Colonialism With Chinese Characteristics

China Is Taking over Africa's Resources One Country at a Time

By Akol Nyok Akol Dok and Bradley A. Thayer

Africa is on the cusp of a new period in its history, its renaissance. 

Freed from centuries of colonialism and neo-imperialism, Africa has the opportunity to become a center of economic might to provide prosperity to the continent’s growing population. 

Yet, at present, Africa unfortunately faces a new danger: Sino-imperialism, the risk of falling under the control of China largely through Chinese economic investment and loans. 

The People’s Republic of China has long supported African states since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came to power in 1949. 

Under Mao, China’s backed African liberation movements in an effort to advance Maoism and offset Soviet and American influence. 

In much of Africa today, China is the imperialist power. 

China is in Africa now not to advance Maoism, but to control its resources, people, and potential. 

From building railways in Kenya and roads in rural Ethiopia to running mines in the Congo, China has drastically changed the African economic landscape in the twentieth century. 

China lent nearly $125 billion to Africa between 2000 and 2006 and recently pledged $60 billion at the 2018 Forum on China-Africa Co-operation. 

The Chinese superficially appear to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with Africa by providing financial and technical assistance to Africa’s pressing developmental needs. 

Trade between China and Africa has grown from $10 billion in 2000 to $190 billion by 2017. 

It is estimated that 12 percent of Africa industrial production, or $500 billion annually—nearly half of Africa’s internationally contracted construction market—is carried out by Chinese firms.
China’s activities in the African continent have yet to receive the attention they deserve in the West. China’s behavior in Africa is important for three major reasons. 

• First, China is the source of significant investment capital twinned with a prodigious ability to create infrastructure, both of which are needed by many African states. 
• Second, China’s behavior in Africa provides the rest of the world with insight into how it will behave towards other states, particularly the states of the Global South, as it becomes equal in power with the United States. 
• Third, what China is doing in Africa does not augur well for the rest of the world. China’s activities and behavior in Africa may only be described as neo-colonial and exploitative of African peoples and the environment.

China’s abusive behavior towards African states has occurred for decades. 

In 2007, Guy Scott, the former agricultural minister in the Zambian government told The Guardian, “We’ve had bad people before. The whites were bad, the Indians were worse, but the Chinese are worst of all.” 

But Sino-imperialism is getting worse as China grows in power and seeks evermore resources.
There are copious examples of the negative consequences of Sino-imperialism. 

One archetypical case is the China National Petroleum Corporation, the state-owned oil and gas company, which is a major investor operating in South Sudanese oil fields. 

The Chinese pollute the local environment with impunity, resulting in children born with deformities, the poisoning of livestock, destruction of fertile land, and the pollution of rivers. 

Additionally, the Chinese cause environmental destruction in the Northern Upper Nile and Ruweng states affects the indigenous Dinka Padang communities of South Sudan. 

The Chinese help produce oil generating revenue and economic opportunities but are not bound with environmental standards.
The Chinese influence in South Sudan also results from road construction and infrastructure development. 

South Sudan will provide thirty thousand barrels per day of crude to the Export-Import Bank of China to fund the construction of roads and infrastructure development. 

This includes the construction of a 392-kilometer (244-mile) road from Juba to Rumbek and from Juba to Nadapal on the Kenyan border, which is being built by a Chinese firm using Chinese technology and manpower.
South Sudan’s neighbors, Ethiopia and Kenya, received loans for infrastructure projects from the Chinese. 

The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative has introduced dynamic infrastructure projects such as the Standard Gauge Railway. 

The railway connects Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya. 

The railway was Ethiopia’s first railway in over a century and Africa’s first fully electrified line. 

The railways cuts travel time from the capital Addis Ababa to Djibouti from two days by road to twelve hours.
The Standard Gauge Railway appears to be providing revolutionary infrastructure to stimulate economic growth, but the details demand scrutiny. 

The project cost nearly $4.5 billion, partly financed by the China Export-Import Bank. 

The railway uses Chinese trains, Chinese construction companies, Chinese standards and specifications, and operated by the China Railway Group Limited (CREC) and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation.
As might be expected from this Sino-imperialist project, the railway has been plagued with technical and financial challenges, which calls into question Ethiopia’s dependence on Chinese technology and debt-finance. 

