South Africa must accept Linden’s fate

 Posted by at 4:40 pm  Africans in China, In the News  No Responses »
Jan 022012
 

The front pages of South African newspapers over the past few weeks have been dominated by one story – that of the execution of Janice Linden. Three years ago she was convicted of smuggling 3kg’s of tik through China’s Baiyun International Airport, an offence which, in China, carries the penalty of death by lethal injection.

I am going to go on record and say that I have no time for drug mules – admittedly, I do not know of their motives, whether it is for money or for pleasure, but to risk throwing away your life, literally in this case, is nothing short of idiotic.

I do however reserve some sympathy for Janice Linden. The death penalty is a shockingly outdated punishment, one that has rightly been outlawed in most parts of the world. I personally do not believe that any action is justifiably penalised by death.

This is a common view, and understandably news of Linden’s execution has been met with much outrage in her native country. China play an increasingly influential role in not just South Africa, but Africa as well, and thus the connection linking the two countries is growing stronger as each year passes.

Surely then, her fellow citizens fume, we could have put up more of a fight? Linden’s family have expressed their deepest disappointment in the South African government in the way they seemingly idly stood by whilst one of their people was put to death by one of their biggest trading partners.

There have been cases, six in total, where South Africans have been spared the death penalty in China for similar offences – although whether these were via pressure from our government is debatable.

But I think that you could argue that there was not much that could have been done. China is a vastly proud and traditional society, and this is exemplified by the fact that they have kept laws like the death penalty whilst a large part of the world seems to have moved on – in fact, China execute more of their own people, even on a per capita basis, than any other country in the world.

I am not going to pretend that I understand Chinese culture; their motives or their traditions. From our point of view, the execution was handled extremely badly in that she was told a mere few hours before it was to happen, but we live in a completely different society, so we cannot judge and criticise that which we do not understand. Whilst Janice Linden’s execution and the way in which it was carried out might seem gravely harsh to us, it seems perfectly justified to the people of China. That is the world that they, and we, live in.

In short, Janice Linden chose to risk her life, and it just so happens that she must pay the ultimate price because of the place she chose to risk her life in. Whilst we could go on about how our government did nothing to help her, in the end I do not really think there is much they could have done to change the practices of one of the oldest institutions in the world. Janice Linden chose her fate when she decided to smuggle 3kg of tik through Baiyun International Airport, and we, as fellow South Africans, must accept this.

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News roundup: Rands, BRICs and rhetoric

 Posted by at 6:03 pm  China vs. India, China vs. the West, In the News, The Beijing Consensus  No Responses »
Nov 262011
 

According to Standard Bank, South Africa’s top export to its biggest trading partner, China, is its currency, the rand.

In its Africa Macro report released on Thursday Standard Bank noted that China has been purchasing an average of US$1.1 billion per month of physical rand (notes and coins) since November 2010. “China imported US$3.4 billion worth of ZAR in 2010 and another US$10.9 billion in the first three quarters of 2011,” said Standard Bank. Interestingly, the emerging super power has also been buying around US$1 billion worth of Swiss Francs every month.

China is desperately trying to wean itself off the dollar and in the rand it might see a currency it can more easily control. South Africa’s other big exports, which account for almost a fifth of all African exports to China, are commodities. I’m no economist, but demand for a country’s commodities normally pushes the value of its currency up – witness Australia – and by buying both, might China not be creating its own virtuous cycle?

