AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL VOLUME 47 NUMBER 22 
  NOW ONLINE AT WWW.AFRICA-CONFIDENTIAL.COM

  
26 October
  Champs Elysée
Paris
France


  Dear Readers and Summiteers , 
Short of catching a plane to Beijing and battling it out in the Press Centre, Paris seemed the best vantage point from which to watch the extraordinary China-Africa summit.  The three day conference had all the grandiosity of the Francophone summits at their most lavish: the pomp and ceremony of the imperium and the rhetoric of égalité, fraternité et liberté.
  Beijing's score card - getting 40 out of 53 African leaders to attend - beats both the efforts of the French government and the organisers of the African Union summits.  It shows the boldness of the enterprise.  It was said to be the biggest international event in Beijing since the Chinese revolution of 1949.  If it was a dress rehearsal for the 2008 Olympics, the organisers must be congratulating themselves.
  Cooperation was the theme but the magnet was business, the 'win-win business' proclaimed by China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, who spent nine years of his diplomatic career in African postings.  The mega-figures rolled off the Xinhua news agency's despatches and were faithfully relayed by the throng of African and Western reporters: some 14 deals valued at US$1.9 billion, a doubling of Chinese aid by 2009, and some $5 bn. in loans and export credits for Africa over the next three years.
  China's information managers have their own way with figures.  This year's China-Africa relations was to be the year of the fifties: 50 years of China's diplomatic relations with Africa and $50 bn. of Chinese-African trade.  Less information was offered about some of the more interesting figures, such as the $5 bn. to be made available to promote productive Chinese investment in Africa: does this mean China would transfer some of its manufacturing expertise and competitive marketing edge to Africa?  Will the new investments go beyond the so far predominantly extractive operations in oil and copper and cobalt mining?
  Another statistical coup is the $8.3 bn. project signed by the China Civil Engineering Construction Company with Nigeria to rebuild the 1,300 kilometres of creaking colonial railway linking Lagos with Kano.  It is the costliest foreign project ever undertaken by a Chinese company and, given the failure of both the Indians, the British and the French to make Nigeria's railways work, it may also be one of China's most challenging to date.  Last month, President Olusegun Obasanjo told the National Assembly in Abuja that the project would be paid from the excess crude oil account that requires parliamentary assent.
  Beijing enjoyed an African makeover for the weekend.  Giant placards 30 metres high adorned the streets of the capital, showing elephants, giraffes and lions set against a background of African savannah or stunning equatorial sunset.  All in the name of Africa, 'the land of myth and miracle', according to the banners in Mandarin, French and English.
  Even Beijing's taxi drivers were given special briefings, warning them that many roads would be closed to ease traffic conditions for the summiteers and that the traffic police would be out in force.  Business would be good: about half of the 3,000 African delegates would take have to take taxis from the airport, the drivers were told.  The brief ended with a warning about quibbling over fares: 'One thing that all drivers must avoid at all costs are conflicts with the international friends; if they're one or two yuan short, let it go'.
  Chinese diplomats produced an accomplished display of hard and soft power.  The dynamism of China's military-industrial complex impresses most outsiders, especially those looking or hoping for an alternative to the current unipolar world.  Such hard power was showcased alongside announcements of more Chinese-backed health programmes, technology training programmes and even Confucius Institutes, teaching Mandarin across Africa.  'Beijing follows the Africa Trend', announced the China Daily, reporting the local interest in African fashion, music, art and cuisine sparked by the summit.  It was part of a 'new strategic relationship' between China and Africa, declared President Hu Jintao at the opening ceremony.
  The central flaw in the summit was a familiar one in the history of 'strategic engagements' with Africa.  Just as Europeans and Americans had few scruples about engaging with brutal kleptocrats such as Mobutu Sese Seko and Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe during the Cold War - and damned the consequences, Beijing's leaders show few qualms about selling weapons to and cutting multibillion oil deals with Sudan's Islamist regime.  Beijing's position of non-interference means little to Darfur, where the United Nations' admittedly weak attempts to bring in a serious force to protect civilians from government attack have been further undermined by China's threat of using its veto in the Security Council.
  The Beijing-Khartoum oil trade also allowed President Omer el-Beshir to posture in Beijing, claiming that a mere 10,000 people had died in Darfur as result of historical clashes between 'herders and farmers', although several UN reports estimate the death toll at more than 300,000 and clearly cite the involvement of the Sudan government and its military in the slaughter.  Even as El-Beshir was hosting a press conference in Beijing, a UN report in New York pointed to the involvement of the government and its proxy militias in a wave of killings in Darfur.  Stopping that is a challenge for the African Union, the West as well as Beijing.  Weasel words from all sides won't help.

Yours confidentially,


  Patrick Smith
Editor


  More analysis and inside news in the new 12 page AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL


  Africa Confidential Volume 47 Number 22
NIGERIA: The next election deadline
Presidential hopefuls are quietly launching campaigns but doubts surround the party congresses due in December
USA/AFRICA: Boots on the ground
The Pentagon wants to raise the cash for a unified Africa command to boost its counter-terror operations
CHAD/SUDAN: Wars across borders
Khartoum is exporting its Darfur holocaust to Chad and sparking regional fires
SUDAN: The Dutch diversion
A diplomatic row follows the expulsion of UN envoy Jan Pronk and further delays the deployment of a protection force to Darfur
CHINA/AFRICA: Beijing courts commerce, cooperation and controversy
An advance copy of the draft 13-page China/Africa summit communiqué, obtained by Africa Confidential, covers an impressive list of diplomatic, economic and development strategies
SOMALIA: Beyond the Horn
Mogadishu's Islamists threaten Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti, as well as their own country
IMF/WORLD BANK: Upbeat statisticians
ANGOLA: Economic star, social crisis
SOUTH AFRICA: Legal minefields

  POINTERS 
NIGERIA: Fear of flying
NAMIBIA: Missing in action
DJIBOUTI/FRANCE: Ill-judged death
MALAWI: Madonna madness
COTE D'IVOIRE: Banny's bonus


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