"Among the worst employers everywhere"

Via Global Dispatch's Erin Conway-Smith I'm reminded of a report I've been meaning to link to for some time, but have continuously forgotten to do so - apologies! In May, the African Labour Research Network released a great 400+ page report on the labour conditions maintained by Chinese-operated firms in Africa. The report - "Chinese Investments in Africa: A Labour Perspective" - focuses especially on the cases of Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, among the nations where the Chinese presence is most pronounced, and with which trade is particularly high.


Unfortunately for the Chinese, the findings are not at all favorable towards them. Quite generally, the report finds:

Chinese employers tend to be amongst the lowest paying in Africa when compared with other companies in the same sector. In Zambia, for example, the Chinese copper mine paid its workers 30% less than other copper mines in the country. In general, Chinese companies do not grant African workers any meaningful benefits and in some instances ignore even those that are prescribed by law. Wages above the national average were only found at those Chinese companies with a strong trade union presence. Chinese staff members enjoy significantly higher wages and more benefits than their African counterparts.


Collective bargaining hardly takes place in Chinese companies. They resort to union bashing strategies to discourage their workers from joining a trade union. In many instances, Chinese businesses were supported by host governments who defended Chinese investments against the demands of labour. Trade unions see the practices of Chinese companies as a threat to the limited social protection that unions have achieved over the years through collective bargaining.

In Namibia, for instance, some workers are paid $0.55 an hour by a Chinese company that is building the new Works and Transport Ministry headquarters - about half the legal minimum wage of $1.10 per hour for entry-level construction workers. In many cases workers don't wear safety helmets, as they are often required to pay for their own safety equipment - an investment they can ill afford. At a construction company in Malawi, too, workers had to mix cement with their bare hands. Many labour for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. The general work day in much of Africa is 8 hours.


Of course it's difficult to expect high standards of working conditions in Chinese firms in Africa when Chinese firms in China don't fare any better. As I noted nearly a year ago, it's quite difficult to expect Chinese employers to improve labour conditions for foreign nationals working in their firms, when they have yet to do so for their own compatriots. For African states, the solution lies in legally regulating working conditions. But as the South African case demonstrates, where in place even such edicts are being circumvented. Thus while Africa stands to benefit from increased Chinese investment as such, it similarly stands to lose if such conditions continue. Change must occur, the lingering question is how.

Fake drugs in Africa? Don't blame the Indians - at least not entirely

Chinese-made drugs which are dangerous or otherwise fake are evidently being sold in parts of Africa with "made in India" labels, much to the detriment of the Indian pharmaceutical industry's inroads into West Africa. This problem appears to be especially pronounced in Nigeria, where Indian generic drugs are the preferred choice of importers:

Chinese, and now Indian, companies have been accused of selling fake drugs in Nigeria's $298-million pharmaceutical market, nearly 60 per cent of which comprises imports.

Although, the $298 figure looks small, it is attractive to fake drug manufacturers. According to a survey conducted in Nigeria in 2007, fake drugs make up for over 50 per cent of all drug sales in th country. The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, puts the figure of fake drugs circulating in the country at nearly 70 per cent.

[HT: Appfrica]

What's wrong with this picture?

Via Joshua Keating we learn that China's Economic Observer has put together the following map of overseas expansions by CNOOC, CNPC and Sinopec - China's three major oil giants. Click here to access the interactive version, which provides (only some) added information:


Now I don't know about you, but I find this map to be highly inaccurate, and not just because the African countries have been mislabeled. The map grossly under-represents China's oil ventures in Africa; it's quite laughable, really! As Keating aptly observes, Sudan, where CNPC has extensive and very controversial holdings is absent. So is Niger, Gabon, Ethiopia (Sinopec is especially active in both); my goodness, where is Angola? Or Chad, for that matter? Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, and Algeria are all conspicuously absent as well. I really could go on. And while I'm not especially well-versed in China's energy holdings and exploration activities in Latin America, I'd venture to guess that the map greatly underestimates its ventures there, as well.


