From Darfur to Zimbabwe: the China Influence

The photo is from http://www.mdczimbabwe.org/ The Chinese Communist Party has become very active in its presence in Africa in recent years. Its tight bonds with African dictators have been noticed with precautions by the international community for a few years now. Some so-called political analysts boldly claim that China is more a savior to many African countries than the Western world. They argue that many western countries have attached to their help to most of the African countries different restrictions, such as the development of a democratic society or the improvement of human rights. This has prevented many African countries from obtaining any real assistance for many years. China, on the other hand, is doing straight business with African countries. Its so-called HELP to these nations is almost-always unconditional, except for one thing. That is, China will be receiving the sole right to access the rich natural resources of these countries. In return, China will be providing these countries with its cheap manufacturing products. The reality, however, is that China often supply many of these dictatorial African countries with not only goods but also arms and ammunition. On the top of this, unlike the western world, China is not involved in any economic, cultural, or societal activities in these countries, except for the construction of the so-called infra-structure and the development of facilities for extracting natural resources. Once in a while, China will help in providing these nations with some agricultural technology and medical knowledge, areas that China itself is not really good at. The problem of the involvement of the Chinese Communist Party in Africa has been a relatively unpopular topic until recently. A classic case is Sudan, an oil-rich dictatorial country. Thanks to the ample supply of arms and ammunition from China, the Sudanese government has been successfully conducting its systematic genocide program in Darfur to wipe out African Blacks. This evil action has long been supported by the Chinese Communist Party in the backstage. Being a member of the Security Council at the UN, the Chinese Communist Party has been consistently blocking any proposal to sanction the Sudanese government for Darfur genocide. Now, it comes Zimbabwe. An oil-less country that is rich in minerals and other natural resources. Again, some so-called political analysts support the presence of the Chinese Communist Party in Zimbabwe, claiming that it offers unconditional aids that have provided real help to it economic development. It turns out once again that these so-called political analysts have a major lack of vision. Uncontrolled and unconditional economic development in Zimbabwe is now creating an intimidating inflation rate of over 11000% this year. Shelves in retail shops are now empty because of an unsuccessful attempt by the Zimbabwe dictator to control price. The so-called economic development only in the building of roads and bridges now turns out to be a curse and definitely not a blessing. What is the purpose of having more roads when the gas station is not selling any imported gas because of the horrific depreciation of Zimbabwe currency? Stop and think. Do these African countries need more roads and bridges to improve their economies? Any sensible beings will correctly point out that they need better disciplines from their dictatorial governments. Hardware is not the key to improve African economies. It is software, namely, education, democracy, long-term economic planning, sound fiscal and monetary policies, ... that are important to these nations. Can the Chinese Communist Party help in these areas? It is perhaps better for one to ask: is China doing well in these areas itself? References http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11885977 http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0330/p01s01-woaf.html http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php? volume_id=408&issue_id=3390&article_id=2369974