Chinese Imperialism in Africa

While the right focuses on Islam and the Middle-East as the threat to the security of the West and the left attacks the US and its allies for imperialism and economic domination,  China has gone about its business with relatively little comment.  There has been discussion about China's rapidly expanding economy but this has been mostly in the context of business and economics.  We hear people say,  "China is the next superpower," without much analysis of what that really means.  Again,  it is usually explained in economic terms - China overtaking Britain as the world's fourth largest economy or displacing Japan as the major East Asian power.  There is relatively little comment on the geopolitical implications of a resurgent China.  Unless you dig a bit deeper.

This letter appeared in yesterday's Independent:

Mugabe's sinister Chinese connection

Sir: Bruce Anderson's remarks about Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe (Opinion, 13 June) are accurate but incomplete. What Bruce Anderson does not say - neither does Tony Blair or Jack Straw - is that Mugabe's destruction of his country is aided and abetted by the Chinese.

In the light of the West's failure, as Mugabe sees it, to assist him in his land reform programme, combined with the EU's targeted sanctions against the top leadership of Zanu PF, Mugabe has turned to China for assistance. Mugabe's "Look East" policy has resulted in thousands of cheap Chinese goods being dumped in the country. Chinese shops now dominate the streets of Harare and the other cities and towns. The result is the almost total destruction of the local manufacturing industry. Indeed many people believe that the present destruction of the once-thriving street markets is at the behest of Mugabe's Chinese friends.

More sinister is the provision of Chinese aircraft and weapons used by the police and army against the people. The presence of Chinese fighter planes roaring in the skies above the destruction and burning of indigenous people's homes and livelihoods should surely be a cause for concern to the West. And that is not the only consideration. Mugabe is being assisted by Chinese technology to further repress the media in Zimbabwe, jamming the only independent shortwave radio station broadcasting to Zimbabwe and blocking internet use. Mugabe's intention is clearly to silence his own people and stop the truth getting out. In this he is being ably assisted by the Chinese.

Even if the West can afford to ignore the massive human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, can they afford to ignore the Chinese involvement?

PAULINE HENSON

WORCESTER

This story also appears on the Zimbabwe blog Sokwanele.  It concludes:

So just what is bob mugabe up to? Here's a hint - he only ever said that we would never be a BRITISH colony again (he never said anything about the Chinese). He has mortgaged his country to the hilt for military equipment. But the Chinese are not philanthropists! Far from it. Did mugabe even realise what the Chinese were up to, giving him such easy credit terms? I wonder? No - true capitalists, these Chinese, they have allowed Zimbabwe to become over-extended. Now they are taking what they want, at whatever prices which they dictate! What do they care if Zimbabweans starve?

More to the point, Mugabe has now shown his true colours. This traitor is so intent on remaining in power that he is prepared to sell his country and his people into slavery to the Chinese. People of Zimbabwe, wake up and see the sun rising in the East! If you think that the British were amoral colonialists, you ain't seen nothing yet! Wait until the full light of day!

So now we are starting to get a hint of what "China as the next superpower" really means.  As Martin Jacques noted in the Guardian in March:

Until now, the Chinese position has been sotto voce. Given the country's abject poverty and underdevelopment, Deng Xiaoping recognised the need to concentrate all China's efforts and resources on economic development - everything else would depend on its success in this enterprise. With extraordinary self-discipline, this is exactly what China has done for the past 27 years. But it would be wrong to mistake the single-mindedness that China has displayed for its longer-term ambition. China is an extraordinarily old and proud culture, with a very powerful sense of its own identity. Successful economic growth is the pre-condition for the exercise of a wider political, cultural and military influence.

This is what most people in the West still don't get.  China's ambitions are not just economic.  They are political too.  The Chinese don't make the distinction between the economic,  the cultural and the political in the same way that we do.  They intend to be a real superpower,  one that has colonies,  client states and global reach,  just like the USA,  the Soviet Union and the old European empires.

