I used to believe in the media, somewhere along the way I stopped and eventually developed an inquisitive mindset. That was after realizing that most stories have an agenda behind them. It is funny how often time, even today, I get blindsided by the media tricks into believing that whatever is reported in the media is only but the truth. Well, media bias will be a topic for another day, but a good topic to start with given everything we know about the involvement of China in Africa really comes from the media for the most part. It is worthwhile to quiz ourselves not just African, European, Americans and Chinese, is China the best or the best thing that happened to Africa? Why and why not? More importantly, where are the gaps and how can they be addressed?
Before diving in the technicalities it is important to quickly shuffle through history of expats in the African economy. Most of what is currently documented is what has been recorded by European colonizers, however from history African nations have always been trading amongst themselves way before European explorers and missionaries. The exchange was in all forms, cultural, spiritual, economical, military, medicine, you name it.
Upon the arrival of European in Africa, they introduced more control mechanisms for political and economic exploitation of the African continent. In some cases this limited exchange especially with the introduction of borders, laws and regulations that were for the sole purpose of appropriating local resources to European countries. Beyond that even in some cities in the same countries, curfews were introduced; migrations were limited from one area to another; etc. All of these policies resulted in a system that worked well for Westerners, where they were able to export raw materials at a chip labor cost, and export back transformed finished goods back with minimal industrial process value addition.
From the beginning the expansionism has a well though our policy to mitigate challenges that western nations were going through; from history classes: market expansion, access to raw materials and labors, access to land, political and military power, etc. After independence, it became about political influence and economic upperhand to the extent of merely controlling certain states. Basically there was a realization that Africa there was some honey and milk fountain in Africa to insure that it is monopolized: that being raw materials and cheap labor for the most part.
Luckily what happened was that Chinese noticed the fountain and realized that it is even more critical for them as an economy to have access to. In most of the domains, if one sweeps through, can only wonder what would have happened without the Chinese entry in the African market! It is almost unbelievable but, key technologies would probably have never materialized without the Chinese technical know-how and involvement in the African Market.
The media tries to paint the affair as if it is mainly exploitation, but from my perspective it is all about priority and market viability. Indeed most western companies when designing products, African is the last thing to think of. No wonder, few people will disagree that without Chinese manufacturer key devices such as radio, cell phones, televisions, would have never become a reality in Africa without Chinese industrial prowess.
What about stadiums? what about roads? What about buildings? The contribution of Chinese industry is palpable in numerous sectors and no one can tell what would have happened if China had not taken the initiative to involve itself in the African infrastructural development. Does acknowledging this minimize some of the good contributions that Western Countries have done in Africa? No need to answer! Not at all! The only fact is that as capitalism matures, it evolves to transactional deal making where the deal maker does whatever trick at his/her disposal to have the deal through without any afterthoughts of the implications. Well truth is that people can’t be fooled twice, it is really more wise to have a long term win-win strategy, it is not that easy to fool someone even if one feels like the fooling went according to the plan.
Coming back to the original question: Is China the best thing that ever happened to the African economy and African progress or the worst thing? China has been a good addition to the African economic synergy, it is hence a net positive either way. A more relevant question would be whether what is being done at the moment is enough or not. Why is despite billions of aid funds, despite billions in loans from IMF, World Bank that, etc, why is Africa still the least developed continent, is it that the west doesn’t want Africa to develop? Why?
This article was developed as an opinion by Wallas for his upcoming blob Wallasplanet.com, the article’s intent is to just spark a conversation and a reflection that hopefully can be an anchor to Africans and their supporters that there is a long way to go, more is left to be done.