To be perfectly honest I feel as though I must be missing something; as though the map is intended to highlight specific cases of China's overseas oil activities, for instance, or perhaps is otherwise well outdated. Unfortunately, neither appears to be the case. There's no indication of any singling out of countries, and the sentence which begins "With China's recent $7.2 billion acquisition of oil explorer Addax Petroleum...." indicates that this map is very recent (Sinopec bought Addax in June of this year). So why in the world would the Observer put together such a misguided map? Is the Chinese public so unaware of its country's overseas activities, or do they think we are?

Has China de-industrialized other developing countries?

Via VoxEU Jorg Mayer and Adrian Wood say 'yes':

A common concern is that China’s opening to trade has de-industrialised other developing countries. Their labour-intensive manufacturing has been hit by Chinese competition in their home markets – a complaint often heard in Africa and Latin America – and in export markets, while their primary exports have been pulled up by Chinese demand. This mixture of effects is worrying because industrialisation is vital for development, manufacturing provides jobs, and the ownership of natural resources is often highly unequal – so the net impact of China could be both slower growth and greater inequality in the rest of the developing world.


Standard trade theory is consistent with these concerns. The impact of China on other countries can be interpreted in a Heckscher-Ohlin model as occurring through a shift in world average factor endowments. The comparative advantage of a country depends on its endowments not in isolation but relative to the endowments of all other countries involved in trade. This comparator group was altered by China’s emergence from near-autarky, because of its size and distinctive endowment structure, and hence so was the comparative advantage of other countries.


More specifically, China’s opening to trade effectively lowered the world average land/labour ratio and increased the share of workers with a basic education in the world labour force. The relative endowments of other countries were thus shifted in the opposite directions, which tended to move their comparative advantage away from labour-intensive manufacturing, which requires many workers with a basic education but little land. The corresponding increase in comparative advantage for developing countries was in primary production, which uses a lot of land relative to labour.

Mayer and Wood present data depicting average changes in ratios of labor-intensive manufacturing in primary production in the 1980s and 1990s, and the differences between these decades, for output and two sets of export data. From this data it appears that the bulk of China's impact was concentrated in the 1990s. Figures from Kenya, Mauritius and South Africa further show negative differences between output and export ratios, which is consistent with the expected impact of China proffered by standard trade theory.

Show us the money (for health) !!

Namibia-based AIDS activist group, AIDS & Rights Alliance for Southern Africa, has compiled a creative video campaign to bring attention to the seemingly forgotten 2001 pledge made by African leaders to devote 15% of their national budgets to healthcare. Eight years later, nearly all countries have failed to meet this target.


The ARASA video, "Lords of the Bling (Vol. 1)" (funny because it's true, I suppose!) depicts the amount of treatment that could be paid for with the amount of money spent on extravagant purchases and events by the continent's political leaders. The figures are absolutely startling:




Noteworthy….

China cracks down on civil society, making a case of the Open Constitution Initiative (OCI)

A coffee shortage in Venezuela? (Evidently I can't seem to leave the coffee theme from last week. Apologies.)

Who stereotyped whom? A different perspective on the 'Gates-Gate' controversy

On crime, security and corruption in Africa; new findings from Enterprise Surveys

Diplomacy 101 from Joe Biden. Quite frankly, it just makes me want to cry (and not tears of joy, mind you!)

New Chinese television channel targets North Africa, Middle East

China is continuing to make inroads into Africa, now with a clear view of targeting the continent's Arab population as well as the Middle East more generally. Via the New York Times:

Chinese state television has begun broadcasting an Arabic-language channel for the Middle East and Africa as part of efforts to expand the Communist government’s media influence abroad. The 24-hour channel, which began operating Saturday, will air in 22 Arabic-speaking countries and reach nearly 300 million people, China Central Television said in a statement. The channel “will serve as an important bridge to strengthen communication and understanding between China and Arab countries,” a CCTV vice president, Zhang Changming, said in the statement.