China will be a much more effective imperialist power than the USA or Europe because they don't worry about public opinion - either domestic or international.  This is a regime that shoots its own people in the street without a second thought.  So while Western governments are criticised by their own voters for dumping cheap food on Africa,  China is happy to force Zimbabwe's traders off the streets and dump cheap Chinese goods on them.  While the west is under pressure to reduce arms sales,  China will arm and support its ally Mugabe with whatever terror weapons he needs.  If you are going to be an imperialist bastard,  you might as well go the whole way!

So what happens when the world's energy resources start to run out?  When the superpowers demands for oil carry on growing and the competition for ever decreasing resources gets really ugly.  "It's about oil," cried the protesters against the US invasion of Iraq.  Will Chinese demonstrators say the same about a Chinese invasion of an Arab country?  Would an occupation of Iraq by the People's Army have the same problems as those encountered by the US forces?  A Chinese occupation force would not have to worry about public opinion back home - they shoot demonstrators there, remember.  They would therefore be able to do whatever they liked.  This would probably mean supporting the most compliant strongman and installing a puppet regime.  Why bother to mess about with elections?  The insurgents would be dealt with by executing members of the communities suspected of supporting the insurgents.  Ten Iraqis for one dead Chinese soldier.  This is how dictatorships deal with occupied countries.

The Chinese venture in Zimbabwe is the first sign since the 1950s invasion of Tibet and interventions in Korea and South-East Asia,  that China intends to revive its imperialist ambitions.  To anyone with a knowledge of China's past,  this should come as no surprise.  For most of human history,  China has been the biggest country in the world.  It was only eclipsed during the last 300 years by the growth of European empires.  As the West declines,  the way is open for China to become top nation again,  only this time in a globalised world.  In the past,  China's power only affected its immediate neighbours.  This time it will have an impact on the whole world.

So for those on the right worried about the threat of Islam or those on the left attacking US imperialism,  take some time out to look East.  As our man in Zimbabwe said:  "If you think that the British were amoral colonialists, you ain't seen nothing yet!"

Comments

[Jarndyce]

This is interesting stuff on Zim, but I think you're over-concerned about the long term. To employ a bit of Marxist analysis, as the mode of production in China shifts from socialism-feudalism to capitalism (which is only happening very slowly outside the cities), there will be huge pressures on the political system. Basically it's impossible to run a capitalist economy in a socialist polity: the dispersed information required for free markets to operate naturally produces a more enlightened and aspirant masses - hence a desire for political involvement. Now, unless an educated capitalist class submits willingly to dictatorship (possible, though I'd say unlikely in the absence of huge external pressures), I'd judge it's China's closer neighbours who need to be more worried. The place is likely to either blow up internally or transition calmly. Not sure which. Most worried of all should be Taiwan, of course. Invasion of the 'renegade province' would be very popular at home. It would be an easy way for totalitarian elites to grab some popularity if they felt their grip slipping.

[GZ Expat]

Invading Taiwan would be economic suicide as the Taiwanese account for the vast majority of foreign investment in the country. Although they would gain a 'renegade province', but they would lose everything else in the process.

[Steve]

Jarndyce, I hear this argument quite often - that the Chinese will eventually have to become more "like us" if they want to be successful capitalists. I think this reflects Western assumptions about economic success. Western countries all have a shared history and cultural assumptions. Our version of capitalism has developed from these assumptions. The Chinese view of the world is different. For example, property rights, the cornerstone of western capitalism, mean something different in China than in the West.

It may be that an educated oligarchy that does well from Chinese capitalism might want to keep its power to itself, rather than risk the instability of democracy. After all, the educated capitalist class in 1930s Germany were quite happy to submit to dictatorship if it promised stability, prosperity and an empire to exploit. The capitalists in Tsarist Russia were mostly happy too until the war messed things up.

We can't assume that China will follow the liberal-capitalist path to economic and political power and I don't buy the argument that capitalism and dictatorship are incompatible.

[EU Serf]

I see better what you mean about China in Zimbabwe. I too am worries that rather than mutate into a democratic capitalist country, China shows more signs of national socialism.

[mike]

An examination of extreme nationalist and racist attitudes among China's educated elite. This was written by an Anglo-American pro-free market writer who is married to a Chinese woman. http://www.vdare.com/derbyshire/sino-fascism.htm