BY CANUTE TANGWA (First published in THE POST on 14/03/2007)
On May 13, 2004, The Economist sounded a jarring note, “a fascinating drama is about to be played out in the world’s biggest country. China’s economy is growing too fast for comfort, and the country’s leaders know it. In recent weeks they have promised forceful measures to cool things down, but it is not clear what they will or can do”.
Today, the Chinese economy is growing too fast for Western and to a greater extent African comfort. There are several reasons to feel uneasy about China: the sheer size of its population, a billion and more people; the fourth largest economy in the world; a remarkable economic growth rate, from 3.8 % in 1990 to 10 % in 2007; its economic output for 2006 stood at $ 2.6 trillion; a trade surplus with the USA of $170 billion in 2004; China graduates 300,000 engineers per year compared with America’s 80 000; three-quarters of all Chinese bachelors degrees are in maths, sciences and engineering fields; according to Prof Zhong Lin Wang of Georgia Tech, most of the top ministers in China’s government have degrees in hard sciences; China’s use of steel (258 million tonnes in 2005), an indicator of industrial development is twice more than that of the US; the US has a $ 214 billion trade imbalance with China and so on.
Chinese inroads in Africa are not based on charity/solidarity but on interest. China badly needs raw materials to feed its growing heavy and capital-intensive industries. Number one is oil. This explains the astronomic oil concession agreements it signed with African oil producing giants like Nigeria and Angola. China also needs a market for its produce. African countries that virtually careless about quality control or international property rights are fertile ground for cheap and very-short-life-span Chinese goods, which are usually clones! In the process, China has trampled on sacrosanct western economic and financial cooperation principles hewed by the IMF, World Bank and the Paris Club.
How do we, Africans, react to the impending Chinese economic and inevitably political menace? Secondly, how do African governments benefit from the new Chinese approach to conducting bilateral and multilateral trade and finance agreements? First of all, I would like to do a recap of how America responds to any threat.
When Russia sent the first cosmonauts into space, America responded vigorously; marshalling physical and natural resources and within a short time beat the Russians by landing the first man on the moon in 1969! Today, there is much hype about China surpassing the US by 2040! In reaction, the Bush administration rolled out the American Competitiveness Initiative on January 31, 2007.
It is geared towards increasing investment in critical research, ensuring that America remains number one in opportunity and innovation, a two-fold increase in investment for over 10 years in “key federal agencies that support basic research programs in the physical sciences and engineering – the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology”. This does not leave out individual efforts like that of Bill Gates who of late promised to work “super hard” in the educational domain to ensure that America maintains its lead in science and technology. Inevitably, the US is sure of one thing; it can make up for Chinese numbers with quality.
Almost all African countries are currently applying IMF and World Bank economic and financial road maps to turn-around their economies. A recurrent critique of IMF and World Bank policies is that such policies impoverish the masses. In order words IMF policies do not take appropriate care of social aspects.
Viewed in this context, Africa’s reaction to China’s economic and financial onslaught is less visible, timid or nonexistent. Of all the countries that Chinese president Hu Jintao recently visited only South Africa raised the spectre of a possible colonisation of Africa by the Chinese. Mr Jintao dismissed this outrightly.
The ideal situation is for Africa to form a common front through the integration of their economies so as to withstand Chinese might. This should be under the umbrella of the African Union (AU). It is instructive that one of themes of the 2007 AU summit was science, technology and innovation. There is no way Africa can face China without a solid science and technology base. Except for Benin and one other African country Mr Jintao visited there was no talk of exploring the science and technology domain within the framework of Sino-African relations.
Today the Chinese are fulfilling a journey of a thousand miles that began with a step. That step was in the form and shape of Mao Tse Tong’s little Red Book that traced a visionary path for China. This path included isolation so as to build and consolidate a home grown culture and technology; a Cultural Revolution for thousands of thoughts to bloom, clash and find consensus; opening of floodgates and openness to foreign ideas while maintaining a distinct Chinese approach to business and management. This ties in squarely with Jintao’s call for “a distinctively Chinese path of innovation and hard work to build an innovation-oriented country”.
To be fair, certain African countries strove to institute a home grown approach to development. Colonel Muamar Kaddafi of Libya is a latter day forerunner with his Green Book. Within a short time Libyans could afford “a chicken in every pot, lodging and a car in every garage” through the prudent and equitable management of oil resources. Apparently, other not-too-lofty national and international projects coupled with America’s foreign policy objectives put paid to the realization of the Green Book’s objectives. The late Julius Nyerere of Tanzania experimented on Ujama, a type of indigenous African socialism. It crashed but it gave Tanzanians a sense of focus and an identity.
In Cameroon, President Paul Biya wrote and presented to anxious Cameroonians in 1986, Communal Liberalism. It is a groundbreaking work that espouses the vision (policy, economic development theory, development plan) of a visionary leader. Somewhere along the line, something snapped and communal liberalism has been put on the back burner. There is need to revisit Communal Liberalism. Paradoxically, Mr Biya in his 2006 end of year address called on Cameroonians to emulate the Asian tigers!
Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, started an Iron and Steel Industry project, the bedrock of industrial development, several years ago but it is tottering and begging to take off! Nigeria conceived a National Economic and Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS) that lays down the bases of Nigerian economic take off; a macro-economic blue print. Inevitably, this compliments the IMF imposed conditionalities. But it is still on paper! South Africa formulated a comprehensive strategy paper on black economic empowerment. However, it has not benefited a large swath of black South Africans. Hence, the upsurge of xenophobia in South Africa.
Africa needs a competitiveness initiative under the auspices of the AU to counter Chinese growing influence. The main plank of this initiative should be education in science and technology as well as the development of heavy industries that would feed on our abundant natural resources. Since the Chinese have a population advantage, Africa should bank on quality/competence and services that are attractive to the Chinese market.
Thus Africa should churn out a fixed number of top quality marketable engineers and technicians every year. The second plank should be cultural. Just as China fascinates Africans, the Chinese are also fascinated by Africa. China has a civilization that can be traced before Christ. Africa is the cradle of civilization; where the first man got up and walked! The third plank should be tourism. For example if the East, North, West and Central African tourism potentials are efficiently harnessed the fallouts (e.g. foreign reserves) would be enormous for Africa. The fourth plank should be communication and its vehicle language. For example, Cameroon is a bilingual country. The Chinese need thousands of English teachers every year. Cameroon should revamp its bilingual policy; invest in schools that would train quality language teachers for export. Another area should be spices and grains! China consumes a lot of spices and grains like ginger, garlic and corn that grow in Africa. The spices and grain sectors should be organized, equipped and funded to meet the needs of the Chinese market. Investment in infrastructure like roads, railway and so on should be pursued vigorously. This allows for the opening up of breadbaskets and facilitation of communication.
In conclusion, Africa should avoid duplication/overlap of development organs that have the same basic objectives. This is the more so because except for decolonisation, Africa has not taken a development project to its successful logical end. For instance the Lagos Plan of Action and other similar action programmes witnessed insurmountable speed-breaks. Consequently, NEPAD should be a specialized organ of the AU.
Comments