Criticism of China’s business practices in Africa falls into three main areas: corruption, labor rights and environmental concerns, according to a PostZambia report.
Much of the criticism is unfounded, the report said. There is a hostile environment against Chinese expansion in Africa in the Western press and the Western press has been a very strong player in African media landscape.
China had been doing business in Africa for 50 years, but only recently has this attracted criticism.
Why now?
Maybe because nations are understanding that they should have been investing in Africa sooner, says Ernie Lai King.
Ernie is head of Chinese law firm ENSafrica. Acute criticism against China’s investment in Africa is a sign the West realizes it too should have invested in what it describes in its media as a hopeless continent, Lai said.
Ernie spoke on the sidelines of a discussion on “Power Stakes: The role of China in the developing world,” held Monday during the 63rd International Press Institute
World Congress in Cape Town, according to PostZambia.
“I don’t think that China is an angel,” Ernie said. “I don’t think China is a devil either and there are criticisms about China as it operates in … sub-Saharan Africa … criticisms that are completely unfounded.”
China only plays to the space in which it finds itself when investing in Africa, Ernie said.
Criticism against China’s business practices in Africa fall into three areas, according to Andrew Small, a German Marshall Fund analyst. These include labor rights, corruption and environmental concerns.
Researchers argue that in African countries some businesses and politicians are incredibly corrupt, Ernie said.
“When Chinese companies come to do business, they don’t come to change your political system; they don’t come to change your religious system; they don’t set up military bases, naval bases. They come to do a deal and really it is up to the country in which a Chinese company is operating to ensure that they negotiate,” Ernie said.
He cited a May 2000 story in The Economist that said Africa was “the hopeless continent.”
“China has never seen Africa as a hopeless continent; as a continent of poverty and no future,” Ernie said.
Investment into Africa has shifted from the West to the Far East, Ernie said, adding that Chinese companies do not use prisoners as labor on their projects in Africa.
Cobus van Staden is co-founder of the China-Africa Project, a multimedia resource dedicated to exploring every aspect of China’s growing engagement with Africa, according to its Facebook page.
Is China being vilified in U.S. and European media coverage over its expansion into Africa?
“China is a latecomer to expansion worldwide and to a larger extent the world has gotten used to European and American influence in Africa,” van Staden said. “So China to a certain extent is… getting blamed for things that a lot of other countries are also actually part of, but that has become naturalized in a way. There is a certain kind of hostile environment against Chinese expansion in the Western press and the Western press has been a very strong player in African media landscape.”
Staden said there was a lot of fear mongering and colonial discourse about China’s expansion, but it would be ridiculous for Africa’s former colonial masters to sound the alarm bell about China colonizing the continent.
