Generation Next: Rethinking Africa & China

Assistant Professor at Ashesi, Lloyd G. Adu Amoah, discusses the future of Sino-Africa relations in the Ashesi University Bulletin. The latter half of 2012 will prove a momentous period for China with long-term implications for Africa. Keenly awaited by close China-watchers this year is the convening of National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the highlight of which will be the handing over of power – only the second time this century- from China’s ‘fourth generation’ leadership to its fifth. The late Communist leader and head of the ‘second generation’, Deng Xiaoping, instituted many of the market oriented reforms seen today, but it was the current President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao who have stabilised the booming post-Deng years. This Hu-Wen generation – mostly born during the World War II - was deeply marked by the chaos of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution and thus adopted an almost machine-like technocratic style of policy formulation and implementation. It is no accident that both Hu and Wen are engineers. China’s courting and engagement with Africa has been critical in achieving this stabilisation. In fact, the value of trade between the two partners has crossed the $100 billion mark in the past two years. And China’s infrastructural footprints have become very visible on the continent in the past decade of which the construction of the African Union headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa is the most symbolic and daring expression. Chinese companies - state, quasi-state and private - have invested heavily under the Hu-Wen administration in the extractive, telecommunications, manufacturing and financial sectors in virtually all parts of the continent. And for a decade now, Africa has also responded on her own terms to China’s overtures. An indication of this is a burgeoning African diaspora visible in major China cities such as Macau, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Chongqing and Wuhan. The fifth generation Chinese leadership, who will likely coalesce around Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, probably anticipate that they will have to deal with, and be judged by, a languid or maturing Africa-China partnership. In other words the key concerns of the potential Xi-Li administration will be less about planting a strategic toe hold in Africa, something their immediate predecessors focused on, than ensuring that that delicate Chinese toe in question is not exposed to debilitating bruises or forcible amputation. They would do well to take note of a couple of warning signs. One sore point of Africa-China relations is the year-on-year trade deficits that African countries have had to endure on account of commerce with China. The upshot of this – for China at least - is the emergence of Chinese traders in the retail sector of African markets who are corralling the supply chains of Chinese commodities in high demand in Africa and competing directly with African traders. The Ghana United Traders Association (GUTA) is not standing for it and has protested about the dominance of China in its domestic markets. GUTA’s protests have led to a June ultimatum by the Government of Ghana for Chinese retail traders to close shop ‘or face the consequences’. In an election year, Ghana’s government may not want to upset its voters. In China itself, more protests are flaring up in the diaspora communities over the heavy handed treatment of African migrants on the mainland. In Guangzhou, for instance, riots have broken out leading to injuries. In the short run however the Xi-Li administration could be side-tracked by something much closer to home – the infamous Bo Xilai affair – dubbed one of the biggest scandals ever to hit the China’s ruling party. He was the former Communist Party chief in Chongqing, who lived a lavish lifestyle and is now facing charges of corruption. His wife is also being investigated for murder. The Bo matter has become a microcosm of the challenges that the new leadership will face. Bo can be considered a veritable dross on the shine of a ruling Chinese elite that has diligently cast itself as austere and selfless and deployed this to attract a steady stream of investments from the West. The Xi-Li team will probably focus on presenting Bo as an aberration rather than a norm in China to, at the very least, reassure foreign investors that the new Chinese leadership remains a trustworthy business partner. There is a lot at stake here. In China the Bo imbroglio touches a raw nerve given the widening gulf between the country’s rich and poor, and the potential for mass social unrest. For the Xi-Li cohort these realities may leave Africa-China relations on hold; a matter to tackle after the fire-fighting over Bo has been done. One senses, at least in the short-term, that the new administration will want to project a business-as-usual approach to Africa while it diverts its energies to crises on home soil. This is very risky. Primarily it means that China’s new rulers will be taking their eyes off growing discontent in Africa over the country’s conduct on the continent, all the while trying to douse simmering discontent at home. Promises of pro-poor policies in China may work for now. But if one considers how key Africa is to China’s future growth – and thus its continuing stability – it would be a gross miscalculation of the new regime if those promises of poverty attenuating policies did not extend to the African continent as well. In the meantime, the time is ripe for Africa’s policymakers, civil society organisations, academics and other interested parties to seize the initiative and lobby Beijing in order to reform relations with China for the mutual benefit of both parties. Originally written for: July-September, 2012 edition of the BBC Focus on Africa magazine.