Guns Versus Trade: U.S. and China Rivalry over Africa’s Riches
By <
http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/asad-ismi> Asad Ismi
Global Research, May 26, 2013
In my report on France’s invasion of Mali published in the March issue of
The Monitor, I wrote that, “According to U.K. journalist John Pilger, ‘A
full-scale invasion of Africa is under way. The United States is deploying
troops in 35 African countries, beginning with Libya, Sudan, Algeria, and
Niger. The invasion has almost nothing to do with ‘Islamism,’ and almost
everything to do with the acquisition of resources, notably minerals, and an
accelerating rivalry with China. Unlike China, the U.S. and its allies are
prepared to use a degree of violence demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Yemen, and Palestine.
The U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) has built a network of compliant African
regimes ‘eager for American bribes and armaments.’ In 2012, Africom staged
Operation African Endeavour, with the armies of 34 African nations taking
part, commanded by the U.S. military. As Middle East specialist Tony
Cartulucci explains,
‘It is no coincidence that, as the Libyan conflict was drawing to a
conclusion, conflict erupted in northern Mali. It is part of a premeditated
geopolitical reordering that began with toppling Libya, and since then using
it as a springboard for invading other targeted nations, including Mali and
Syria, with heavily armed, NATO-funded and aided terrorists.
“The economically weak imperialist Western alliance has now staked its
future on an endlessly expanding world war for resources that entails its
re-colonization of the Global South [especially Africa]. This is a level and
scale of violence that could result in a nuclear confrontation with the main
countries that this resource war is aimed at: China, India, and Russia.”
According to Dr. J. Peter Pham, an advisor to the U.S. Defence and State
Departments, a main objective of AFRICOM is:
“protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources which
Africa has in abundance — a task which includes ensuring against the
vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other interested
third parties, such as China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain monopolies or
preferential treatment.”
Andrei Akulov, writing on the Global Research website, adds that:
“It’s an open secret that AFRICOM was created to counter the growing
presence of China in Africa… Stiff competition for strategic resources like
oil, gas, uranium, gold, or iron is the specific feature of the situation in
Africa… The mission of AFRICOM is to push China and other rivals — like
Russia, for instance — out of the continent or at least to cripple their
access to the resources.”
China’s economic involvement in Africa has expanded enormously in the last
decade. Beijing has focused on obtaining long-term agreements that guarantee
it access to African resources in exchange for generous Chinese aid,
credits, and soft loans for African countries, along with China’s
construction of roads, schools, housing, hospitals, and railways, among
other infrastructure in Africa.
China imports half of its oil requirements (2.6 million barrels per day) and
one-third of this comes from African countries. China’s trade with Africa
was worth $166.3 billion in 2011, with African exports to China increasing
massively to $93.2 billion from $5.6 billion over the last 10 years. Beijing
offered African countries $20 billion in loans in July 2012 for the
2012-2015 period, twice the amount it had given in the previous three years.
In 2008, China announced a $3 billion program in preferential loans and
expanded aid for Africa, which was in addition to $3 billion in loans and $2
billion in export credits provided by Beijing earlier. According to Akulov,
China’s soft loans and credits are
“greatly appreciated by African countries… Chinese aid [to Africa] is
rendered with no strings attached and usually spent on infrastructure
projects that raise grassroots living standards. The most frequently cited
example is Sinopec, China’s state oil company. It has acquired oil
concessions in Angola and is rebuilding the country’s transport
infrastructure, hospitals, and state buildings. China is now viewed by most
African countries as a more attractive economic partner than the U.S. or any
other Western country.”
It is not hard to outshine the West in Africa, given the horrifying record
of Western nations there. As I have documented in my Monitor article “The
Ravaging of Africa” (October 2002) and the radio documentary of the same
title (2007), U.S. imperial strategy towards Africa has devastated the
continent. The strategy has aimed at creating an unstable, war-wracked,
poverty-stricken continent in order to ensure a stable and prosperous West.
The U.S. has concentrated on extracting the maximum amount of wealth from
Africa at the lowest cost. This has been achieved through the perpetration
of a virtual holocaust created by the fomentation of 14 wars and World Bank
and International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustment programs (SAPs)
imposed on 36 countries. The wars have killed more than 8.5 million Africans
and the SAPs have led to an estimated 21 million deaths by systematically
demolishing African economies and their health and education services. This
military and economic assault has exposed Africa to the looting of its
resources by Western multinational corporations. The wars, SAPs, and
corporate plunder have resulted in the transfer of hundreds of billions of
dollars from Africa to North American and European nations.
Most African exports to the West take the form of raw materials, and the
wars have helped keep their price artificially low since the armies need to
sell these minerals for whatever money they can get in order to buy weapons.
A considerable number of the weapons are also bought from Western arms
manufacturers.
The SAPs imposed by the U.S.-dominated World Bank and IMF have transferred
more than $229 billion in debt payments from sub-Saharan Africa to the West
since 1980. This is four times the region’s 1980 debt. Like the wars, SAPs
also help keep raw material prices low by enforcing the expansion of such
exports to the West. The value of primary African exports has fallen by
about half since 1980.