The African country is struggling to repay its loan to China and reap the benefits of this dynamic infrastructure project. 

In 2018, Addis Ababa negotiated with China and structured its loan terms from fifteen to thirty years. In next door Kenya, as a result of heavy borrowing by the government, China may seize the port of Mombasa. 

According to Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper, the terms are draconian and state “neither the borrower [Kenya] nor any of its assets is entitled to any right of immunity on the grounds of sovereignty, with respect to its obligations.”
In addition to these abuses, the Chinese presence in Africa is defined by a purposeful isolation from the indigenous population. 

Chinese firms bring in their own drivers, construction workers, and support staff, denying these employment opportunities to Africans, and often live apart from the African societies in which they reside.
These activities are only an example of China’s abusive behavior in Africa. 

Africa endured colonialism and neo-imperialism for hundreds of years. 

Just as Africa has freed itself from those bonds, it needs to work with the West and other states to provide alternatives to Chinese money and infrastructure. 

The greatest threat Africa faces today is Sino-imperialism. 

It is now in danger of being captured by China’s sinister Sino-imperialism that will keep Africa from entering its renaissance.

Colonialism with Chinese Characteristics

Chinese investment in Africa creates national economies entirely dependent on China

Independent

Gold bars are displayed at South Africa's Rand Refinery in Germiston. 

Chinese investment in Africa could be accelerating debt on the continent and creating economies which are “entirely dependent on China”, according to financial experts.
Around $86bn (£64bn) in loans were issued by China between 2000 and 2014 to finance over 3,000 infrastructure projects in Africa.
But as leaders gather in Beijing for China’s Belt and Road Summit this week, under the banner of Xi Jinping’s flagship policy, experts have warned that this level of investment may not be as rosy at it appears.
Zuneid Yousuf, from MBI Group, said: “The 10,000 state owned firms operating in China today arrive off the back of these mammoth investments, and there’s no doubting their significant positive impact in many areas.
“However, these firms come under the guise of partnership, but this rhetoric, combined with genuine short term benefits masks longer term problems.”
One of the main issues around the Chinese approach is the dangerously high levels of debt that it brings, which could prove unsustainable for growing economies.
There is also a risk that the continent becomes overly dependent on one country, which could allow it to hold an uncomfortably high level of influence.
Mr Yousuf said: “China is seeking to present itself as the new face of globalisation, an image it will work hard to portray at this week’s Belt and Road summit.
“The problem with this is that the current model of their ‘globalisation’ doesn’t so much encourage increased interaction between nations on a worldwide scale, as increased interaction with China on a worldwide scale.
“The reality in Africa is a model of globalisation that works only in China’s interests.
“A far more effective model, one which would not lose the short-term benefits outlined above whilst simultaneously avoiding the pitfalls of unsustainable debt, would be to focus investment on partnerships with local businesses.
“This way there would be no need for vast government loans, and the job creation, skills development, and technology transfer would be ingrained at a local level and grow organically.”
Zambia is an interesting case study of Africa-China relations.
China is the largest foreign investor in the country, but it is often cited as an example of the limitations of Chinese investment.
The top-down, large government loan model has led to tensions.
One recent example is the problem of labour laws, and the news that Chinese investors in Zambia have been preventing labour representatives from being present at construction sites.

Colonialism with Chinese Characteristics

Uyghurs forced to welcome Communist Party into their homes
By Steven Jiang

Ethnic Uyghur members of the Communist Party of China carry a flag past a billboard of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping on June 30, 2017 in East Turkestan

Beijing, China -- More than a million Chinese Communist officials are being dispatched to live with local families in East Turkestan, a move seen as a sign of the government's increasingly tightened grip over the area's predominantly Uyghur Muslim population.
The so-called "home stays," announced by the government, target farmer households in southern Xinjiang, where the authorities have been waging an unrelenting campaign against what they call the forces of "terrorism, separatism and religious extremism."
Government statements and state media reports show that families are required to provide detailed information during the visits on their personal lives and political views. 

