Course name: Int'l Sym on Sino-African Stu

Report name: International Symposium – Programme

2023: Africa-China Relations in an Era of Uncertain

Future

Title: The problems and conflicts in Afro-Sino

relationship

Student full name: CHEN Haojun

Student number: 5054848

 Total words (excluding references)

1859

Introduction

African countries and China have kept long friendly relationships in the last about 70

years. Nonetheless, the problems and conflicts between China and African civil

society are becoming more and more serious in recent years. In the symposium, which

is about Africa-China Relations in an Era of Uncertain Future, some professors and

scholars have discussed the relevant issues and gave some personal viewpoints.

Hence, the problems and conflicts are very crucial to Africa and China’s multilateral

relationship, and it is worth it for us to explore and research further to find the best

solution how to deal with these obstacles. These problems may cause a critical but

negative influence on Africa and China’s official diplomatic relationships, especially

in the post-Covid-19 period; hence, it is necessary for us to learn and research these

problems and find out some workable solutions. This report focuses on the main

problems and conflicts in Africa and China’s civil society.

In this report, I choose three professors’ viewpoints that are about economics, culture,
and political perspectives on the symposium to analyze the problems in Sino-Afro

civil society. According to these three topics, I hope to analyze the problem and

conflicts in Africa and China. In the following part, I choose some peer articles which

are also about the relevant topics to introduce and analyze the problems in more detail

and critically. And then, I combine the peer articles and the symposium’s

presentations’ content together to analyze and compare. In the end, I hope to give

comprehensive and critical full-text conclusions and some personal opinions on this

topic.

The reflection of the symposium

The economic issues in the Sino-Afro civil relationship

To discuss this issue, I choose the presentation which is about the Chinese working in

the illegal gold mines in Ghana. This presentation has introduced the influence of the

Chinese gold rush in Ghana from positive and negative perspectives. Although it

seems that the Chinese have brought economic opportunities to Ghanaians when the

Chinese run golden mines, the negative influence and problems far outweigh the

benefits of positive impacts. Firstly, as the gold mines have to occupy a large amount

of surface area, some villagers have had their farmland and cocoa plantations forcibly

taken or illegally occupied and these villagers lose enough income to maintain their

daily lives. Secondly, before the Chinese arrived in Ghana, the small-scale gold mines

were usually run by Ghanaians, and while there were not easy for Ghanaians to

continue the gold mines as too many illegal Chinese workers and investors have taken

part in the gold mining (Loubere, 2023). Moreover, these gold mines run by the

Chinese usually prefer to employ Chinese miners rather than local Ghanaians, and this

phenomenon has made many Ghanaian miners lose their job and income. Therefore,
as some Chinese compete with Ghanaians for economic resources and employment

opportunities, it creates conflicts between the Chinese and Ghanaians.

The political issues in the Sino-Afro civil relationship

From a political perspective, especially in the post-Covid 19 periods, the change in

Chinese foreign policy has become much stricter than before. The presentation about

the decoupling of people-to-people relationships between Africa and China introduced

the influence of Beijing’s zero Covid 19 policy to foreigners particularly Africans in

China. Because of the strict Covid 19 policy, the people-to-people engagement

between China and Africa has decoupled. It is just like the self-isolation policy which

was used in ancient times and during the 1950s to 1980s. During these times, the

Chinese administration treated foreigners as external threats and executed a strict self-

isolation policy. Although China has ended the zero Covid 19 policy, some Africans

are still worried about whether the Chinese government continues to restrict their

activities in China as these Africans have experienced Guangzhou's strict community

control policies and clean-up measures for those Africans who stay in Guangzhou

illegally (Hodzi, 2023). This problem also challenges the official foreign relationship

between China and Africa; and is dangerous to the Sino-Afro strategic collaboration

in politics and economy.

The cultural issues in the Sino-Afro civil relationship

The presentation which is about the cultural exchange between Hong Kong and Africa

examined whether cultural re-engagement could bring neo-chances or crises to Hong

Kong and Africa. Two relevant discourses are about whether the Black artists can

bring resonant film and cultural works to Hong Kong audiences and another one is

about the South African female playwrights’ collaboration with Hong Kong local
directors and interaction with Hong Kong audiences (Chow, 2023). Although these

African artists and cultural workers have made a contribution to cultural engagement,

there are still many obstacles and challenges in Hong Kong and African cultural

communication. For instance, the Hong Kong audience still does not accept African

cultural production. This means that cultural exchanges between Africa and Hong

Kong and even China are not enough, and the cultural barriers and misunderstandings

between the two sides have not been reduced or eliminated. Culture is one of the

bridges for exchanges between different ethnic groups, and if there is no further

development and exchange between Chinese and African cultures, this will also affect

the trust and cooperation between Chinese and African people.

Personal viewpoints on the symposium

It seems that Africa and China maintain a good foreign official relationship for a long

time, while with more and more interaction between Africa and China, the conflicts

and problems have made a difference in Afro-Sino relationships. From an economic

perspective, Professor Loubere used Ghana as a case study to analyze this

phenomenon, and I support his opinion that Chinese economic activities in Africa still

cannot bring enough collaboration opportunities to Africans or even may scramble the

economic resource with local Africans. However, from a political perspective, I

cannot totally agree with Professor Hodzi’s viewpoint that China’s zero Covid 19

policy can represent that China will be back to the self-isolation periods and it is not

suitable for Africans working or studying in China in the future. China implemented a

strict zero Covid 19 policy from 2020 to 2022, and almost banned foreigners come to

China; but China has given up this Covid policy and welcome foreigners again.