The Chinese bank ICBC, which owns a 20 percent stake in South Africa’s Standard Bank, has opened an office in Cape Town. At the inauguration of the new office, Jiang Jianqing, Chairman and Executive Director of ICBC, said that the office reflects the depth of his company’s commitment to Africa. A report at 4-traders explains:

By the end of September 2011, the two banks had been involved in over 110 cooperative projects, covering multiple areas such as corporate business, settlement and cash management, IT, money market and risk management. The cooperation brought not only a good return on investment, but also a deeper understanding of the African market for ICBC. The total amount of financing agreements signed by ICBC was over USD7-billion, making ICBC one of the most influential Chinese financial institutions in Africa

China-Africa trade volume reached $122.2 billion in first three quarters of 2011, Ghana Business News has reported. It quotes Shen Danyang, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce:

Shen said China has become Africa’s biggest trading partner, with bilateral trade growing at an annual rate of 28% over the past 10 years, adding that the level of trade in 2011 is expected to set a new annual record, as bilateral trade has already almost matched 2010. He said China invested $1.08 billion in non-financial sectors in Africa during the first three quarters of 2011, up 87% from one year earlier.

Simon Freemantle and African Boots contributor Jeremy Stevens, who are both economists at Standard Bank, write that China’s investment in African agriculture is set to intensify. The trend, they note, is not without its perils:

The continent suffers from an acute lack of skills and capital in unlocking its inherent potential. Yet, as has been evident in many of the land leasing deals signed in SSA [Sub-Saharan Africa] over the course of the past decade, too often investments are poorly structured, undervaluing the agricultural assets at stake. Managed well, partnerships with China can be meaningful. However, domestic food security must be placed first.

Meanwhile China Daily reports that Chinese construction companies, who had their fingers burnt in North Africa, are looking at investing in developed economies instead. It quotes Diao Chunhe, chairman of the China International Contractors Association:

Market risks are soaring because of political unrest…Accelerating expansion into high-end markets, such as the US and Europe, while stabilizing our traditional markets, is our main strategy during these turbulent times…The outbreak of the sub-prime crisis in the US, and the debt crisis in Europe, both of which resulted in a shortage of funds in developed economies, mean that we have opportunities to increase market share there.

The Financial Times thinks we should bid farewell to the BRICs, because the term corrals together incompatible political systems, ignores other players – like Indonesia and Turkey – and “now obscures more than it illuminates.”

The Brics caught a tide. The idea has brought deserved fame and fortune to its author Jim O’Neill at Goldman Sachs. But it defies the complexities of the shifts in power and interests in the international system. To lump together China and India, Brazil and Russia is to nourish a narrative that the new global order is best defined as a contest between the west and the rest.

The West seems to agree. In a report on the UN Convention on Climate Change in Durban happening later this month, titled COP17: Redefine rich and poor countries, the Mail & Guardian quotes Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner on climate policies:

We need to discuss whether we can continue to divide the world in the traditional thinking of the North and the South, where the North has to commit to a binding form whereas the South will only have to commit in a voluntary form.

China is unlikely to be persuaded. Its chief negotiator on climate change, Xie Zhenhua, recently met with his BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) counterparts in Beijing, where they no doubt agreed on a common front: making life difficult for America. The US won’t sign the Kyoto Protocol until China agrees to; China won’t sign it until America agrees to. The Middle Kingdom recently edged ahead of the US as the world’s biggest polluter, but says it is still a developing country and as a result can’t afford to be held to the same standards as rich countries. Groupings like BRICS and BASIC help China make this and other arguments, so it will probably see life in the the appellations long after economic analysts declare their passing.

The BRICS are, for example, still opposing foreign intervention in Syria. They released a joint statement on Thursday, saying that “the only acceptable scenario for resolving the internal crisis in Syria is the immediate start of peaceful talks with the participation of all sides.”

In a Daily Telegraph editorial, Damian Thompson, who delights in having been called a “blood-crazed ferret”, has called China’s relationship with Africa not just an example of neo-colonialism, but neo-slavery too:

From a moral point of view, China’s policy towards Africa is despicable. But it’s ingenious, too. Beijing has worked out that, by virtue of being a non-Western power, it can pose as a “developing country” while creating its sub-Saharan satrapies. The anti-racism lobby in the United Nations makes sure that the finger of guilt is pointed firmly at the former colonial powers, who are always happy to put on a display of breast-beating by, say, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Meanwhile, something close to slavery is being quietly reintroduced to the dark continent (which is how China thinks of it).

