Part One | Part Two | Part Three
How China compares with Europe’s colonists
he Chinese are far from the first to be accused of taking advantage of this continent. In fact, they are walking down a path well traveled by many of those very nations now pointing an accusatory finger at them. Duringthe so-called Scramble for Africa era, which started in the 1880s,imperialist European nations vied for control of chunks of the little-known continent, eventually taking control of almost the
entire massive, region. This rule by outsiders, in one form or another,
continued until after World War II.
France set itself up in a dozen West African nations, including what are today Senegal and the Ivory Coast, as well as in Chad, Madagascar, and the
Comoros. Germany, for a while, ruled in parts of what are now Burundi, Rwanda,
Tanzania, and Namibia. Italy carved out its niches in Eritrea and some of Somalia. Spain had a foothold in the West. The Portuguese – the original African colonizers – held onto Angola, Mozambique, and other smaller territories. Belgium infamously ran the Congo with a cruel hand, and Britain created its mandates throughout East Africa and in what are now Sudan, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Ghana, and Nigeria.
In Sudan (1956) and in Ghana (1957) became the first African nations to achieve independence, with other nations quickly following suit, many after long years of struggle.
The Europeans were, not surprisingly, loath to let go of "their" lands. For decades, Africa offered them both open markets for goods and fertile ground for missionary efforts. Also important, the continent supplied the Europeans with cheap (or free) raw materials, such as cotton,
rubber, tea, and tin and – of course – with free human labor. Some colonial powers behaved in a relatively benevolent, even if paternalistic, manner in Africa – building up infrastructure, starting schools, and involving locals in administration, note historians.
For the most part, however they say, the European colonial masters repressed the development of nation-welding institutions in order to ensure easy administration. Over a mosaic of tribal loyalties and languages were laid arbitrary "national" boundaries, where the foreigners exercised their authority, often brutally, with contempt for existing local structures and traditions. The deep wounds of these times are still being dealt with by Africans today.
When the Portuguese finally left Angola in 1975, for example, their legacy of underdevelopment was staggering. After close to 500 years of
rule, they took off having trained hardly any African civil servants, technologists, or military commanders. When freedom finally came, Angolans tell visitors today, there was not one local doctor,
lawyer, or engineer in the capital Luanda. Civil war quickly ensued.
For decades, Africa offered the Europeans both open markets for goods and fertile ground for missionary efforts. Also important, the continent supplied the Europeans with cheap (or free) raw materials, such as cotton, rubber, tea, and tin and – of course – with free human labor.
The Chinese, who do not govern any country in Africa directly or impose their culture or religion on the local population, might be considered tame by comparison. "Despite growing skepticism as to China’s intentions in the continent," argues China’s government-run Xinhua News Agency in a commentary, " ... its approach to Africa has been markedly different from that of its Western counterparts – past and present."
Andrew Small, a China specialist at the German Marshall Fund, a public policy institute, points out that many of Beijing’s worst practices in Africa today stem not from colonialist attitudes, but from China’s own level of development. "Every mining disaster in Zambia, forced resettlement around [Sudan’s] Merowe
dam, and corrupt deal with government officials, has its counterpart in
[China’s] Dongbei, the Three Gorges dam, Shanghai, and elsewhere," he points out. "The central government’s current exhortations to Chinese companies operating internationally to be conscious of China’s international image and respect local conditions are virtually asking for a higher standard of conduct in their dealings with the rest of the world than exist at home."
Furthermore, says Mr. Small, China’s approach to Africa is completely different that of the European powers of the past. "There is an attitude among many Chinese that Africa – like Asia decades before – is primed for a developmental take-off ... making it a business and investment opportunity rather than just a benighted part of the world that needs to be saved or solely a repository of natural resources," he says. "[China] will be in the unusual position of being both a superpower and developing country for some time to come, with parts of the Chinese interior having far more in common with Africa than with the West."
True, perhaps, but the colonial comparison itself is meaningless, says Robert Rotberg, director of Harvard University’s Kennedy School program on conflict resolution. "I would not say this is colonialism, as that term was specific to
a particular place and time," he says. "But I would call it a postcolonial exploitation, in which the Chinese are stripping the continent of raw material as fast as they can and are fairly ruthless about bringing their own laborers for projects and ignoring locals."
(From Sudan Tribune - Christian Science Monitor)