[...] The Arabic channel will carry news, feature stories, entertainment and education programs and will gradually expand its offerings, CCTV said. The network already broadcasts in English, French and Spanish as well as in Mandarin.

Chinese soft power at its finest.

On Jay-Z as the world's greatest hegemon and rapping feuds as exemplars of soft power politics

It really doesn't get any better than this. Marc Lynch, a professor at George Washington University and director of the Institute of Middle East Studies, has taken to explaining international relations via the world of rap:

The way that rappers compete with each other — this is soft power. [...] This is the way you try and make a reputation, try and get what you want, and you have to do it through this very intricate series of alliances.

Particularly telling according to Lynch is the ongoing feud between rapper Jay-Z and up-and-comer The Game:

Jay-Z has been attacking other rappers for using Auto-Tune software, which corrects pitch while singers record. Auto-Tune is widely used in the industry, but Jay-Z is making a call for authenticity.

"He's saying 'these are the rules of the international system. If you want to be a civilized member of our international society, you have to not pursue nuclear weapons,''' Lynch says.

The Game is using the opportunity to tag Jay-Z as old and irrelevant.

The Game, then, is like North Korea or Iran: "He might not win, but he can hurt you if he drags you down into this extended occupation, this extended counterinsurgency campaign." And Jay-Z, a hegemon like the United States, can ill afford to get embroiled in little battles all the time. My goodness. So, then, what's a hegemon like Jay-Z to do? In his full-fledged editorial Lynch proffers a solution:

If he hits back hard in public, the Game will gain in publicity even if he loses... the classic problem of a great power confronted by a smaller annoying challenger. And given his demonstrated skills and talent, and his track record against G-Unit, the Game may well score some points. At the least, it would bring Jay-Z down to his level — bogging him down in an asymmetric war negating the hegemon's primary advantages. If Jay-Z tries to use his structural power to kill Game's career (block him from releasing albums or booking tour dates or appearing at the Grammy Awards), it could be seen as a wimpy and pathetic operation — especially since it would be exposed on Twitter and the hip hop blogs.

The Realist advice? His best hope is probably to sit back and let the Game self-destruct, something of which he's quite capable (he's already backing away from the hit on Beyonce) — while working behind the scenes to maintain his own alliance structure and to prevent any defections over to the Game's camp. And it seems that thus far, that's exactly what he's doing. We'll see if that's a winning strategy.... or if he's just biding his time getting ready for a counter-attack.

A lesson for all of us who thought rap wasn't educational. Happy weekend, everyone!

[HT: Freakanomics]

China-Africa Development Fund expands its African ties

From today's WSJ:

The China-Africa Development Fund, which was founded by state-owned lender China Development Bank Corp., plans to raise $2 billion by November to help expand business links between Africa and China, CDB Vice Governor Li Jiping said.


[...] In an interview on the sidelines of the Australia-China Bilateral Investment Seminar, Mr. Li said the China-Africa Development Fund will raise the money for expansion from Chinese financial institutions, including insurers.


The fund, established in 2007 with an initial $1 billion investment by CDB, had said it aims to eventually increase its total assets for investment to $5 billion. Australia is also a part of CDB's global strategy, Mr. Li said.

Sweet beans of life!

I confess: I'm an addict. I can scarcely get through a day without a cup of coffee. Or two. Sometimes even three. Every morning I make my way to the local coffee shop for my fix. In Oxford, Cafe Nero in Blackwells Bookshop is my cafe of choice. I always opt for a window seat so that I might watch the world go by on Broad as I sip my Americano and peruse the day's news. In Evanston, I found a home in Peet's; the wonderful aroma of coffee brewing hits your nose the moment you open the door. Most recently I discovered the Hungarian Pastry Shop in New York City and am longing to go back. What better way to pass a morning than with a delectable croissant, a perfect cup of coffee and a view on St. John the Divine?


