Chinese in Africa

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WilliamSmith
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Chinese in Africa

Post by WilliamSmith »

I'm curious about what's going on with the Chinese in Africa:

Unlike a lot of 'Westerners' , I'm open minded and positive about both China and Africa, in theory.

I am curious about some African countries as places to go expat to in order to escape the jewnited states, and possibly even naturalize in countries where they allow that.

I've also always admired ancient Chinese culture and philosophy the most, and still steadily learning Chinese (Cantonese, but mostly same written form), so I find this big move of China into Africa interesting...

I need to learn more and don't claim to know yet, but I'm guessing China's main motivation is both to get hold of a lot of natural resources in exchange for building infrastructure, as well as possibly position Chinese to take part in big business deals that'll create lots of wealth as African developing economies grow.

This could be a very positive thing to have such a Chinese presence in many African countries, but in reality I'm also expecting controversies and tension...

Still, if China helps Africa stave off jew-controlled "Western" influences, maybe they could help them keep jews and globohomo out of Africa and get on track toward more positive development as well? Might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship? :o

I'm all for positive outcomes here but I also know from seeing it first-hand as well as reading it that Chinese are vastly more racist toward blacks than the whipped whites tend to be, LOL, even if they'd deny that.
And of course there's the blacks: They can be great to be around if they love (or at least like) you, but are frankly probably high on the list of the most racist people there is and in a lot of areas I've noticed they're at each other's throats in some kind of tribal or factional disputes.
So I'm sort of expecting Chinese and black Africans to get at each other's throats too, though I hope ultimately it comes out positive (hey, why not be optimistic, LOL?).

I found this article from Forbes that seemed to do a pretty good summary of it, though not sure if they have a "slant" to it or not. (Pics are in the original.)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepar ... 726a059304
What China Is Really Up To In Africa

Africa has become the fastest urbanizing region of the world, with rural migrants moving into cities a clip that has even surpassed that of China and India, as the continent becomes one of the final frontiers of the forth industrial revolution. This rapid transition presents big challenges but also offers big rewards for countries willing to risk billions in an infrastructure building revolution unlike anything the world has seen before – and no country has answered Africa’s call quite like China.

By 2050, Africa’s 1.1 billion person population is slated to double, with 80% of this growth happening in cities, bringing the continent’s urban headcount up to more than 1.3 billion. The population of Lagos alone is growing by 77 people per hour. According to McKinsey, by 2025 more than 100 cities in Africa will contain over a million people.

With this breakneck pace of urbanization comes many unprecedented economic opportunities. The IMF recently declared Africa the world’s second-fastest growing region, and many are predicting that it is well on its way to becoming a $5 trillion economy, as household consumption is expected to increase at a 3.8% yearly clip to $2.1 trillion by 2025. The attention of the world is now drifting towards Africa, with comparisons to 1990s-era China are no longer coming off as radical projections.

China has likewise become a central player in Africa’s urbanization push, as a huge percentage of the continent’s infrastructure initiatives are being driven by Chinese companies and/or backed by Chinese funding.

“Right now you could say that any big project in African cities that is higher than three floors or roads that are longer than three kilometers are most likely being built and engineered by the Chinese. It is ubiquitous,” spoke Daan Roggeveen, the founder of MORE Architecture and author of many works on urbanization in China and Africa.


Even before the Belt and Road was formally announced in 2013, China was making major strides into Africa’s urban development sphere. When the Communist Party of China first came to power in 1949, it was virtually completely unrecognized by pretty much every other country in the world — most of whom favored the Republic of China, the former government that the Red Army chased away to Taiwan. But China began lobbying Africa extensively, getting the People’s Republic recognized one country at a time. Before long, these political commitments were being repaid in concrete and steel, as China started building railroads, hospitals, universities, and stadiums throughout the continent. However, there were other reasons for China’s early partnerships with Africa: even though the colonial powers were largely gone or on the way out, the continent was still the same stockpile of natural resources it’s always been, and China wasted no time stepping into the power vacuum, laying the political and economic inroads that have given Beijing the advanced position it has there today.

China is now Africa’s biggest trade partner, with Sino-African trade topping $200 billion per year. According to McKinsey, over 10,000 Chinese-owned firms are currently operating throughout the African continent, and the value of Chinese business there since 2005 amounts to more than $2 trillion, with $300 billion in investment currently on the table. Africa has also eclipsed Asia as the largest market for China’s overseas construction contracts. To keep this momentum building, Beijing recently announced a $1 billion Belt and Road Africa infrastructure development fund and, in 2018, a whopping $60 billion African aid package, so expect Africa to continuing swaying to the east as economic ties with China become more numerous and robust.

Nothing without infrastructure

As Chinese President Xi Jinping once pointed out, “Inadequate infrastructure is believed to be the biggest bottleneck to Africa’s development.” Collectively, the countries of Africa would need to spend $130-170 billion per year to meet their infrastructure needs, but, according to the African Development Bank, they are coming up $68-$108 billion short. Closing Africa’s infrastructure gap has been the obsession of multiple waves of colonists, and China is the next in line to reach into the heart of the continent with railroads, highways, and airports.

“Europeans built infrastructure in Africa at the turn of the century, purportedly also for local economic development, but in essence the projects were used for natural resource extraction. The predecessor of both the Nairobi-Mombasa and Addis Ababa-Djibouti railways can be categorized as such. Both connect inland regions with mineral deposits with major ports on the Indian Ocean,” wrote Xiaochen Su on The Diplomat.

Infrastructure is what Africa needs most and infrastructure is what China is most equipped to provide. It is not lost on many African leaders that hardly 30 years ago China was in a similar place that they are now — a backwater country whose economy made up hardly two percent of global GDP. But over the past few decades China shocked the world in the way that it used infrastructure to propel economic growth, creating a high-speed rail network that now tops 29,000 kilometers, paving over 100,000 kilometers of new expressways, constructing over 100 new airports, and building no less than 3,500 new urban areas — which include 500 economic development zones and 1,000 city-level developments. Over this period of time, China’s GDP has grown more than 10-fold, ranking #2 in the world today.

It is precisely this kind of infrastructure-induced economic growth that Africa is looking for right now, and many African leaders are looking to China to bring their experience to their countries. The central players in many of Africa’s biggest ticket infrastructure projects — including the $12 billion Coastal Railway in Nigeria, the $4.5 billion Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, and the $11 billion megaport and economic zone at Bagamoyo — are being developed via Chinese partnerships.

Since 2011, China has been the biggest player in Africa’s infrastructure boom, claiming a 40% share that continues to rise. Meanwhile, the shares of other players are falling precipitously: Europe declined from 44% to 34%, while the presence of US contractors fell from 24% to just 6.7%.

“The Chinese SOEs they are really taking over the market of infrastructure projects in Africa. It's true to say that everywhere you go in East Africa you see Chinese construction teams,” said Zhengli Huang, a research associate at the University of Sheffield who has carried out extensive case studies on urbanization in Nairobi.

The reasons for this ubiquitous presence are rather straight forward, as Roggeveen points out: many African contractors simply don't have the capacity for major development projects, “so if you want to do large-scale construction you either turn to a western firm or to a Chinese firm, but the Chinese firm is always able to undercut you on price.”

Debt trap?


