Over a barrel: Chinas oil diplomacy in Africa

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Over a barrel Chinas oil diplomacy in Africa
UC-Santa Cruz Winter 2008 Global Issues
Colloquium Oil, Africa and the Global War on
Terror

• Giles Mohan
• Open University

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Spot the difference?
Mid-1970s
2006
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Ideology versus business
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When business is political

• "With this in mind, I find that my conscience
  will not allow me to continue with business as
  usual
• (February 2008)

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Key arguments

• We need to situate China-Africa relations in
  terms of the global economy and not overplay
  Chinas role.
• We need to go beyond simplistic either/or
  arguments or those which demonise China.
• Chinas interests in Africa are not new and its
  current focus on resources is not dissimilar from
  other industrializing countries down the years.
• That said while Chinese aid is used to further
  both economic and geopolitical claims it has been
  different

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Chinas oil dependency
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Chinas foreign policy flexible, harmonious
and peaceful

• Foreign policy is flexible, differentiated and
  proactive
• Post-Mao focus on modernisation of PRC economy,
  access to foreign markets, capital technology
• Post-Tiananmen re-evaluation of foreign policy,
  focus on access to energy resources and efforts
  to counter US hegemony
• Resource diplomacy, soft power support for
  China in multilateral agencies

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Chinas diplomatic offensive

• A permanent Forum on China-Africa Co-operation
  (FOCAC)
• 2004-7, President Hu Jintao has visited Africa
  three times, dispensing billions of dollars of
  debt relief (US80m in Sudan alone)
• China plans to open five trade and economic
  co-operation zones in Africa by 2009
• A US5 billion China-Africa Development Fund was
  launched in 2006
• In 2006 China published the equivalent of a White
  paper entitled Chinas Africa strategy

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Official Chinese visits in 2006
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Chinas 2006 Africa Strategy

• Enhancing solidarity cooperation with African
  countries has always been an important component
  of China's independent foreign policy of peace.
  China will unswervingly carry forward the
  tradition of China-Africa friendship, and,
  proceeding from the fundamental interests of both
  the Chinese African peoples, establish
  develop a new type of strategic partnership with
  Africa, featuring political equality mutual
  trust, economic win-win cooperation cultural
  exchange (2006, Chinas Africa Strategy)

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Aid delivery

• Traditionally unclear what China thinks of as
  aid
• Aid often tied to other forms of assistance
  economic co-operation
• China avoids the status of donor the word
  aid is often avoided
• The volume of Chinese aid regarded as a state
  secret
• High levels of poverty within China makes aid a
  sensitive issue but not one widely debated

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China the anti-imperialist

• If one day China should change her colour and
  turn into a superpower, if she too should play
  the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject
  others to her bullying, aggression and
  exploitation, the people of the world should
  identify her as social-imperialism, expose it,
  oppose it and work together with the Chinese
  people to overthrow it (Deng Xiaoping Speech at
  special session of the UN General Assembly, 1974).

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Down with America, down with Soviet Union

• Cold war context, ideology geopolitics,
  confrontation with the U.S (1950s/60s) U.S.S.R
  (1960s/70s)
• Afro-Asian solidarity based on shared history,
  common enemies, and revolution
• Countering international recognition of Taiwan
• Aid programmes aimed to show up the North
  (Snow, 1995)
• Missionary like convictions of being morally
  right

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Cold war nationalist solidarity
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TanZam the spirit of solidarity
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Import/export composition
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Chinas oil investment
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Chinese FDI to Africa
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Oil forecasts
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Sudan The core of Chinas African oil strategy
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Growth in Sudanese oil production
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Tensions
Among ordinary people, a very strong resentment,
bordering on racism, is emerging against the
Chinese...Its because the Chinese are seen as
backing the African governments in oppressing
their own people (Melber 2007)
The everyday
The organised
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China the excuse?

• Chinese oil interests relatively small
• Chinas largesse understandable given state of
  world oil markets
• Chinas stance on governance is changing

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Chinese oil in comparative perspective
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The China hawks Rogue aid and the dictator
dividend

• development assistance that is non-democratic in
  origin and nontransparent in practice. Its effect
  is typically to stifle real progress while
  hurting average citizensthreat to healthy,
  sustainable developmenteffectively pricing
  responsible and well meaning organizations out of
  the market in the very places they are needed
  most (Naim, 2007)

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Not quite panda huggers, but

• Dialogue to bring China in to the donor fold
• it is in Africa where we would like to work more
  closely with ChinaTo achieve lasting poverty
  reduction in Africa donor and recipient
  governments must work together to make the most
  effective use of aid. (Benn 2004)
• Use existing initiatives

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Conclusion

• Greater Chinese involvement in capacity building
  and governance
• Blurred lines of Chinese influence
• Tentative multilateralism
• The revival of triangulation
• Chinas own development, China as net debtor

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More of the same?

• Will Chinas engagement with Africa radically
  alter Africas extraverted relationship to the
  global economy?
• Or does China simply offer a different version of
  neoliberalism?