Over a barrel: China’s oil diplomacy in Africa

Giles MohanOpen University

UC-Santa CruzWinter 2008 Global Issues Colloquium Oil, Africa and the Global War on Terror

Spot the difference?

Mid-1970s 2006

‘Ideology’ versus ‘business’

Key arguments• We need to go beyond simplistic either/or

arguments or those which demonise China. • We need to situate China-Africa relations in

terms of the global economy and not overplay China’s role.

• China’s 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

China’s oil dependency

China’s 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

China’s 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 (US$80m in Sudan alone)

• China plans to open five trade and economic co-operation zones in Africa by 2009

• A US$5 billion China-Africa Development Fund was launched in 2006

• In 2006 China published the equivalent of a White paper entitled China’s Africa strategy

Official Chinese visits in 2006

China’s 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, China’s Africa Strategy)

‘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

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).

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’

Cold war nationalist solidarity

TanZam: the spirit of solidarity

Import/export composition

China’s oil investment

Chinese FDI to Africa

Oil forecasts

Zambia and Congo: China’s African takeover

Sudan: The core of China’s African oil strategy

Growth in Sudanese oil production

Sudan’s conflicts

Tensions

The everyday The organised

“Among ordinary people, a very strong resentment, bordering on racism, is emerging against the Chinese...It’s because the Chinese are

seen as backing the [African] governments in oppressing their own people” (Melber 2007)

China: the excuse?

• Chinese oil interests relatively small

• China’s largesse understandable given state of world oil markets

• China’s stance on governance is changing

Chinese oil in comparative perspective

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 citizens…a threat to healthy, sustainable development…effectively pricing responsible and well meaning organizations out of the market in the very places they are needed most” (Naim, 2007)

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 China…To 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

Conclusion Greater Chinese

involvement in capacity building and governance

Blurred lines of Chinese influence

Tentative multilateralism The ‘revival of

triangulation’

More of the same? Will China’s

engagement with Africa radically alter Africa’s relationship to the global economy?

Or does China simply offer a different version of neoliberalism?