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TRADE-AFRICA: EU Seeks to Subdue Competitive China

Michael Deibert

JOHANNESBURG, May 15 2008 (IPS) - With the ascendance of China as a robust force on Africa’s economic and political scene, plans are afoot in the European Union (EU) to pre-empt the Asian nation’s dominance on the continent by forming a trilateral partnership that places Europe squarely in the centre.

The idea of a multilateral triumvirate was conceived by Louis Michel, the EU’s commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, and seeks to lay out common ground in what has occasionally been a contentious relationship between these three actors.

‘‘There are three fields where the partners can work together: peace and security, infrastructure and natural resources,’’ says Veronika Tywuschik, a research assistant at the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) in Brussels. The ECDPM is a non-governmental organisation that assists African, Caribbean and Pacific countries with policy processes.

With Michel set to step down as commissioner in 2009, pressure is building for him to come up with a workable platform in the next few months.

A public consultation period which started on April 16 and will end on July 13 this year is seeking to gather a wide variety of views on how the proposed relations should be constructed.

A public consultation document has been released in the form of a questionnaire asking European citizens which sectors the cooperation should focus on and why.

In the introduction to the document, the European Commission writes that ‘‘the main objective of the communication is to foster an innovative, step by step process of dialogue and cooperation between Africa, the EU and China to promote mutual understanding and allow better coordination and cooperation in specific cases’’.

These include ‘‘multilateral initiatives with the long term objective of improved coordination on security issues in Africa and better aid effectiveness in the context of the Millennium Development Goals’’.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a series of benchmarks that member states of the United Nations (UN) have agreed upon and which run the gamut from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS to providing universal primary education by 2015.

China’s links with Africa have deepened substantially over recent years.

According to International Monetary Fund figures, Africa’s exports to China between 2001 and 2006 rose by more than 40 percent. Imports from China increased 35 percent. The increase is particularly striking given that the average global growth in trade over the same period was only 14 percent.

China’s trade with Africa is currently inching north of the 55 billion dollar mark, and its share in Africa’s annual export growth has nearly doubled since 2000.

In an illustration of its newfound clout the Chinese government announced a 5 billion dollar loan to the Democratic Republic of Congo in December last year – just days ahead of an important EU-Africa summit in Portugal.

These activities have prompted a desire among some EU leaders for Europe to reinforce its sway on a continent which it regards as a traditional sphere of influence. But this craving, and the lengths to which the EU powers may or may not go in order to satisfy it, have thrown up some questions.

In a November 2007 draft report on China’s policy and its effects on Africa, the European Parliament’s committee on development stressed that any ‘‘coherent strategy to respond to the new challenges raised by emerging donors in Africa, such as China… must not attempt to emulate China’s methods and aims, since that would not necessarily be compatible with EU values, principles and long-term interests’’.

The report also urged the EU and China to boost their support for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the African Union’s multilateral policy framework for the continent.

Casting what appeared to be a worried eye over Chinese involvement in countries such as Sudan, the report stated that ‘‘China’s ‘no-conditions’ investments in African countries misgoverned by oppressive regimes contribute to perpetuating human rights abuses and further worsen governance.’’

PetroChina, a subsidiary of the state-controlled China National Petroleum Corporation, owns a major stake in Sudan’s national oil consortia and maintains extensive operations there, with China having purchased more than half of Sudan’s oil exports in 2006.

The arrangement has come under withering criticism as some charge that Sudan’s government has used these profits to buy weapons with which to continue its military operations – both directly and by proxy – in the nation’s Darfur region.

In the vast swath of western Sudan, the Sudanese army and government-aligned Janjaweed militia forces have been accused of carrying out crimes against the area’s civilian population. Violence has claimed an estimated 300,000 lives, mainly civilians, since 2003, according to the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes.

An estimated 2.7 million people have been displaced in the region.

China was in the news again recently when, in April this year, South African dockworkers refused to unload a ship carrying armaments from China and which were destined for the repressive regime of President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

Election officials declared the outcome of the recent presidential election inconclusive as neither of the contenders had apparently won more than 50 percent of the ballot, necessitating a run-off. The Mugabe government has been accused of gross human rights abuses as a means to stifle political dissent.

Some observers, though, perhaps remembering such political judgments as France’s enthusiastic support of the ethnic Hutu dictatorship of Juvénal Habyarimana in Rwanda or the brutality with which Portugal prosecuted its war against Mozambique’s Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO) rebels from 1964 until 1974, cast a jaundiced eye over the intentions of both China and the EU.

‘‘Partnerships have become a sort of cover for foreign governments to pursue their own interests in Africa,’’ says Dr. George Ayittey, distinguished economist-in-residence at American University in Washington DC in the U.S..

‘‘The Europeans are somewhat left out of Africa because a lot of African governments have been signing deals with China. They want to get in on the act.

‘‘What should be paramount, are Africa’s interests, and these governments are not serving that,’’ says Ayittey.