Iain Manley

Iain studied journalism at the University of Cape Town, where communists were skinny professors who wore tweed. He arrived in China in 2007, at the end of an overland journey from London, documented at his overland travelogue. His first book, about the pirates, prostitutes and opium peddlers of old Singapore, was published last year, just before he left China, to travel back to South Africa, overland. To get in touch, follow him on Twitter at @iainmanley or send an email to manleyiain@gmail.com.

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South African cartoonist Zapiro on Zuma’s China visit

Posted by Iain Manley at 6:10 pm In the News 1 Response »

Aug 302010

Jacob Zuma’s state visit last week gave South Africans an opportunity to compare China’s emerging economy to their own. The comparison was not favourable. South Africa’s economy has only just emerged from recession and almost a quarter of the working-age population are unemployed. The country’s public servants have been on strike for the last two weeks, abandoning schools and hospitals to demand an 8.6% pay increase. The dispute threatens to tear apart the ruling African National Congress’s alliance with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions. It also calls Jacob Zuma’s ability to lead a unity government into question. Zuma, meanwhile, is tired of the media’s constant questions, particularly their allegations of widespread corruption. His party has drafted the Protection of Information Bill, a vaguely worded document which, if passed, would allow government to define any information deemed “harmful” to the “national interest” as classified, and proposed a Media Appeals Tribunal with the power to imprison journalists for breaching the new laws. The bill makes no provision for “public interest” and a number of civil society groups have questioned its constitutionality. A government dominated by a single party placing a vaguely defined national interest above public interest will, of course, sound familiar to many China watchers, and this is possibly no coincidence. The ANC has made its admiration of the Chinese Communist Party plain and the two parties have together set up a jointly-funded program to bring all 88 members of the ANC’s National Executive Committee to China on two-week long “study tours”.

The mood in South Africa was reflected by the country’s most incisive political cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, better known by his pen name, Zapiro. Shapiro is currently being sued by Jacob Zuma for defamation, after he penned a cartoon depicting the president – then only the leader of the ANC – raping Lady Justice in 2008. You can find more of his cartoons at the Mail & Guardian and Sunday Times as well as a short biography at South African Cartoonists and Illustrators. Zapiro’s own website is at http://www.zapiro.com.

Jacob Zuma on the Yellow BRIC Road

Posted by Iain Manley at 6:57 pm In the News, Timeline No Responses »

Aug 242010

South African president Jacob Zuma arrived in Beijing on a state visit yesterday, with a large trade delegation in tow. China is Zuma’s last stop on his tour of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries, where he is trying to drum up investment to create job growth at home. He is scheduled to meet Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Vice President and prime ministerial heir apparent Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders, before flying to Shanghai on Thursday to visit the World Expo.

Among the delegation accompanying Zuma is the CEO of South African petrochemicals company SASOL, Pat Davies. Davies is in China to hear the results of a review assessing SASOL’s $10 billion bid to construct a coal to liquid project in partnership with local company Shenhua Ningxia. The deal is said to be the largest single-project joint venture in Chinese history. SASOL’s technology, developed when sanctions forced South Africa to search for alternatives to oil, has an obvious appeal in China, where coal is plentiful but oil scarce.

South Africa and China have a complicated relationship atypical of Chinese relations with the rest of the continent. China is South Africa’s largest trading partner and last year overtook the United States to become the country’s largest export destination. Although much of South Africa’s exports are unprocessed minerals and other raw materials, the two countries are also competitors and partners in the rest of Africa. Chinese bank ICBC owns a 20% stake in South Africa’s Standard Bank, which operates in 18 African countries. South African mobile network operator MTN is Africa’s largest mobile operator, while Chinese company Huawei sells the continent’s most popular handsets. Continue reading »

New evidence of ancient trade links between China and East Africa discovered

Posted by Iain Manley at 6:17 pm In the News No Responses »

Aug 202010

A team of Kenyan and Chinese archaeologists, carrying out a two-month excavation in and around the coastal Kenyan town of Malindi, have unearthed new evidence of 16^th century maritime trade links between China and East Africa. The dig is being carried out at three locations – including the Khatib mosque, where the Islamic Chinese admiral Zheng He is thought to have prayed – and archaeologists hope to find evidence of even older trade links. According to Kenyan newspaper The Standard, the archaeologists are “digging deeper in the hope of retrieving items dating back to 9th and 10th centuries.”

Malindi is one of Kenya’s most popular coastal resorts. It is also known for the nearby ruins of Gedi, a Swahili town that once traded with Venice, Spain and India, as well as China. Once excavations at Malindi are complete, the team will be joined by another ten Chinese archaeologists from Peking University’s School of Archeology and Museology and will begin the underwater excavation of a 600 year old junk, wrecked near the island town of Lamu, also in Kenya. In preparation for this, two officials from the National Museums of Kenya have been trained in underwater archaeology. The Chinese government is reportedly spending 200 million Kenyan shillings (US$2.45 million) on the project.

Zimbabwe Flirts with Yuan

Posted by Iain Manley at 4:03 pm In the News, Translations 4 Responses »

Aug 162010

Robert Mugabe was in China last week. He attended the World Expo’s Zimbabwe Day on Thursday, met Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday and spent the weekend shopping with his wife, Grace, in Hong Kong, where he owns a home and his daughter, Bona, attends university.

The visit coincided with a meeting about economic ties between China and Zimbabwe in Shanghai. The Zimbabwe Commerce Meeting received no attention from Western media, but according to a report in Chinese newspaper First Finance Daily (第一财经日报), Zimbabwe chose the occasion to announce that it is considering using Chinese yuan as legal tender.

The article – translated in full below – highlights just how different Chinese and Western views of events in Africa can be. According to First Finance Daily, Zimbabwe “was once called the breadbasket of Africa and the Zimbabwe dollar had a one-to-one exchange rate with the US dollar. But since 2000, when Zimbabwe implemented its ‘fast lane’ land reform policy, sanctions imposed by Western countries have caused economic collapse.” The contrast between this and an AFP report on Mugabe’s visit, which doesn’t mention the Zimbabwe Commerce Meeting, couldn’t be more stark. As AFP has it, “once a breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe’s food shortages have been brought on by drought and Mugabe’s crippling land-reform programme.”

Hopes of Yuan becoming Legal Tender in Zimbabwe
12 August

During the Zimbabwe Commerce Meeting held in Shanghai this week, Zimbabwe’s tourist department head Hon. Walter Mzembi said he had recently discussed currency issues with Chinese officials. Mzembi stated that changes to Zimbabwe’s currency system are going to be made, including allowing the yuan to circulate and become one of the country’s official currencies . ”I hope that in the future, people in Zimbabwe will be able to use Chinese bank cards and the yuan to make purchases, even take out RMB loans,” he said. Continue reading »