China’s Interests in Africa will surely outpace its Values

According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, China’s president, Hu Jintao, has pledged $5 billion in aid to Africa over the next three years, as well as promised to double aid to Africa by 2009. By the end of 2006, China had already invested nearly $8 billion. “Invested” is the key word here. China’s blooming economy doesn’t run on nothing. Africa is an obvious opportunity for China to extract precious oil resources left untapped by Africans themselves.
But there’s a potential problem here. Chinese investment may aid Africans, but if it does, it comes only as a side effect. China’s interests are in mineral and oil reserves, not ensuring the development of a forlorn continent. If sensible, economic motivations purporting to be of humanitarian ends sounds familiar, it should. It sounds a little like colonialism to me. How, exactly, does exporting oil to China aid Africa? It employs a few Africans for a bit. But raw export of any commodity leaves Africa out of the potential profit to be found from the application of further industry to that product.
And I’m not the only who thinks so. Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa, warned fellow African leaders to be weary of a “colonial relationship.”
That does not mean, however, that no good can come from a robust trading relationship between the African continent and China. Both sides surely have much to gain. But with the ghosts of a colonial past lingering in the not-too-distant memories of many African leaders, it’s a wonder more people aren’t more upset about the potentially abusive relationship. Perhaps it is these ghosts that will allow Africa to keep focus on ITS goals, a weary eye on China, and the potential to use Chinese investment as a boon to development from slipping away.