The China-Africa Relationship, The West has no rigtht to criticise

We all know that China has firmly arrived in Africa, but do we know what that means in practice, or how things are changing? Much has been said about this phenomenon, but often based on little research and/or tainted with a hardly disguised nationalistic slant in which China is seen as a competitor or usurper.
In her comments to the Busan conference on aid effectiveness in November last year, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton told aid recipient countries to “be wary of donors who are more interested in extracting your resources than in building your capacity”. While this is very sensible advice, every analyst I know has taken it as a fairly clumsy dig at China, made all the more amusing by a brief survey of the US’s heinous history of ripping up the ethical rule book when national interests and preservation of wealth are in the balance.On closer inspection, the balance of national interests and solidarity that all donors have to manage (seeAndrew Mitchell’s admission that aid to India has one eye on military contracts), may have changed a little since China’s first development intervention in sub-Saharan Africa – helping Guinea build a cigarette factory in 1960 – but not that much. The activities of China on the continent of Africa show that its actions are more or less what one would expect from any other major donor.The research and regular updates provided by the Centre for Chinese Studies based in South Africa is a useful source of information. Some may have heard that China bank-rolled the African Union’s new conference centre to the tune of $200m. But did you know that China is considering mediating in the oil dispute between the two Sudans? This will cause anxiety to those in favour of a Clinton-esque approach to African politics, but is no more worrying to most people than the US, Russians or French seeking to do the same. Read More here