Dr George Ayittey on China (France) and Africa

SOURCE

The write-up below was posted on an online forum in response to a discussion about what China wants in Africa and how Africans should view this new pragmatic "friendship". Dr. Ayittey, the author, is a professor at Howard University and a respected academic and published author. His works includes Africa Unchained, Africa Betrayed, and other books and articles.

I have Dr. Ayittey's permission to post the article. I have taken the liberty of editing out direct references to the participants in the argument. Other than that, the article is almost unchanged.

Read on...I promise you will not be bored.

[L]et’s stop being stupid by not learning from Africa’s own history.You may forgive what happened in the past but that doesn’t mean you forget about it.

You operate from an “anti-white, anti-imperialist and anti-colonial paradigm.” In your scheme of things, the only enemies of Africa are the white devils, who colonized and exploited Africa and continue to do so. Therefore, you operate from the premise that anything or any action that
defeats or thwarts the expansionist designs of the white devils in Africa must be good for the continent.

Some of us keep telling you that it is true white devils colonized, enslaved, and exploited us in the past and continue to do so. But your paradigm is too narrow and has been rendered obsolete by the turn of events in post-colonial Africa. While you only see white devils, many Africans also [see] non-Western devils and even black devils. To refuse to see these other devils is to suffer from “intellectual astigmatism.”

You have been told time and time again that throughout its history, Africa has been a playground where all sorts of FOREIGN entities competed to advance THEIR interests, not those of the African people. They came in all sorts of colors. The Brits, the French, the Portuguese, the Belgians, the Americans, the Soviets, the Arabs, the Chinese, etc. In my view, the most stubborn were the Portuguese. They had no intention of granting their African colonies independence. The Belgians were probably the most contemptuous of their colonial subjects and imposed the most stringent conditions on them. The African could not travel in the Congo without a permit, possess firearms, or drink anything stronger than beer. He could become a carpenter or a mechanic, but not an
engineer. He could be a bishop, a journalist, an accountant, a medical assistant, a teacher, a civil servant, or a druggist, but not an architect or an attorney. By the 1930s, there were several lawyers in British and French West Africa, but not a single one in the Congo. To the Belgians, lawyers meant politics, and politics would instigate demands for political rights outlawed for the Africans.

The Brits were more pragmatic and flexible, seeing the eventual grant of independence to their African colonies. In fact, in 1843 the African Committee of the British House of Commons passed a resolution expressing Britain's reluctance to further engage in colonial affairs. According to
Boahen and Webster (1970), the British resolved that their future policy in Africa "should be to encourage in the natives the exercise of those qualities which may render it possible for us more and more to transfer to the natives the administration of all Governments, with a view to our
ultimate withdrawal from all, except probably Sierra Leone" (p. 210). Of course, all that changed when intense commercial competition among Europeans led to the Berlin Conference in 1888.

When it came to defending its interests in Africa, the French were the most ferocious. And Frech economic interests in Africa are vast. Twenty percent of France's oil came from West Africa. The Ivory Coast, for example, buys 40 percent of its imports from France and the French own a third of the country's manufacturing industries.

In 2002, when Ivorian government planes accidentally dropped bombs on rebel positions, killing three French peacekeepers, France sent in war planes to destroy Ivory Coast’s ENTIRE air force! The French would viciously defend their language and culture. They never equated decolonization with retreat. Charles de Gaulle, assisted by a handful of competent and ruthless men, managed an incredible sleight of hand: not a termination of France's control over its former African colonies, but a transformation of its control into something quite original -- a community of nations, sharing one currency, that was tied to France economically, politically, culturally and, of course, militarily.
African children were taught that their ancestors were Gauls and that the deserving among them would gain French citizenship.

France left hundreds of officials in Africa as advisers. Behind the doors of many key ministries in the Ivory Coast and Senegal or Gabon, discreet but powerful French officials kept a close eye on policy. The French also sent teachers to Africa and brought African students and civil servants to France for training. France's primacy as an external actor in central and western Africa thus continued largely unabated after colonialism. In fact, in 1993, there were more French citizens --
about 100,000 -- in post-colonial Africa than at independence.

