Marisol Benito Rey
1. Evolución histórica de la enseñanza de la LSE y de la DGS
Investments are part of broader economic engagements, which have been ana- lyzed in relation to aid and trade policies in Chapters 3 and 5 of this book. Europe and the US have specific trade policies with respect to Africa. Is China really an alternative for the Western development model? More specifically, is China an alternative for the West in Sudan? Yes, when Western donors boycotted Sudan and the country needed help to develop its oil sector. Since 1995, the Chinese have been involved in the oil sector in Sudan. The country was quite isolated at that time and had broken with the International Monetary Fund and was neglected by most other donors because of this and the war raging in the south of the country. However, the Chinese aid for Sudan is part of a broader strategy. Concerning China ’s strategy in Africa, one can only conclude that China seeks to assure its oil supply. Friedman (2005: 409) illustrates the point by telling the story of the Strait of Malacca, the narrow passage between Malaysia and Indonesia patrolled by the US. “Chinese strategic planners have become increasingly concerned that the US could choke off China’s economy at any time by just closing the Strait of Malacca, and this threat is now being increasingly and openly discussed in Chinese military circles”. He considers this just a small hint of the potential struggle for energy and power that could ensue if “the great American dream and the great Chinese dream (we should add that this is also the great Indian dream and the great Russian dream; MPVD) come to be seen as mutually exclusive in energy terms”.
China ’s Foreign Minister denounced the “handful of people trying to politi- cize the Olympics” (Financial Times, 19 May, 2007). Western governments see China as a country with a significant leverage over Sudan because of its strong trading relationships with Khartoum. China makes a lot of effort to provide the “right picture” of its presence in Sudan.6 In February 2008, it started a diplomatic
initiative to persuade Western public opinion that it is working hard to try to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur (Financial Times, 23 February, 2008). If a country needs to justify its actions so much there are good reasons to follow it critically.
On the one hand, the positive side, the Chinese have become aware of the critique and nominated a special envoy for Sudan in 2007. Sudan is a case where China has been willing to interfere in local affairs, for example when it pushed the government to accept the joint AU-EU peace force in Darfur, but this has had
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only limited positive effects so far. On the other hand, China is achieving very little in Sudan in terms of contributing to the solution of the country’s biggest problems, the conflicts with the Southern and the Darfur regions.
The special envoy, Mr. Liu, denies that China is surprised about the reaction to the Chinese presence in Sudan: “I am sometimes puzzled why China’s arms sales are exaggerated by our friends in the media... Is it a misunderstanding or is it intentional?” (Financial Times, 19 May, 2007). He added that they are not going to accept certain efforts to blackmail the Olympics. Finally he said that there are limits to how far China would go to put pressure on Khartoum.
Conclusions
Of all the cases discussed in this book, the involvement of China in Sudan shows most clearly how far China will go to defend its interests in Africa. Here it can be seen what “unconditional aid” and “refraining from intervening in local politics” really mean.
The impact of the Chinese presence in a country depends on the type of activi- ties and the number of Chinese involved. The analysis of Sudan in this chapter and of Zambia in the previous chapter showed the importance of raw materials (oil in Sudan and copper in Zambia) and shows the political consequences of in- tensive relations. The case of Sudan even threatened the Olympic Games in 2008 and China ’s commercial interests in Sudan, while in the case of Zambia, political interference of the Chinese was not appreciated.7
The Chinese have selected Sudan for investment purposes because of its oil, just like they opted for Angola and Nigeria because of Chinese strategic interests. However, the country wants to assure its supply of oil and does not bother about human rights violations, or poor governance in these countries. In 2007, a lot of critique was voiced with respect to China ’s intervention in Sudan (Azkenazi et al., 2008; Croll et al., 2008; IKV, 2008). The wave of critique was becoming even stronger in 2008. It implied that China had to make an effort to show its political power in Sudan. Because of its lack of action in Sudan and the troubles in Zim- babwe, where Mugabe is supported by the Chinese, and because of the demon- strations in Tibet and China’s violent reaction to these events, China became less popular in a number of countries.8
Despite eff orts to stress the neutral character of its presence in Sudan and Chi- na ’s emphasis on the win-win nature of its activities, China continues to be seen as an infl uential ally of Sudan, who could infl uence its policies (Financial Times, 23 February, 2008). Th e Chinese themselves consider that China’s ties with Sudan have been “unnecessarily politicized”, which they consider “unfair and irrational”
The political impact of the Chinese in Sudan
(Financial Times, 19 June, 2007). One can conclude that China showed its real face, when investing in Sudan ‘without imposing any conditions’ and that it does not stick to its own principles of not intervening in local policies and of not im- posing conditions on the assistance provided. An argument often heard as to why China is not willing to intervene in human rights issues or allow pressure on local authorities is that it does not want such interference in China’s internal aff airs and certainly would not like a discussion about its own human rights record.
Although there are strong similarities with European and American policies with respect to Africa, China ’s policies are different from Western countries deal- ing with oil countries in three respects. All countries, the EU as well as the US and China, will try to build up good relations with oil-supplying countries, but the actual negotiations in the case of the US and EU are happening through private oil companies. These Western companies usually have to go through a process of competitive bidding, which allows the country to select the best of- fer. Such an opportunity was not given to Sudan when the Chinese state-owned enterprises started to play a role in Sudan after the departure of the American companies. Finally, Western companies can be held accountable. They usually have critical shareholders and face governments and NGOs in their home coun- try, whether they like it or not (see also Chapter 9).
I would argue that as far as Sudan is concerned, China is different from other donors. In fact, Chaponnière followed the same line of argument concern- ing Chinese development aid in Chapter 3, and Kragelund and Van Dijk con- cerning investments in Chapter 4. Both chapters make clear why Chinese aid and investments are different. The Chinese government seems to pursue Chinese interests only, but tries to sell it as a win-win situation, if not as pure development aid. The lack of a clear distinction between aid, trade and investments makes the deals made not very transparent. What we see in Sudan is that it is impossible for a major power to be present and to claim that it can remain neutral.
Notes
The second pension fund of the Netherlands decided in January to stop investing in Petro-China (NRC, January, ), because the company is the main player in Sudan and as such a funder of the Sudanese government. The pension fund had raised human rights several times but considered the dialogue as not very cooperative.
He is only saying, however, that statistically speaking spending a lot of time under an IMF program is associated with higher risk of state collapse.
Only percent of Chinese arms are exported to Africa. China ranks tenth for the period - (Croll et al., ). There are also unexpected suppliers, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran (IHT, March, ).
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This is the term used by the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, when he visited the region in .
In particular, “Fatal transactions” is a network of European and African NGOs and re- search institutions dedicated to the transformation of fatal transactions into fair transac- tions, which truly contribute to sustainable peace and reconstruction in Africa (Croll et al., ).
The Financial Times ( April, ) reports that China seeks Public Relations (PR) ad- visers to counter Tibet anger. It sometimes looks as if they are also struggling with the impression they give by helping the Sudanese government and could use a PR initiative “to understand what people think of them and how they can get their story in the media”. Even the Angolan government has made it clear how much influence from China they will
accept (Financial Times, ). See the next chapter under “the mining sector”.
After the Sichuan earthquake in May , all critique stopped because the world was now supposed to show its solidarity with the Chinese people.
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