There are many problems with his narrative, and all narratives like it, but foremost among them is that African people are reduced to a passive, pliable, homogeneous whole. African countries might sometimes get a raw deal from China, but they should take the blame for that too.

You might think Africans would disagree with Thompson, but in a speech yesterday, Zwelinzima Vavi, general secretary of the ANC’s alliance partner COSATU, had this to say:

The scale of the sham of independence of our continent needs to be exposed. Either we export our minerals to our colonial masters, or they control our finances, or both. In some countries, foreign exchange earnings and the operations of their central banks reside with the colonial masters while in others, the mines and strategic industries are owned by colonial masters. In some countries even the land is owned by colonial masters, the very land question that triggered the anti-colonial struggles is now back with a vengeance, threatening livelihoods of many small farmers.

Vavi shrouds who exactly he is referring to in Marxist rhetoric, but this looks like just one item to add to the long list of things on which COSATU and the ANC, which sends its party leaders to Beijing for political education, disagree.

The Lowy Institute is taking your questions about China’s involvement in Africa to He Wenping, Director of African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. It’s a three part interview. Parts one and two have already been published – here and here – with part three scheduled for next week. He Wenping has so far talked about the nature of Chinese aid in Africa and whether India and China are co-operative or competitive powers on the continent.

From Part I:

China’s aid to Africa is based on projects, not budget support. Traditional donors usually put their money into the recipient’s budget, so maybe it’s easier for corruption to happen. So if there’s a plan to build a hospital in a country, the money will not go through that country’s financial system. It will be delivered directly to the company that’s building the project.

And Part II:

India is a democracy, and of course they are also a very heterogeneous society, so how they maintain stability for a long time, how they can balance rich and poor — I think that experience is very attractive to African countries. But I think China’s experience is also unique, because we have made such economic progress in a single generation. There are now seven Special Economic Zones in Africa receiving Chinese aid. We originally planned to set up five, but then Africa countries were quite enthusiastic, so now the total number is seven.

If you have a question for He, send it to blogeditor@lowyinstitute.org.

Finally, Horace Campbell, who is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University, has visited Shaoshan, the birthplace of Chairman Mao. His paean to the Great Helmsman is convoluted, but I can’t help thinking that Comrade Vavi would enjoy it. Here’s his conclusion, in which Campbell informs us, with great insight, that “Mao Zedong was a leader who had embarked on a socialist project.”

Africans can learn a lot not only from China, but also from the rest of East Asia. The principal lesson is that none of these societies have been able to lift the standard of living of the people without clear and strong intervention by the state to direct resources. These Asian societies eschewed the crude and vulgar ideas of neoliberal capitalism, and even if they followed a capitalist path, insisted on following paths consistent with their cultural realities. Mao Zedong was a leader who had embarked on a socialist project. Those sections of the political leadership who opened up to the West so that China became a reservoir of cheap labour are now faced with the daily information of the deepening depression and the rise of conservative and semi-fascist individuals and parties all over Europe. There is still a left section of Chinese society and it is my view that the trip to the birthplace of Mao was embedded in that ongoing debate on the paths for China in the 21st century.

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China’s health diplomacy in Africa

 Posted by at 3:19 pm  China vs. the West, In the News  No Responses »
Nov 262011
 

China’s contribution to various medical aid projects is an aspect of its involvement in Africa that is often overlooked. Recognised as a form of soft power, sometimes dubbed “health diplomacy”, it is structured differently to the network of NGOs and charities that citizens of other countries have established, independent of their governments. Instead, China is one of the only countries that sends government-paid medical workers to Africa for extended periods.

This form of soft power is – perhaps surprisingly – not as new as China’s commercial interest in the continent. The first Chinese medical team arrived in Africa in 1963, to assist in Algeria, a brand new nation that urgently required health care.