When we look at Africa, we see many countries chasing dreams of a better economic future while burying themselves in massive amounts of infrastructure-induced debt that they may not be able to actually afford. There have already been warning signs: the $4 Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway ended up costing Ethiopia nearly a quarter of it’s total 2016 budget, Nigeria had to renegotiate a deal with their Chinese contractor due to their failure to pay, and Kenya’s 80% Chinese-financed railway from Mombasa to Nairobi has already gone four times over budget, costing the country upwards of 6% of it’s GDP. In 2012, the IMF found that China owned 15% of Africa’s external debt, and hardly three years later roughly two-thirds of all new loans were coming from China. This has some analysts issuing warnings about debt traps – with some even going as far as calling what China is doing a new form colonialism.

What does China get out of this?
China needs what Africa has for long-term economic and political stability. Over a third of China's oil comes from Africa, as does 20% of the country’s cotton. Africa has roughly half of the world’s stock of manganese, an essential ingredient for steel production, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on its own possesses half of the planet’s cobalt. Africa also has significant amounts of coltan, which is needed for electronics, as well as half of the world’s known supply of carbonatites, a rock formation that’s the primary source of rare earths.

However, there is a common misconception that all Chinese projects in Africa have the backing of Beijing. More often than not, Chinese SOEs are operating in Africa on purely for-profit ventures that don’t have the ambitions of their government in mind. However, it can be difficult to separate China’s commercial intentions in Africa from the strategic, as, in many cases, the two inevitably overlap. The internationalization of Chinese construction firms and IT companies as well as the building of infrastructure to better extract and export African resources, are key concerns for Beijing. So while the infrastructure being built on the ground may not necessarily be orchestrated by Beijing it does ultimately play into China’s broader geo-economic interests.
If you're serious about "taking the red pill," read thoroughly researched work by an unbiased "American intellectual soldier of our age" to learn what controlled media doesn't want you to see 8) : https://www.unz.com/page/american-pravda-series/


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WilliamSmith
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Re: Chinese in Africa

Post by WilliamSmith »

Not sure what leaning this publication has but here's something interesting by some women from Africa on the subject of what Africans really think about China's role there (written 2020):
https://qz.com/africa/1936504/what-afri ... in-africa/

Countries that received the most loans naturally have the highest rates of concern about the potential debt trap. Kenya was one of those.
If you're serious about "taking the red pill," read thoroughly researched work by an unbiased "American intellectual soldier of our age" to learn what controlled media doesn't want you to see 8) : https://www.unz.com/page/american-pravda-series/
MrMan
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Re: Chinese in Africa

Post by MrMan »

There is the old saying that the Chinese are the "Jews of Asia.' There are diaspora of Chinese in various parts of Asia that engage in trade and other business activities.

Since China has recovered some of its business savage after the blow dealt to it by communism, the government is in favor of its companies promoting Chinese business interests worldwide. In Africa, a Chinese company is mining Cobolt, another mineral that, along with lithium, is important in developing lithium ion batteries. Chinese mining companies can be found in other nations outside of China and Africa. Chinese construction companies are competing with US, European, Korean, etc. construction companies in developing nations. Why wouldn't they? They want to make money, too, and growth in the power of Chinese business means growth in the power of China.
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WanderingProtagonist
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Re: Chinese in Africa

Post by WanderingProtagonist »

Really have zero interest at all in Africa. Thought it was cool in the Lion King animated film but that's it.
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WilliamSmith
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Re: Chinese in Africa

Post by WilliamSmith »

From the un-PC expat scene influencers: Doug Casey and Caleb Jones both weighed in on this subject at least once each, but even though I definitely do like both personalities overall, they were both being dicks in their articles, and both are also noteworthy for having quaffed deeply from the poison kool-aid cup of Libertarian jew bullshit (especially Casey, but I noticed Jones also described himself as Libertarian), so I'm leaving them for later.
Casey did spend a lot of time in some African countries I believe though and it's thanks to a quick reference he dropped to this Ghana economic George Ayittey that I found out about Ayittey's writings:

Chinese investments in Africa: Chopsticks mercantilism
https://www.pambazuka.org/emerging-powe ... rcantilism
George B. N. Ayittey
Oct 05, 2017
China sees no evil, hears no evil in Africa – precisely the kind of posture African dictators, tired of Western lectures, relish. But the problem is not China. It is African leaders who adamantly refuse to learn from their own history, which teaches that every foreign entity that goes to the continent does so to pursue its own interest.

In the early parts of the 21st century, China became an important source of finance for African development. The continent’s infrastructure was in disrepair; it had crumpled after decades of abject neglect and destruction from senseless civil wars. A substantial investment was – and still is – needed to rebuild this infrastructure. According to a World Bank Report (2009), “the poor state of infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa—its electricity, water, roads and information and communications technology (ICT)—cuts national economic growth by two percentage points every year and reduces productivity by as much as 40 percent.” To close the infrastructure gap, an annual spending of $93 billion would be required. Africa has to spend $360 billion on infrastructure by 2040, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).

Africa, however, did not have the funds but had natural resources, which China needed to feed its economic machine galloping at a dizzying 9 percent clip in 2006. So China went looking for resources in Africa and elsewhere, wooing African leaders with diplomatic platitudes about “equal terms” and lofty promises of foreign aid without conditions. It declared 2006 the “Year for Africa” and convened an Africa Conference in Beijing in November. That was music to the ears of African leaders, miffed at the West’s insistence on conditionalities for its aid. Operating on the fallacious notion that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” 48 African heads of state – mostly from sub-Saharan Africa – tripped over themselves to the conference, threw caution to the wind and began signing a blizzard of “infrastructure-for-resources” deals or exchanges. These deals were touted as win-win for both. As Benjamin (2017) noted,

“Within a decade some 1 million Chinese had moved to Africa, while Chinese-African trade rose by a factor of 10, to $115 billion. Chinese direct investment skyrocketed to more than $9 billion from less than $0.5 billion in 2003 (although the United States remains the continent’s biggest investor overall). China is now the largest trading partner for the continent (including North Africa). Chinese trade with Africa hit $222 billion in 2014, making China the region’s biggest trading partner for a sixth consecutive year.”

Among the Chinese projects are the Husab uranium mine in Namibia, a Chinese military base in Djibouti, an $8 billion high-speed railway through Nigeria and a $4 billion, 466-mile transnational railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia already built or underway across the continent.[1] Chinese mining investments have increased 25-fold in just 10 years, from stakes in a few mines to more than 120 in 2015.[2]

However in 2015, China’s economy hit the skits, reducing demand for Africa’s raw materials. To help ameliorate the discomfort, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $60 billion to the continent over three years in loans, export credits and grants in December 2015.[3] Well-intentioned perhaps, but China is unlikely to remain an important source of finance for sustainable development goals (SDGs). Even then, new evidence has unfortunately emerged that questions the credibility of the Chinese source of finance.

Chinese investments in Africa did not produce the glorious “win-win” results most analysts had expected. In many countries, the “infrastructure-for-resources” deals were of dubious nature. Under many of those deals, some shady Chinese middlemen or syndicates undertook feasibility studies, estimated the cost of the infrastructure project and then sought financing from China’s EX-IM bank. For repayment, they demanded a quantum of the African country’s resources to be shipped to China –essentially a barter deal.