The French did not hesitate to remove or install African despots who did not serve to serve their interests. After 1960, the French intervened on many occasions to prop up unpopular African regimes against internal dissatisfaction and disorders. The most notorious such occasion was in
Gabon in 1964, when French troops were used to reinstate President Mba after a coup. Noting that the French did not intervene to save President Youlou in Brazzaville in 1963, critics charged that intervention was predicated on mineral wealth. (Gabon is rich in oil.)

Another instance was in May 1991, when 9 million rounds of ammunition arrived in Cameroon on a ship from France, destined for the authoritarian government of President Paul Biya. The ammunition helped Biya brutally suppress political opponents, enabling him to win the October 1992 presidential election in a vote that observers said was fraudulent. Two months later France gave Cameroon FF600 million [$110 million] in new loans. In May 1993, Mr. Biya was welcomed in Paris by
both Mr. Mitterand and the new French prime minister, Edouard Balladur. The French were also singularly culpable in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The Hutu-dominated government of Juvenal Habyarimana was French-speaking. Paul Kagame and his Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) trained in Uganda, an English-speaking country, and were closing in. Miffed that Rwanda would become an English-speaking country, panicky French officials provided aid and ammunition to the Hutu government. In fact, it was claimed that Habyarimana’s plane was piloted by French officers. And after 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered, the French provided “safe passage” to the genocidaires to escape to the then Zaire, another French-speaking country. Afraid that the current commission of
enquiry would expose French involvement, a panicky French judge seeks to indict President Kagame on “war crimes.”

Disguised by bombastic gushing of "cooperation, " France's real intention, however, was to protect its economic interests and gain access to Africa's minerals. For centuries, the French have always had this thing against “Ango-Saxons.” Driven by a chimerical belief in their cultural superiority, the French had always wanted to create a “La Grande France” globally – a comity of French-speaking nations with a French culture that can flex its power at the United Nations. France has always regarded its francophone "commonwealth" in Africa as part of its ticket to world-power status. Since General de Gaulle's time, French presidents have maintained direct personal links with African heads of state, appointing a Mr. Africa as personal fixer and emissary (President Mitterrand sent his son). French officials, sometimes seconded from Paris ministries, sit behind the thrones of many African leaders. French political parties receive donations from African leaders; French companies, especially oil ones, are given extraordinary privileges in African states; French arms protect African allies. And aid has flowed freely. In 1993, France's budget for overseas aid was $7.9 billion. The
French did everything they could to thwart “Anglo-Saxon” designs in Africa.

[I]f you went by your defective paradigm or the
fallacious notion that “the enemy of my enemy must be my friend” then
the French in Africa should be your darling.

China too has been an active player in Africa in the post-colonial
period. It sought to win adherents to the Chinese brand of socialism.
Zhao Ziyang, China's foreign minister in the early 1960s, reminded
African leaders of the presence of Chinese coolies in Africa. (Britain
had rounded up more than 60,000 coolies at the beginning of the century
to work in South African mines. Ten years later, when their labor was no
longer needed, they were deported with little or nothing to show for
their suffering.) As members of the Third World, united in poverty,
China and Africa were identical, Ziyang once declared.

China's conception of the world was tripolar: the United States, the
Soviet Union, and the Third World. In the postcolonial era China viewed
the Third World as an adjunct of the West. China competed with the
Soviet Union to recruit the allegiance of the African nations by
supporting their liberation movements. In the early phases, China was
the more aggressive, revolutionary force. The Chinese trained and armed
liberation movements in both colonial and independent African countries.
At the same time, denouncing Moscow as reactionary and revisionist,
China also strove to provide Africa with more nonmilitary aid than the
Soviet Union offered. Like the emerging states of Africa, China was a
Third World country, and its revolution was a model for all Third World
revolution, Ziyang claimed.

Lin Biao, Mao's designated successor, noted that China's revolution was
won when the Communist Party mobilized the peasants of the rural areas
to encircle the cities of China. Similarly, he viewed the Third World as
rural areas, and the West, to which it was attached, as the cities. The
Chinese global revolutionary strategy was to mobilize these rural areas
to encircle the cities. In reality, however, the driving forces behind
China's engagements in Africa had little to do with Africa.

Like Moscow's, Peking's interests in Africa were primarily extraneous to
Africa. The first of these concerns was to seek international
recognition for Mao's communist regime and, more specifically, votes at
the United Nations which would be cast in favor of the transfer of the
permanent Chinese seat in the Security Council from Taiwan to China
proper.

