Maravi

Chinese talk, apprehension

Chinese talk, apprehension
By Editor
Thursday July 05, 2007 [04:01]

In life, especially in politics, it is very important to be clear about things. There is so much apprehension about Chinese investment in our country and on our continent - Africa. This cannot just be dismissed without trying to trace what is giving rise to it, its source. Given our historical background, a history of unbridled exploitation and plunder, including slave trade, one can understand this apprehension.

But what is more surprising is that those who have exploited and plundered our countries for centuries, those who have colonised, neocolonised us and humiliated us for all these years are the ones who seem to be more worried about Chinese investment in our countries and on our continent.

But ironically these same nations, these same people are receiving Chinese investments in their countries and are investing heavily in China. Why should they worry so much about our dealings with China? When did they become our protectors, the caretakers of our resources? If it is good for them to receive Chinese investments and to deal with China in all sorts of ways, what is wrong with us doing so? Isn’t it said that what is good for the goose is good for the gander?

Of course Africa has to learn from its past dealings with other continents and other peoples. We have not benefited much from our engagements with other nations and continents. This is the fact we must examine. We must ask ourselves why, why, why? We didn’t even benefit much from the political economy of the Cold War in the way other countries benefited from other continents. Despite our dealings with some Western countries and strong alliances with them during the Cold War, despite even giving them military bases in our countries, we did not benefit anything in the way other countries in South East Asia did. Why? Even those African countries that sided with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries failed to create a Cuba or a Vietnam on our continent. Why?

The countries that colonised us and have continued to plunder our resources did not do so and are not doing so for charity. It is self-interest that is driving them. China is not here for charity either. They are here to secure their present and future supply lines for various materials they need. And we also offer China a potential future market.

As we have stated before, no country in this world can solve all its problems and meet all its requirements by itself. Not even the United States can do so. Every country needs to engage another for supply lines of various materials and markets.

And the United States realises this very well and states it categorically. In March 1998, the United States government made public the “1998 Trade Policy Agenda of the United States” where it was literally indicated that it was set to be “aggressive, directed globally and at all key regions of the world”; that “as the most important and successful economy in the global trading system, the United States is in a strong position to use its powers of persuasion and influence to pursue this agenda”; and that “despite the substantial market openings that have been achieved in recent years, their remain too many barriers to US goods and services exports throughout the world”. Such language is distressing but it is a reality we have to deal with and struggle against.

This is the reality of the world we live in. And one can understand why our people are apprehensive about this apparent outbreak of Chinese investments in our country. Our people have never known any political or economic power that has genuinely worked for them. And truly, for all the respect and trust we have in the Chinese, for all the solidarity and help we have received from them, there is need for us to pay a lot of attention to our economic engagement with them. If we don’t do this, we will not get much out of our dealings with them, out of their investments in our country and our continent. To us, it doesn’t seem we are engaging the Chinese in the most beneficial way. We have continued to extend to them the same unbeneficial arrangements we have had with the West.

Chinese investment in this country is in many respects receiving the same treatment as that we have had with the West which has left our country and our continent poorer. We have continued to place very little value on our natural resources and a much higher value on the capital required to exploit them. We could have gotten into better deals with the Chinese in mining. The Chinese government is still participating heavily in their own country’s economy and the entities investing here are government-owned enterprises. Why can’t our government get into more beneficial joint ventures with Chinese government-owned entities?

The truth is that we have never stopped wallowing in dogma. If we are told private enterprise is the only and sure way to economic development and prosperity, we will follow that religiously or rigidly and start to believe that government has no business in business. If we are told that public ownership is the best and sure way to national prosperity, again, we will follow that blindly and at the total exclusion of private initiatives and participation. There is nothing wrong with the Zambian government going into well-organised mining joint ventures with the Chinese government. What is wrong with our state-owned Zesco going into joint ventures with the Chinese state-owned Sino-Hydro to increase the generation of hydropower in our country? What would be wrong with doing the same with our battered rail system?

There are many possibilities for beneficial business if we engage China intelligently. We have something that China badly needs and if we negotiate well, our country can benefit in a very big way. We can’t continue to deal with China on the same basis as we dealt with the West and its exploitative transnational corporations. If we do so, there is no doubt the ending will be a similar one - China will be our neocoloniser. We don’t think this is the intention of the leadership of that country, of the Chinese Communist Party. But if given a chance, they will take whatever we can give freely for the benefit of their country. After all, they don’t need to take special care because they are not dealing with infants, they are engaging a country that is being governed by well-educated adults.

So it is our duty, the duty of our leaders and our government to ensure that we engage other nations and foreign entities in a manner that maximises the benefits to our country and our people. We shouldn’t forget that whatever we are getting from the West today, our relations with the former colonisers are still distant and filled with rhetoric; they don’t constitute an act of repentance and they aren’t even aimed at making amends. Our lands, the victims of exploitation and plunder, are receiving no solidarity or compensation.

Once again, there is need to promote reflection on the national liberation of our peoples, chained by backwardness and bulkanisation. We haven’t sought to be cruel to anyone. At worst, we are only giving vent to centuries of resentment and inviting other continents, other countries and peoples to join us in seeking mutual understanding. We will be waiting for them here - until the end of time - among the birds, lions and elephants, for them to discover that this is not a zoo but the promised land.

Labels: CHILUBA, CHINESE, EDITORIAL

posted by MrK @ 5:42 PM