Under this scheme, there was every incentive to inflate the cost and make the deal as “gargantuan” as possible. The higher the cost estimate, the larger the loan and the larger the loan, the greater the quantum of resources that has to be shipped to China for repayment. A high cost estimate obviously benefited the Chinese company that would undertake the construction as that translated into huge profits. And the more gargantuan the loan, the more swollen-headed the African head of state, who stood to extract much political mileage from it. For example, China offered ex-president, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara of Guinea, a $7 billion “infrastructure-for-resources” deal in 2009. Guinea’s GNP was only $4.5 billion. Throughout its history, no entity has given Guinea such a huge loan — and even one that exceeded its GNP; not even the World Bank came close.

What the recipient African country got in return was infrastructure at grossly inflated cost that might or might not be delivered and some political PR mileage. And if the African government wavered, the Chinese were willing to build a presidential palace or a sports stadium as “gifts from China.”

Ordinarily, such a deal would be flagged by auditors and civil society but in many cases, it was essentially a “closed shop” deal, shrouded in secrecy, and signed with mostly autocratic regimes. The deals were often opaque with no open and competitive bidding – all stacked in China’s favor. If approved, it was a Chinese company that undertook the infrastructure projects with its own materials and workers, generating scant employment opportunities for the locals. And there was no protection against cost over-runs. A year or more later, the Chinese company could jack up the cost estimate, saying it erred in its initial estimation. Such was the case with the Bui Dam Project in Ghana. The total cost of the dam’s construction was initially estimated at $622 million in 2009, but a cost review conducted in 2012 raised that amount by $168 million. [4]

We discuss three case studies.

A $23 billion deal for Nigeria

A typical case was the $23 billion deal China signed with Nigeria — an oil-producing country that does not produce enough refined petroleum products for its people and must import 85 percent of them. China was to build three refineries with a combined capacity of 750,000 barrels a day that would exceed the domestic demand of some 450,000 b/d. In exchange, China wanted to grab one-sixth of Nigeria’s 36 billion barrels of oil reserves.[5]

The price tag of $8 billion for a refinery with the capacity of 250,000 b/d was outrageous as compared to these prices:

In Oct 2002, President Obasanjo laid the foundation stone of the $1.5 billion Tonwei Refinery in Bayelsa State. The Tonwei Refinery would have an initial capacity of 100,000 bbl/d and it can be expanded to 200,000 bbl/d.[6]
In Egypt, China will build a $2 billion refinery that would be the largest such plant in the Arab nation and Africa. The capacity of the refinery will annually amount to 15 million tons or 105 million barrels of oil or 287,671 bbl/d.[7]
Clearly, the price that China charges for building oil refineries varies wildly among African countries. Even more outrageous was what China was demanding in exchange — a sixth of Nigeria’s 36 billion oil reserves. A simple multiplication by the price of oil at $107 a barrel in 2010 yielded $642 billion, which was what China was demanding for a $23 billion infrastructure project.

In July 2012, Nigeria signed a memorandum of understanding with Vulcan Petroleum Resources for a $4.5 billion project to build six refineries with a combined 180,000-barrel a day capacity. Vulcan, an affiliate of New York-based private equity firm Vulcan Capital Corp, aimed to have two of the refineries finished in under a year.[8]

A $3 billion deal for Ghana

In 2012, China offered Ghana a $3 billion loan on barter terms. The loan was to be used to rehabilitate portions of Ghana’s dilapidated railway system, build infrastructure to capture gas that would otherwise be flared from oil production, and the reconstruction of roads. In exchange for the loan, China demanded a daily supply of Ghana crude of 13,000 barrels – the entire portion of the Government of Ghana’s share in Jubilee Oilfields – for the next fifteen and half years! The ruling NDC government, which had a majority in parliament, agreed to sign the deal.[9]

A few strokes on a cheap calculator would reveal that over the fifteen and half year period, 74 million barrels of oil would be shipped to China. The value at the price of crude oil of $107 in 2010 per barrel, works out to be $8.1 billion. Nice repayment for a loan of $3 billion.

The $4 billion “Lunatic Express” in Kenya

On June 6, 2017, President Uhuru Kenyatta launched a $4 billion, 300-mile railway line connecting the capital, Nairobi, to the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa – the most expensive infrastructure project since Kenya’s independence 54 years ago and one-fifth of its national budget. China’s Eximbank provided about 90 percent of the funding for Nairobi-Mombasa project. The loan has already pushed the Kenyan debt above 50 percent of GDP, and imports of Chinese supplies and materials required to build the railway are making people anxious about Kenya’s worsening trade imbalance with China.[10] Pamphlets heralding the arrival of the Express were in Chinese. Some staff members wore uniforms of red and gold — the colors of China’s flag. Even the music on the train wasn’t Kenyan. And to add insult to injury, a sculpture of Mao Zedong at the Mombasa station was actually that of Zheng He, a 15th-century Chinese explorer who sailed to East Africa.[11] In a related railway project, the launch of Madaraka Express inter-county train was postponed “because the Managing Director Atanas Maina said, ‘China Road and Bridge Corporation employees, who were key to the operations, had just arrived in the country and needed time to go through the handover process’.”[12]

“Sweet and Sour” deals

In those “sweet and sour” deals (sweet for China but sour for Africa), there were additional costs. Since the deals were signed with mostly autocratic African governments, they were not transparent or subject to scrutiny. In many cases, they were secured through secrecy, outright bribery, kickbacks – for example, building a presidential palace for Sudan’s despot, donating the blue tiles that adorn Robert Mugabe’s new £7 million palace in Harare, a large Namibian presidential palace in Windhoek, and sports stadiums in Congo DR and Guinea.[13]

In July 2008, there was outcry over the China-Niger oil deal. Civil rights groups called for a parliamentary inquiry into the $5 billion (£2.5 billion) contract and for scrutiny of how funds would be spent. China’s state oil company was given oil exploration rights in Niger in June. “A mining union in Niger said the deal with China took place in the greatest of secrecy and with contempt for regulation.”[14] In Nov 2011, Niger vowed to commission an audit of the Soraz oil refinery being built by Chinese oil company, CNCP, with a capacity of 20,000 barrels per day, after the price tag rose to $980 million from $600 million.[15] It may be noted that the same refinery with the same capacity built by China in Chad cost only $60 million.[16]

In July 2009, Namibian prosecutors began investigating allegations of bribery kickbacks on government contracts with China. One involved a contract to supply Namibia with scanners at security checkpoints. The Beijing-based Nuctech Companies Limited that makes the scanners was headed until 2008 by the son of Hu Jintao, China’s president. Nuctech was accused of having paid $4.2 million in kickbacks to a Namibian front company.[17] Another investigation involved a Chinese contract to build a key railroad link as prosecutors burrowed through a web of corruption on deals with China.

On July 4, 2010, Luanda’s general hospital evacuated 150 patients over worries that the four-year-old, $8 million Chinese-built structure could collapse, Angola’s state radio reported. [18].

In Guinea, the Chinese syndicate, Queensway, set up a joint venture, African Development Corporation (ADC), with 85% share and the government with the remaining 15%. Guinea has the world’s largest reserves of bauxite and its largest untapped reserves of high-grade iron ore. ADC won exclusive rights to new mineral concessions in Guinea, including the right to negotiate oil-production contracts in the Gulf of Guinea. In return, the syndicate promised to invest up to $7 billion in housing, transport and public utilities. Guinea’s GDP is about $4.5 billion. Queensway syndicate was so pleased that it gave Guinea’s military ruler, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, a helicopter as a gift.

