The Chinese burden? Brendan O'Neill April 1, 2008 5:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/brendan_oneill/2008/04/the_chinese_burden.html
As the Beijing Olympics approach, a sweeping left/right consensus has emerged
in the west: that China's interventions in Africa are deeply problematic.
Western officials, commentators and activists accuse China of "raping" Africa,
plundering its resources, creating even greater inequalities between rich and
poor, and cosying up to genocidal maniacs.
On the right, magazines likes the Economist describe the Chinese as "the new
colonialists"; on the left (well, ostensibly the left), human rights advocates
slate China for "funding genocide" in Darfur. Others claim that by doing
business with dodgy African regimes, China is undermining the west's attempts
to "encourage good governance" on the once dark continent.
This China-bashing dresses itself in radical lingo. Campaigners like to
fantasise that they are taking a stand against "Chinese colonialism". In truth,
there is an imperialistic bent to these criticisms of China for its record in
Africa: the aim is not to liberate Africans from outside interference, but
rather to preserve Africa as the playground of western do-gooders rather than
Chinese businessmen. Western observers are disturbed by Chinese meddling in
Africa because it undercuts their own self-styled role as the heroic saviours
of the African savage.
Save Darfur activists now campaign almost exclusively around attacking China
for "funding the genocide". Their campaigning comes across as both nasty and
naïve. Sunday's New York Times Magazine carried a revealing article about a new
group, Dream for Darfur, which is promoting the idea that Beijing 2008 will be
the "Genocide Olympics". One supporter of Dream for Darfur told the NYT:
"Darfur is singular. China is the reason Darfur is happening."
Such a statement is mind-bogglingly simple-minded. Darfur is anything but
"singular". As Jonathan Steele argued on Cif recently, "There are around a
dozen different rebel groups currently fighting the [Khartoum] government. To
put the blame on only one party [China] makes no moral or political sense."
Yet, as the NYT reporter pointed out, "For those on board with Dream for
Darfur, connecting the dots between the summer games and hundreds of thousands
of African corpses is not much more complicated" than saying "China is the
reason Darfur is happening".
Dream for Darfur called in Ben Cohen from the ice-cream maker Ben and Jerry's
(the mind boggles) to wage a "jihad" against China's cute, cartoonish Olympic
mascots: Beibei the fish, Jingjing the giant panda, and other big-haired
symbols of modern China. Dream for Darfur told Cohen to "keep his message
short". "The message here isn't hard: genocide bad; China helping", it advised.
So Cohen is devising an anti-mascot campaign with the message: "Looks cute -
supports genocide."
That sums up the cartoonish politics of the wristband-wearing,
latte-drinking, self-serving Save Darfur activists in New York and elsewhere.
It seems clear that bashing China over its relations with Khartoum is not based
on any serious political assessment of what is happening in Sudan and Darfur;
indeed, it overlooks the fact that few serious international organisations
describe the conflict as a genocide, and that, even though things are still
dire in Darfur, they're not as bad as they were during the intense conflict
period of 2003-2005.
Instead, this is about humiliating China out of Sudan so that the west can
take its rightful position as the hector-in-chief of the Khartoum government.
Apparently only white, well-educated, celebrity-connected westerners have a
right to determine what should happen in Sudan. As one commentator puts it:
"Sudan's government feels it can ignore western revulsion at genocide because
[thanks to China] it has no need of western money ... China, along with Sudan's
other Arab and Asian partners, feels free to trample on basic standards of
decency." Those indecent Chinese - how dare they block the righteous path of
"western revulsion" against an African regime?
Human Rights Watch is even more explicit. It recently complained that
"China's growing foreign aid programme creates new options for [African]
dictators who were previously dependent on those who insisted on human rights
progress". In short, Chinese deal-making with African states has undermined the
army of western officials, NGOs and conflict-resolution experts who believe
that only they should have free rein to tell Africans how to behave.
Attacking China for its support of Khartoum is not a liberationist or
pro-African demand; rather it is underpinned by western protectionism, a desire
to keep Africa as "The White Man's Burden" rather than allowing it to become
"The Yellow Man's Burden". Indeed, some of the China-bashing over Africa is
premised on what we might term "double racism": first there's the idea that
Africans are inherently genocidal and need "western revulsion" to keep them in
line; second there is the notion that the Chinese, who are not well-versed in
western values, cannot be trusted to deal with Africa.
Likewise, in discussions of aid to Africa, thinkers and activists on both the
left and the right complain about China's "no strings" trading with Africa. As
the BBC recently said: "China offers 'no-strings' aid, a marked contrast to
Western donors who impose conditions on aid and tie trade sweeteners to human
rights issues."
In other words, where western activists use aid and trade to try to force
changes in African governance and behaviour - effectively blackmailing
governments to follow western diktat and making fecund men and women take
lessons in condom-use as a condition of charity - the Chinese simply do
business deals, build roads, construct factories and create jobs without
demanding that Africans jump through hoops. Western do-gooders worry that
African states will be drawn to China, since the Chinese treat them as
grown-ups rather than as wayward children - "half-devil, half-child", as
Kipling put it - who need to be reviled and mollycoddled in equal measure.
There's no doubt that China is pursuing its own interests in Africa. But make
no mistake: so are those who lambast China. They are jealously guarding their
own colonialist influence over the African masses rather than striking a blow
for African independence.
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