Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

China in Africa: challenging US global hegemony

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 29; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01436590701726517

1360-2241

Horace Campbell,

International Development and Aid

Abstract In the first decade of the 21st century China has been able to enter political, military and commercial deals with countries of the asean community, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the countries and observers in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (sco). In November 2006 China sealed this circle with a strategic partnership with Africa at a major feast of leaders celebrating the friendship and co-operation between the two. The emergence of China as a force in Africa complicated the tussle between the EU and the USA over the 'who controls Africa'. The new relations between Africa and China could be described in the words of Gramsci, as, 'the old is dying yet the new is yet to be born'. Chinese relations with Africa combine elements of the old (extraction of raw materials), yet the experience of transformation in China ensures that there are many positive and negative lessons to be learnt. What is new is the prospect for the consolidation of African independence and the challenge to the hegemony of the dollar and US imperialism. I argue in this paper that, in the short term, one of China's most important roles will be to break the disarticulation between the financial and productive sectors of the economy and to stem the outflow of capital from Africa. In the long run the experience of linking new ideas of science and technology to a home grown path of reconstruction can be an important lesson for Africa. State-to-state relations are usually opportunistic and it is for this reason that transnational civil society linkages between the Chinese and African people will be more important than relations between leaders. Notes 1 Yuan Wu, China in Africa, Beijing: China International Press, 2007. 2 Sam E Anderson, The Black Holocaust for Beginners, New York: Readers and Writers Press, 1996. 3 Quoted on the web page of the US State Department, History of the Department of State during the Clinton Presidency (1993 – 2001), at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/8531.htm. 4 Will Hutton, The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century, London: Little, Brown, 2007. For a review of a number of books on China in Africa, see Jonathan Kurlantzick, 'Beijing envy', London Review of Books, 5 July 2007. 5 Salma Babu & Amrit Wilson, The Future that Works: Selected Writings of AA Babu, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2002. 6 Ron Eglash, African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999. 7 Thomas Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, London: Penguin Press, 2006. 8 All the quotations from the Chinese president are extracted from the communiqué that was released by the Chinese government at the end of the summit in November 2006. 9 Bates Gill, Chin-Hao Huang & J Stephen Morrison, China's Expanding Role in Africa: Implications for the United States, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies (csis), 2007. See also Ian Taylor, China and Africa: Engagement and Compromise, London: Routledge, 2006. 10 Reported in Asia Times. See Jilio Godoy, 'China swaggers into Europe's backyard', 17 November 2006, at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/HK17Cb03.html. 11 Patrick Bond, 'Loans of mass destruction: Wolfowitz anti-corruption hoax at the World Bank', Counter Punch, 6 March 2006, at http://www.counterpunch.org/bond03082006.html. 12 Gabor Steingart, 'America and the dollar illusion', Der Spiegel, 25 October 2006. See also the book by the same author, World War for Wealth: The Global Grab for Power and Prosperity, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008 13 Stephen Jen, 'The biggest dollar diversifiers are Americans', Global Forum, 20 July 2007. See also the study for Morgan Stanley, at http://www.morganstanley.com/views/gef/archive/2007/20070720-Fri.html. 14 Travis Bradford, The Solar Revolution: The Economic Transformation of the Global Energy Industry, Cambridge, MA: mit Press, 2006. See also Vijay Vaitheeswaran, Power To the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution will Transform an Industry, Change our Lives, and maybe Even Save the Planet, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003; and Jeremy Rifkin, The Hydrogen Economy, New York: Putman Books, 2002. 15 Yuan Wu, China in Africa, Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, 2007. 16 Hutton, The Writing on the Wall, pp 330 – 331. 17 Ibid, chs 5 – 7 on the analysis of 'the economic halfway house'. See also Terry Boychuck, 'China's authoritarian market economy', in Boychuck, Chinese Worlds: Multiple Temporalities and Transformations, Minneapolis, MN: Macalester International, 2007. 18 Elizabeth C Economy, 'The Great Leap Backward', Foreign Affairs, September/October 2007. 19 National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2015, at http://www.loyola.edu/dept/politics/intel/globaltrends2015.pdf. 20 See 'The National Security Doctrine of the United States of America', at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html. 21 http://www.wws.princeton.edu/ppns/report/FinalReport.pdf. 22 Robert Kaplan, 'How we would fight China', Atlantic Monthly, June 2005. In this article Kaplan argued that 'The Middle East is just a blip. The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the twenty-first century. And China will be a more formidable adversary than Russia ever was.' 23 'Statement of President Vladimir Putin to the Russian Parliament', 10 May 2006, at http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060510/47915635.html. 24 Henry CK Liu, 'China and appeasement', at http://www.henryckliu.com/page131.html. 25 Peter Gowan, The Global Gamble: Washington's Faustian Bid for World Dominance, London: Verso, 1999. 26 asean was established on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok by the five original member countries, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Brunei Darussalam joined on 8 January 1984, Vietnam on 28 July 1995, Laos and Burma on 23 July 1997 and Cambodia on 30 April 1999. 27 Mia Farrow, 'No hopes for us', Wall Street Journal, 27 July 2007. For an alternative analysis, see Mahmood Mamdani, 'The politics of naming: genocide, civil war, counter-insurgency', London Review of Books, March 2007. 28 James Traub, 'China's Africa adventure', New York Times, 19 November 2006. 29 'China plans to lend Congo $5bn', Business Day (South Africa), 19 September 2007. 30 Paulo Nakatani & Rémy Herera, 'The South has already repaid its external debt to the North, but the North denies its debt to the South', Monthly Review, June 2007. 31 Stephen Mark, 'China in Africa—the new imperialism?', Pambazuka News, at http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/32432 32 Ibid.