In Zimbabwe, the syndicate created a new company, called Sino-Zimbabwe Development Limited, which received rights to extract oil and gas, and to mine gold, platinum and chromium. In return, the company publicly promised to build railways, airports and public housing. These pledges were valued at $8 billion by Mr Mugabe’s government. But as The Economist (Aug 13, 2011) noted,

“Queensway syndicate failed to meet many of the obligations. Zimbabwe is still awaiting even a fraction of its promised infrastructure. Chinese goods sent to Africa are notorious for their poor quality. None of a shipment of 50 buses to Zimbabwe worked and an order for 250 more was suspended. Of three MA60 passenger jets the Chinese sent to Mugabe, one never managed to fly, one had to make an emergency landing at Victoria Falls, injuring many passengers, and the third caught fire on take-off in Harare in Nov 2008. All were grounded. And Guinea never received the 100 public buses that were meant to arrive within 45 days of the 2009 deal.”

The achievement of some SDGs would be difficult with the influx of Chinese goods and workers. Clothing manufacturers in Lesotho, Nigeria and Zambia complain bitterly of cheap Chinese goods destroying their markets and jobs. In Nigeria, the flood of Chinese products has devastated Kano’s manufacturing sector. In 1982, 500 factories churned out textile products in Kano, but fewer than 100 remain operational today, most at far less than full capacity. Kano’s Kwari textile market, the biggest in West Africa, now trade Chinese fabrics and clothing. A decade ago, 80 percent of the fabric sold at Kwari was made in Nigeria, compared with 5 percent in 2012.[19] There are more beggars and other visible signs of poverty in Kano than ever before. It is not far-fetched to link the collapse of the textile industry in northern Nigeria with the rise of the terrorist group, Boko Haram.

Textile factories no longer offer Africa’s youth employment opportunities and youth unemployment has now become a ticking time bomb in Africa. Disenchanted youth, disillusioned over lack of jobs started the Arab Spring in 2011.[20] Other youth left their countries and embarked on dangerous crossings across the Sahara desert to seek greener pastures in Europe, with thousands drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. Still other unemployed youth fell prey to radical ideas and were recruited by terrorist groups…

Unable to compete with Chinese imports, textile factories in Lesotho closed in 2003 and 2004, throwing over 5,000 workers out of their jobs. In South Africa, the textile union said some 100,000 jobs have been lost as Chinese synthetic fabrics replaced cotton prints in street markets across Africa. In 2007, the unions threatened to boycott anyone selling Chinese products. [21]

In Ghana, “there were more than 20 textile firms that employed more than 20,000 people in 1995. In 2012, the industry had only 4 textile factories, employing less than 3,000 Ghanaians. The country’s once thriving textile market is now flooded with Chinese substandard textile products, therefore surging the unemployment rate. The situation has further deteriorated with the textile companies currently in operation now employing some 2,961 people.”[22]

Africans derived little benefit from the “infrastructure-for-resources” deals with China since they offered scant employment opportunities. Not only did they destroy textile jobs but China brought its own workers into Africa. The Chinese also invaded sectors traditionally reserved for locals. In July 2011, shop owners in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, shut their businesses to protest against a weakened currency and the influx of Chinese traders.”[23] In August 2011, Ghana began arresting foreign nationals, mostly Chinese, illegally engaged in artisanal gold mining.

“Twenty-seven Chinese nationals engaged in illegal gold mining activities, popularly called “galamsey” operating in the Ankobra River at Kutukrom, near Prestea, Sikane-Asem and Tumantu in the Western Region, have been arrested by a joint military-police-immigration team. The police also seized from them three pump action rifles, 41 pieces of BB live cartridges, two walkie-talkies, 19 Chinese passports, four mobile phones, a metal safe with keys and their machines.”[24]

Further, the Chinese deals enriched the corrupt ruling elites. Angola, Nigeria, Sudan, and Zimbabwe are examples where the trade and oil deals with China have not benefited the poor. The Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe, adjudged to be one of the largest in the world with an estimated value of more than $10 billion, were developed with the help of the Chinese company, Anjin. Revenue from diamond sale was plundered by the ruling elite, military and security offices. Very little of the revenue found its way into government coffers.[25] “The Chinese are creaming off millions in hard currency from Marange diamond fields through an agreement which allows them to milk 90% of the revenue generated from the deal, depriving the country of more than $200 million to date.”[26]

Chinese investments and aid, disingenuously described as with no strings attached, is doing grave harm to Africa. First, it has been propping up hideously repressive regimes in Ethiopia, Guinea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.[27] Second, China’s increased engagement with Africa impedes the continent’s halting steps toward democratic accountability and better governance. The West made its aid conditional on progress toward reform in several areas, including democratic pluralism, the rule of law, human rights, reduction of graft and improved access to education. China never required these challenging commitments. Any rogue regime that spits venom at World Bank conditionalities was welcomed by China.

Indeed in 2002, an I.M.F. team went to Angola to help the country put its financial affairs in order. It was flabbergasted by Angola’s robber economy, and even more by the nonchalance of its leading officials. Though the regime contracted $3 billion worth of loans in 2001 alone, one senior official told the I.M.F. team that Angola had taken out no commercial loans in recent years.[28] In March 2002, the I.M.F. reported that despite years of assistance, the government’s finances remained hopelessly opaque, that officials had fended off all demands for reform and thus that “it would be very difficult for Angola to formulate a meaningful poverty-reduction strategy.” A “donors’ conference” was scheduled for that July. But after the I.M.F. report, the United States and Britain pulled out, and Angola, still deeply in debt despite billions in oil revenue, was left to bitterly contemplate its options. Luckily for Angola, a new benefactor had just materialized. China came to the rescue with a $2 billion oil deal.

There were several other African countries that literally told Western donors and multilateral financial institutions to go jump into the Atlantic Ocean. Most disturbing, the West caved. Alarmed by the inroads China was making in Africa, the European Union hurriedly convened a EU-Africa Summit in April 2014. It brought together more than 60 EU and African leaders, and a total of 90 delegations, to discuss the future of EU-Africa relations and reinforce links between the two continents. Not to be outdone, the US organized its own US Africa Summit in August 2014, with heads of state and senior government officials from 50 African countries. Nowhere on the two summit agendas was reform even mentioned — a clear license to dictators to do what they wanted. But there has been some backlash. The continent that suffered so much from Western exploitation and oppression is not likely to take another form of exploitation from any foreign quarter.

Rising anti-Chinese sentiments

China is not to blame for deals that went sour. It knows what it wants in Africa and cares less what it takes to get it. It will bribe if has to. It built a $200 million glitzy new headquarters for the African Union in Addis Ababa.[29] China sees no evil, hears no evil in Africa – precisely the kind of posture African dictators, tired of Western lectures, relish.