They are also subject to "political education" from the live-in officials -- whose stays are mandated to be at least one week per month in some locations.
International advocacy group Human Rights Watch highlighted and condemned the government's "home stay" program in a report released Sunday, calling it a serious violation of privacy and cultural rights of the 11 million ethnic minorities in East Turkestan.
"What can be more intrusive than forcing your way into somebody's home, making them host you while conducting surveillance on them and saying you're bringing benefits to them?" Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report, told CNN on Monday.
"It's the ultimate form of surveillance -- it's a forced political indoctrination and assimilation program," she added. 

"It's both creepy and perverse."
The "home stay" program, evolved from a government attempt that began in 2014 to have officials regularly visit and monitor people in East Turkestan, has greatly expanded since, involving 110,000 officials just two years ago to more than a million now, according to government figures.
State media reports these officials, most of whom belong to China's predominantly Han ethnic group, teach minority families to speak Mandarin, sing the national anthem and organize weekly national flag-raising ceremonies -- activities similar to what activists say are mandated for thousands of Uyghur Muslims arbitrarily detained in political education camps across East Turkestan.
CNN contacted the East Turkestan provincial government for comment but has not yet received a response.
China collecting DNA, biometrics from millions in East Turkestan

'Forced intimacy'
Tensions have remained high in East Turkestan -- a resource-rich area long inhabited by the Turkic-speaking ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims -- following a spate of violent attacks in recent years. The Chinese authorities have blamed the incidents on Muslim Uyghur separatists seeking to establish an independent state.
In numerous photos posted online, the authorities paint a picture of ethnic unity, showing smiling Han officials and minority families jointly preparing meals, doing household chores, playing sports and even sharing the same bed -- images that Human Rights Watch's Wang says put the "forced intimacy" element of the program on full display.
Thousands of Uyghur Muslims detained in Chinese 'political education' camps

Government statements have stressed the program's effectiveness in resolving people's daily and social problems such as trash collection to alcoholism.
But in a speech last December, a top East Turkestan official made clear the scheme's "strategic importance" in "maintaining social stability and achieving lasting security," as well as instilling the political theory of Xi Jinping in the minds of local residents.
A local government statement online also indicated that officials must inspect the homes they are staying for any religious elements or logos -- and instructed the officials to confiscate any such items found in the house.
Activists say the regional government, now led by a hardline Xi loyalist, has not only continued to arrest and imprison many Uyghurs, but also increasingly relied on both high-tech tools and mass mobilization programs to keep the population in check.
In addition to the "home stay" initiative and the political education camps, they cite examples ranging from ubiquitous surveillance cameras, to mandatory GPS tracker installation in cars and DNA collection for all residents aged 12 to 65.
Last year authorities also enacted a sweeping anti-extremism law, with long beards, veils in public and home-schooling all on the ban list, prompting new denunciations from international human rights groups.
Amnesty International has said Uyghurs face widespread discrimination in housing, education and employment as well as curtailed religious freedom in their homeland. 

Other critics have linked the rise of violence in East Turkestan to Beijing's repressive reign there -- a claim the government vehemently denies.

Ethnic tensions
Over the past decades, the arrival in East Turkestan of waves of Han Chinese has also fueled ethnic tensions, despite the government's best effort to portray an image of ethnic harmony.
"We guarantee the legitimate rights and interests of all ethnicities and prohibit the discrimination and oppression against any ethnic groups," Zhang Yijiong, a senior Communist Party official in charge of ethnic minority affairs, told reporters last October.
"The cultures, histories, languages and traditions of all ethnicities are protected and respected by national laws."
Critics of Beijing's Uyghur policy see a starkly different scenario in East Turkestan, as the authorities intensify their crackdown and surveillance while forced political indoctrination spreads.
"The real intention of the Chinese government is to eliminate the Uyghurs as a distinct ethnic group," Rebiya Kadeer, a longtime exiled Uyghur leader who recently stepped down as president of the advocacy group World Uyghur Congress, told CNN in an interview in Washington last year.
"All this repression (in East Turkestan) only makes the Uyghurs hold on to their identity more firmly," she added. 

"China has awakened the Uyghur people."