better business practices and less corruption on the continent.

The following month the Heritage Foundation wrote “China’s burgeoning relationship with Africa is alarming not only because it has facilitated Chinese energy and weapons dealings, but also because it is competing with U.S.–African trade.” It is quite ironic that a right-wing think tank that was the intellectual mentor to the ruthless era of Reagan economics now bemoans the unscrupulous behavior of China. Indeed, it could be argued that America and Europe are merely trying to give a veneer of a conscience towards their continuing exploitation of African resources, after two centuries of brutal exploitation.

Next year is the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. It will be a moment to reflect on the “Black Holocaust” that killed an estimated 38 million Africans. In the last two hundred years, slaves, palm oil, natural resources and oil and gas have all been exploited by the West with little or no benefit to the African people, and at unbelievable social and ecological cost.

Some will contend that the power shift in Africa cannot be any worse for the African people. Moreover if China helps Africa secure a seat at the United Nations Security Council, global politics will never be the same, no matter who is in power in Washington. And that can only be a good thing.

However any super-power just looking after its own interests in Africa does not bode well – whether it is America or China. The Chinese may find there is a huge difference between dealing with African leaders and those who has suffered from too much exploitation already.

Last April President Hu visited Abuja in Nigeria. To mark the occasion Nigeria granted China four drilling licenses in exchange for a commitment to invest at least $4 billion in oil and infrastructure projects.

As the red-carpet was rolled out, a militant group in the Niger Delta issued a warning. “We wish to warn the Chinese government and its oil companies to steer well clear of the Niger Delta,” they wrote. “Chinese citizens found in oil installations will be treated as thieves. The Chinese government by investing in stolen crude places its citizens in our line of fire”.  It looks like the people of the Niger Delta see the Chinese as another colonial force. And that can only mean there will be trouble ahead in the power struggle currently happening in Africa.