China drives a hard bargain and should not be faulted.[30] The problem has been African leaders who adamantly refuse to learn from their own history which teaches that every foreign entity that goes to Africa does so to pursue its own interest. Americans go to Africa to pursue American interests, the French to pursue French interests, Arabs, Arab interests and so on. Certainly, the Chinese are not in Africa because they love black people so much. This is a perspective African leaders need to understand

It is clear that Africa leaders seldom pursued African interests, except their own which is stirring up discontent in many countries. The initial enthusiasm that greeted China in Africa has now cooled. “There is mounting objection to China’s deepening forays into Africa” said News Africa (March 2007). Former President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa warned against allowing China’s push for raw materials to become a “new form of neo-colonialist adventure” with African raw materials exchanged for shoddy manufactured imports and little attention to develop an impoverished continent.[31] Rene N’Guetta Kouassi, the head of the African Union’s economic affairs department echoed this warning: “Africa must not jump blindly from one type of neo-colonialism into Chinese-style neo-colonialism.”[32] Some African commentators are less charitable, denouncing what they see as “chopsticks mercantilism,” alluding to the chopsticks dexterity with which China picks off at its leisure platinum from Zimbabwe, copper from Zambia, and oil from Angola, Nigeria and Sudan.

The backlash against Chinese investments has been particularly strong in Zambia due to workplace accidents, poor working conditions and below-minimum wage pay at Chinese-run copper mines. More than 50 Zambian workers died in a 2005 mine explosion and dozens of others were sacked by Chinese security guards in 2006. In the run-up to Zambia’s general election in September 2006, the opposition leader Michael Sata made China’s investment in the country a campaign issue. According to Sata, Chinese businesses employ relatively few Zambians. “Our Chinese don’t bring in any equipment or create any sensible employment. In fact, to every Zambian in a Chinese company, there are about 15 Chinese . . . Sata called the Chinese profiteers, not investors, in a country where unemployment is about 50 percent and more than 73 percent of people live in poverty. Chinese investment has not added any value to the people of Zambia,” he charged.[33] In a blatant show of arrogance, Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong warned Zambians that China might sever diplomatic ties with Zambia if Sata became president and recognized Taiwan. The ambassador also raised the specter of a halt in Chinese investment. But Zambians were unfazed; they elected Michael Sata in Sept 2011 but passed away in October 2014.

Militants in Nigeria’s volatile oil-producing region detonated a car bomb in May 2006 and issued a warning that investors and officials from China would be “treated as thieves” and targeted in future attacks. A spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in an e-mail sent to news organizations that the car-bomb attack was “the final warning” before the militants turned their attention to oil workers, storage facilities, bridges, offices and other “soft oil industry targets.”[34] In Ethiopia, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) has warned Chinese energy exploration companies against operating in the Ogaden Region. In April 2007, nine Chinese workers were killed in an attack by armed men on an oil field in eastern Ethiopia.[35]

We have discussed this Africa China relationship at length because this turn of events is unfortunate and must be condemned in no uncertain terms. Trade with China or any other foreign nation should bring benefits to both parties. But these attacks against the Chinese are likely to continue as long as the trade deals do not benefit the people in some African countries and it is difficult to argue if more trade with or investment from China will help the African poor.

* GEORGE B N AYITTEY is a native of Ghana. He obtained his PhD from the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, in 1981. In 1990, he became a Distinguished Economist in Residence at American University, Washington DC, until he retired in 2010. Dr. Ayittey has written several books on Africa, including Indigenous African Institutions, Africa Betrayed, Africa in Chaos, Africa Unchained, Defeating Dictators, Applied Economics for Africa. He is currently the President of the Free Africa Foundation in Washington DC, which serves as a catalyst for reform. This essay was previously posted in Al Mariam's Commentaries.

References

African development Bank (2015). Assessing Progress in Africa Toward the MDGs https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/ ... t_2015.pdf

Benjamin, Matthew, 2017, “Sub-Saharan Africa: Will it regain its economic footing?” Sage Business Researcher, June 7, 2017.

—————————–

[1] See The New York Times, May 13, 2017, http://tinyurl.com/la2a8nl.

[2] See The New York Times Magazine, May 2, 2017, http://tinyurl.com/msm8eyx.

[3] See The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 4, 2015, http://tinyurl.com/my4g8ko.

[4] See “China is building a third of Africa’s new power capacity” Climate Home, April 7, 2016 www.hydroworld.com/articles/2008/09/chi ... w-bui.html

[5] See Financial Times, May 15, 2010: http://on.ft.com/wkh4vn).

[6] See Vanguard, October 21, 2002. http://allafrica.com/stories/200210230287.html

[7] See Reuters, May 2, 2010. http://af.reuters.com/article/newsOne/i ... 5S20100502

[8] See Tim Cocks and Camillus Eboh, “Nigeria signs $4.5 bln refineries deal with Vulcan Petroleum,” Reuters, July 3, 2012 http://www.reuters.com/article/ozatp-ni ... 0820120703

[9] See Daily Guide, Feb 29, 2012: http://bit.ly/xfmQdP.

[10] See Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, “Kenyans Fear Chinese-Backed Railway Is Another ‘Lunatic Express,”The New York Times, June 8, 2017. https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/w ... cebook.com

[11] Ibid.

[12] See “Launch of Madaraka Express inter-county train postponed“ Daily Nation, June 30, 2017 http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Madaraka-E ... index.html

[13] See RW Johnson, “China Empire-Builder Sweep Up Africa’s Riches,” The Sunday Times, July 16, 2006 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chin ... gr0ngvlmms

[14] See, “Outcry Over China-Niger Oil Deal,”BBC, July 30, 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7534315.stm.

[15] See Reuters, Nov 24, 2011.

[16] See AFP, Jan 20, 2012.

[17] See Sharon LaFraniere and John Grobler, “China Spreads Aid in Africa, With a Catch,” The New York

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

* BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
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Re: Chinese in Africa

Post by WilliamSmith »

Well let's go ahead and throw Casey and Jones' input in now too, while I'm at it:

I am 100% for free speech and political incorrectness so am not being a whining lib here, but I think Casey is overly negative in underestimating Africa, and he also consistently underestimates China's actual level of cultural achievement and high civilization in the past. But his thoughts are still interesting and often entertaining since he's so un-PC LOL.
Doug Casey on China’s Exploitation of Africa
https://www.caseyresearch.com/daily-dis ... of-africa/

Justin’s note: Is China taking over Africa?

A lot of folks are asking themselves this question, and for good reason.

You see, China’s pulling resources out of the ground in Africa at an alarming rate. Not only that, Chinese people are pouring into the continent by the boatload.

That said, it’s not all “bad news.” China’s also started construction companies across Africa, created jobs, and built schools and hospitals.

In short, the question I posed above is trickier than it may seem. So I got Doug Casey to tell me what he thinks.

Keep in mind, this interview is controversial. Please don’t read ahead if you’re easily offended.

Justin: Is China exploiting Africa?

Doug: Of course “exploit” is a loaded word; it implies one-sided, unbalanced dealings, and unfair business—although the word “fair” also has lots of baggage, and politically charged meanings.

But, yes, they’re definitely exploiting Africa. We’re seeing a veritable re-colonization of Africa. Every time I visit Africa I see more and more Chinese. It doesn’t matter which country; they’re everywhere.

It’s important to remember that Africa doesn’t produce anything besides raw materials. There’s close to zero manufacturing, like 1% of the world’s total, in sub-Saharan Africa. And almost all of that is in South Africa. The little there is, is only produced with the help foreigners—Europeans, but increasingly the Chinese.

