WhythewestfearsChinainAfrica.doc

Why the west fears China in Africa
We still like to see ourselves as saviours, and anxiety about Chinese investment is bound up with the politics of aid
The reasons why China invests in Africa have been much discussed, and while there have been some very coherent and nuanced explanations given on these pages and elsewhere, the prevailing sentiment still seems to be one of unbridled fear. Likewise, we are engaged in a post Dead Aid discussion about the efficacy of western aid.
As Rwandan president Paul Kagame's article on Cif demonstrated, the two are not discrete issues. However, the public discussions on both have been alarmingly one-dimensional and highlight and a surprisingly retrograde notion of both Africa's self-determination and what constitutes influence in 21st-century global politics.
There have been valid criticisms of the way that China has invested in Africa, notably in terms of the import of labour in the early days. (Arms, too, but China is far from alone in supplying questionable regimes, to put it mildly). However, to think that China is a monolith is naive. China's models have been in flux since the new wave of investment began at the start of this century and Beijing is surprisingly sensitive to criticism. The rate at which China has evolved domestically is testament to its ability to learn.
There is a more persistent theme to the debate, though, which I think says more about us than any other. Does China's investment undermine human rights? Does China with its record on curtailing freedom, transfer its values to the African states that it invests in? Does it have a pernicious influence that will tear Africa away from western values? Is China building a "Beijing consensus" to displace Washington?
I am not even convinced that the US, barring a few cold warriors, sees this element of danger. The last administration saw threats everywhere, but the Bush-era assistant secretary of state for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, rightly scolded me a few months ago for using the word "influence" when talking about the interplay of the international actors on the continent.
International relationships in the 21st century are not exclusive, and neither is there the cold war expectation that countries align to a dominant power then act at their beck and call – if that was ever a true paradigm. The US has been the biggest single investor and the biggest trade partner to the continent for decades. Why did this not translate into "influence"? The US has asked for African nations' support on the UN security council as recently as 2003. China's most persistent campaign for a say in Africa centred on its desire to get on to the security council in place of Taiwan. This was achieved in 1971, well before Beijing amassed its giant surplus of dollars.
And yet the fear seems to be durable. Why? Because it stands in stark contrast to the relationship we think we think we are supposed to have with Africa. We cannot separate this debate on China from the parallel one on aid and aid effectiveness. If anything is about influence, it is aid, and nowhere is this demonstrated better than Brussels.
I have just come back from European Development Days in Stockholm, the EU's annual aid community get-together. Here you can get to see what next year's fashion in development will be, and meet with the new donors on the scene. There were sizeable displays from the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia, for example, who have recently begun to operate national development agencies.
Accession countries do not give aid entirely for altruistic reasons, nor do they do so simply because they have bought into the global self-interest. They do it with at least one eye on Brussels, and probably both. Aid gives a disproportionate amount of influence – not in Africa, but in Europe. Aid gets you a seat at the table within the UN. Aid is not designed to be efficient, it is designed to be influential. This is why our own development agency, the Department for International Development, has been so committed to European multilateralism.
It is thus inevitable that there are hypocrisies. That is why subsidies – particularly in agriculture – destroy what aid builds and why donor cash is used for elaborate ceilings in Geneva. It is why vast amounts of money are spent on the proliferation of isolated projects that have little or no system-wide impact on poverty alleviation.
I am not a believer in Dambisa Moyo's thesis that aid is dead, but I feel we need to inject more realism into what we expect of it. Distilling the debate to "aid is bad, China is good" or vice versa, and not examining the complexities and the nuances of the two interlocking themes will leave us in a weak position to adjust to the new global paradigm. We still like to see ourselves as the saviours, and African nations as places dangerously liable to fall under the sway of seductive foreign powers. This is patronising at best.
As President Kagame has said, Africa is not a marginal player squeezed between two great giants. The cold war is over and the new world, while it might seem bipolar, is not. Africa – the whole developing world, in fact – is building relationships with a multitude of partners, some who subscribe to our values and some who do not. We are only ever going to be one of them, and unless we understand the full context and the interrelation of all of these factors, we are going to be a partner of waning relevance. If that happens, we have no right to begrudge anyone for stepping into the vacuum.
