Enter the dragon

Ben Travers reports on the anxieties about China’s rise in Africa, as Malawi ditches Taiwan for a new allegiance

The Taiwanese Technical Mission in the Malawian capital of Lilongwe was a scene of mixed emotions and frantic activity last month, as diplomatic officials and aid workers reacted to sudden news: the Malawian government has given Taiwan 30 days to get out of the country.

Malawi Minister of Foreign Affairs Joyce Banda announced on January 14 that the government had severed its 42-year-old relationship with Taiwan in favour of a diplomatic allegiance with the People’s Republic of China – a move that the Taiwanese have described as “a great humiliation and something a self-proclaimed democratic country with 42-year-long relations with Taiwan should not do.”

Malawi’s defection from Taiwan is the third in 18 months, after Chad and Costa Rica, and is another blow to a country that relies on the recognition of ally nations to make its case as a sovereign state. It is also yet another step in China’s remarkable sweep across Africa, vividly revealing the ambiguous repercussions of its engagement in the continent.


Dropping old friends

The China-Malawi agreement has been met by a wide range of reactions from Malawians. For some, the immediate feeling is regret. Exemplifying their country’s epithet “the warm heart of Africa,” many seem disappointed and embarrassed by their leaders’ abandonment of a partner that has been both generous and loyal during Malawi’s efforts to develop. The Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika has lobbied vigorously for Taiwan at the United Nations in return for the country’s support, adding a sense of hypocrisy and injustice to the circumstance.

The Daily Times, one of the country’s two mainstream newspapers, recently published a particularly poignant opinion piece entitled “Taiwan and the great betrayal,” in which a Malawian named Idriss Ali Nassah voiced these sentiments. Nassah had toured Taiwan on an official visit in 2006, met President Chen Su Bien, and preached warmly to people about Malawi’s integrity and commitment to the Taiwanese nation.

“We have been friends and allies for over four decades. I said…Malawi was going to go with Taiwan because their creed of democracy tallied with our dreams; they understood our past and appreciated our hopes for the future,” he remembers.

Nassah, like other Malawians, recognizes that mainland China does not always share Malawi’s appreciation for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, and is painfully conscious of the country’s dubious legacy in Africa.

The list of grievances with China is a long one. China’s relentless pursuit of Africa’s abundant raw materials, needed to fuel the Chinese economy’s dizzying growth, has often been accompanied by a complete disregard for transparency, human rights, and its own much-touted principles of “mutual benefit” and “common development.”

China has invested heavily in the continent’s infrastructure, building roads, railways, and public buildings in countries as disparate as Rwanda and Nigeria. But many of these seemingly humanitarian initiatives are intended either to woo local leaders anxious for something to show their constituents or to expedite the extraction of resources. Critics argue that China is actually doing little to help African nations develop the skills, infrastructure, and technology needed to escape the poverty of dependence.

Chinese companies, for instance, have often insisted on using Chinese labour in countries with massive unemployment. Other times, Chinese treatment of local labourers has been so bad that it has led not only to bitter relations but civil unrest and riots.

Another scramble for Africa

The unfortunate fact is that in Africa, some things haven’t changed. True to the West’s own scheme for the continent, China is digging up and importing Africa’s riches – in the Sudan, Nigeria, Angola, and Chad; in Zambia, Congo, Ethiopia and Kenya – and sending the finished products right back to the continent. This leaves Africa with little opportunity to develop its own industries and compete in the global market.

And so in Malawi it is no surprise that “cautious reserve” is the phrase of the day. Many people are just hoping that their leaders are developing the “checks and balances” necessary to ensure that their country becomes a beneficiary and not another victim.

Unfortunately, the circumstances surrounding Malawi’s defection to China are already indicative of some of the characteristics that have brought China’s engagement with Africa into question. China has dealt almost exclusively with Africa’s political elites, largely ignoring civil society groups and NGOs, and this has led relations to be questioned for their ethics and openness. Malawi’s case is no exception.

The Memorandum of Understanding that was signed between Malawian ministers and the Chinese government in Beijing on December 28 was not announced – even to the Taiwanese – for over two weeks. And neither parliament nor civil society was consulted.

Dorothy Nyasuru, Chairperson of the Malawi Human Rights Commission, says that while the executive branch of government has authority over foreign policy, this major decision was made in an unnecessarily clandestine and undemocratic manner.

“Government should have whispered to our representatives to say, ‘We are intending to make this switch. Here are the reasons.’ They may have their reasons, but they did not disclose those, and did not engage us in the discussion. If there is no consultation and no participation of the citizens in a crucial issue, it is also a constitutional issue. It’s a right that we need to be getting,” she says.

“We are hoping that whatever our government is doing with the Chinese is going to be transparent, and that the government will always remember they are accountable to the people of Malawi, and that in whatever dealings there are going to be, no rights should be violated.”

Evident in Nyasuru’s comments is a common anxiety that relations with the Chinese – known for crushing dissenting voices and ignoring rights within their own country – will turn a decade of Malawian social progress backwards.

Also visible is a crucial question that hasn’t yet been given a proper answer: Why was the deal made at all?