A second concern, which arose when Sino-Soviet friendship turned into
Sino-Soviet rivalry, was to make trouble for the Russians. The conflict
between Peking and Moscow, unlike the [ideological] alliance between
them, could be furthered in Africa.

China's perception was that Moscow, not Washington, was its principal
enemy. Its strategy was therefore to weaken social imperialism at the
expense of monopolistic capitalism. West Africa observed that "in
Africa, China increased assistance to old friends such as Tanzania and
Zambia. The 2000km Tan-Zam railroad was meant to overshadow the
Soviet-built Aswan High Dam in Egypt. China also made friends with old
enemies such as Mobutu, helping him during the Shaba uprising in
1978-79; in 1980 they helped him build a naval base at Kinkuzu in
southern Zaire to threaten Angola" (Aug 15, 1988; p. 1473).

China's fortunes in Africa quickly turned into mirages, however. At
first, China's anti-colonial stance was welcomed by African liberation
movements. But as independence was gained, China's emphasis on
subversion and its intense enmity toward the Soviet Union became less
and less appealing or relevant to Africans. In fact, as early as 1963
Julius Nyerere of Tanzania complained of a new scramble for Africa
between the Soviet Union and China. Because their actions were
anti-Soviet rather than pro-African, the Chinese themselves did not
achieve much by way of influence.

Furthermore, China was no less immune to blunders than the Soviets. Less
wisely than the Soviets, China meddled in Burundi ethnic feuds. In 1963
China backed the Tutsi expedition by training a number of Tutsi in
guerrilla warfare in China. The subsequent massacres in Burundi earned
China much opprobrium. China also supported the Biafran secessionists in
Nigeria's civil war (1967 to 1970) simply because Moscow backed the
Federal Government of Nigeria. Similarly, in Angola, China supported the
FNLA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola) because Moscow was
backing the ruling MPLA.

In Mali and Congo-Brazzaville, China made some headway. But a spate of
military coups brought to power new rulers distrustful of China. Only in
Tanzania did China achieve some diplomatic and ideological success.
China agreed to fund and build the 1,200-mile Tan-Zam railway line at a
cost of 166 million pounds sterling, free of interest. The railway was
both an engineering and a political achievement. It was completed two
years ahead of schedule and was much touted as a model of what foreign
aid could do for Africa. But it was one thing to build the railway and
quite another to run it efficiently. Maintenance was poor, services
degenerated, and the Dar es Salaam terminal became chronically clogged
to the point of immobility. Although the Chinese had nothing to do with
these shortcomings, their reputation suffered.

Fast forward to 2006: China’s increasing involvement in Africa should be
viewed against this backdrop. Despite the euphonious verbiage about
“cooperation”, “equal terms,” and “altruism,” the real intentions of
China are threefold. The first is to gain access to Africa’s resources
by signing with a bow sweetheart deals with African despots. The second
is to canvass for African votes at the United Nations in its quest for
global hegemony. In this sense, the Chinese are no different from the
French. The third is to seek African land to dump its surplus
population. Chinese communes are springing up in Namibia, Zambia,
Nigeria and other African countries. The Chinese have succeeded in
getting African states to accept large numbers of Chinese experts and
workers as part of their investment packages: 28 "Baoding villages" have
been established, each housing up to 2,000 Chinese workers, in various
parts of Africa. But the Chinese are not the problem.

The real problem was the retinue of clueless African clods, who attended
Chopsticks Conference at Beijing in October. “Clueless” because that
was no Berlin Conference for sure. No European powers were present; only
one Asian power, China. And no Maxim gun was needed. But lying
prostrate at China’s feet were 40 African heads of state, offering
themselves for voluntary economic enslavement. Disgusting.

Elementary principles of demand and supply suggest that that was a
buyer’s market. When 40 desperate suppliers are competing for one
buyer’s attention, the buyer calls the shots. With chopsticks dexterity,
China can pick platinum from Zimbabwe; oil from Angola, Nigeria and
Sudan; cocoa from Ghana; diamonds from Sierra Leone; etc. – all on its
own terms because of its strong bargaining position. Few radical
intellectuals and African heads of state see nothing wrong with this
huge imbalance because China is perceived to be a “friend of Africa”
since it is “anti-West.”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” has been the seductive fallacy.
Those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it.

