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Topic: China-Africa Relations
| Author | Message |
| chucho | Posted – 8/3/2007 8:49:49 AM | show profile Interesting article here: http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/china-sudan/?storyad&attr=chinasudanbox Never before in history has there been more trade between China and Africa. The rising Asian giant is fueling its economy with everything from copper to cobalt dug from sub-Saharan soil. Many African leaders welcome China, unlike the European colonizers of centuries past, as a nonjudgmental partner and appreciate its developing-nation mind-set. Chinese trade with Africa ($55 billion in 2006) means jobs. China is sending peacekeepers, and providing low-interest loans for roads, hospitals, and schools without any Western finger-wagging or ethical strings attached. But critics say China is raking out raw materials, flooding the market with cheap products, and mistreating both locals and the environment. Some claim that China, as a key diplomatic backer of Sudan, shares responsibility for the genocidal killings of more than 200,000 non-Arab Sudanese in the troubled Darfur region. |
| Desu | Posted – 8/3/2007 3:50:59 PM | show profile This has going on to some extent for a couple of decades now - you'll find old People's Republic shipping containers all over Tanzania, for instance - but it has definitely accelerated recently, and the Chinese have obviously benefited. If the U.S. decided to compete by way of some sort of revised Marshall Plan - say, $200 billion in across the board aid programs implemented on the ground by private institutions and Western governments (not the U.S. itself, until it becomes a Western government again) without any money going to local officials, tremendous good could be done and the U.S. would have pulled off the greatest foreign policy coup in living memory. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 8/3/2007 11:16:21 PM | show profile It's the same old same old. The rising of China and falling of the U.S. China is becoming the economic powerhouse, and who knows what other kind of powerhouse in the future. The Chinese, Russians, Venezuelans, Saudi's, are all making deals, energy deals, and we'll be increasingly shut out. Times, they are a'changin'. I say we put our foot down and stop buying the cheap plastic Chinese crap (and increasingly food and everything else) and buy local. |
| Africanist | Posted – 9/18/2007 6:02:52 PM | show profile | email poster AFRICA CHINA NO NO NO Its going to happen all over again...Africa are going to be sucked of its natural resources for bits and pieces and every other country is going to prosper whilst we continue to struggle. When we look back on the happenings of the slave trade it has been noted that the African's were 'backwards'...now many years later we are entering the same style of colonialism...lets call it neo-colonnialism but this time its well educated men who are leading us astray. Can't the African governments see whats happening? Can they not forsee what the future holds if they continue along this path? Interest in Africa from China has increased considerably over the past 10 years as China's manufacturing industry boomed and their need for natural resources is a must. I think African's need to build new political parties made up of African's in diaspora and educated young African's who understand democracy, how political systems work and what their country needs. African's need to think for the future and not just for now in order to progress...it's easy for people to turn a blind eye to what is going on in Africa as it is easier to do so. But for those of us who have a real passion for Africa and want to ensure they make a difference and a social change, more needs to be done to protect our people. Rallying from USA, UK, Australia, Europe to get our voices heard to the African governments alongside our African counterparts will be powerful and could help lead change. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 9/18/2007 6:07:54 PM | show profile One of our local elected leaders is extremely passionate about Africa and climate change. He feels a very strong moral imperative that we reduce greenhouse gas emissions because Africa will be destroyed by global climate change. They who contribute the least to the problem. |
| chucho | Posted – 9/19/2007 10:22:30 AM | show profile If you want an incredible object lesson in "neo-colonialism" (I'm getting a bit tired of the "neo" tag ending up on everything - let's just call it post-colonialism) in Africa you must watch Darwin's Nightmare: http://www.darwinsnightmare.com/ It's the most depressing documentary I've ever seen. Definitely not a "date flick". Basically Lake Victoria is now an enormous fish farm for consumers in "the civilized and developed countries" (Euroep and Japan, mostly). Nearly every other fish species has been wiped out and replaced by Nile Perch introduced to the lake in the 60s by European agricultural "experts". Large cargo planes flown by Russians come down to Tanzania and load up the planes with fish filets for European and Japanese consumers. These planes aren't empty when they fly in; they're filled with guns, ordnance and ammunition from European, Russian (and American) arms brokers and manufacturers to be distributed to Central African countries. The filmmaker interviews the prostitutes that service the pilots, the Gujerati/African factory owners, the man who guards the fish research institute with poison tipped arrows for $1 a day and an old woman who BUYS fish carcases (post-fillet-ed) covered in maggots and hangs them to dry for food. I can't think of a more beautiful real-life metaphor for globalization (and the West's collusion in exacerbating the miseries of the "Third World" as well as the people in those Third World countries that collude with their post-colonial masters) than what this filmmaker achieved with this documentary. |
