Professional Documents
Culture Documents
China-Africa Relations
China-Africa Relations
China-Africa Relations
countries just do not have much that China wants to purchase and the deficits
continue.
According to official government figures, Chinas total cumulative foreign
direct investment (FDI) in Africa at the end of 2012 was almost $22 billion. The
problem is that Chinas official figure understates the actual amount because it does
not capture investment that passes through Hong Kong, Macau, the British Virgin
Islands, the Cayman Islands, etc. The figure is also based on FDI reported to the
government by Chinese companies and individuals. Some sources of Chinas FDI
almost certainly do not report. Cumulative FDI from Western countries remains
considerably higher than Chinese FDI because they have been investing over a
longer period. For example, American companies as of the end of 2012 had
invested $64 billion in Africa. Chinas FDI in Africa constitutes only 4 percent of its
global FDI. Much of it initially went into the mining and petroleum sectors; there
has been a more recent focus on business services, manufacturing, finance, and
telecommunications. China is also developing seven economic and trade
cooperation zones in Africa: two each in Zambia and Nigeria and one in Mauritius,
Egypt, and Ethiopia. In recent years, China has become a major source of FDI for
African countries.
China does not make public its bilateral aid figures. From 2010 to 2012,
China appropriated just over $14 billion in aid globally; about 52 percent of the total
went to Africa. This suggests that during this three year period, Africa received
about $2.5 billion in aid annually. This number is close to estimates by academic
experts who have researched Chinas aid to Africa. Most of the aid is in the form of
the concessionary and interest free component of loans. China has a generally
good record in cancelling debt to the most debt-stressed African countries. China is
quick to point out that its aid does not have political conditions such as Western
countries often impose. Of course, it only provides aid to countries that recognize
Beijing and the aid has economic conditionality. Only Chinese companies
implement the projects, which rely primarily on Chinese material and usually a
percentage of Chinese labor. The European Union and Western countries provide far
more aid to Africa than does China. In recent years, for example, the United States
has provided about $8 billion annually to Africa.
Increasingly, China is relying on soft power to supplement its economic
relations with Africa. It offers up to 5,000 fully paid scholarships to Africans
annually to study for a college degree. Large numbers of Africans receive shortterm technical training in China. Since 1963, some 18,000 Chinese medical
personnel have served in forty-six African countries. China claims these teams have
treated 200 million patients. This program has been widely praised by Africans.
The Communist Youth League has about 300 youth volunteers in Africa during any
given year. China has opened thirty-eight Confucius Institutes on African university
campuses and ten Confucius Classrooms in secondary schools. The primary
following local labor laws. Counterfeit and adulterated goods are regular problems
in countries that are poorly equipped to identify and intercept the offending items.
Large numbers of cheap Chinese products undersell comparable African produced
goods, limiting and even undercutting African production. Chinese traders and
small entrepreneurs compete head-to-head with their African counterparts. This
has resulted in some of the sharpest criticism the Chinese presence has faced so far
in Africa. Finally, Chinese small arms increasingly show up in African conflict zones
such as the eastern Congo, Darfur, and Somalia. China is aware of and trying to
grapple with these challenges, but as its presence grows in Africa the challenge
increases.