An Admiral Ackbar Take on Sino-African Friendship

As anyone who is anywhere near an International Relations-related field can tell you, right now China is the hottest thing since Burberry Plaid. These are exciting times for African IR students in particular, and China's growing interest - and influence - in Africa is a pretty fascinating topic with some heavy implications for Africa's realtions with the rest of the world.

China, with its voracious appetite for energy and raw materials, has an uncanny ability to negotiate some very clever deals; it's been known to entice - shall we say smaller powers? - to bypass more traditional Bretton Woods institutions for condition-free, quick cash, but woe unto the country that defaults on a loan to China. Should the recipient of the loan default, China is quite happy to receive payment in kind - more often than not, this leads to African countries prioritizing service of the Chinese debt above existing loan repayments, and that makes for a fairly unhappy IMF. In Sudan, when providing finance for the Khartoum Refinery, China negotiated a nifty concession that if debt service on the refinery was not met, the CNPC (Chinese National Petroleum Corporation) could claim crude oil from the refinery in payment. As this would have left Sudan almost no oil for domestic consumption, no points for guessing whether or not Sudan took those repayments seriously.

Furthermore, assuming you believe (as I do) that it's a good thing for the international system to place pressure on countries that would lead to better domestic economic conditions, China's no-strings loans create a serious loophole through which many states are only too happy to squeeze. Angola, despite (or perhaps as a result of) having come under international pressure for greater transparency in its oil sector, accepted a $2 billion "soft loan" from China, creating less concern with meeting oil sector reforms. China's relationship with Zimbabwe (which I'll someday have the strength to blog about) and its continued propping up of the Mugabe regime translates directly into (more) bad news for Zimbabweans.

Sure, China's doing some good things in Africa, from the perspective of the ordinary citizen. Unlike the West, which has largely become bored with long-suffering African countries and their innumerable problems, China has focused heavily on infrastructure development - something Africa sorely needs. Even if most Chinese-built roads lead from mineral-rich areas to ports; even if Chinese labour is imported for the construction; the roads aren't going to go away. Nonetheless, it's a great area of concern that many African states aren't attempting greater leveraging in their deals with China. There are, I admit, huge problems - not least among them the age-old African curse of elitism and high levels of inequality. But hopefully someday African countries will gets their rears in gear and start taking a stronger stance in negotiations, aimed at providing benefits for their populations. And then I'll get an Ewok for my birthday and an acceptance letter to the London School of Economics. Right on.