Now that China has the financial means – and fewer governmental channels than it did in Mao’s era – it provides most of its assistance in financial terms. The figures – as is often the case with China – are impressive. China’s worldwide aid contribution totalled US$39 billion since the country first launched its foreign aid program in 1950, an article in The Guardian reports. Other estimates indicate that the amount of aid provided doubled between 2006 and 2009 alone. But what exactly constitutes aid, and where have the majority of the billions been spent in recent years? An article published in Wharton Business School’s online journal reports on the use of foreign aid funds:

“More than 40% [of foreign aid funds] were allocated to “aid gratis,” or grants, while the other 60% were distributed between interest-free loans and concessional loans. Concessional loans are used to finance major capital projects with the aim of generating profit. The money is used in the construction of transportation, communications and electricity infrastructure, while less than 9% has been given to developing oil and mineral resources, writes The Guardian. The money for the concessional loans is raised on the market by the Export-Import Bank of China, while grants and interest-free loans are distributed from government finances.”

These are the same loans that allow China to negotiate for the right to resource extraction at extremely favourable rates, but the conditions of Sino-African business arrangements are a separate matter. It is the categorisation of concessional loans as “aid” that is misleading — and worrying. In the context of somewhere like Zambia – where a large proportion of the population is concerned about the extent and nature of Chinese involvement in their country – applauding China for “aid contributions” when more than half of these funds are used for making hardnosed business deals is extremely problematic.

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Overlapping interests encourage U.S and Chinese collaboration in Africa

 Posted by at 9:36 pm  In the News  No Responses »
Nov 252011
 

There is no denying China’s increasing influence in Africa, whether it is beneficial to both parties or not. It has been largely assumed that China’s involvement in the continent is in direct competition with Western – and specifically United States – involvement in Africa. This is not necessarily the case though, as emphasized by several senior U.S officials. In fact, statements from these officials generally reflect a desire to engage with China in Africa in a positive way.

It is firstly important to note, as stipulated by Senator Chris Coons, that the U.S. and the Chinese have fundamentally taken on different roles in Africa: 70% of Chinese assistance to Africa comes in the form of roads, stadiums and government buildings, whilst a similar proportion of U.S. aid is focused on the war against disease.

Statements in favour of bilateral cooperation in Africa are based on the theory that where U.S. and Chinese interests overlap, there can be cooperation. Both advocate the importance of political stability, encourage African economic development and are supportive of UN and African Union peacekeeping operations in the continent. Perhaps most importantly, both the United States and China seek access to African raw materials, particularly oil.

There are, naturally, obstacles that need to be overcome. The U.S. and China have had differing philosophies toward governance in the past, resulting in a sense of mutual mistrust and suspicion. Possible collaboration between the world’s economic powerhouses has also left many African countries unable to see past the possibility that they might be ganged up on.

David H. Shinn writes that there are several areas in which the U.S. and China can collaborate. These include peacekeeping operations, as well as concerted efforts in the healthcare sector to counter the colossal threat of disease. U.S and Chinese interests in Africa will continue to overlap, and this will open the door to possible coordinated diplomatic engagement. Once pride is put aside, the three parties in question, can surely only benefit, both economically and politically, from this proposed collaboration.

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Chinese companies take more responsibility in Africa

 Posted by at 1:11 am  China vs. the West, In the News  No Responses »
Nov 042011
 

There has been consistent criticism of Chinese employers in Africa. The commonly held perception is that Chinese companies fail to provide enough job opportunities for locals and rarely try to ease the social problems that suffocate African countries; one just has to look at Michael Sata’s recent electoral success in Zambia as proof of the unrest that the Chinese can cause amongst locals.

The China Road-Bridge Company (CRBC) is an exception. The CRBC has made significant progress in recent years, writes Li Lianxing, by gradually improving its labour relations. It has also indicated that it will implement long-term social programs in Kenya, which is just one of the countries in which it operates.

