Africa and China: The Great Ndaba

Elephants and pyramids in Beijing

Billboards all over Beijing are welcoming ministers and representatives from 48 African countries to a high profile summit meeting called the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). It’s intended to be a consensus building event — an ndaba or ‘great sitting down’ in the South African expression — that will set out a framework for trade and other aspects of Sino-African exchange.

Security around five star hotels and embassies is tight, the cops are diverting traffic and government organizations have been told to leave their cars in the garage to to ensure that African leaders don’t get stuck in the city’s usual traffic jams.

An article by Richard McGregor in the Financial Times says that “the summit … promises to be a diplomatic triumph, a highly choreographed display of Chinese-style soft power and a graphic reminder of the gravitational pull of China’s swelling economy.”

While Xinhua and whoever controls the billboards in Beijing are putting a lot of manpower into celebrating the postitive aspects of Sino-African relations and trade, most Western media counterbalance the good with warnings that China’s interest in Africa is neocolonial in nature — a grab for resources. There is reason to worry, but as The Economist points out:

[T]hat does not mean China’s involvement is bad and it is certainly not to be stopped. It is up to Africans to ensure that they get a fair deal from it. If so, both China and its African partners can be winners.

Many of the Western media articles about the summit mention China’s support for and lack of criticism of Sudan’s government as an example of how Chinese money can prop up nasty regimes in Africa. Whereas America props up an undemocratic, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, hand-chopping regime in Saudia Arabia, but you don’t hear that mentioned every time U.S. foreign policy is discussed.

As an African Sinophile, your correspondent is of course biased, and hopes that the result of this all this diplomatic activity is mutually beneficial trade. Therefore, in a spirit of optimism, may I direct your attention to this Danwei TV epsisode about a Sino-African success story, Beijing’s Afrika United football team:

You can also see this episode on Danwei.TV. You can find updates about the team and match reports at Africanboots.com.