China, seeking oil and foothold, brings funds for Africa's riches
KIGALI, Rwanda -- What may be Rwanda's best road snakes through Nyarutarama, a recently constructed neighborhood that ranks among the toniest in this very poor country.
Downtown, Rwanda's diplomats work in an unusually well-constructed building that contrasts with the decrepit structures nearby. A short distance away, next to the prime minister's office, crews are putting the finishing touches on a convention center.
All three are "gifts of the Chinese government," said Donald Kaberuka, Rwanda's finance minister. And unlike aid flowing from Washington, Paris, or London, this assistance comes with no messages about democratization or respect for human rights. "It's a different way of doing business," Kaberuka said recently, with more than a hint of satisfaction.
Through a mix of development aid, private investment, and high-level political attention, China is becoming a major player in Africa, according to African officials and Western diplomats.
With its billion-plus people and surging economy, the world's most populous nation seems to be casting an eye toward Africa's bountiful natural resources -- above all crude oil -- to preserve its rising standard of living.
"It's about feeding their gigantic economy," said Walter Kansteiner, who until last year was the US assistant secretary of state for African affairs. Even tiny, landlocked Rwanda factored into this calculation.
While China was financing projects in Kigali, Rwanda was a major player in the war over the rich resources of the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa's third-largest country.
Now, China has added attention to Africa, and is chipping away at the post-Cold War monopoly of the former European colonial powers and the United States, African officials say.
The visit early this month of China's president, Hu Jintao, to Algeria, Egypt, and the small West African nation of Gabon, was a major event on the African diplomatic calendar. Hu, on only his third trip outside China since he assumed office in March 2003, made the case for a new phase of Chinese-African relations.
In oil-rich Gabon, Hu told the parliament that his country would extend aid to African nations "without any political conditions."
"Our economic cooperation in the future could focus more on infrastructure, agriculture, and resources development, and we shall step up our mutually beneficial cooperation to promote common development, thus making both sides winners," he said. A standing ovation ensued.
The new Chinese policies also buttress China's noneconomic interests, notably its longstanding position, accepted by most other nations, that Taiwan is an integral, though renegade, part of China. Numerous African countries have endorse this "one-China" policy under Beijing's prodding.
Hu's Gabon speech cemented a sea change in Chinese policy, according to Nicholas Lardy, a China specialist at the Institute for International Economics in Washington, D. C. In the 1970s, China left its mark on Africa with such projects as the huge Tanzania-Zambia railway, which the communist government financed to relieve Zambia's dependence on white-ruled South Africa. Denunciations of Western imperialism were then the order of the day.
By the 1980s, China had embarked on free-market reforms, and almost all the aid to Africa had dried up. The aid has risen sharply in the past few years, as has private investment that aimed for profits -- and for a stable supply of resources.
"The emphasis is completely different today," Lardy said.
Tanzania's president, Benjamin Mkapa, described China's strategy in a 2002 speech with a proverb from his own country: "Those who arrive at the spring first drink the purest water."
China provided $1.8 billion in development aid to Africa in 2002, according to official Chinese statistics. This figure was dwarfed by $12.4 billion in two-way trade in 2002, a number that is expected to grow by 50 percent when final 2003 figures are tallied.
The Chinese have financed numerous attention-grabbing projects on the continent, such as administrative buildings in Gabon's capital of Libreville and in the Ivory Coast, as well as an airport terminal in Algeria and communications networks in Ethiopia.
Oil, however, plays the most significant role. Last year, according to international statistics, China surpassed Japan as the second-largest oil importer after the United States. For a time last year, China surpassed the United States as the chief buyer of crude from Angola, Kansteiner said.
Shortly before Hu arrived in Gabon,
In 2002,
Investment in other sectors, such as agriculture and engineering services, also abounds. China's premier, Wen Jibao, announced at a business symposium in December in Ethiopia that China would continue to encourage business with Africa, without regard to political considerations.