Given my addiction, I can't help but comment on all the coffee related news that I've been stumbling upon recently. Last week I blogged that Starbucks is opening an office in Rwanda, with the hopes of collaborating with local farmers as a way of helping them overcome poverty, and of developing a potentially lucrative export market. According to Appfrica, Africa's first chain coffee factory opened in Uganda just yesterday. The factory is owned by Uganda's Good African Coffee company, which controls a value chain that begins with Ugandan farmers and continues all the way to supermarket shelves. The company has promised 50% of the profits to growers, their families and communities, and further offers training to farmers to help improve the quality and sale value of their crop. What a great initiative to promote local entrepreneurship.


China's coffee market is likewise heating up, with Costa Coffee, 85c and Dunkin Donuts now on the scene. Before, China's coffee market was dominated entirely by Starbucks (and its knock-off, SPR), which is now beginning to lose its grip. Presumably Starbucks is losing its grip in other markets as well, which is why the company has begun an intensive rebranding campaign, and is even considering adding alcohol to its menu. Because the one thing missing in this world is place where you can get free wifi, a bran muffin and a Stroh's.


But who knows: with Tim Horton's now aggressively entering the American market and 85c beginning to dominate in China, a bottle of Stroh's with your latte and muffin may be the perfect marketing pitch. Personally, though, I'd just opt for an Irish coffee. Extra strong, if you please.

Finance in Africa: Looking backwards to move forward

Via VoxEU, Thorsten Beck, Michael Fuchs and Marilou Uy argue that Africa's financial stakeholders - bankers, donors and policymakers - must take the lead in implementing financial sector reforms in a way that maximizes Africa's opportunities:

Although the direct impact of the current crisis in the US and Europe on African financial systems is relatively contained – given that African banks are not as closely integrated in the global financial system as other regions of the developing world and hold most of their assets and commitments on rather than off the balance sheet – indirect effects through reduced real economic activity and reduced private capital inflows caused by reduced risk appetite might very well have negative repercussions for the real and financial sectors in Africa. Critically, the current crisis has put the debate on the appropriate role of government in the financial sector and the benefits and pitfalls of globalisation on policymakers’ agenda again. We will argue that it is important to study carefully past experience both in the region and other parts of the developing and developed world.

Beck et. al briefly expound on various approaches to the role of government in Africa's financial sectors - from activist to modernist, market-developing and market-enabling - and further explore the challenges and opportunities brought with the integration of African banks into international financial markets. Little is offered in the way of policy advice, other than to say that the strains placed on African markets as a consequence of the global market call for "further institution building as well as cautious and context-specific government intervention to help financial market participants expand financial services to the frontier of commercially sustainable possibilities." Yes: Quite right.

TEDGlobal in Oxford

TEDGlobal began in Oxford today, exploring the Substance of Things Not Seen (the theme for this summer's gathering). While I unfortunately cannot be there for what always proves to be a fantastic conference, I intend to keep abreast of the proceedings from afar, as some truly fascinating questions are being tackled by the TEDGlobal speakers. Among them:

  • Is life a mathematical question?
  • Who's defining the new geopolitical map?
  • Can we design the air we breathe?
  • What's the power of music?
  • How does the brain create the mind?

This is, of course, but a small sampling from a very long list, but absolutely intriguing no less! Today's sessions focus on "What We Know," and "Seeing is Believing?" Speakers include young brass virtuoso Matthew White, philosopher Alain de Botton, graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, optical innovator Joshua Silver, and space jumper Steve Truglia, among others.


This diversity of phenomenal speakers is the very thing that makes TED conferences so unique. That, and their distinct ability to create dialogue across many intellectual disciplines. It is, indeed, an approach worth emulating.



photo of Keble College, Oxford, among the TEDGlobal venues

Don't cry for me Latin America. Yet.

