Source: Zambia Daily Mail http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/?p=2778

 

By QU XING

RECENTLY, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria published an article in the Financial Times. In this article, he claims that China takes Africa's primary goods and sells Africa-manufactured ones, which is the essence of colonialism.
He also says China uses equipment and labour imported from home, without transferring skills to local communities. He further warns that China is capable of the same forms of exploitation as the West, and is a significant contributor to Africa's deindustrialisation and underdevelopment.
In the meantime, he pushes Africa to carry out an afro-centric vision of economic policies, build first-class infrastructure, increase investment in technical and vocational education, develop the manufacturing industry, enlarge the domestic market, so as to realise its economic potential and create more wealth and jobs.
As a scholar in the field of international relations, I agree with the governor on how to enhance Africa's self-development capability, understand his eager desire to further develop Africa. However, I cannot readily subscribe to his views that China is implementing colonialism, exploiting Africa and deindustrialising Africa.

Skills transfer
The governor criticises Chinese companies in Africa normally use equipment and labour imported from home. Indeed, that is not the situation China wants to see either. As much as I know, the Chinese government all along encourages the companies to use local equipment and labour in Africa.
But things happen depending on the reality. Taking equipment for example, if the Chinese companies in Africa do not import from home, they can only choose between buying locally or importing from the other countries. The reality is that a lot of equipment needed is not accessible locally and costs much more when importing from the markets other than China. Hence, what the Chinese companies are doing now is an economical way to produce more fruits for Africa with fewer costs.
As for some cases of dispatching labour to Africa, the Chinese companies have no alternative choice if they want to implement certain projects smoothly. Furthermore, comparing to the labour from China, much more jobs have been created in Africa by the Chinese companies.
A report issued by the Standard Bank of South Africa indicates that, with very few exceptions, local labour accounts for 85 percent of the total employment in the Chinese companies in Africa. Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian economist, figures out the ratio of local labour to Chinese ones in Zambia is up to 13 to 1. According to some other researches, restricted by some realistic conditions, Chinese companies just starting business in Africa are more likely to employ Chinese workers. But as they are getting more and more rooted in Africa, the proportion of African workers in their employment is also growing steadily.
Take the 68 Chinese companies in D.R.Congo ,for example, the percentage of Chinese workers averages 30 percent for firms that have been there for five years in Africa but those that have been  there for many years have a ration 17 percent. Take the China-Zambia Trade and Economic Cooperation Zone as another example. At inception construction, machine assembly and training, nearly 400 Chinese and 500 local workers were employed. After the zone became operational, the number of Zambian workers increased and finally accounted for 80 percent of the  total.
What is more, the Chinese government has also been taking measures to further transfer skills to Africa. Presently it annually trains more than 10,000 professionals in various sectors and offers 6,000-plus government scholarships for Africa.

Industrialisation
It is not fair to accuse China of deindustrialising Africa either. China has been doing more in promoting Africa's industrialisation than any other country.
As far as I know, the Chinese government has in recent years launched a series of initiatives such as China-Africa Development Fund and China-Africa Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, to promote investment in Africa. The Chinese side has also introduced several large-scale financing measures to Africa in a row, while keeping the cooperation in manufacturing sector as the key point. No any other country has ever accomplished this.
However, China and Africa's cooperation in the manufacturing sector could not solely rely on the  efforts of government. Entrepreneurs' enthusiasm, African countries' investment environment and the change of international division of labour are all factors impacting the cooperation in this area.
I heard some Chinese entrepreneurs complaining that the environment protection standard is very rigid in some African countries, and the wage requirement there is far higher than in China. These are certainly prohibitive to some Chinese entrepreneurs and not conducive to the industrialisation of Africa.
Many Chinese enterprises are contractors of the Western multinationals and still stay at the low-end of the international industry chain. It is usually up to the Western multinationals, not Chinese enterprises, to decide whether to move out the business or where to move.
Mr. governor is right in saying that the labour cost in China is rising in recent years, its manufacturing sector has been moving out. Not only Africa, but also many other countries, especially China's neighbours are welcoming the shift. Frankly speaking, if African countries cannot introduce competitive investment policies and incentives, or provide skilled labour force, they will probably lose to other countries and miss another precious development opportunity.

Trade
It is not wrong for China to produce goods  that are both inexpensive and of high quality. The African consumers are free to choose what to buy. China has never forced African countries to consume Chinese products by using guns and cannons as the colonialists used to do. It is illogical to put the blame for the deindustralisation of Africa on China's trade policy.
As a matter of fact, trade between China and Africa has gained significant progress in recent years and has benefited the two substantially. I am  often told by African friends that, thanks to the Sino-African trade, their dreams to own mobile phones, TV and vehicles have finally come true. We have also been working hard in optimising the structure of Sino-African trade.
Chinese enterprises in particular are encouraged to import high value-added commodities from Africa.
According to the statistics of a well-known international research institute in the US, the trade similarity index of China and Africa is as low as 4-7 percent. No real competition exists among their products in the markets. Chinese products featured with high quality and competitive price are good substitution of other countries' exports to Africa, not threats to Africa's local markets.
One example can best be demonstrated by this point. Several years ago, in response to Africa's concern, China willingly restricted its textile exports to certain African countries. As a result, the market share of Chinese textile declined with the market taken by other countries' products instead of African countries.

Energy and resources
Africa's rich endowment of energy and resources is an important comparative advantage. African countries widely hope to transform into development advantage by strengthening cooperation in energy and resources. In this respect, China is an opportunity for Africa to diversify cooperation in this field.
But if you think China's cooperation with Africa just stares at the oil and minerals, it is over-generalisation. Deborah Brautigam, an American scholar and the author of The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa, argues that, China has built roads, bridges, schools and hospitals in Africa, and the infrastructure is different from those connecting mines and ports in colonial times. It is obvious that these infrastructures are not one part of the overall plan to grab resources.
In cooperation with African countries, China pays more attention to "teach fishing". In the energy cooperation with Sudan, Chad and Niger, China helped them set up a complete set of oil industrial system, which they bear no hope to ask from the West. An African diplomat acknowledged that the Chinese are trying to participate in different areas of our economy, but the Western countries' interest is only in oil, oil, oil, nothing else.
Actually, compared with the Western oil importer, China's imports from Africa only account for about 17 percent of the total exports of Africa. Investments in Africa's oil sector only account for 1/16 of the total, much lower than the United States and Europe. Mr. governor is from Africa's largest oil producer, thus should be very clear on this point.
All in all, Mr. governor's suggestions to strengthen Africa's capacity of self-development are all what China is doing together with Africa. But developing China-Africa cooperation and improving Africa's capacity of self-development are not only China's undertakings, or just a matter between China and Africa. China and Africa should work together to meet each other halfway. The overall international environment should improve further. We should not blame all problems on China.
We never take it for granted that China-Africa cooperation is perfect, or shy away from the problems in the cooperation. However, the cap of "new colonialism" should never be put on China, and China will never accept it.

QU XING is president of  China Institute of International Studies