The Chinese basically see Africans as no more than a cheap labor source. That’s at best. Other than that, they’re viewed as a complete nuisance. Basically an obstacle, a cost, standing in the way of efficient use of the continent itself.

What do the Chinese people think of Africans? They don’t hold them in high regard. Of course, you’ve got to remember that China has viewed itself as the center of the world since Day One. They see all non-Han peoples as barbarians, as inferiors. That was absolutely true when the British sent an ambassador, Macartney, to open relations at the very end of the 18th C. He was treated with borderline contempt—pretty much the way Europeans and Americans have treated primitive peoples since the days of Columbus. It’s actually the normal human attitude, when an advanced culture encounters a backward culture. The Chinese see their culture as superior to even that of the West, and believe—probably correctly—that they’ll soon be economically and technologically superior as well.

Africa doesn’t even enter the equation. The continent has no civilization, no economy, no technology, no military power. The famed Zimbabwe ruins are just some semi-finished rocks piled on one another—and they’re considered iconic. The Chinese see the place the way the Spanish saw Mexico and Peru in the 16th C. Of course they won’t say that in public. In fact it’s very non-PC for anyone to make that observation…

Nonetheless, Africa is going to be the epicenter of what’s happening in the world for years to come. It’s gone from being just an empty space on the map in the 19th C, to a bunch of backwater colonies in the 20th C, to a bunch of failed states that people are only vaguely aware of today. Soon, however, it will be frontpage news. And this is both because Chinese are moving to Africa in record numbers and Africans are leaving as fast as they can.

Many Africans are now trying to make their way to Europe. Every year scores of thousands of them—all young men by the way—cross the Mediterranean on rafts. When they arrive in Europe, they somehow survive by selling bobbles on the street, dealing dope, or stealing. And figuring out how to game the welfare system. Now, I realize this doesn’t sound very promising. But that’s the way things are headed. It’s a growing trend.

Justin: In previous conversations, you’ve mentioned how Africa will be responsible for most of the population growth going forward. Will this happen because so many Chinese are pouring into Africa?

Doug: Well, it’s hard to be certain what’s actually on Mr. Xi’s mind, but I read something a few years ago about how China wanted to move 200 or 300 million of its citizens to Africa. Most people aren’t aware of this. It hasn’t been widely promoted, but this is another trend.

Rich Chinese are smart to diversify to developed Western countries. Poor Chinese go to backward countries, to try to become wealthy. Africa is the prime recipient.

One reason is because China is lending scores of billions to backward countries, mostly for infrastructure development. But the roads, ports, railroads, and what-have-you are built almost exclusively by Chinese companies with Chinese labor, who stay there. The infrastructure is there to enable the export of raw materials, mainly back to China. But the debt has to be repaid. It’s a great deal for China.

It will be interesting to see what happens when a couple hundred million Chinese are living with a radically expanding native African population.

Few people realize this. I ask knowledgeable people what they think the biggest cities in the world will be at the turn of the next century. And they all guess cities in China or India.

But that’s not true. Eighty years from now, Lagos, Nigeria will be the largest city in the world. It’s on track to have a population of more than 90 million. The world’s second biggest city will be Kinshasa in the Congo with about 80 million people. Dar es Salaam of Tanzania will be the world’s third biggest city with a population of roughly 75 million people.

Lagos is no surprise. The city already has some 20 million people. But I was shocked when I heard about Kinshasa and Dar es Salaam, having been to both places.

When I was in Dar in 1982, it was just a big town with maybe one million people. But it was stuck in the past. I mean in the harbor there were tramp steamers dating from the ’40s. It was like stepping back into a time warp. But, even though Tanzania was a police state back then, Dar was both peaceful and exotic. Now it’s sprawling, filthy, unpleasant, and chaotic. I can’t imagine what it will be like if the population projections are correct.

My point is that these are backward places. They don’t produce anything, especially the Congo and Tanzania. I don’t have a clue how people will even survive.

I don’t see how these cities will support tens of millions of people. Where is the food going to come from? What about everything else that people need to survive? Nobody—including the Chinese—are going to build the infrastructure that will be needed. It’s not going to be there because nobody is investing in Africa except the Chinese. In fact you can’t really “invest” in these places, because there’s no rule of law.

Justin: And what happens if these economies can’t support all these people?

Doug: I honestly think Africa could implode. I mean where is the economic growth going to come from that will be needed to support all these people? It’s turning into the world of Soylent Green in the cities. And in the boondocks, people just sit around on their haunches and beat on earth. Or at least the women do. Men just sit around and palaver all day.

Africans don’t have the Protestant work ethic of Europeans. They don’t have the Confucian work ethic of China.

The average African can’t even save money, for starters. Every one of the currencies in Africa is essentially worthless. Even if you have money to save, where are you going to park it? Africa’s banking system is almost nonexistent. The banks are unstable, and the governments are basically kleptocracies.

Where will Africa get the capital necessary to support economic growth?

Of course, pockets of Africa will experience explosive growth in the coming years. But there’s not a prayer there’s ever going to be a place like the mythical nation of Wakanda in the movie Black Panther. For a lot of reasons. For one, Africans haven’t learned anything from the past.

Just look at what Zimbabwe recently went through. It forcibly evicted 250,000 Europeans, and stole almost all their property. There are only about 5,000 Europeans left there now. I was last there a couple of years ago. The place now produces nothing but people and political agitation. It used to be the breadbasket of Africa. Now it’s going back to bush.

You’d think South Africans would say, “Geez, that country’s economy was totally destroyed by politics and envy. That wasn’t a good idea; we ought to act more intelligently.”

But they’re doing the opposite. They’ve announced a plan to confiscate, without compensation, all the white-owned land. They started with two game farms a few weeks ago. Everything will be distributed to cronies of the President and his ministers. Then, having evicted the two white tribes—the Afrikaners and the British—the remaining nine black tribes will start fighting over everything.

Why is this? Is it because South African blacks are that stupid? I thought about it, and the answer is “no.” They actually view what happened in Zimbabwe as a success.

Justin: Why do you think that is?

Doug: The blacks went from owning, say, 10% of the country’s wealth to now owning, say, 99%. That looked pretty good. The fact the absolute amount of wealth fell by perhaps 75% is irrelevant to them.

It’s a different way of looking at things. No black in South Africa thinks Zimbabwe made a mistake. They consider getting rid of the white people a triumph.

This is obviously racist. But Africa is probably the most racist place on the planet. Most people in Europe and the US either don’t know this or, if they do, they’d never admit it.

Frankly, it amazes me that so many Americans have programmed themselves to feel “white guilt.” Anyone who’s traveled knows that Europe and the US are the least racist societies on the planet.

But all the races are “racist,” to be candid. It’s genetically programmed into humans to fear alien groups. It’s a result of the competition for scarce resources, over millions of years of evolution. Racism may be unsavory, but it’s entirely natural. The only solution is to view people as individuals, first and foremost. Looking for political solutions against racism only makes things worse, not better.

Justin: How could what’s happening in South Africa impact the rest of Africa?

Doug: Well, South Africa has always been the workshop of the continent. Basically, anything industrial that’s ever happened in Africa has come out of South Africa.