George Ayittey,
Washington, DC

Comments

[Michel]

I commented on GlobalVoices as well, but here's a more complete comment, taking into account the full article:

Surplus population ? China can feed itself, and its population will start shrinking in the coming decades thanks to the ill-thought-of one-child policy.

The creation of the overseas Chinese diaspora has never been an official government policy. Emigrations are triggered by famines (just like the potato famine set off the Irish migration to the US) or, more regularly, by trade or employment opportunities.

In the present time, the migration of Chinese workers has more to do with import quotas: rather than having Chinese-operated textile factories in China, you have Chinese-operated textile factories in African countries, using up the quota surplus. With the gradual lifting of quotas such an aberration will become less commonplace - the need to compete with Chinese exporters, of course, remains.

[Ma Mary]

There we go again, Michel. Whose interest are you fronting? There are large communities of Chinese springing in Africa, with no apparent plans to return. They are not linked to particular industries. They range from merchants to restaurateurs to musicians to street hawkers. What has that to do with textiles? You are presenting an American or European perspective. Interesting, but irrelevant to an African perspective.

[Black River Eagle]

Dear Rosemary (aka Ma Mary?),

I received the Heads Up about your post over at Global Voices Online. Dr. George Ayittey has laid out his argument in such a convincing way backed up by so many facts about sub-Saharan Africa's colonial and post-colonial past... that the reader is left breathless.

I've been waiting to read or hear him speakout on the recent China-Africa Summit in Beijing, but I didn't expect anything like this. Dr. Ayittey nailed that sucker dead-on-target. Bullseye! Although I believe he could have been a bit kinder to at least some of the African political leaders who attended the Beijing summit. After all, not all of those in attendance were despots and fools laying prostrate before the PRC leadership in the Great Hall of the People or whatever they call it.

If you don't mind Ma Mary, I would like to point to this post containing the very important views from Dr. George Ayittey in a follow-on post at my blog. Please stop by my place soon to read my views and those of my readers and fellow bloggers on this important issue.

You know the Doc personally (re: permission to reprint)? At what online forum did this original text appear? You live and work right next door to me in The Netherlands?

[Ma Mary]

Hello Black River Eagle, Ma Mary and Rosemary are not the same. I think this blog allows you to email her directly. Look top left.

[sokari]

This is such a brilliant piece and a breath of fresh air amongst the same old same old analysis we here from other academics, politicians and even bloggers. I dont ususally do this but I have printed this piece out and re read it and no doubt will do so and pass it around. Thanks for publishing it.

[Gats]

Lets us face the facts and deal with the reality. Many African states have failed or likely to fail. Many citizens given a chance will run ot of these countries and many are attempting and a lot of lives being lost in the process as has been happening with the boats trying to sail to Canary Islands. As has been pointed the fact that some of the so developed countries like UK were failed countries at some point does not make the argument that African states have not failed. What one can read from that history is that one can overcome adversity and flourish. So there is hope for Africa and the best Africans can do is to seek new solutions to their problems. Lets us not be in denial we are doing badly for reasons that can be attributed to others and to ourselves. But we have no reason to cry foul againist colonizers as the cause of our misery. They do not owe us anything and have never owed us anything they came to Africa for their own interests and used the means that best advanced these interests. They were not oblidged to be fair and just to us and even now they are not. It is a jungle out there and we have to negotiate it ourselves. Let us stop crying and stand up, clean ourselves and join the race. A careful reading of history will tell you that some parts of Africa at different periods of history achieved greatness. While Europe was in the middle ages there were flourishing empires of great wealth, culture and intellect thriving in West Africa. Empires that actively traded with the Americas. There are many other great examples. But these empires were just as vicious in exploting neighbhoring Africa peoples even enslaving them.

My point is that history shows that African have been able to rise in the past and the western civilization owe alot from Africans (especially the Egyptians) and laters the Moors (these were African NOT Arabs) who had colonized parts of Europe for hundreds of years and transmitted to them the knowledge that was to form the basis of Eurpoean rennaissance.

If we can be able to examine history well we can get the inspiration we need to rise yet again. But we have to face the current realities and not be in denial. We are doing badly but we have a future and this future is in our hands.

Always amazing that is the African in the diaspora who are quick to defend Africa in its failings yet it is these failings that have pushed many of us out of Africa.