Sino-Africa Happy-Hour

Last night a few Sino-Africa watchers and I put together a "Sino-Africa Happy-Hour" (the second hyphen is deliberate!) at Bukom Cafe in Washington D.C. We had fantastic turnout, although it did not hurt that Prof. Jung Yoon Park and Amb. David Shinn let me tell everybody within earshot that they would be attending. Unfortunately, Prof. Deborah Brautigam could not make it, but there is always next time. 

Overall, the evening was great and gave many budding young Sino-Africanists a chance to get to know one another. Hopefully this can be a regular event. If anyone is in the D.C. area and is interesting in attending, please let me know of your availability. 

And now, for some photos (Note I have yet to put captions on the them)!

Link of the Day: China in Africa

Truth be told I had never heard of France24 until last year. I wish I could say that I am familiar with all global international media actors, but that just is not true. However, to my credit, I did come across a fantastic video debate about Sino-Africa relations, produced by Anelise Borges. Hosted by François Picard, this wide-ranging discussion gave an incredibly nuanced portrayal of Sino-Africa issues, due in no small part to their amazing panel: Solange Guo Chatelard, associate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. CERI Sciences Po Paris; Alexandre Kateb, managing Director, Competence Finance Consulting. Lecturer, Sciences Po Paris; and Adama Gaye. author of 'China-Africa, the Dragon and the Ostrich.' Guo Chatelard and Gaye in particular are excellent Sino-Africa scholars in their own right, so I am happy to see fellow scholars on television. Please watch the whole thing, including part two.

The Kenyan Elections

I ran into fellow-blogger Gukira on the way home from work today and we briefly discussed the Kenyan elections. As someone who was pretty ignorant about the whole process, I was fortunate to have him explain to me some of the underlying issues. While I was simply happy that there was no serious outbreaks of violence, he countered that a lack of violence is simply too low a bar to clear. He then told me about some of his writings, which I consider to be  great posts on the topic, especially this one:

Jomo Kenyatta’s short story, “Gentlemen of the Jungle,” ends with a man trapping repressive animals inside a hut, setting the hut on fire, watching them die, and then uttering, “Peace is costly, but it’s worth the expense.” Now, I can’t read this story without thinking of the men, women, and children set ablaze in a church in Kiambaa in 2008 during the post-election violence. I have to think about this killing act and to ask about the cost of “peace.”

Link of the Day: A Rally Cry for the US to Catch Up to the Chinese in Africa

Eric Olander and Cobus Van Staden run the best Sino-Africa podcast there is over at the China Africa Project. Every week they go over three issues, sometimes with a guest or two, and the podcast is required listening for anyone interested in Sino-Africa affairs (Hence my weekly twitter recommendation that their podcasts are "Must. Listen."). While I might not always agree with their analysis, I can vouch for the intelligence and engaging personalities of these two gentlemen. Their latest episode is fantastic, especially because Eric mentions a little argument we had over twitter concerning the U.S. versus China. I highly recommend it.

Full disclosure: I used to work with the China Africa Project, I consider Eric a friend and a mentor, and I hope to work for the U.S. government in the future.

Wait, so Structural Adjustment WORKED for Africa?

Katherine Kidder, writing on Tom Ricks' excellent blog, points to the importance of private rather than state-led investment into Africa (with a nice mention of Xiaofang Shen's recent talk at SAIS). She mentioned something of particular interest to me:

Link of the Day: Corruption in Africa: It Takes Two to Tango

 One of the complaints about Chinese business practices I hear the most is that they make African governments and institutions more corrupt. That may very well be the case, but it would really help if there was some sort of comparative study between Chinese corruption in Africa versus French, U.S. British, etc. corruption in Africa. I am not sure I have heard convincing proof that they are all that different. After all, when it comes to corruption anywhere, it takes two to tango. Thanks to Mark Kapchanga for pointing me to that Think Africa Press piece.

The Importance of Immigration

Henry Hall, editor of the wonderful blog China Africa News, just wrote a fascinating piece on The Christian Science Monitor that looks at the impact of Chinese immigration on the African continent.

He begins by saying:

An increasingly common complaint emanating from the African media is that Chinese immigrants in Africa are having a negative impact in their host economies.

Recent studies suggest that the population of Chinese in Africa now stands at close to 1 million. The chief concern is that Chinese small businesses, often run by Chinese families, are capitalizing on their better access to Chinese markets, more advanced techniques, or superior access to capital, to make profits in key industries in which Africans seek employment – namely petty trading, agriculture, mining, and building work.

