so much talk about the chinese neocolonialism and africa.
chinese govt says africa is an untapped market that will help sustain china's growing population.

thoughts?




http://current.com/items/89565630_chinatown-africa.htm  
great news documentary about chinese taking over angola's business sector.



Guinea settles an oil deal with China. published today
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8304418.stm

Map of China's direct investment of Africa from 2005


[img]http://chinaINVESTMENT in Africa.jpg[/img]

Chinese Imperialism- A New Force In Africa?

In the last decade of the twentieth century the African continent was torn apart by wars, with millions of refugees, and half the population living on less than $1 per day. The continent had become a net exporter of capital to the central capitalist countries and its share of world trade and foreign investment has declined relentlessly [1]. The Western capitalist powers who controlled the flow of capital to Africa had imposed Structural Adjustment Plans as conditions for loans. In most cases these plans had led to Western capital taking over the profitable sectors of the economies, and had only made the situation of poorer African states worse. The debt forgiveness programmes adopted by the G8 group of major capitalist powers [2] is an implicit recognition of this. In addition to debt relief, there has also been some attempts to bring an end to some of Africa’s wars, most of which are caused by the catastrophic economic situation. The last four years have seen a revival of economic growth, which nominally averaged 5.5%, and an increase in capital investment.

Much of this growth has been brought about by a rise in prices of raw materials, such as oil and minerals, and the countries which possess these resources have experienced the highest growth. [3] While the rise in demand for raw materials is itself a consequence of the rapid economic growth in China, India and other Asian countries, the growth in African economies has been spurred by massive Chinese investment in the continent. Chinese capitalism is desperate to get its hands on Africa’s raw materials and has mounted a massive campaign of investment which has resulted in total Chinese investment in Africa now being approximately $9bn. Although this amount is only approximately half that of the total US capital investment, the annual rate of Chinese investment of around $1.2bn is now greater than that of the US. In addition trade between Africa and China, which in 2007 amounted to $70bn, now exceeds that of the US with Africa. It is clear that China is emerging as an economic power challenging the dominance of the US and European powers in Africa. Such a challenge is, at root, part of the general struggle for the division of the surplus value produced by the world’s working class and will, in time, be translated into an imperialist struggle. Already regions of conflict are emerging where China is frustrating the US and Europe in order to protect its own interests. Sudan and Zimbabwe are cases in point…

China has developed the Sudanese oil industry, from the primary work of drilling and finding oil, to that of building pipelines and an oil refinery. Sudanese oil output is now over 500 000 barrels per day, two thirds of which goes to China. China supplies the regime with weapons and has deployed some of its own soldiers to protect the thousands of Chinese workers in the country. All this has outraged the US since US oil companies were previously the ones exploiting Sudanese oil fields. US attempts to isolate and overthrow the Sudanese regime, which materialise in demands for oil embargoes at the UN, never see the light of day because of the threat of Chinese veto. This is probably why the International Criminal Court of Justice has been persuaded to indict the President of Sudan, Omar Bashir on war crimes charges over Darfur. [4]

In a similar way, the Chinese are exploiting the US and Europe’s quarrel with Zimbabwe and providing the Mugabe with fuel and foreign exchange in return for minerals [5]. Recently, China and Russia vetoed a US resolution at the UN calling for an arms embargo and sanctions on the leadership of the regime. The suffering that this conflict of interests is producing in terms of economic collapse is now unimaginable. Inflation has reached 16 000 000% as illustrated by the photograph of a Zimbabwean cheque which we publish below.

Although the forces driving Chinese imperialism in Africa are fundamentally similar to those impelling the older imperialist powers, the form which Chinese imperialism takes is slightly different from that of US and European imperialism both past and present. This gives the Chinese an advantage over their rivals. To understand how this has come about it is necessary to briefly consider the economic rise of China and what lies behind this.

Chinese are encouraging africans to learn chinese.
they're offering free language classes in liberia. they're targeting students and liberian politicians.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8297557.stm

Y would i want to learn chinese

^ it may be a sign of chinese imperialism. chinese feel that africans should learn chinese since the chinese are taking over a lot in the business industry.

It makes sense but they too should learn the languages of the countries they r gonna dominate

Na Beanz

africhika:

^ it may be a sign of chinese imperialism. chinese feel that africans should learn chinese since the chinese are taking over a lot in the business industry.