But the future looks grim. There are only four million whites left in South Africa. And the smart ones are going to make the chicken run and get out. It’s “unfair,” of course, because the Afrikaners were there only slightly after the Bantus, who came down from the north as the Europeans arrived by boat. The big losers are actually the original inhabitants, the Hottentots (now called the Khoisan).

When the Europeans do leave, they’ll take their education, work ethic, and culture with them. After the two white tribes leave, the nine major black tribes will fight over the spoils. The best case possibility is that South Africa—or Azania, as some politicized blacks like to call it—will break up into several new entities.

They’re already confiscating white farms in South Africa. And what will happen with those farms? They’ll be destroyed and go back to the bush just like they did in Zimbabwe. Modern farming is a very high-tech, management-intensive business.

So, I’m very pessimistic about the future in Africa.

Justin: The Chinese obviously have a lot of skin in the game in Africa. Don’t they have an incentive to erect infrastructure that will support their interests? Or should the African people be making these investments?

Doug: The investment should come from Africans. But that’s unlikely for reasons I’ve already mentioned.

It’s funny. Last month, Robert Friedland gave a speech at the Sprott Natural Resource Symposium in Vancouver. He was talking about his projects in Africa. He spoke of how wonderful their mineral deposits are. And he’s quite correct.

Africa has some of the best mineral deposits in the world in terms of both size and grade quality.

But he mentioned where his investments are located—South Africa and Congo—only once during his entire one-hour speech. And that was quickly and sotto voce, because everyone knows that these governments really only know how to do one thing: steal. In Congo it’s likely to be more overt. In South Africa, they’re passing a law which mandates blacks must own 30% of the mining company’s shares, plus get a 1% royalty, plus be in the majority of management. And a lot more. I may be slightly off in the numbers, working from memory—but it’s going to destroy mining. These people are actually insane.

On the kind of bright side, since the Chinese have significant investments in Africa, they’re not going to let the African governments confiscate their assets and run them into the ground.

If bribing political leaders proves ineffective, it’s possible that they’ll put soldiers’ boots on the ground. They could send in the Red Army to defend their assets. Or send in assassins to take out individual African politicians.

Justin: What are the chances of that happening?

Doug: There’s a good chance that happens.

The people who run these African governments are not going to change their stripes or their culture.

The methodology in Africa has been the same for years. Get into the government. Steal as much as you can. Then go to Europe to live like a billionaire.

These are tribal societies. When one tribe takes over the government, all the other tribes look for ways to overthrow that tribe. If they succeed, they get their chance to loot the cornucopia.

Justin: It’s clear that you’re pessimistic on Africa. But you’ve also said the young people should move to Africa if they want to make a bunch of money.

Do you still think that’s a good idea?

Doug: Absolutely. I know what I’ve been saying may sound contradictory.

After all, if Africa is likely to go into economic, political, and sociological collapse in the decades to come, how can there be opportunity?

There’s plenty of opportunity, however, because the playing field is very uneven in Africa. And that’s exactly what you want.

You don’t want a level playing field; you want one tilted in your direction. If a young American or European stays in their own country, he’s just like 100 million other people. He’s got no marginal advantage.

If you go to Africa, it’s a different story. You’ve got a ton of marginal advantages. You are likely the only person that has a certain background, set of skills, education, capital, and connections. You’re automatically very unusual. That makes it much easier to make things happen.

You can be sitting down with the president, or the richest guys in the country, in a couple weeks after you arrive on the scene.

I think that it’s an excellent place to go for an individual from Europe or America that wants to get wealthy. And have an exotic adventure as a bonus.

Justin: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today, Doug.

Doug: No problem.
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Re: Chinese in Africa

Post by WilliamSmith »

And here's Caleb Jones: Heheh, I like Casey and Jones but you can see what I mean when I mentioned Casey and Jones were "being dicks in their articles," Casey talks about Africa supposedly having no civilization other than a pile of rocks (not true but we can get into that later), and Jones titles his article "How You Can Exploit the China/Africa Situation" :roll: :lol:
(Wow, far out... Casey and Jones, reminds me of "Casey Jones" from Ninja Turtles :mrgreen: )

The comments section got more interesting than the article since Jones isn't even a traveler in Africa as far as I know and basically dittoe'd Casey while being an asshole, even though I still think he's quite funny (and also gives solid PUA advice from what I've read, and has written the best book I've seen so far about managing multiple girlfriends, LOL).

https://calebjones.com/how-you-can-expl ... situation/
Doug Casey recently wrote an article concerning China’s slow takeover of Africa, what that means for Africa, and what it might mean for you if you plan on doing business with Africans or the Chinese (which I think you should).

First, he lays out the problems with Africa, and there are many:

It’s important to remember that Africa doesn’t produce anything besides raw materials. There’s close to zero manufacturing, like 1% of the world’s total, in sub-Saharan Africa. And almost all of that is in South Africa. The little there is, is only produced with the help foreigners—Europeans, but increasingly the Chinese.

Africans don’t have the Protestant work ethic of Europeans. They don’t have the Confucian work ethic of China.

The average African can’t even save money, for starters. Every one of the currencies in Africa is essentially worthless. Even if you have money to save, where are you going to park it? Africa’s banking system is almost nonexistent. The banks are unstable, and the governments are basically kleptocracies.

Africa doesn’t even enter the equation. The continent has no civilization, no economy, no technology, no military power. The famed Zimbabwe ruins are just some semi-finished rocks piled on one another—and they’re considered iconic.

The people who run these African governments are not going to change their stripes or their culture.

The methodology in Africa has been the same for years. Get into the government. Steal as much as you can. Then go to Europe to live like a billionaire.

These are among the many reasons why most of Africa still remains (mostly) a shithole even after centuries of human civilization. The Africans simply don’t want to be successful. They’d rather fight each other and steal each other’s stuff. I don’t like to say that, but facts are facts. If Africa wanted to be successful, they would be. The entire continent is rich with resources. Africa could have an empire the size of the USA or the riches of Saudi Arabia. But they don’t want these things, so they don’t.

But China, on the other hand, does want these things. And they’re going to get them. Much of that will be in Africa…

they’re definitely exploiting Africa. We’re seeing a veritable re-colonization of Africa. Every time I visit Africa I see more and more Chinese. It doesn’t matter which country; they’re everywhere.

What do the Chinese people think of Africans? They don’t hold them in high regard. Of course, you’ve got to remember that China has viewed itself as the center of the world since Day One. They see all non-Han peoples as barbarians, as inferiors. That was absolutely true when the British sent an ambassador, Macartney, to open relations at the very end of the 18th C. He was treated with borderline contempt—pretty much the way Europeans and Americans have treated primitive peoples since the days of Columbus. It’s actually the normal human attitude, when an advanced culture encounters a backward culture. The Chinese see their culture as superior to even that of the West, and believe—probably correctly—that they’ll soon be economically and technologically superior as well.

Yup. While the USA wastes its time in the Middle East and goes into debt, and while Europe continues to suicide itself, China is wisely and quietly taking over the continent that will be the most important place in the next 50 years…

Nonetheless, Africa is going to be the epicenter of what’s happening in the world for years to come. It’s gone from being just an empty space on the map in the 19th C, to a bunch of backwater colonies in the 20th C, to a bunch of failed states that people are only vaguely aware of today. Soon, however, it will be frontpage news.