While this blog is mostly devoted to issues surrounding the Sino-African partnership, one must not forget that China is similarly active in other regions of the world, most recently Latin America. China's strategies in Latin America seem to differ little from those employed in Africa, with 'oil-for-infrastructure' deals, tech investments, extensive bilateral trade agreements, and the influx of cheap Chinese goods as the wooing tactics of choice. Trade between China and Latin America soared from $10 billion in 2000 to $140 billion in 2008.


As is true of Africa, Beijing's main interest in Latin America is the guaranteeing of access to the region's raw materials - oil, soybeans, copper, iron ore, etc. - to fuel its continued rapid growth. Yet as is also true in Africa, China's ambitions are also grandly geopolitical. According to Tyler Bridges:

China is beefing up its embassies throughout Latin America, opening Confucian centers to expand Chinese culture, sending high-level trade delegations throughout the region and opening the door for ordinary Chinese to visit Machu Picchu, Rio, and other tourism hot spots.

Aiping Yuan came to Rio de Janeiro from Beijing in 1997 on a lark, fell in love with the city, and decided to stay. She studied Portuguese, and when Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made his first visit to China in 2004, she opened a small school in Rio to teach Mandarin.

She began with six students and today has 300, including senior executives at Petrobras, the country's biggest oil company, and Vale do Rio Doce, the biggest mineral producer. Both have growing business with China.

"Chinese is the language of the future for Brazil," Yuan said with a big smile.

Chinese will be the language of more than just Brazil if Beijing's leaders have anything to do with it. As Bridges aptly observes, China is buying zinc from Peru, copper from Chile, and iron ore from Brazil. It's shipping equipment to Brazil, buses to Cuba, clothes to Mexico and cars to Peru. Chinese tech giants Huawei and ZTE are likewise grabbing business from established telecom suppliers across the continent, most prominently in Argentina, Chile and Colombia. Yet while China seemingly has a Latin America strategy (or perhaps a 'developing world' strategy more generally; it's hard to tell), Latin America doesn't appear to have a China strategy.

Writing in his excellent blog, Tom Pellman cites David Shambaugh who notes:

Latin America is acting toward China's expansion in the world in a reactive, disorganized or ad hoc fashion. When I asked Itamaraty (Brazil's foreign ministry) about its strategy on China, I got blank stares. There is no strategy.

Such a lack of strategy indubitably works to the detriment of Latin American states - as it does African nations which similarly lack much in the way of a policy of engagement with the eager Chinese - who stand to gain from Chinese investment. In Latin America, as much as in Africa, there are many benefits to be accrued from recent Chinese interest. Yet without a plan of action, it seems that China will walk away as the sole beneficiary when all is said and done.

New literature on China's expansion into Africa

Serge Michele, a West Africa correspondent for the French newspaper Le Monde and Michel Beuret, Foreign Editor of the prominent Swiss magazine l'Hebdo have recently come out with a new book on the economic partnership between China and Africa. Having just ordered it from Amazon, I'm not in much of a position to offer anything in the way of a review (do stay tuned, though...), but from what I was able to gather from the book's table of contents, as well as Harry Hurt's review in the NYTimes, it does appear quite promising - seemingly offering much greater substantive analysis than most hitherto published books.


From what I can tell, one of my gripes with the book will be its rather generic conclusion that "China's arrival has been a boon for a continent adrift" and that the Chinese have "given Africa a real sense of worth, as much in the eyes of Africans themselves as in the eyes of foreigners." While this is certainly true to a point, I'm still waiting for someone to deliver a much more nuanced analysis of the issue. Who knows, perhaps Michele and Beuret deliver elsewhere throughout what seems to be a worthwhile read on a most fascinating subject (naturally, I'm somewhat biased on the matter...).

