---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 11:26:55 -0400
>
>
>Dawn (AU)
>13 Oct. 2000
>
>Beijing turns on charm to woo Africa
>
>By Antoaneta Bezlova
>
>
>BEIJING: China is making a fresh bid to emerge as a leader of the
>developing world, by promising external debt reduction and lucrative
>business deals to a bulk of African countries.
>
>Nearly 80 ministers of foreign and economic affairs from 44 African
>countries were assembled for the first China-Africa Cooperation Forum in
>Beijing, which ended on Wednesday.
>
>He called on African nations to work harder for the establishment of "an
>equitable and just new international and political order" - a key phrase
>used by Beijing to describe what it calls its fight to counter United
>States hegemonism.
>
>On the eve of the two-day conference, Chinese officials announced that
>Beijing was to reduce or cancel the debts owed to China by some of the
>most underdeveloped countries in the African continent.
>
>"China, being a developing country, hopes that it can promote the
>international community, especially those major creditors of African
>countries, to accelerate the process of reducing the debt burden of
>Africa," said Sun Guangxiang, vice minister of foreign trade and economic
>cooperation.
>
>This 'gift' from Beijing just before the meeting represents part of
>China's renewed attention to Africa in recent years.
>
>The diverse African continent plays a strategic role not only in China's
>fight against the influence of the US and its allies, but also in
>Beijing's efforts to counter the cheque- book diplomacy of rival Taiwan.
>
>Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province, now counts eight
>African countries among its supporters. In the last five years, it added
>Gambia and Senegal to the list and infuriated Beijing.
>
>China now extends subsidised, preferential loans instead of interest-free
>loans, to its African allies. Yet there was a time when Beijing poured
>millions of dollars in African aid, even as China itself stuttered on the
>brink of chaos and famine.
>
>In the 1960s and 1970s, Chairman Mao Zedong sought to counter Soviet
>influence among post-colonial African regimes. In the process, by some
>outside estimates, Beijing devoted nearly 2 billion US dollars to shoring
>up China's "traditional friendship" with its brothers in the world's
>poorest continent.
>
>In the past, China's aid to Africa covered the range from infrastructure
>projects to educational exchange programmes and arms sales.
>
>"From 1956 to 1999, China completed 618 projects in Africa, including the
>Tazara railway, Mauritania's Friendship Port and many others that Western
>countries certainly could not have realised," said an article in the
>'Economic Information Daily' on Tuesday.
>
>Reportedly, hundreds among the 10,000 Chinese workers assigned in the late
>1960s to work on the 1,850-km. railway between the Tanzanian port of
>Dar-es-Salaam and the Zambian copper mines, died from heat and exhaustion.
>
>Ties faltered and aid dried up in the 1980s when China embarked on its own
>programme for reforming its economy. Still, Beijing could count on its
>African allies whenever it needed UN votes to counter western criticism of
>China's human rights abuses.
>
>Today, China's political leadership puts a fresh emphasis on Sino-African
>friendship, responding with a charm offensive to Taiwan's cash-heavy courtship.
>
>During a tour of six African nations in 1996, Jiang Zemin put forward a
>five-point proposal for advancing long-standing cooperative relations.
>
>Former premier Li Peng visited seven African nations in 1997. Both leaders
>have been eager to reiterate their commitment to Third World brotherhood,
>even though developing countries are anxious as China moves to build
>closer ties with developed nations.
>
>Africa is becoming also a potential source of vital raw materials for
>China's mammoth heavy-industry sector.
>
>By encouraging investment in African countries, Beijing seeks to get not
>only the loyalty of their governments but also to satisfy China's
>voracious appetite for raw materials and its rising need for new markets.
>
>Yet although China accounts for 58 per cent of all investment in African
>continent, trade volume between the two sides remains modest. It reached
>6.5 billion dollars in 1999.
>
>Vice minister Sun was optimistic that this week's Sino- African forum will
>greatly promote bilateral trade. "The total volume of bilateral trade is
>expected to exceed 10 billion dollars this year," he said.
>-Dawn/InterPress News Service.
>

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