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.
