A proper understanding of Chinese-African economic relations can only be reached by situating these in the context of globalization.
This was the view of Professor Tang Xiaoyang, a Resident Scholar at the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy and an assistant professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University, China, who gave a lecture on the subjet of China-Africa Economic Diplomacy at SPP on February 7. Over the last decade, the interaction between China and Africa has attracted global attention as China’s involvement in Africa has expanded from very modest beginnings to become the largest bilateral trade partner of the continent, with an increasingly important political footprint.
“This recent interaction is not just about bilateral policy in China’s own interests, but is a trend going back 500 years with the capitalist-based market economy and economic globalization,” explains Tang. “The economy is the basis for understanding everything that is happening between China and Africa, but I also believe that there are historical social and cultural issues that are important to understand.”
The history of China-Africa relations stretches back before but especially to the Ming Dynasty when the armada of admiral Zheng He first sailed to east Africa. The purpose for the voyages of the Chinese treasure fleet, Tang explains, was strictly cultural and ceremonial, and relations between China and Africa at this time lasted no more than the 20 or 30 years over which these voyages continued.
The next significant interaction would not come until 1970 with the building of the Tazara railway linking Tanzania and Zambia, the single largest foreign aid project undertaken by China at the time. The goal of the relationship on this occasion was a social one in line with the ideological struggle of the time, with the Chinese government wishing to end Zambia’s economic dependence on the white minority-ruled Rhodesia and South Africa.
“What has attracted global attention, though, has been the engagement over the last decade, especially since the 2006 Beijing summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation... Compared with the cultural focus of Zheng He’s fleet and the social aims of the Tazara project, this new engagement is driven by the market economy,” Tang argues. And this, he believes, mirrors the changes which have been experienced within Chinese culture itself where all resources are now focused on catching up with developed economies. China’s position as the workshop of the world and its recent experience in building infrastructure within its own borders make it perfectly placed to fulfil the needs of the African economies without demanding the high prices required by Western economies. By approaching relations within the framework of the modern market economy, China’s relations with Africa can be understood as part of a wider process of capitalist globalization that goes well beyond the bilateral China-Africa terms.
Tang Xiaoyang’s book on China-Africa economic diplomacy will be published in Chinese later this year.