The piece really should be read in full, but these are the points I want to highlight:

• Hall gets the Chinese population right, which does not always happen when writing about the numbers of Chinese in Africa. Right now, it stands at about a million.
• The piece mentions that Chinese and African labor do compete in certain sectors, "namely petty trading, agriculture, mining, and building work." That is an important point, because one of the differences in how the Chinese live and work in Africa versus Americans or Europeans is that the latter are not competing for the same sorts of jobs with the locals. 
• Hall explains how Chinese market traders are so successful compared to their African counterparts due to"their superior access to Chinese markets and capital," though I would like more of an exploration of the work schedules of traders.
• He sets up an interesting frame of analyzing Sino-African relations by asking whether Chinese wealth leaves the country or not. Most of the time if China generates wealth it is viewed as somehow illegitimate, that they are taking something from the African peoples. Perhaps that is the case, but it would probably be more helpful to see if Chinese money stays in the locality in which it was generated.
• Hall highlights areas that China could really benefit Africa, notably transferring skills, employing locals with successful businesses, and setting up manufacturing.
• Hall concludes by emphasizing the importance of African governments in regulating immigration. The proverbial ball is mostly in Africa's court on this issue, and it is up to African governments to enforce immigration or at least think about immigration.

Chinese immigration to Africa has a huge impact on how everyday people in African countries view China and they are an important component of Sino-Africa relations too often lost in the gaudier discussion of national diplomacy. Hopefully more people take notice of their importance.

Link of the Day: DRC Journalist Jailed After Story on Chinese-Run Hospital

The Committee to Protect Journalists just put up a sad piece about a DRC journalist jailed after story on Chinese-run hospital. I do not know what the Sino-African implications of such actions will be. However, I do feel that China has been given cover for much of its African activities from African journalists giving it the benefit of the doubt, at least in English-speaking media outlets. While China did not do the jailing, it does not look good for the country to appear above criticism. All those at-times shrill accusations of a nefarious Chinese plot to have African governments spy and jail their citizens might not sound as far-fetched anymore.

Interview: Kumbukilani Phiri

I recently reached out to Kumbukilani Phiri, a Zambian who works at the Sunshine Kaidi New Energy Group and who speaks fluent Mandarin after studying Civil Engineering in Guangxi university. As someone whose professional and educational experiences are the product of the Sino-African relationship, I am so very fortunate that someone with his insight and background allowed me to interview him.

1) What do "China-Africa relations" mean to you?

  The China-Africa relationship would be more meaningful if it was a win-win situation. The current state of affairs is that while China knows what they need from Africa and are ready to tailor their agreements and contracts based on what they need,however African countries do not seem to know about what they need from China. This has resulted in a situation where people are beginning to feel that African's are getting a raw deal from China which is not the case. My belief is that if African's would sit down and strategise on how to engage China, things would improve for them.


2) What is one thing that Chinese people and/or African people are doing well in that relationship?

  The one thing that Chinese people and African people are doing well in this new relationship is a two sided thing.
-The Chinese investment that is coming into Africa is of course a very good gesture from the Chinese.
-Africa allowing China to invest in Africa is also equally a good thing. However, this would be even better if Africa gave terms of how China should go about their investment in Africa. Firstly it is common knowledge that, when China does an investment, most of the senior management jobs including technician jobs are given to the Chinese and Africans only get jobs of labourers which is of course not good for technology transfer which Africa dearly needs to develop its local based capacity.

3) What is one thing that Chinese people and/or African people can improve on in that relationship?

  The one thing that both China and Africa need to do to improve this relationship is for Africa to rise up and challenge the current status quo. Firstly I would like to say that China needs Africa and vice versa but Africa has more to gain from China if they understood how to engage China. Africa is now a landlord to China and they have a better advantage to negotiate good terms of partnering with China. If this situation is not changed soon, I see many problems arising from this new relationship as Africans one day will wake up and realise that they have been treated unfairly by China, and this will cause a lot of problems in some cases might even be worse and lead to civil strife.

Note: this style of three-question interview was suggested by Eric Olander.

Back

As you may have noticed, nothing has been posted on this blog for quite some time. That was because I was putting myself through an intensive GMAT study program, which was totally not worth the time as I did not get the score I wanted.

Sigh.

In any case, I am back and ready to resume sharing my perspectives on Sino-Africa relations if you'll have me. I will continue to study for the GMAT's and hopefully take them in the summer, but I will find a better balance between researching/writing and test-prep.

Link of the Day: How Operating in South Africa Helped a Chinese Company Sharpen its International Capabilities

After putting up this link on twitter concerning Chinese tourists and South Africa, I received a message from Conrad Chua, head of MBA admissions at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School. He pointed me to this podcast where he interviews Yolanda Yue, a MBA student who worked for a Chinese company in South Africa. Yolanda has a quite interesting story about her transfer from Shenzhen to Johannesburg for roughly six years, where she dealt with telecom operators in South Africa and other African countries. The discussion touches on a range of issues, for me the most important being the improving African perceptions of Chinese companies; and that Chinese companies, in dealing with European subsidiaries in Africa, learn how to internationalize in both continents. Short and sweet, it is a great listen.

Mali, the Chinese Military, and the Chinese People

EDIT: Some of the translations could be better, thanks to Kaiser Kuo for catching that, and the error was mine for not reading properly. I also modified the ending.

Tendai Musakwa put up another must-read translation on the China Africa Project, this time detailing what some in the Chinese military think about France's intervention into Mali, as well as the Chinese netizen reaction.