Anti-China movement rises in Africa
Anti-China movement rises in Africa
mongabay.com
February 2, 2007
Chinese firms doing business in Africa are starting see backlash from their rapid investment expansion on the continent according to an article in today’s issue of The Wall Street Journal.
As commodity markets have boomed in recent years, largely due to soaring demand at home, Chinese money has poured into Africa.
“Sino-African trade in 2006 more than quadrupled to more than $55 billion since 2002, and is expected to hit $100 billion by 2010,” writes Yaroslav Trofimov, author of the The Wall Street Journal article. “Angola has overtaken Saudi Arabia as China’s main source of oil, with large-scale supplies also flowing from Sudan and Nigeria. Chinese companies have sought Guinea’s bauxite, Namibia’s uranium, and the assortment of rare metals that are found in the Congo, formerly known as Zaire.”
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Once greeted with open arms, the rush into the world’s poorest continent has triggered resentment towards China in some areas according to Trofimov, who writes
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Feelings of resentment about China’s unfolding scramble for influence in Africa are beginning to bubble up across the continent. African leaders still hail China’s burgeoning involvement as a solution to Africa’s woes and a welcome alternative to the West. But among ordinary Africans, appreciation of this unprecedented influx of Chinese investments, products and settlers isn’t nearly as uniform.
Several high profile incidents, including an accidental explosion followed by shootings of employees at a Chinese mine in Zambia, have triggered animosity among works says Trofimov.
“The Chinese, they don’t even consider us to be human beings,” Trofimov quotes Albert Mwanaumo, a former Zambian miner who says he was shot by a Chinese supervisor, as saying. “They think they have the right to rule us.”
Trofimov continues:
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Nowhere has this grass-roots backlash been stronger than in Zambia. In elections last fall, opposition leader Michael Sata ran for president on a platform of outright China-bashing, unleashing against Beijing the same kind of fury that populist radicals in Latin America or the Middle East direct at the U.S. “Zambia is becoming a province — no, a district — of China,” he thundered. “We’ve removed one foreign power and we don’t want another foreign power here, especially one that is not a democracy.”
“Among ordinary people, a very strong resentment, bordering on racism, is emerging against the Chinese,” says Henning Melber, a former activist in Namibia’s struggle for majority rule who now heads the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation think tank in Sweden. “It’s because the Chinese are seen as backing the [African] governments in oppressing their own people.”
Related article
Timber hungry China moves into Africa.
China, as the fastest growing economy in the world, is poised to make significant impacts on the global market and the global environment, especially with its expanding involvement with nations rich in natural resources but deficient in economic and political stability. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Africa where China has rapidly bolstered its ties in recent years with the majority of the continent’s 54 nations.
This article uses quotes and information from “In Africa, China’s Expansion Begins to Stir Resentment” by Yaroslav Trofimov. The article appeared February 2, 2007 in The Wall Street Journal.
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