为何西方在非洲恐惧中国
西方依旧喜欢把自己看成是大救星，深恐中国在投资中捆绑政治援助
我们依旧喜欢把自己看成是大救星，深恐中国在投资中捆绑政治援助。
中国在非洲投资的原因虽被大量讨论，并且在本站网页或者其他地方，也给出过一些连贯而入微的解释，但普遍的情绪看起来仍旧是毫无节制的恐慌。同样，我们已经开始探讨关于西方援助效果的“后僵死援助”。
就像卢旺达总统Paul Kagame在Cif上的文章中所展示的，二者不是离散的问题。然而，有关这二者的公共讨论却是令人担忧的一维、高调以及叫人震惊的观念落后，对非洲自决和什么是影响21世纪的全球政治，都莫不如此。
对中国在非洲的投资方式已形成了有效批评，特别是在早期的输入劳工方面。（武器，也一样，但是中国在资助有问题的政权方面并不孤单，所以还是含蓄点吧）。然而，认为中国是铁板一块乃是天真。从本世纪初开始的投资新浪潮起，中国模式就在变迁，北京对批评变得超级敏感。中国国内的发展速率就是其学习能力的最好证明。
还有一个更持久的辩论主题，不过，我觉得更多的是在说我们自己。中国的投资破坏人权了吗？有过剥夺人自由记录的中国，会把它的价值观输入到它所投资的非洲国度么？它会不会造成使非洲远离西方价值观的有害影响？中国是在建设一个“北京共识”来取代华盛顿么？
我甚至不相信美国，除一些冷战斗士外，会把这些因素看成是危险。上届政府到处为敌，但是布什时代处理非洲问题的国家助理国务卿，Jendayi Frazer，在几个月前斥责了我，因我在谈到非洲大陆上国际角色间的相互作用时，用了“影响”一词。
21世纪的国际关系不是唯我独尊型的，也不是冷战愿景中的其他国家都和主宰力量看齐并惟其马首是瞻——如果这曾是一种真实的格局。美国是十几年来非洲大陆最大的单方投资者和最大的贸易伙伴。为什么这些都没有转化成“影响”？最近的2003年，美国在联合国安理会上就向非洲国家寻求过支持。中国最持之不懈的运动是争取一个发言权，对非洲最大的愿望集中于取代台湾在安理会中的位置。这在1971年实现了，远早于北京聚集它的巨额美元顺差。
然而恐惧看起来是耐久的。为何？ 因为它和我们认为我们与非洲应该有的关系形成鲜明对照。我们不能把有关中国的辩论平行的分为援助和援助的效力。如果有什么事情是关于影响的，那就是援助，再没有地方比布鲁塞尔（欧盟总部所在地）更好的展示了此一问题。
我刚从斯德哥尔摩的欧洲发展日（欧盟年度援助团会）上回来。在那儿你能看到明年的发展模式将是什么，还能见到到场的新捐助者。那儿有来自捷克共和国，波兰和斯洛文尼亚的大型展示，比方说。这些国家新近开始运作国家开发机构。
加入的国家并没有因为是利他的原因就给予完全援助，他们也不会这么简单的去做，因为他们是花钱购买全球格局中的自身利益。他们做这些时至少用一只眼睛盯着布鲁塞尔，很有可能是两只。援助带来不成比例的影响——不在非洲，而是欧洲。援助使你争取过来联合国（UN，原文如此，怀疑是EU之误，即欧盟）桌子旁的一个座位。援助不是为效率设计的，而是为有影响力设计的。这就是为什么我们自己的开发机构，国际开发部，一直对欧洲的多边主义如此专心致志。
因此这很明显存在伪善。这就是为什么补贴——特别是农业——摧残援助的成果，也是为什么捐助者的现金花在了日内瓦精美的天花板上。这就是为什么大量的金钱花在了孤立项目的增殖上，而这些项目对扶贫有很少或者几乎没有成体系的广泛效果。
我并不同意Dambisa Moyo（Dead Aid 一书的作者）援助已经僵死的观点，但是我觉得我们需要在我们对它的期望中注入更多的现实性。把辩论蒸馏成“援助是坏的，中国是好的”或者相反，而不研究这两个相互联系的主题间的复杂性及细微差别，将会使我们处在一种弱势地位来适应新的全球格局。我们依旧喜欢把自己看做是大救星，而把非洲国家看做处在诱人的外国势力支配下濒于倾覆的危险位置。这充其量是以恩人自居。
就像Kagame总统说的，非洲不是一个夹在两个超级巨人间的边缘玩家，冷战已经结束而新世界，尽管乍看上去像是两极，还没到来。非洲——整个发展世界，事实上——正和多数众多伙伴构建友谊，有些支持我们的价值观，有些不支持。我们永远只做他们中的一员，除非我们了解了整个情境以及所有这些因素间的相互关系，到时我们才能变成一个适当减弱一点的伙伴。如果这种情况发生，我们没有权利去妒忌任何人步入真空。