Lending a new meaning to the term "south-south cooperation"

David Axe of the War is Boring blog has a column in Wednesday's World Politics Review in which he suggests that Kenya might be funneling arms to South Sudan. Excellent. Well done, Kenya (of course I say this with complete and utter sarcasm).


According to Axe, the Ukrainian-owned vessel, Fania, which was captured by Somali pirates and returned to the port in Mombassa in February, was bound for the breakaway region in southern Sudan. The ship carried 33 Soviet-designed T-72 main battle tanks, plus other arms and ammunition - all of somewhat dodgy origin and ownership:

The Faina shipment apparently represented the third and final installment of a large batch of heavy weaponry for South Sudan, sourced from Ukraine and brokered by Nairobi. In November, the German magazine Der Spiegel claimed it had records proving an earlier shipment of 42 tanks that had largely escaped international scrutiny [...]

If this is indeed discovered to be true, it "would finger the Kenyan government in a sanctions-skirting arms race that some worry could result in another bloody civil warfare in Sudan." Kenyan military support for South Sudan would also put Nairobi at great odds with the U.S., which is one of the country's closest allies.


The Stop Arms to Sudan program of Human Rights First has a database of various countries' arms sales to Sudan between 2004-2006 (if anyone happens upon an updated version, do please let me know!). Not surprisingly, China is the foremost supplier of arms, but if you scroll down a ways you see that Kenya has done its fair share as well. The database is a conservative estimate at best as the data collected is that which the countries have divulged voluntarily (*chuckle chuckle*). The database also fails to specify where in Sudan the arms are being shipped, though it really isn't too difficult to guess.


Perhaps it is somewhat foolish to single out Kenya in such a way, as it is highly plausible that other African states are engaged in similar antics, though perhaps do a better job of remaining under the radar. At the same time, the outing of the Kenya-South Sudan relationship may perhaps do well to serve as a warning to other African countries embroiled in similar engagements. A comment by an Economist reader puts the matter in plain terms: "Kenyan Govt is fishing in a muddy waters. Beware what you do in the neighborhood."

When China rules the world...

Macleans - Canada's national weekly current affairs magazine - has a truly fascinating interview with academic and journalist Martin Jacques on the consequences of the coming global shift in power. The dialogue is particularly interesting because it discusses not only the ways in which China's political ideology will inform its (potential) hegemonic role, but it also does well to emphasize the particular tenets of Chinese culture which permeate its society and governance.


An excerpt:

If we want to try and understand what China’s going to be like, then the best place to start looking is East Asia, because that is China’s own region. China’s culture has had a major influence on the whole region in varying degrees for thousands of years—most obviously in the case of Japan, Korea and Vietnam. It’s a very sophisticated culture from its language to its literature to its food. These are elements of what we’ve termed soft power, and Chinese soft power is going to be hugely influential in East Asia in the future.

In East Asia, and in Africa, and in Latin America....

On China as Africa's biggest arms dealer

I'm currently working on a paper examining Sino-Zambian relations, focusing especially on Chinese activity in Zambia's mining sector. I've been sitting on this project for quite some time, and finally managed to overcome what had been a most serious case of writer's block with the help of a lovely glass of Bandol (Tempier). Ok, fine, two glasses. In any event, while doing a bit of extra desk research, I happened upon an interesting piece in the recent edition of the Jamestown Foundation's China Brief. Author Richard Bitzinger writes:

China is now, on average, the world’s fifth largest arms exporter, after the traditional leading suppliers: the United States, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom. In fact, in 2007 it was fourth in terms of global arms transfer agreements, ahead of France, Germany and Spain.