The statistics tell a favourable story. The ratio of Chinese to local employees is about 1 to 15; at one particular project there are 1,371 Kenyan employees and just 45 Chinese staff. The locals are not restricted to menial work and some are technical staff or occupy management positions.

In addition to these increased job opportunities, Chinese companies – and not just the CRBC – have also shown a willingness to take a more hands on approach in countries like Kenya, through long-term social programs. The primary focus of these social programs is primary and middle schools, as well as a local orphanage.

Jiang Yu claims that Chinese companies as a whole have created 350,000 job opportunities in Africa, and criticism aimed at these companies is based on the activities of just a few corporations. It seems that co-operation between China and Africa is improving, and becoming more mutually beneficial, but it whether or not perceptions of Sino-African relations might start to mend remains to be seen.

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The Chinese community in Laos

 Posted by at 12:17 pm  In the News, Interviews  No Responses »
Nov 022011
 

Mrs Fan making dumplings at Sanjiang
Laos is obviously not in Africa, but in its relationship with China, the smallest economy in Southeast Asia closely resembles an African state. It has minerals and timber but none of  infrastructure and skills it needs to get these to market. Its economy is, in fact, so badly underdeveloped that it is on the United Nation’s list of the world’s least developed countries, but there are plans to change this, and Chinese investment and Chinese skills are a large part of them. China’s government is building a high-speed railway through the country that will eventually connect Beijing to Singapore and its people are flooding in. There are now Chinese casinos on the Mekong and communities of Chinese people throughout the country.

On a recent visit to Laos’ capital, Vientiane, I met some of the Chinese people who have set up small businesses in the city. Their motives for travelling to Vientiane must, I think, resemble the motives of Chinese people in Kinshasa and Lagos and Cape Town, who I am yet to meet, so I’m posted an excerpt from part one of my article on the Chinese of Vientiane here:

Sanjiang was as uniformly drab inside its mall as it was outside, viewed from the parking lot. The vast, perfectly square indoor space was divided into identically-sized square shops by chipboard walls and glass fronts. All the passageways were perfectly straight; they ran right through the building at regular intervals and had the same floor tiles as the shops. It should have been an easy, logical space to navigate, but because so many of the shops were decorated and stocked without imagination or differentiation, we had trouble finding a landmark and, once or twice, got lost.

Almost all the businesses inside and out were owned and staffed by new arrivals from the mainland. We met a handful that afternoon and more when we returned, on three separate occasions, to write a guide to Vientiane’s new Chinatown. There were people from Zhejiang and Jiangsu selling domestic appliances and electronic gadgets, along with jade dealers from Yunnan and a range of entrepreneurs from Hunan; there were restaurants owned by people from Heilongjiang and Liaoning up north and people from crowded Sichuan with a finger in everything. There were tailors from Laos too; they had given up on Vientiane’s medieval Talat Sao Market and seemed to be doing good business here, amongst the Chinese at Sanjiang.

It was possible, after a while, to generalise about the motives and opinions that held this community of émigrés together. Nobody was here for long and everybody considered life in Laos a hardship. There were varying degrees of interest in Laos’ culture and its people, and the Chinese were apparently quick studies when they decided to learn to speak Lao – but only a few ever did. We were told again and again that Laos was undeveloped: it was luòhòu, backward, but the description was never entirely negative. It was why the Chinese had come. The people here seemed to feel that they had missed the boat in China. Its economy was already too advanced to continue lifting up people like them, but the same kind of growth might soon come to Laos, and when it did they could get in at the ground floor.

Development was a national obsession in China. It was how the government measured its success and what ordinary people liked to discuss. It was among the first abstract Chinese words I learnt to recognise, because the taxi drivers and teachers I interacted with excused China’s embarrassments by saying that it was still a developing country and wondered if South Africa was a developing country too. The Chinese idea of development was now being exported with its people, into a culture with different obsessions, where it might not take such a firm hold.

