Abstract
Against the conventional wisdom that Chinese involvement cannot transform Africa’s economy for the better so as to end much of the poverty and also to spark high speed growth, this paper finds that China is already in the process of transforming Africa. While the conventional wisdom sees corrupt regimes and weak state capacity in Africa frittering away Africa’s opportunity to rise by plugging into Chinese dynamism, China is found in this paper already to be exporting entrepreneurial talent to Africa and to be dynamizing the African economy through East Asian practices. Chinese can bring industry to Africa much as Japan brought it to Southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s. Africa could therefore be incorporated into Asian economic dynamism.
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Notes
Stiglitz does not note that the EU, Mexico and India insisted on more concessions from China than did the USA.
For an introduction to cheating and Chinese economic growth, see Glenny [14], Chapter 4.
While most analysts define neo-colonialism as post-independence exploitation using economic means in a formally independent country, Africans imagine neo-colonialism as having a militarily interventionist dimension. The French, Belgians and British have frequently intervened militarily in Africa in the post-independence era. So is China. It builds weapons factories in the Sudan and delivers weapons to friendly regimes. Africans are anxious about Chinese “boots on the ground,” and not just in Peace Keeping Operations, as stories abound about Chinese security forces at Chinese extraction projects.
Or, perhaps more accurately, China’s investments facilitated a surge in Angola’s export earnings which then sky-rocketed as oil prices soared after 2002, giving Angola the wealth to ignore IMF lenders [11].
For a report which focuses on “a fundamental underlying problem” in China’s engagement with Africa and minimizes “the prospects of China’s corporate engagement in Africa,” see [13].
For a description of African business in China, see [5].
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Howard French, Michael Schatzberg and Crawford Young for sharing their critical views on African development.
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Friedman, E. How Economic Superpower China Could Transform Africa. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 14, 1–20 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-008-9037-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-008-9037-3