Opinion
What a Packet of Fruit Wrinkles Taught me About China’s Involvement in Africa and the Caribbean Region
By Ryan Elcock
I recently stumbled upon an interesting article from the Jakarta Globe called, “China Extends its Economic Influence to the Caribbean Region” which got me thinking about China’s continued involvement in both the Caribbean and Africa and reminded me of an incident I experienced when I was nine years old.
When I was in Grade 4, and on my way to school, I stumbled upon a Muppet Babies figurine, lying on the ground and picked it up with much happiness for such a rare find. You see, the Muppet Babies was a popular cartoon and the toys were being sold at McDonald’s for CAD$0.49 and everyone had to have one, but alas I could not afford these toys at the time. What makes this story so cogent, however, was what happened when I got to school, and shared my good fortune with some of classmates.
While I shared my good fortune with my classmates, my good friend, Paul, made me an offer that seemed quite fair; he offered to pay me CAD$0.50 for the Muppet Baby figurine. Being that Paul was my friend; I thought this to be a fair deal and did the exchange. However, as I was trying to figure out what to do with my windfall, my enterprising friend decided to make me another offer. Being aware of my fondness for Fruit Wrinkles, Paul offered me a packet of my favorite candy in exchange for his CAD$0.50. Once again, I gladly traded the money for my favorite candy. The errors of my ways were realized after I finished the last piece of fruit wrinkle and became a life lesson which I will tie into China’s involvement in both Africa and the Caribbean.
For those who do not know, China has been heavily investing in both the Caribbean and Africa and has been portraying itself as a benefactor to these regions long neglected by the west. However, it is quite clear that there are ulterior motives at play. First of all, China has been courting the Caribbean region in its efforts to not only secure trading partners but also gather allies in its attempt to delegitimize Taiwan’s sovereignty. Unbeknownst to a lot of people, myself included, Taiwan has been one of the Caribbean’s biggest financial benefactors, along with the US, UK and Canada and has resulted in many of the Caribbean countries recognizing Taiwan as an independent and sovereign nation.
Anyone familiar with the chilly relationship between Taiwan and China will tell you that by China flexing its financial muscles in the Caribbean, Taiwan’s recognition as a sovereign nation is threatened. This also means that many Caribbean countries will also have to sing the “One China” song in order to get any assistance from China thereby undermining their own independence and sovereignty. This also puts many of these same countries at risk of losing favor with Taiwan, in the process. For example, Grenada recognized Taiwan as de jure up until 2005 but switched over to China, for financial assistance as a result of its crippling debt dire straits. In retaliation, Taiwan has recently called in loans that were given to help Grenada build their airport.
Like my good friend Paul, China is the one garnering the benefit as they give money or loans, to fund most of their ambitious projects in the Caribbean region which are used to pay the Chinese firms who are bidding on the same building projects (as stipulated in the loan agreements). What this means for most Caribbean countries is that they will have a nice hefty loan to pay plus interest; more financial strain, as they will be responsible for the maintenance and care of all the building projects that were funded using Chinese money; very little knowledge transfer to maintain any of the building projects as the Chinese firms will mostly use Chinese workers rather than the local workers, unless urged to do so by the local government; and the potential of undermining the local economy due to the increase of Chinese goods flooding the market by the very same Chinese workers, now business owners, who decide to stay in the countries where they work rather than go back to China once these projects are done.
Just as China’s involvement in the Caribbean has to be viewed with a watchful eye, the same could be said with China’s involvement in Africa as it has grown significantly in the past few years. In fact, China’s unofficial Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Africa was worth about US$3 billion and investment in Africa’s Infrastructure jumped from US$1 billion in 2000 to roughly US$7 billion in 2006 with continued tenfold increase in trade to Africa over the past decade – as of 2011.
However, these “investments” leave China with all the benefits and Africa wanting as suggested in the examples pointed out in Linda Dolan’s Article, ‘A New Colonialism.’ Here, she talks about the high-profile projects and relationships [that] provide evidence for the view that Chinese involvement may not promote long-term development [from the standpoint that] Chinese supported infrastructure projects frequently ignore quality and environmental standards that Western donors now adhere to. As an example, the Chinese-backed Gibe II hydropower project in Ethiopia cost approximately US$500 million, but had its tunnel collapse ten days after its inauguration. China has, nonetheless, moved on to the Gibe III dam, which ignores numerous Ethiopian and international environmental laws and threatens to deprive Lake Turkana, the source of livelihood for half a million Ethiopians, of 85 percent of its annual inflow. Politically, skeptics criticize China’s willingness to continue to trade with and invest in the Sudanese regime. As recently as last week, China hosted President al-Bashir to confirm the two countries’ friendship after the partition of Sudan. In the last decade, China has explained its support for these regimes by adhering to a principled doctrine of non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries, which avoids the appearance of supporting norms that would justify international intervention in the cases of Tibet or Taiwan.”
So what does this mean for the African countries who deal with China? As pointed out by Linda Dolan, these countries end up with loans going towards infrastructure that are of poor quality and threaten the environment and livelihood of those stakeholders involved with such projects. Furthermore, these countries also end up being responsible for maintaining and cleaning up the mess caused by the shoddy workmanship of these projects, while the countries are left with the debt and damaged environment. Thus like the war profiteers in Iraq in 2003, Chinese companies would end up getting paid for work that is subpar while many of the African countries end up in a financial quagmire due to poor governance and oversight.
Dolan continues: ‘Along with the problems of opaque loans and agreements that favor the Chinese, we also see that China’s “non-interference” into government affairs only serves to undermine the citizens of the African countries that China deals with. Case in point: Sudan and the atrocities committed by the government, using the Janjaweed, to attack its citizens. China has repeatedly blocked any attempts by the UN Security Council to try and halt the continued bloodshed and violence in Sudan. Whatever the reason, China is an accomplice to atrocity.
Furthermore, as pointed out in the article written by Dr. Martyn Davies, How China Is Influencing Africa’s Development, China’s investment strategy in Africa appears to be focused on securing energy and resource assets in order to hedge against rising prices and possibly long-term supply shortages; and on offshore manufacturing process in order to offset rising risk of protectionist sentiment that is becoming more prevalent against “Made in China” products.
When looking at China’s investment strategy in Africa, China is the benefactor of their own benevolence as they end up getting rights to up to half the energy and resource assets needed along with the opportunity to use Africa as beacon to produce all its goods to the world without the stigma associated with their goods. However, Africa is left with a situation similar to that of the Caribbean, as previously mentioned plus ownership of up to half of their own resource assets.
So in the end, what did a packet of Fruit Wrinkles teach me about China’s involvement in both Africa and the Caribbean? Two things: Never give in to your baser instincts because you may end up despising your birthright for a pot of lentil soup. Like the biblical Esau, I despised my Muppet baby for a packet of Fruit Wrinkles. This is what Africa and the Caribbean may be doing as well when they accept these loans and financial aid from China for projects – giving China access to additional markets while Africa and the Caribbean gets additional debt in return. And secondly, fruit Wrinkles leave a bitter after taste in your mouth after they have all been eaten. Debt is the same way. All the money China’s thrown at the Caribbean and Africa in the form of generous low interest loans may have seemed like a sweet deal now, but the thought of having to pay them back after China now controls both your sovereignty and your resources, not so much.
relcock AT thehabarinetwork.com