You can read the whole of part one at Old World Wandering, my overland travelogue, and choose to notified when part two is posted.

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Zambia’s future with China

 Posted by at 1:07 pm  In the News  No Responses »
Oct 042011
 

On 20 September 2011, the Zambian people elected Michael Sata as their president, marking a milestone in the country’s relationship with China. Sata is opposed to the influence that China has in Zambia, while his opponent, the incumbent Rupiah Banda, has presided over an unprecedented expansion of Chinese interests in the African country, and is even suspected of accepting funding from China for his 2011 election campaign.

President Sata’s populist campaign took a strong anti-China stance. The people of Zambia are disenchanted by the role the Chinese have been playing in the country, with many feeling that Chinese expatriates are coming into the country and taking jobs that Zambians could be doing. Mr Sata has already made his feelings known to the Chinese Ambassador, ”We welcome your investment but as we welcome your investment, your investment should benefit Zambians and not the Chinese,” he said in a official statement.

It will be interesting to watch relations between China and Zambia over the next few months, as well as the evolution of Chinese foreign policy elsewhere, because this is also not the only case where China grip on Africa appears to have loosened. In Libya, oil contracts made under Gadaffi are being reassessed, and there is every indication that China could lose out there as well.

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Chinese investors in Zambia told to play by the rules

 Posted by at 12:54 pm  In the News  No Responses »
Oct 042011
 

The recent presidential elections in Zambia saw the emergence of a familiar face, Michael Sata, who was sworn in as the country’s new president after three failed attempts. This change in fortune for the former British Rail worker was largely down to his much-publicised stance on Chinese investment in Zambia, as he looks to put an end to the ease with which Chinese investors have torn through the country’s resources – particularly copper – over the last few years.

As the Telegraph’s Southern African correspondent Aislinn Laing put it, the former Zambian President Rupiah Banda “made life as easy as possible for the Chinese,” introducing policies that cut the windfall tax on mine earnings and other investor-friendly legislation. Sata’s anti-Chinese rhetoric, though less pronounced than in previous years, reflected the mood within the Zambian population, particularly the largely unemployed youth.

There are few places where its [China’s] presence is felt more than Zambia, where Chinese investment in agriculture and the country’s bountiful copper mines exceeded $1bn in 2010…The Chinese claim they have created as many as 150,000 new jobs and point to investments in infrastructure as proof they are giving back…But there have also been accusations that Chinese businessmen in Zambia act with impunity – and treat local workers badly with poor pay and working conditions. Anger boiled over into protests last year when two Chinese managers shot and injured 13 workers at a coal mine…With two thirds of Zambia’s population still living on less than $2 a day, dismay is growing at his [Banda’s] perceived failure to make the relationship work for his countrymen…Mr. Sata, although toning down his anti-Chinese rants for this election … has pledged to reinstate the windfall tax to combat the problem…The affect that pledge has had in some of the country’s poorest slums was evident yesterday, where crowds of youths rampaged through the streets ripping down posters of Mr. Banda and chanting for change.

Change is indeed what the Zambian population got, as the election, a supposed ‘referendum on China,’ saw Sata receive 43% of the votes, with Banda receiving 36%. Sata, as expected, has immediately begun his attempts to reduce Chinese exploitation of his copper-rich country. He announced that China would have to play by the rules, through employing more Zambian workers and limiting the number of people the Chinese investors bring to Zambia.

This leaves the door open to continued Chinese investment in Zambia, and with Sata in charge, the African country might be able to strike a more balanced deal with Chinese companies, and better use the promise of Chinese investment to improve the lives of its people.