Nearly all of China’s arms transfers are to developing countries, and in this arena the Chinese defense industry is emerging as a formidable competitor. In fact, China ranked third in terms of arms deliveries to the developing world in 2007. China's largest markets are in Asia, the Middle East, and particularly Africa. In fact, during the period 2004-2007, China was the single largest seller of arms to Africa; and its major customers include Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, Iran, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

Leading Chinese weapons exports (to Africa) include:

  • The K-8 trainer jet: China has exported nearly 250 of these lightweight trainer/attack jets since 2000, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) database on arms transfers. Its biggest client has been Egypt, which bought 120 K-8s, most of which were assembled locally from kits, between 2001 and 2008. Other customers include Ghana, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, while Venezuela is in negotiations to purchase up to 24 K-8s.
  • The F-7MG fighter jet: This aircraft is the export version of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force’s F-7E, itself an upgraded adaptation of the MiG-21. The F-7MG features a larger wing and, reportedly, a British radar. China has sold more than a hundred of these fighters to Bangladesh, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, according the SIPRI Arms Transfers database, since the mid-1990s.
  • The WZ-551 armored personnel carrier: Although not a particularly high-tech system, the WZ-551 is notable for being sold widely around the world, including countries like Argentina, Gabon, Kenya, Kuwait, Nepal, Oman, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Tanzania

It remains difficult to gauge how successful China will be in the global arms marketplace, with countries like the U.S. and Russia out-exporting the country by rather wide margins (in 2007, for example, Russia exported $4.6 billion worth of arms - four times as much as China. Even Germany out-exported China by 60%). Yet China's foothold in the African marketplace appears to be quite favorable. In Zambia, for instance, China's North Industries Corp. (NORINCO) is allegedly in talks to upgrade Zambia's T-59 tanks engines, armor and fire control systems. The Nigerian air force has been eyeing China's K-8 trainer aircraft (Nigeria imported Chinese J-7 fighters in 2006). Zimbabwe is equipped with Chinese K-8 trainers and J-7 fighters, and in early 2009 was negotiating the purchase of one squadron of FC-1 fighters from. Chinese arms now equip Angola, South Africa, Sudan, Algeria, Egypt, Kenya... the list goes on and on.


Chinese arms deals appear to be part and parcel of the "oil-for-infrastructure" deals China continues to strike across the continent. In Angola, for instance, arms are sold in exchange for the country's oil. In Zambia, copper is the currency of choice. While some argue that Chinese arms sales to Africa will drop once China acquires a satisfactory supply of natural resources, such claims are highly dubious. What constitutes a "satisfactory supply" for a country with massive energy demands? What's more, it's rather doubtful that China will be so foolish as to bypass a booming export market. If nothing else, the Chinese are exceptionally savvy businessmen, and arms sales to Africa is a brilliant business opportunity. While China may not be supplanting or joining the U.S. and European states as a large supplier of sophisticated arms on a global scale anytime soon, they have seemingly already done so - and continue to do so - in Africa.

A correction

Much is being made of the Oriental Post, Botswana's first Chinese newspaper, about which I blogged in early June. The surrounding hype is, however, somewhat misleading. Last week, France 24's The Observers ran a story on the newspaper, heralding the arrival of "Africa's first Chinese newspaper." A similar kind enthusiasm was echoed in a post on Appfrica, and picked up by Bill Easterly and Blood and Milk's Alana Shaikh on their respective Twitter pages. My, how quickly news spreads!


Yet while the Post is Botswana's first Chinese newspaper, it surely is not the first in all of Africa. The Western African United Business Weekly, a Chinese newspaper run out of Lagos, Nigeria, has been in circulation since 2005. China Express has been publishing out of Johannesburg, South Africa (a SADC member), since 1994. And there may well be additional Chinese-language papers in other parts of the continent about which we are unaware. The Chinese community has been quite active in Cape Verde since the mid-1990s, for instance; I wouldn't be surprised if they have by now established a foothold in the country's print media.


While the Oriental Post further signals China's growing fascination with the African continent - and indeed the mass migration of Chinese to Africa - it is not novel in any way (save but signaling a significant intensifying of Sino-Botswanan relations). To state otherwise is, unfortunately, quite inaccurate.