Africa’s China diplomacy

When in 1964 China’s foreign minister, Chou En-Lai, said during a visit to Kenya, that ‘’Africa was ripe for revolution’’, President Jomo Kenyatta saw dark clouds of a plot to overthrow his government and place socialists led by his vice-president, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, in power.  Mao Zedung’s triumphant liberation war from 1921 to 1949, had, […]

When in 1964 China’s foreign minister, Chou En-Lai, said during a visit to Kenya, that ‘’Africa was ripe for revolution’’, President Jomo Kenyatta saw dark clouds of a plot to overthrow his government and place socialists led by his vice-president, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, in power.  Mao Zedung’s triumphant liberation war from 1921 to 1949, had, after all, been echoed in Kenya’s own anti-colonial war with the rebels carrying the suggestive name of ‘’Mau Mau’’. China’s construction of the TAZARA Railway line linking the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania with Ndola in landlocked Zambia was a bold transition into diplomacy of open support for liberation struggles in southern Africa by meeting Africa’s infrastructural famine.
In 2014, Chinese investment in Africa is valued at 22 billion American dollars; accompanied by one million personnel living in Africa. Her facilities and personnel have come under attack from Gadafi’s Libya -under invasion by NATO in 2011- to South Sudan in 2014. Obama’s Secretary of State conducted a shuttle diplomacy between Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and South Sudan to put down a conflict in the latter; and warn Joseph Kabila against changing the country’s constitution to allow him win election for a third term in office. His shuttle rivalled that by China’s Premier making speeches and pledges – for funding infrastructures – in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola and Kenya. In Nigeria he addressed the World Economic Forum -Africa (WEFA) meeting in Abuja at which he pledged to invest 30 billion dollars. In Kenya he signed a deal with presidents of Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan for the construction of railway lines costing 3.8billion dollars; and to be completed in 2018.
In Kinshasa, Obama’s warning comes with a background of what Brookings Institution scho-lars note, cynically, as China investing ‘’in countries with governance challenges (which governments generally avoid) such as Democratic Republic of Congo’’. Having installed and defended former kleptocratic dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, from 1965 to 1997, Secretary Kerry’s sermon to Kabila must have sounded deeply hypocritical. It must have strengthened China’s appeal in reconstructing a furiously looted country.
Commentators note that China’s trade with Africa is only 3 per cent of its global total and her investment is only 5 per cent. It is also noted that foreign direct investment from the United States, France and Malaysia in Africa is higher than China’s own.  We must look elsewhere for an explanation for the talk of anxious competition over Africa by the United States with China. Looking to ideological differences is not helpful since American and European Union corporations have and continue to invest and sell their manufactures inside a China whose communist vision is today highly diluted.
The clue may lie in Michael Pillsbury’s 1972 to 1990 influence through publications; close relations with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and political consultancy with conservative American Senators Orrin Hatch, Jesse Helms, Gordon J. Humphrey and Chic Hechtac. Pillsbury got a PhD on Chinese studies from Columbia University after studying Mandarin at Stanford and in Taiwan. He propagated the notion of China planning to conduct a war in which ‘’inferior defeats superior’’ by exploiting ‘’perceived vulnerabilities of potential opponents’’. As an example, America’s heavy reliance on computers could be turned against her military command network if China’s experts can penetrate and assume control of their computer command centres.
An area of vulnerability by NATO countries are access to Africa’s natural resources. This combines with their long history of military and economic genocide in Africa;  self-interest animated by racism, greed and near congenital aversion to supporting development of human and industrial development of Africa, to create a severe weakness which China is exploiting. America’s deep insecurity over possible loss of power is another area of vulnerability. It fuels ‘’combative, conspiratorial and ruthless’’ mind-sets among top policy makers. It is a mindset which destroyed Iraq as the most advanced and modern country in the Arab world; and fans demolitions of Syria as a strategy for isolating Iran and Turkey, and ensuring a threat vacuum in Israel’s neighbourhood.
Pillsbury built his notion of China using an ‘’assassin’s mace’’ (shashoujian or ‘’trump card’’) to defeat America’s military, economic and diplomatic hegemony on a study of ancient Chinese texts and wide interviews with top military officers. This notion of using the past to invent the future is rooted in genes. It ignores the possibility of China lending trillions of dollars to the United States to purchase peace through friendship. It does not allow for China building roads, bridges and railway lines to facilitate trade between African countries; supporting manufacturing in Africa to create jobs among Africa’s 60 million youths as a means of creating political and social stability; and both to ensure strong market for China’s exports.
Pillsbury is worth listening to as a warning for a double edged Africa-China diplomacy.