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Ikenna Emewu
Margee Ensign in 1992, wrote in her book, Doing Good or Doing Well, to assess Japan’s foreign aid program then. Ensign raised once again the question in diplomatic studies that draws a parallel between ‘doing good’ and ‘doing well’. ‘Doing Good’ is charity service or so-called selfless service where one renders assistance and walks away without waiting for any returns. ‘Doing Well’ is what China in relating with Africa aptly describes as ‘win’win’. In diplomacy of course, no country does ‘good’. All they do is ‘well’, because the doer is also a stakeholder and has an intention to benefit, at least in goodwill and friendship.
I think we getting this right at the beginning would help our perception of the multilateral relationship between China and Africa, especially on the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) platform that is 19 years old now. Today, at the centre of such global issues as Japan faced then is China. It emphasises so much on Chinese loans to African countries, the motives and how they enslave or re-colonize Africa. This slant also worries China as many Chinese journalists during in interviews in the country have asked me this question many times and what Africa thinks about it. My answer remained the same – if Africa allows China to recolonize her today, then Africa is miserable and should blame herself for such unfathomable folly. But a closer look at the details of the relationship between the two sides would show if it has all been just loans and re-enslavement of Africa by China or if the Asian economic giant has been of any good impact in the development of the human capital of Africa which is the best way to make lasting input in the future of a people.
On July 31, 2018, as the Confucius Institute of the University of Lagos held its graduation and job fair, the body of Chinese investors in Nigeria announced the award of scholarships to about 63 students of the university to study in Chinese institutions. While some of them were for short programmes, most were for first degree and second degree courses with all the bills paid. That development was part of the consolidation of the growing links between China and Africa and by extension, with Nigeria.
However, four months after, the same institute in liaison with the investors body took up a challenge the Vice Chancellor of the university had thrown at them to establish more links with the university for better relationship. That day in November, the university’s Nigeria-China Development Studies Institute was established.
In Nigeria also, on April 12, 2018, in Abuja, the Chinese construction giant, CCECC held career workshop for some Nigerian fresh university graduates immediately after their one year national service. The outcome of the training was an immediate employment of 50 of them in that firm. The management of the company had said it was one of the first steps for large scale employment of Nigerians in the system and ensuring that Nigerians have good skilled labour presence in the company.
At the middle of May 2019, during a visit to the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr. Zhou Pinjian in Abuja, his secretary during a discussion revealed that the number of Nigerian students in Chinese universities on scholarship as at last year is more than 6500. Moreover, CNN reported in June 2017 that; ‘The surge in the number of African students in China is remarkable. In less than 15 years the African student body has grown 26-fold — from just under 2,000 in 2003 to almost 50,000 in 2015. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the US and UK host around 40,000 African students a year. China surpassed this number in 2014, making it the second most popular destination for African students studying abroad, after France which hosts just over 95,000 students.
‘This dramatic increase in students from Africa can be explained in part by the Chinese government’s targeted focus on African human resource and education development. Starting in 2000, China’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summits have promised financial and political support for African education at home and abroad in China.
Since 2006, China has set scholarship targets to aid African students coming to China for study. For example, at the most recent 2015 summit, China pledged to provide 30,000 scholarships to African students by 2018.’ Taking it in sectors, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping had pledged in Johannesburg in 2015 at the FOCAC summit that the country would host about 10,000 African journalists in exchange trainings in 2016 alone.
While on tour of Shandong Province as journalism Fellows of the China Public Diplomacy, 2016, we visited companies in Qingdao in September and one of the points of call was a power company where the management received us with 50 African students. They were later introduced to us as Zimbabweans studying in universities in the province on the scholarship of the company. In fact, one of us, a Zimbabwean, interacted with and recognized some of them.
At the Sinotruk headquarters in Jinan, capital city of Shandong, I met Mr. Zhang Yuzong, Executive Director, Africa Division, who told me he would be travelling to Nigeria two months later for the commencement of their production at a Lagos factory in partnership with the Dangote Group. And in March of the following year, I attended a seminar on investment by Chinese investors and their Nigerian counterparts alongside the Chinese ambassador to Nigeria, during which we toured the truck assembly plant within the Lekki Free Trade Zone, Lagos, a multi-billion dollar project powered by Chinese investors and Dangote. The mega project is not about loans.
Another important report by the africanews.com reflected that; China’s direct investment in Africa soared by 64 percent, the Chinese commerce ministry said on Thursday. Sun Jiwen, spokesman at the ministry outlined that this recent rise is linked to China’s change in trade policies in 2015. China’s total trade with Africa rose 16.8 percent to $38.8 billion in the first quarter, its first quarterly increase on a yearly basis since 2015, Sun said during a regular news briefing in Beijing.’
The report examines the relationship between the “dragons”—Chinese firms investing in Africa—and the “lions”—African economies receiving Chinese investment. Through face-to-face interviews with 1073 Chinese firms across eight African countries—Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia—McKinsey explored the current and future plans of different Chinese businesses there.
Global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company published a report entitled “Dance of the lions and dragons,” which analyzes the current and long-term trajectory of Chinese engagement in Africa, noting that China has become Africa’s biggest economic partner over the past two decades. In fact, presently, more than 10,000 Chinese firms are conducting business operations on the continent. According to the report, 74 percent of surveyed Chinese firms feel optimistic and confident about investing in Africa. Relatedly, most investments by Chinese firms reflect long-term commitments to Africa.
The features show that 63 percent of the investments made by the surveyed Chinese firms in Africa require long-term commitments, while 26 percent are low-commitment. Indeed, 44 percent of the surveyed firms have made capital-intensive investments—the hardest investments to reverse. These investments tend to come in the form of factory acquisitions and the purchase of manufacturing equipment. Conversely, trade and non-labour-intensive contracting investments (e.g., telecommunications) are the easiest investments to extract and comprise a smaller proportion of investments by Chinese firms in sub-Saharan Africa.’
Emewu, journalist and of the Afri-China Media Centre writes from Lagos
