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New China President Xi Jinping embarks on Africa tour
The rise of the BRICS is viewed by many as the symbolic death knell to the post-Cold War unipolar global power system with the United States at the helm. “We have been steadily moving away from the unipolar system, but we are now seeing the actual realization of a multipolar system. There is an economic reconfiguration that may transmit itself into other areas of international engagement,” Prof Macharia Munene of the United States International University in Nairobi said.
Not everyone in Africa is excited about China’s “foray” into Africa; Nigeria’s central bank governor Lamido Sanusi warned that Africa’s relationship with China carried a “whiff of colonialism.” He has argued that China is pursuing extractive policies that are undermining local manufacturing and “de-industrializing” Africa.
Africa, he says, is carrying a torch for the romance of the Non-Aligned Movement that united China and Africa. China has since ceased to be an underdeveloped state and has as much capacity to carry out mass exploitation as any Western power. “Africa must recognize that China – like the US, Russia, Britain, France and the rest – is in Africa not for African interests but its own. The romance must be replaced by hard-nosed economic thinking,” he wrote.
China is criticized for using Chinese workers on infrastructure and mining projects in Africa. Beijing estimates almost 1-million Chinese are working in Africa.
Zhong Jianhua, China’s special envoy to Africa has acknowledged that Chinese companies have faced criticism for flooding Africa with Chinese workers. “We have told Chinese companies that they cannot just use Chinese workers,” he said. “I think most Chinese firms now realize this.”
Sources: The Africa Review; Reuters
