China-Africa summit: Padding instead of a mess!

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China’s influence in Africa is large – both politically and economically. Through the China-Africa summit, he will be even bigger. Almost all of the heads of state and government in Africa have pledged.

China’s President Xin Jinping with Rwanda leader Kagame (archive)

Two European Government travelled in the past few days, for the same reason, to Africa: Both Chancellor Angela Merkel as Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May want to strengthen their Visit, the economic relations between their home countries and African countries. Merkel had a business delegation in tow, in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal were many economic events on the program. Europe has to catch up in Africa – because of China’s political and economic influence in Africa has grown strongly in recent years.

The China-Africa summit to ensure that it is even more. “It is the biggest summit of all times”, said the euphoric Chinese foreign Minister Wang Yi during a press briefing last week. The “Forum on China-Africa Cooperation” (FOCAC) will be held on Monday and Tuesday in Beijing. China and Africa were in a “Win-Win Situation,” the cooperation will benefit all countries involved, China’s chief diplomat.

Also, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May wants to expand economic relations with Africa

Already weeks before the FOCAC summit, the Chinese state media launched a propaganda offensive. Almost daily, Chinese Africa experts praise on all channels, the Chinese-African cooperation. Africa-expert Zeng Aiping from the “China Institute of International Studies,” praises, for example, the frequent Africa-visit of China’s President Xi Jinping. Four Times of the different countries in Africa, has already visited – as often as no other Chinese head of state in front of him. This policy bearing fruit, says Aiping: “The relations are developing in a breakneck speed and at the highest level.”

“A very, very important Partner”

The growth in trade between China and Africa are actually impressive: According to the world conference on trade and development UNCTAD, the trade volume was in 2000, just 10 billion. In only 17 years, it has been twenty – fold- most recently it stood at nearly 200 billion dollars. Meanwhile, Africa’s trade with Europe and the USA has been stagnating for years. In Parallel, a strong Increase from China’s direct investment has increased.

Africans also come in the run-up to the summit in the Chinese media. Liberia’s Minister of Economics and Finance, Augustus Flomo, is quoted with the following words: “China’s strategy is for our development for a very, very important Partner.” In Liberia it is the construction of roads, the Expansion of the electricity grid, as well as the modernization of the health system.

Chinese companies are building in Djibouti, the largest free trade zone in the world

Also, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta expressed in an Interview with CGTN in the spirit of the Chinese leadership: “The FOCAC summit offers great opportunities for all countries involved. As a country and as a continent we are aware that it can only bring advantages if we expand our relations with China.” In the same Interview, Kenyatta is also the case for open markets between China and Africa: “We are not allowed Africans to foreclose us. A protectionist policy would have a long-term negative impact on the people in Africa.”

Cheap exports from the bike to the flashlight

“Actually, Kenyatta China would have to criticize, because China has made with subsidised exports to the African markets is broken. Especially with cheap exports of state-owned enterprises, with cheap consumer goods from the bike to the flashlight, a candle up to the fridge,” says Robert Kappel, a development economist at the University of Leipzig. The free trade, the Kenyatta Chinese television propagandize, have finally contributed to the industrialization in African countries is gradually been destroyed.

Other risks Kappel sees the increasing dependence of the Africans of Chinese loans. “China financed infrastructure measures, for example, for the construction of the railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa or from Mombasa to Nairobi. The cost is very much money need to pay back the African States, because the Chinese do not give away your money.” The driving many African States the case directly to the debt.

For the construction of the new railway line has been indebted to the Kenya high

In addition to the economic component of the China-Africa cooperation, there are also political and cultural. In South Sudan, where China is involved in a peace mission, and in Djibouti, where China is engaged in a military base, in practice China is already a major influence on the political development, says Kappel: “China always claims that it has no influence on the internal Affairs. But it takes, even if indirectly, very targeted influence on the political development.”

That this quest is already bearing fruit, according to expert Kappel to the relations of the African States in Taiwan: All African countries – with the exception of Swaziland – have announced their cooperation with the China’s point of view, the breakaway island Republic, most recently in Burkina Faso in may of this year: “China has brought all countries, more or less, to a point that you cooperate with the people’s Republic of China. Here, too, so there is a very significant political influence,” says Kappel. In the fall of Zimbabwe’s long-time commander-in-chief Robert Mugabe power, China should have in the opinion of many observers, also played a role: His later successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, had shortly before Mugabe’s ouster visited by the military in November of 2017, Beijing. The government in Beijing, but denied any influence. A few months after Mnangagwas takeover he agreed with China’s leaders a “strategic partnership”.

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