Government officials have only said that the switch was made in the “socioeconomic interests of Malawi.” The Parliamentary Committee on International Affairs has summoned Foreign Affairs Minister Banda to explain the decision, but for now the most widespread theory is that the government caved in to “dollar democracy.”

The Taiwanese and others charge that Beijing offered Malawi a $6-billion aid package – an amount that represents nearly six times Malawi’s current annual budget. The government has not confirmed this, but the idea is no great feat of imagination.

One of the hallmarks of China’s policy towards Africa is its willingness to lure developing nations with package aid deals, often composed of direct investment, affordable credit, and infrastructure, with absolutely no conditions and no questions asked. This contrasts with the West’s foreign assistance, which is underpinned by free-market capitalism and is often tied to the creation of open markets, deregulation, privatization, and democratic governance.

When François Bozizé took power of the Central African Republic in a bloody coup in 2003, the African Union revoked the country’s membership. China offered it interest-free loans, expressed interest in the nation’s oil reserves, and invited Bozizé to Beijing.

And then there is what some might call “abetting genocide.” China has notoriously used its veto on the United Nations Security Council to block resolutions on the tragedy in Darfur, refusing to meddle in the internal affairs of one of its major oil suppliers.

Chequebook diplomacy?

Malawi’s relationship with China is likely to be less dramatic than its dealings with resource-rich countries. With 90 per cent of the population living on subsistence agriculture and little else to export other than tobacco, timber, and tea, it can’t offer China’s economy much more than another “dumping ground” for cheap goods and a place for Chinese businesses to make a buck.

This development is understandably unpalatable to Malawians. But what many people are not talking about is that for China, the deal may not really be about Malawi. It’s about Taiwan.

Beijing – like Taipei – understands the importance of a vote, and China’s activities in Africa have often been driven by the intention to win allies rather than earn profits. During the Cold War, Africa was the vital region, within which China sought to counteract the two hegemonic superpowers and gain leverage in the international sphere. High-level delegations were being sent in huge numbers as early as the sixties, and when the UN voted China into its membership in 1971, African nations played a crucial role.

China frequently pursued the strategies it is now employing in Malawi; it made irresistible offers to gather diplomatic support on the “one-China” issue.

Taiwan’s deputy Foreign Minister Yang Tzupao has, with good reason, accused the deal of being part of Beijing’s continuing “efforts to squeeze Taiwan’s international space.”

China’s African policy, released in 2006, states that all diplomatic relations in Africa must be based on African recognition of the one-China principle, and this has been perhaps the most conspicuous part of the Malawian government’s rhetoric since January 14.

Only months after President Mutharika supported Taiwan at the UN, the Minister of Foreign Affairs seemed to have change of heart:

“The Government of the Republic of Malawi recognizes that there is but one China in the world. The Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China, and that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory.”

And so Taiwan is left with four tiny African allies – Swaziland, Burkina Faso, Sao Tome, and Gambia – and Malawi is setting off on a new path with a partner that may have already reached its destination. The question it now faces, along with so many other African nations, is: Can China help shape a better future?

Alternatives to the West

Despite uncertainties about the China deal, some Malawians offering compelling counter-arguments to criticisms of China’s African engagement.

Undule Mwakasungula, Executive Director of the Lilongwe-based Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation, is one of a growing contingent that points to Western hypocrisy and sees in China a new hope for the continent.

“The West has failed Africa,” he says. “Africa is looking at China as an alternative to its problems.”

From Mr. Mwakasungula’s perspective, criticisms leveled at China’s failure to boost development and respect human rights are at least partially undermined by the West’s own legacy on the continent.

On the one hand, he wonders why Malawi should not benefit from Chinese growth when many of the countries that criticize China’s African engagement not only have their own rights abuses – like the United States – but are also investing heavily in China.

On the other, it is no secret that four decades and over $2-trillion of aid money tied to Western conditions have not led to significant improvements in Africa, and in many cases made things worse. Malawi, it so happens, is one of the many places where the West’s insistence on open markets and structural adjustment led to misery. In the 1990s, the World Bank and donor community essentially axed a government fertilizer subsidy program that they felt would impede the development of a market-based agricultural sector. Famines resulted in 2002 and 2005.

The great allure and promise that China has for Africa is its controversial principle of non-interference, which liberates them from the Western development paradigm. It gives African leaders the autonomy to manage their own affairs and to independently decide what is best.

This brings both great potential and grave danger – potential for assertive African states to reap the boom of Chinese investment and trade to find “homegrown” solutions, and danger that China’s disregard for transparency and accountability will undermine efforts to curb Africa’s rampant corruption and help donor money get to its intended destination: the people.

As Akwe Amosu, a senior policy analyst for the Open Society Institute, wrote in Foreign Policy in Focus:

“Ultimately the greatest challenge is not to persuade China to practice responsible global governance – though this is very important – but to prevent African leaders from squandering the tremendous opportunities offered by Chinese capital.”

Africa must match China’s self-interested pragmatism with its own, and ironically, it may be up to civil society to make sure it benefits all.

“China has to open up to civil society. If they give support to government, they must also give support to us. We are partners in civil society, and we are partners in development,” Mr. Mwakasungula says.

“If they don’t fulfill their promises, we will kick them out.”

Somewhere between the East and the West, Africa may finally find its own middle kingdom.