This latest U.S.-imposed economic and military holocaust follows the 400
years of ravage and blight unleashed by the brutal slave trade carried out
by Britain, Portugal, France, and the United States, as well as the century
of ruthless Western colonialism in Africa, both of which helped build the
U.S. and European economies at the expense of the lives of up to 500 million
Africans.
This is the proper context to use when comparing the current activities of
the West and China in Africa. Unlike the U.S. and European nations, China
has inflicted no such horrors on Africa and has usually compensated African
countries fairly for their raw materials. A particular case in point is the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The U.S. instigated the invasion of
the DRC by Rwanda and Uganda in 1998 and the subsequent slaughter of more
than six million Congolese, while the SAPs imposed on the DRC have
impoverished the country. The Congo is the richest country in Africa in
terms of mineral resources, and the invasion has opened these to looting by
Western mining companies.
In contrast, China signed a deal with the government of the DRC in 2007
committing $20 billion for desperately needed infrastructure and development
projects in exchange for access to Congo’s resources. This is the biggest
single Chinese investment in Africa.
The China-DRC agreement was reached between La Générale des Carrières des
Mines (Gécamines), the DRC’s state-owned mining company, and several Chinese
state enterprises. These include China’s Eximbank, the China Railway
Engineering Company (CREC), and Sinohydro.
The agreement creates a mining joint-venture between Gécamines, CREC, and
Sinohydro, to be called Socomin, in which the Chinese hold 68% of the shares
and Gécamines 32%. Eximbank has invested $9 billion in Socomin including
$3.25 billion in mining investment and $6 billion for infrastructural
development.
The $9 billion is part of a $20 billion package of loans to be made
available over 2011-2014. Of the $9 billion, a third will go to develop the
DRC’s mines. The remaining $6 billion is a soft loan (backed by the DRC’s
mineral deposits) to finance new roads, railways, 32 hospitals, 145 health
centres, two universities, hydro-electric dams, airports, and vocational
training centres. In return, China gets 10 million tonnes of copper and
400,000 tonnes of cobalt. As the BBC puts it,
“It’s a barter deal — what the Chinese side loves to call ‘win-win’. Not aid
with strings attached, like Western powers have given DR Congo over the
years.”
Adds Congolese journalist Antoine Riger Lokongo, writing on Pambazuka News,
the most prominent website for African political affairs:
“The Chinese deal is an ‘infrastructure development resources-backed finance
(IDRF)’ deal, a kind of barter/trade which will not leave the DRC saddled
with debts… How can you kick-start the development of the DRC after 15 years
of a war of aggression without basic infrastructures? Clearly, this is where
you start. China is ready to put a larger amount of money into the DRC than
any other country… China will help the DRC break free from the stranglehold
of neocolonialism.”
So, summing up, to plunder the DRC’s resources the U.S. arranged the killing
of six million of its people and the impoverishment of the rest, whereas to
gain access to the same resources China has offered the country $20 billion.
There is no doubt that the Chinese role in Africa is an incredible
improvement over 500 years of Western slavery, genocide, and plunder.
Not surprisingly, the World Bank and Western governments have opposed the
China-DRC deal. As Albrecht Conze, the German Ambassador to Zimbabwe,
explained:
“It is like the West being the Congo’s foster parents… The rising world
power China could cause trouble, too – by providing billions of dollars in
loans without imposing conditions or controls in return for access to the
country’s valuable natural resources. Beijing has already used this method
in neighbouring Angola, where it now controls much of the oil production.”
In Angola, the U.S. fomented a vicious 27-year long civil war (Africa’s
longest war) which ended in April 2002. The conflict killed 500,000 people
and shattered the country. Three and a half million Angolans (a third of the
population) were displaced by the war and up to 15 million land mines
covered Angola’s arable land, making agriculture hazardous. As a result,
fertile Angola has had to import half its food requirements and 82% of
Angolans lived in poverty. Like the Congo, Angola is rich in mineral wealth,
being Africa’s second largest oil producer.
As Indira Campos and Alex Vines, researchers at the conservative think-tank
Chatham House based in London (U.K.), describe it:
“Angola has enjoyed a period of sustained peace since April 2002. From
having one of the most protracted conflicts in Africa, Angola has within
five years become one of the most successful economies in sub-Saharan
Africa. Fuelled by record-high international oil prices, Angola has
experienced exceptionally high growth rates in recent years. Rapid
post-conflict reconstruction has become the government’s priority. China
has in particular played an important role in assisting these efforts.
Chinese financial and technical assistance has kick-started over 100
projects in the areas of energy, water, health, education,
telecommunications, fisheries, and public works.”
Since 2002, China has given Angola $15 billion in soft loans for hundreds of
projects, leading to an “impressive resurgence of the country’s economy and
infrastructure” after 27 years of U.S.-instigated civil war. Angola is
China’s biggest trading partner in Africa and its largest source of foreign
oil imports.
Asad Ismi is the CCPA Monitor’s international affairs correspondent. He is
author of the highly acclaimed radio documentary “The Ravaging of Africa”
which has been aired to an audience of about 30 million people. For his
publications, visit www.asadismi.ws <
http://www.asadismi.ws>
Received on Sun May 26 2013 - 22:23:33 EDT