Moreover, the Chinese economy depends on international trade, which means that
China cannot isolate itself otherwise the economy will be in decline. Therefore, I

suppose that the self-isolation consideration is not the main problem in Africa and

China’s relationship. At last, according to Professor Chow’s introduction, some

African artists and art creators have made cooperation with Hong Kong local directors

and artists in order to broadcast African factors cultural productions to Hong Kong

audiences and consumers. Although these cultural productions have attracted some

Hong Kong people’s interest, these kinds of cultural productions are still the minority

in Hong Kong’s market. In mainland China, African culture is very hard for the

Chinese to see and study. Hence, in the cultural aspect, China's exchanges in Africa

are still very lack, and this will lead to misunderstandings between the Chinese and

Africans. In general, Africa and China are facing various kinds of problems in their

people-to-people engagement. Whether Africa and China can overcome these

problems is still needed to make a more comprehensive judgment and a deeper and

broader study of the different areas of their official and private interactions.

Peer articles review

In order to make the report more critical, I choose other scholars’ relevant essays to

analyze and compare with the symposium’s viewpoints. In the Chinese official news

report, China always is a friendly partner to help African countries contribute to their

economy, while actually, many Africans complain that China is occupying the African

economy. For instance, almost one million Chinese have been to the African continent

to run business. As these Chinese goods are much cheaper than African’s, a number of

African small and medium-scale enterprises have been in trouble. Depending on an

African expert’s saying, because of China’s economic invasion, Africa has lost about

75 thousand job opportunities (Adem,2016). Moreover, Chinese enterprises usually

violate African labours’ rights when employing them. For instance, Chinese

companies sometimes employ child labour in order to make a profit; in addition, these

Chinese companies often ask African labours to work overtime and hire them at very

low wages in order to capture the value of these labours as much as possible. In

addition, some Chinese enterprises corrupt local officials or corporate with

authoritarian regimes to gain economic opportunities (Cornelissen et al., 2015)

(Pigato & Tang, 2015). In addition, most Chinese manufacturers usually export low-

quality goods to African importers while they can provide the best-quality goods to

developed countries. This is discrimination against African consumers and also lets

Chinese productions leave a bad reputation among African consumers (Adekunle,

2015).

According to the above peer articles analysis, the problems in Afro-Sino relationships

are most from the economic perspective. Combined with the symposium’s content,

Chinese enterprises and their Chinese staffs who are in Africa are the main obstacles

to China’s relationship with African countries. These Chinese have caused a number

of conflicts in Africa, such as scrambling the local African enterprises’ market,

causing corruption in host countries, destroying the labour market, and so on. In turn,

the political and cultural conflicts have made a difference in Africa and China’s civil

and official relationship, but they are still not the dominant factors in China’s

relationship with Africa. As there are relatively few cultural and political contacts and

exchanges between African and Chinese civil society, and the chances of conflict and

contradiction between the two sides are naturally small. China and Africa have close

economic relations, both official and civil, hence, economic contradictions and

conflicts dominate. Therefore, there are three main problems in the economy that
African countries and China should pay more attention to. The first one is how to

balance the local African enterprises’ interests and the Chinese companies’ economic

activities. The second one is how to guarantee the local African workers’ rights when

they are working in Chinese enterprises. The last one is how to avoid the Chinese

enterprises corrupting African officials to gain economic interests.

Conclusion

This report introduces the problems and conflicts in Africa and China’s relationship,

especially in civil society. The Chinese gold rush in Ghana, the decoupling of people-

to-people relationships between China and Africa, and China and Africa’s cultural

engagement problem are three presentations that are chosen from the symposium as

they reflect three different perspectives: economy, politics, and culture, problems in

China and Africa multilateral relations. Through researching and studying these three

presentations’ arguments and viewpoints, I hope that the current contradictions

between China and Africa can be understood and analyzed comprehensively and from

multiple angles. Apart from analyzing the three presentations’ content, I also choose

some peer articles from academic journals to explain, analyze, and compare with the

symposium’s presentations. According to reading these peer articles, I have found that

the economic perspective problems are the main contradiction in Africa and China’s

relationships. Although political and cultural problems also make a difference in

Africa and China, these two kinds of problems are still not the main influence. Hence,

if the African and Chinese governments cannot deal with the economic conflicts and

problems well, it will be a main obstacle to Afro-Sino relationships.

Reference

1) Adekunle, B. (2015). How to rebalance Africa's relationship with China. SAST.

2) Adem, S. (2016). (ed.). China’s Diplomacy in Eastern and Southern Africa (pp.

27–87). London: Routledge.

3) Chow, S.M. (2023). Towards a Dialogue: initiating engagements on the cultural

front. International symposium: Africa-China Relations in an Era of Uncertain

Future. 13-14 April 2023.

4) Cornelissen, S., Cheru, F., Shaw, T. (2015). (eds.). Africa and International

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Africa-China Relations in an Era of Uncertain Future. 13-14 April 2023.

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