Eyes On China: Natural Resources Vacuumed Up; President Hu in Africa

By John E. Carey
February 1, 2007

Chinese President Hu Jintao presides over a China more aware than ever that without access to vast amounts of natural resources including petroleum, copper, zinc and other elements China’s booming economic dynamo could be slowed and even forced into disarray if not chaos.

Consequently President Hu is in Africa this week on his third trip to the resources rich continent.

China has a ten year record of heavy investments in needed projects in Africa in a deal that brings home to China millions of barrels of oil and billions of tons of other resources.

President Hu has taken a very personal interest in this state sponsored initiatives.

Some call the China trade route with Africa “The New Silk Road.” The ancient Chinese Silk Road connect people as far east as Korea with a more than 5,000 mile trade route that brought goods and trade to the Mediterranean Sea and Europeans.

Over the past decade, China and Africa have developed a strong relationship. Trade has grown to $40 billion. And Chinese investment has poured into copper mines and oil fields, helping to boost African economies.

China as made huge inroads into African economies nearly paralyzed under economic sanction designed to encourage African nations to provide more protections on human rights. Those sanctions usually come from the United States and the European Union, according to Scott Sagan, co-director of the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation.

“The Chinese, for example, cut a deal with Sudan as a means of creating energy security for themselves,” said Dr. Sagan. “It inhibits efforts of the international community to encourage that government to behave responsibly.”

The hunger and devastation of Darfur in Sudan is internationally recognized as a disaster. The United States has called the civil war in Darfur genocide. China calls it an opportunity.

China gets petroleum from Sudan, pumping wealth into the troubles region in return.

President Hu has been quoted as saying, cooperation between China and Africa was going to “rise in volume and size to reach the highest levels and make a greater contribution to the well-being of the Chinese and African people.”

The Chinese president just completed a visit to Cameroon and is also due to visit Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique and the Seychelles during his 12-day tour.

Today President Hu is visiting the capital of Liberia, Monrovia. Liberia suffered through more than ten years of Civil War until, according to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Chinese peacekeepers came to the rescue. Now trade with China is rising dramatically.

“Liberians will never forget the friendship of Chinese peacekeeping soldiers,” she told Chinese journalists.

Trade between the two countries shot up by 155 percent last year from 2005 to 375 million dollars, according to the Chinese state controlled news service Xinhua.

Just as “Deep Throat” instructed Watergate reporters from the Washington Post during the presidency of Richard Nixon, to get to the root of many issues it is important to “follow the money.”

Understanding national interests in the international arena has a basic undeniable truth: the nation is usually concerned wherever its needed resources exist.

Professor Anene Ejikeme of Trinity University teaches African Civilizations, courses on Pan-African studies and other Africa related courses.

In today’s Christian Science Monitor she makes these points:

– Fifteen years ago China was self-sufficient in oil. Today, it has become the world’s second-largest importer of oil, a need that will accelerate, as experts predict that by 2020 there will be 140 million private cars in China.

–A recent study indicates that China has overtaken Britain to become Africa’s third-most important trading partner (after the US and France).

– Overall trade between Africa and China grew more than 50 percent in 2005 to $42 billion.

Rights groups hope Hu will use his visit to Sudan, where China is pumping substantial quantities of oil, to back international calls for an end to the civil war in the Darfur region, a conflict the United States has called genocide.

Beijing, by far the biggest foreign economic investor in Sudan, is thought to be in a position to persuade Khartoum to accept UN peacekeepers in Darfur. But China’s recent record in Tibet indicates that its incursion in Africa is all about sending raw materials back to China with little or no regard for human rights.

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