The country has created the world’s new economic hub and this is why I agree with Mr Lyimo that Tanzania, and Africa at large can benefit from this.
What you need to know:
The issue at stake was to prepare a script on Africa-China relationship and show whether it was a blessing or a curse! To me this proposition sounded like a modal logic statement (logic of impossibility or necessity).
This article is a response to an article written by Mr Karl Lyimo, “Why China - Tanzania “tiers” are right way forward,” published in The Citizen on April 2, 2015.
It reminded me of the hot discussions we had in my former days at Jordan University in Morogoro during Mr Devie Kitururu’s class on African Drama back in 2013.
The issue at stake was to prepare a script on Africa-China relationship and show whether it was a blessing or a curse! To me this proposition sounded like a modal logic statement (logic of impossibility or necessity).
Leaving aside that logical dilemma, now I intend to apply this modal logic in the article written by Mr Karl Lyimo. Admittedly, China has had its own share of publicity in the recent past. It is no longer remarkable that the White House and Downing Street are all rushing to China for economic relations. Candidly, China has a great role to play in the present and future of the world’s economy.
The country has created the world’s new economic hub and this is why I agree with Mr Lyimo that Tanzania, and Africa at large can benefit from this.
However, I see it wise to sense China’s influence in Africa from the angle of the amount of ‘Chinaware’ where Africa is viewed as a ware-housing and dumping place for Chinese products. These products – which are mostly of an inferior quality and are sold cheaply, remain a threat to infant industries producing similar products in Africa.
The reality of China’s influence in Africa is unquestionable. Chinese leaders carry the message that China and Africa share a common experience and could build a new pattern of what would later be known as South-South cooperation. Candidly, China has brought to Africa both hopes and fears. From this perspective, Chris Aiden discusses three interpretations of the relationship between China and Africa.
He says China remains a partner in the development endeavour. Chinese involvement in Africa is part of a long-term strategic commitment to the continent driven by its economic needs. On the other hand, China can be perceived as an economic competitor who is engaged in a short-time ‘resource grab’ showing little concern for holistic development for African economies. Finally, an interesting interpretation is that China has knocked at the African door as a coloniser.
China’s engagement can be viewed as a long-term strategy aimed at displacing the Western orientation of the continent by forging partnerships with African elites under the rubric of South-South solidarity. This calls for Africans to predict for a new Beijing Conference uniting all UN veto powers to partition modern Africa, in replacing the historical Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. We also need to question this relationship basing on the ideological relationships between these two allies. Chris Aiden discusses them in three levels of interaction: the pariah regimes, weak democracies and democracies with diversified economies (which in this case seem to be South-Africa alone under the BRICS economic alliance).
These levels of interaction bring out an ever growing concern that China, with its policy of non-intervention, seems to condone dictatorship in Africa as it is experienced in pariah regimes, like the Zimbabwe and Sudan, where the Chinese influence is high, besides economic sanctions from Western powers.
To make my point clear I don’t claim that Africa and Tanzania in particular should not look at China has a role model in matters of economic development. I strongly agree with what Mr Karl Lyimo proposes, but my point of scepticism is that the initiatives of Chinese influence in Africa should not only concentrate on infrastructural development and marketing of Chinese products but should as well put into consideration issues related to good governance, promotion of human rights, rule of law, civil society, environmental sustainability and promotion of indigenous African technical skills and technologies.
Let us be reminded of our responsibility as Africans and Tanzanians in particular as active agents in our socio-economic development path and not patients reflecting on what Cassius says to Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “Men are sometimes masters of their fate; the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
The author is a Tanzanian who is currently studying in India.
