Scrambling in Africa

Last month, Barack Obama took his first presidential whirl around the Far East, all the while peddling the messages of our nation. The common refrain? “We welcome China’s effort to play a greater role on the world stage—a role in which its growing economy is joined by growing responsibility.”

This simple principle—that with great power comes great responsibility—is accepted by most prominent public figures, from Obama to other Western leaders to Spiderman’s Uncle Ben. The People’s Republic of China, though, seems to be having some trouble with it.

Lately, the People’s Republic has been in the bad habit of making ever larger investments with questionable African regimes. A week before Obama’s tour, during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao promised to lend Africa $10 billion in low-interest development loans over the next three years and to forgive many older interest-free loans made to less developed nations.

While this sounds rosy enough, even interest-free money isn’t ever really free. Rather than use its economic leverage to stamp out corruption or push for human rights, as the West does, China’s demand is instead a request that African markets open up to the dumping of Chinese products, that participating governments refuse to recognize Taiwan, and that any development contracts are forged exclusively with Chinese companies.

The People’s Republic, for its part, adamantly invokes the Westphalian defense that, unlike America or the World Bank, it doesn’t involve itself in the internal affairs of other nations. Yet such invasive preconditions suggest otherwise. The terms of Chinese loans certainly put limitations on African sovereignty, just not on African corruption.

As China steps into its role as a global leader, it must be more careful about how it presents itself on the world stage. Technocrats in Beijing can hardly hope to veil their foreign policies as well as they do their domestic ones. Political and economic success story that it is, China is a role model for scores of developing nations. Under the dual threats of setting those nations astray and losing its own international good standing, China therefore needs to change its Africa policy—and fast.

Of course, China’s initiatives are far from malicious in and of themselves. In fact, they might do the perpetually forgotten continent an unprecedented amount of good. Among the tangible benefits of the November deal are $1 billion for small business, massive improvements in African infrastructure, reduced tariffs, construction of 100 clean-energy projects, and sponsorship of programs in health, education, culture, and agriculture. Since 2000, such measures have not only built China political goodwill, they have also expanded the dollar value of Chinese trade with Africa tenfold.

What is deplorable, though, is that by providing an alternate source of investment without any progressive strings attached, China is undermining the efforts of Western reformers who offer corrupt or dictatorial regimes only humanitarian aid or loans that are conditional on political reform. By providing economic opportunity without incentives to liberalize, China is only emboldening and legitimizing tyranny.

Needless to say, the many African nations that do not suffer corrupt government deserve to be extended loans free of austere prerequisites. But China’s track record suggests that its dealmakers are hardly selective enough.

The Beijing Olympics thrust into the spotlight China’s massive investments in genocidal Sudan. The rancor that followed marked the first time China faced the international humiliation that comes with injudicious investment in troubled regimes. Since then, China has emerged from a year-long financial crisis as a global leader, not just a player. And yet the People’s Republic persists.

In late September, the Guinean military junta murdered 150 demonstrators and raped scores of women who peacefully sought civilian rule. Two weeks later, a secretive Chinese conglomerate with several ties to state-owned enterprises and governmental agencies struck a $7 billion deal for oil and mineral rights with the Guinean dictatorship, even as the United States and European Union slapped it with sanctions.

At the end of the day, China has every right to strike bilateral deals with other nations, regardless of the terms. But if it persists in failing to consider the moral responsibilities that come along with visible leadership in a globalized world, China risks losing that very leadership itself.

Karthik R. Kasaraneni ’12, a Crimson editorial writer, is a chemistry concentrator in Currier House.