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China Faces Exclusion from post-Gaddafi Libya

 Posted by at 2:06 pm  In the News  No Responses »
Sep 072011
 

As Muammar Gaddafi’s autocratic stronghold over Libya nears its end, China is at risk of being locked out of the oil-rich country by its prospective new rulers, the rebel Transitional National Council (TNC). According to Middle East watcher James Dorsey, China’s support of Gaddafi as well as its role in obstructing the release of Libya’s frozen assets has jeopardised its future in the country. “China has scored two near fatal own goals in the race for influence and lucrative contracts in oil-rich post-Gathafi Libya,” writes Dorsey.

A document made public over the weekend contains evidence that China was preparing to supply weapons to the Gaddafi regime in July of this year, in violation of United Nations sanctions. Adding fuel to the fire, the head of the TNC, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, has accused China of blocking the release of Libya’s frozen assets. Along with the disclosure of the weapons deal, the accusation indicates that China is at a disadvantage as it competes with Russia, India, South Africa and Brazil to repair strained relations with Libya’s new rulers.

China has yet to officially recognize the TNC, but has recently sought to upgrade its relations with the rebels. These efforts will be made far more difficult by the four-page document found by Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail, which shows that state-controlled Chinese arms manufacturers were prepared to sell weapons and ammunition worth at least $200-million to the Mr. Gaddafi. TNC officials said the documents explained the origin of brand new weapons captured on the battlefield by the rebels.

The document reports on meetings in Beijing beginning on July 16 between Gaddafi security officials and representatives of three state-controlled weapons manufacturers – China North Industries Corp. (Norinco), the China National Precision Machinery Import & Export Corp. (CPMIC), and China XinXing Import & Export Corp. The Chinese companies offered to sell their entire stock to Gaddafi’s representatives, and promised to manufacture more supplies if necessary.

In a bid to keep the door open to the rebels and retain a bargaining chip, China agreed last week to the release of $15 billion of the total $170 billion in Libyan assets frozen by the international community. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhai Jun, speaking after a meeting in Paris last week with the TNC’s number two, Mahmud Jibril, said that “China is ready to grant reconstruction aid to Libya… and hopes that the TNC will take into account China’s concerns, respect its commitments and guarantee the interests of Chinese business interests in Libya.” China’s trade ministry estimates that China has 50 large-scale projects in Libya worth some $18.8 billion and it evacuated an estimated 36,000 Chinese workers from the country at the beginning of the conflict.

As the rebel TNC edge closer to full control over Libya, they appear to be distancing themselves from those who helped sustain the Gaddafi regime. Although China has made moves to rectify their relationship with the rebels, they are far behind the likes of Russia, and a senior Libyan oil official has warned that countries who are found to have been involved in “corrupt practices” during the Gaddafi era will be punished when post-Gaddafi reconstruction contracts are awarded.

It seems that China, so prominent in Africa in recent times, is at risk of having to take a backseat to a new wave of investment into “some of the world’s most important oil and gas reserves”, and the country’s policy of non-intervention, which has done more harm than good in this case, might well have to be rethought.

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A challenge to the developed world to reduce emissions

 Posted by at 2:49 pm  China vs. the West, In the News, The Beijing Consensus  No Responses »
Aug 282011
 


On Friday, China, South Africa, Brazil and India all called on developed and highly industrialised countries to make greater efforts to reduce their emissions. The call comes a few months before the United Nations climate summit, which will be held in Durban, South Africa, this November. The meeting will focus on the extension of the Kyoto Protocol targets that are supposed to be met next year, as well as other plans to reduce global emissions.

The success of the Kyoto Protocol is doubtful, because neither China nor the USA has signed the agreement, even though the two countries are the world’s two heaviest polluters. UN statistics from 2007 show that the percentage increase in CO2 emissions between 1990 and 2007 has been greatest in Brazil, China, South Africa and India, especially when compared to developed industrial countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom. China’s percentage increase, for example, was 165.7%, whereas the United States increase was only 20.2%.

Are these developing nations trying to divert the attention away from their poor attempts at reducing emissions? Or do they genuinely believe the responsibility to reduce global emissions rests on the shoulders of the developed world?

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