We all know it: China is digging deep into Africa, eager to satisfy its vast resource hunger and leaving shoddily built hospitals and roads instead. Lavish sums of aid money won't make up for this, they're barely a fig leaf to cover up China's erection on the international scene. A lavish donor country, you say? Lo and behold, high end estimates even rank China as the biggest donor only after the US! These estimates, then, would mean that China reaches the 'magic' .7% of GNI spending target, which barely five Western countries succeed to meet!
What to make out of these figures? Having just read The Dragon's Gift, a smashing book by Deborah Brautigam about the true nature of China's engagement in Africa, I am eager to share some of the eye-opening findings. For starters, these high estimates are most likely to overstate China's official aid flows as defined by the OECD's Development Assistance Committee. These exclude a lot of financially attractive investment loans (but still at market prices and therefore not grants) and export credits. The confusion originates in the absence of official aid data released by the Chinese government and the fact that China's Aid Department houses in its Ministry of Commerce. However, few people bother disaggregating data from that Ministry, picking the low-hanging fruit instead and creating a murky - and, I must add, inaccurate - image. As Brautigam writes:
In 2004, The Economist reported an erroneous figure of $1.8 billion for China's "development aid" for Africa in 2002. This was repeated in a Boston Globe article, which became the source for an article in Current History that said the 2002 figure of $1.8 billion was the "last" time "official statistics" on Chinese aid to Africa were released. The Current History article was subsequently cited by researchers at the World Bank, who repeated soberly that "The last officially reported flows are for 2002. For that year, China's government reported that it provided $1.8 billion in economic support to all of Africa." An International Monetary Fund study cited the World Bank report as its source for the same figure. Apparently, no one checked to see if there had actually been any official statistics reported by China in 2002 or at any point before or since for its annual aid to Africa (there were not).
China applies tactics in its Africa engagement that is has learnt from back in the days when Japan was jump-starting China's economic development. Big investments in infrastructure and manufacturing were secured by China's resources, and it was allowed to repay loans in kind (manufactured clothes, minerals, oil, etc.). This resulted in a win-win situation for both countries, stimulating China to do the same. Not only is it investing in those areas, it strongly focuses on training its counterparts and offering scholarships to thousands of young students in a time when most traditional donors are foregoing this kind of assistance. The whole idea is to sharpen local skills and upgrade existing practices in the face of Chinese competition, to increase mutual trade flows. (Like everybody, China is in it for the money.)
Brautigam has done an amazing job in revealing the more precise nature of China's engagement with Africa, and there are so many more facts and stories that nuance the West vs. China aid debate ('you cannot reduce poverty and live in a five-star hotel at the same time' vs. 'you cannot finance a presidential palace for a dictator and call it foreign aid'). The biggest lesson I draw from her book, is that we have to go look for the facts, not only China's, but also our own. As long as we cannot prove that our way of delivering aid or casting embargoes is truly resulting in social justice, stability and prosperity for the people our governments mean to help, and that it is the only possible way to do so, we shouldn't condemn actors that try it differently. (Because our banks, too, give loans to corrupt countries, just as our governments deliver weapons to torture-prone regimes.) Rather, we should learn from them and combine the best of both worlds, if we truly mean to contribute to a better present and future. In the meantime, I can only recommend reading The Dragon's Gift yourself!
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