Africa–China economic relations
[5] Following the Yongle Emperor's death, and the resurgence of Confucianism, which opposed frivolous external adventures, such expensive foreign policies were abandoned, and the costly fleet was destroyed.
1976 marked the death of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, bringing the era of ideology symbolically to a close and leaving power in the pragmatic hands of Deng Xiaoping.
[15] Meanwhile, in the relative calm ushered in by the end of the cold war, concerns about human rights issues in China, furthered isolated the mix of rogue and pariah states.
[15] Still, Chinese and African diplomacy continued to invoke the imagery of the past ideological period: the shared history of victimization at the hands of 19th century Westerners and the common fight for autonomy and independence.
Khanna believes that China's consultative style has allowed it to develop political and economic ties with many countries including those viewed as rogue states by western diplomacies.
[19] The 1995 official Go Global declaration and the 2001 Chinese entry into the WTO paved the way for private citizens in China to increasingly connect with, import from, and export to the budding Sino-African markets.
The FUC rebellion, based in Sudan and aiming to overthrow the pro-Taiwan ruler of Chad, Idriss Déby, has received Chinese diplomatic support as well as light weapons and Sudanese oil.
This marked the change to capitalist practices as the foundation of the PRC's socioeconomic development, a process initiated several decades earlier following the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward.
[30][31] Today, the PRC faces a growing shortage of raw materials such as oil, wood, copper, and aluminum, all of which are needed to support its economic expansion and the production of manufactured goods.
Industrialization started marginally in the early 20th century in the colonies of the European nations, namely Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom.
[53] In the other direction, China's growing thirst for raw materials led Chinese state-owned enterprises to the country with natural resources, such as wood and minerals (like those from the Gabonese forests).
[58]: 188 Chinese policy guidance has specifically encouraged such efforts in rubber, oil palm, cotton, vegetable cultivation, animal husbandry, aquaculture, and assembly of agriculture machines.
[59] China is motivated to establish these centers out of both an ideological commitment to fostering South-South cooperation and sharing its experience with less developed countries and by a pragmatic desire to increase its long-term food security.
[58]: 177 As Professor Dawn C. Murphy summarizes, these zones now "aim to transfer China's development successes to other countries, increase business opportunities for China manufacturing companies, avoid trade barriers by setting up zones in countries with preferential trade access to important markets, and create a positive business environment for Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises investing in these regions.
The Chinese government, well informed by these local businessmen about regional conditions, is equipped with thousands of skilled engineers and workers ready to leave China, as well as by experienced banks (i.e. EximBank) and large reserves of US dollars (as of 2008: approximately 1.4 trillion).
The available evidence suggests these amounts are not major, especially compared to the U.S. supply of nearly 50% of the world's weapons, and that the direct leverage of the Peoples Liberation Army or the civilian ministries is modest in most African conflicts.
China has been attacked for its increasingly close relationship with rogue states, such as Sudan and Angola, countries known for their human rights abuses, political censorship, and widespread corruption.
The dynamic evolved into what is now called the "Beijing Consensus", China's "soft" diplomatic policy, entailing a strict respect for African sovereignty and a hands-off approach to internal issues.
With China, controversial African leaders face a second or third chance to join in international partnerships this time with a successful third world nation; many of the excuses about Western domination which had previously been used to justify Africa's lack of growth can no longer be made.
To China, who regards the West's 'human rights discourse' as blatantly hypocritical, their involvement with so-called rogue states increases long term stability and much needed "win-win" social and economic development.
At that time, the USSR supported the PRC, while the United States backed ROC, which thus held the Chinese UN security council's seat along with its high visibility and veto power.
Taylor concludes: "China's oil diplomacy threatens to reintroduce practices [such as corruption, human rights abuses] that NEPAD (and the African Union for that matter) are ostensibly seeking to move away from—even though China protests that it fully supports NEPAD"[116] A Chinese-lead Forum on China-Africa Cooperation has been created, where Chinese and African partners meet every 3 years, both to strengthen alliances, sign contracts, and to make important announcements.
[117] These industries and associated works and investment provide the Chinese society the recent two-digit yearly economic growth, job chances, and life standard improvement, but dramatically rely on coal (70%) and oil (25%) sources (for 2003),[118] as well as raw materials.
[120] Out of energy and raw materials shortage, analysts also notice that long-term factors threatening China's growth questions over its innovation capability, corruption and inefficiency, and environmental risks.
[125] It has been noted that when new leaders come to power in Africa, they will "quickly launch a maximum of new projects [with state's money] to get personal commissions immediately, all this is decided in a short time, and we are ready".
Both types create social tensions, economic conflict with local enterprises, lower short-term employment prospects for Africans, and an apparent ethnic hierarchy within the firms.
While the dominant resource extraction industries are largely benefiting from Chinese capital investment, growing imports from China to many African nations underprice and crowd out local suppliers.
[33] Though Chinese imports allow poorer consumers to buy their first refrigerator, T-shirt, suitcases, or microwave ovens, they also hurt nascent local industries in countries trying to end reliance on resource commodities.
[34] Evidence has been provided by Sachs & Warner, 2001 that establishes: ...an inverse statistical relationship between natural resource based exports (agriculture, minerals and fuels) and growth rates during the period 1970–1990.
Following their experience with western involvement and the current world dynamic of growing demand for raw materials, African states are attempting to mitigate a possible repeat of exploitation under the Chinese with efforts to encourage local, long-term development.