Eighty years from now, Lagos, Nigeria will be the largest city in the world. It’s on track to have a population of more than 90 million. The world’s second biggest city will be Kinshasa in the Congo with about 80 million people. Dar es Salaam of Tanzania will be the world’s third biggest city with a population of roughly 75 million people.

Reason number 247 that Western civilization is on its way out. Africans are out-breeding all other races, particularly and especially white people. What are small cities now in Africa will be huge, sprawling, mind-bogglingly large metropolises by the time I’m an old man (which isn’t very long considering I’m 3.5 years away from turning 50). It will change everything.

The Collapsing West has no f***ing idea of course, nor cares. But the Rising East knows this very well and is taking advantage of it.

It’s going to still be very hard in Africa though…

Just look at what Zimbabwe recently went through. It forcibly evicted 250,000 Europeans, and stole almost all their property. There are only about 5,000 Europeans left there now. I was last there a couple of years ago. The place now produces nothing but people and political agitation. It used to be the breadbasket of Africa. Now it’s going back to bush.

You’d think South Africans would say, “Geez, that country’s economy was totally destroyed by politics and envy. That wasn’t a good idea; we ought to act more intelligently.”

But they’re doing the opposite. They’ve announced a plan to confiscate, without compensation, all the white-owned land. They started with two game farms a few weeks ago. Everything will be distributed to cronies of the President and his ministers. Then, having evicted the two white tribes—the Afrikaners and the British—the remaining nine black tribes will start fighting over everything.

Why is this? Is it because South African blacks are that stupid? I thought about it, and the answer is “no.” They actually view what happened in Zimbabwe as a success.

The blacks went from owning, say, 10% of the country’s wealth to now owning, say, 99%. That looked pretty good. The fact the absolute amount of wealth fell by perhaps 75% is irrelevant to them.

It’s a different way of looking at things. No black in South Africa thinks Zimbabwe made a mistake. They consider getting rid of the white people a triumph.

This is obviously racist. But Africa is probably the most racist place on the planet. Most people in Europe and the US either don’t know this or, if they do, they’d never admit it.


Again, even though Africa will be a very important place in several decades, the Africans are going to have to deal with the biggest problem they’ve always had: themselves. No, not “European colonization” or Chinese or whatever. Just like the problem in Europe is the suicidal Europeans and not the immigrants they’re hording in, the problem in Africa is the racist, irrational Africans hell-bent on keeping themselves in perpetual poverty.

Will these huge future African cities be shining cities on the hill like Hong Kong or Singapore? Or will they be expansive hellholes the likes of which we have never seen?

It’s up to the Africans. No one else.

The most interesting thing will be how China deals with all of this. Unlike the West, China isn’t politically correct and doesn’t take any crap…

governments really only know how to do one thing: steal. In Congo it’s likely to be more overt. In South Africa, they’re passing a law which mandates blacks must own 30% of the mining company’s shares, plus get a 1% royalty, plus be in the majority of management. And a lot more. I may be slightly off in the numbers, working from memory—but it’s going to destroy mining. These people are actually insane.

On the kind of bright side, since the Chinese have significant investments in Africa, they’re not going to let the African governments confiscate their assets and run them into the ground.

If bribing political leaders proves ineffective, it’s possible that they’ll put soldiers’ boots on the ground. They could send in the Red Army to defend their assets. Or send in assassins to take out individual African politicians.

I’ve been thinking the exact same thing. If Africa rips off China, China isn’t going to just sit back and take it the way the USA does when North Korea rips it off or the way Europe takes it when it gets ripped off by Africa or the Middle East. Again, China isn’t interested in suicide like the West is. The Chinese don’t give a shit about being nice or fair. If Africa screws with China even a little bit, Africa is going to get bitch-slapped in ways they haven’t been for over 100 years.

Given all of this, is it still a good idea for young entrepreneurs to move to Africa and start their fortunes there? YES! When asked about this, Doug said:

Absolutely. I know what I’ve been saying may sound contradictory.

After all, if Africa is likely to go into economic, political, and sociological collapse in the decades to come, how can there be opportunity?

There’s plenty of opportunity, however, because the playing field is very uneven in Africa. And that’s exactly what you want.

You don’t want a level playing field; you want one tilted in your direction. If a young American or European stays in their own country, he’s just like 100 million other people. He’s got no marginal advantage.

If you go to Africa, it’s a different story. You’ve got a ton of marginal advantages. You are likely the only person that has a certain background, set of skills, education, capital, and connections. You’re automatically very unusual. That makes it much easier to make things happen.

You can be sitting down with the president, or the richest guys in the country, in a couple weeks after you arrive on the scene.

I think that it’s an excellent place to go for an individual from Europe or America that wants to get wealthy. And have an exotic adventure as a bonus.

Exactly. If you’re a young guy and want to make a lot of money very fast, and don’t mind living in a semi-shithole for a few years, Africa is the place to go. Because:

1. It’s at the bottom; the only way it has to go is up. And as I’ve said, parts of Africa will get better. Slowly, but they will.

2. You’ll have instant clout as a non-African, as Doug described. If you’re white, that’s even better, but even Asian /Hispanic / Indian guys will do well.

3. The population growth is exploding over there, and will for at least the next 50 years. This is all kinds of good for business opportunities. No where else in the world is the population growing this fast.

4. Geoarbitrage and everything else I talk about in my book about starting and maintaining an Alpha 2.0 location independent business applies to Africa.

If I was single, no kids, and in my 20s, I would go to Africa (SE Asia would be my second choice) to start a business. I would plan on staying there five years, make as much money as I could, set up some flags over there, then move somewhere else while maintaining my growing Africa income.

If you’re going to ask me about what kinds of businesses to start over there, read this.

Africa is definitely one of the places to watch over the next decade or two.
Some worthwhile content there, but observation:

One of the fallacies in how those guys analyze things it they take the examples of South Africa and Zimbabwe/Rhodesia and extrapolate that this is what Africans are like, but they're overlooking what those two places have in common: First whites disastrously tried to build a nation inside black countries (i.e. not by mixing with them, but a white nation inside Africa, bad idea), then they let jews finance communist revolutions and a massive kill whitey propaganda campaign in both those countries.
Africa isn't really the ideal place for pussies and beta males, admittedly, but a lot of those promising rising African countries don't share either of those same two dynamics, and consequently don't have the same kill whitey dynamics.
(I don't know too much about it but I do know of white men married to black women who haven't had to deal with any kill whitey stuff in Ghana and Kenya, among others.)

The comments section from the Jones article was more interesting with some anecdotes from people who actually did go to Africa. I will post some of it in here too in a minute... :)
If you're serious about "taking the red pill," read thoroughly researched work by an unbiased "American intellectual soldier of our age" to learn what controlled media doesn't want you to see 8) : https://www.unz.com/page/american-pravda-series/
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WilliamSmith
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Re: Chinese in Africa

Post by WilliamSmith »

Found some videos with George Ayittey talking about the China-Africa situation:

Older video from 2011:


More recent interview (at least the video's dated 2020): The announcer starts it in Amharic if I've got that right but then the rest of it is in English.
If you're serious about "taking the red pill," read thoroughly researched work by an unbiased "American intellectual soldier of our age" to learn what controlled media doesn't want you to see 8) : https://www.unz.com/page/american-pravda-series/
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