Greater efforts are needed to consolidate Sino-Africa co-op
- By Ding Ying and Liu Haile
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Beijing Review, September 29, 2011
More work to do
China and African countries have provided huge assistance to each other in the past decades. African countries helped China resume its UN seat and its permanent membership in the UN Security Council in 1971. From the 1960s to 1970s, while China was still very poor, it started to offer assistance to Africa.
"Now China is richer and it has more duty and obligation to help African countries to develop faster," Zhong said. "But helping doesn't necessarily mean giving money to African nations. It's more important to share our experiences and lessons about development with them, telling them what kind of effort can bring good results and what cannot."
For example, China considers transportation investment as a stratagem of boosting economic growth after decades of development. Now the transportation infrastructure of most African nations is still underdeveloped. There is even no passage between neighboring English-speaking and French-speaking nations due to differences going back to the colonial period. Sometimes people must fly through London or Paris to get from one African country to another.
Zhong said because of poor transportation, trade volume inside Africa only accounts for about 10 percent of their total foreign trade volume. In Europe, the percentage can reach as high as 80 percent. The African Union has commissioned South Africa to head an infrastructure project "north-south corridor" for the whole continent. In 2010, when South African President Jacob Zuma visited China, he said that China could help with development of transportation, telecommunications and energy exploration.
Zhong also called on more Chinese volunteers to work in Africa. "Young people should travel around the world, to both developed and underdeveloped nations. This can give them more sense of mission. In the future, some of them might be experts on African studies. This will benefit both China and Africa," he stressed.
China-South Africa cooperation
Being a major emerging economy in the world, South Africa's gross domestic product reached US$369.4 billion in 2010, which was about one quarter of the total GDP of all Sub-Saharan countries. It also has become an attractive market for other countries because of its population of nearly 50 million.
China and South Africa are both members of BRICS, consisting of five emerging economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Trade among these nations has increases rapidly in recent years. Trade volume between China and South Africa was US$16 billion in 2009, over 10 times that in 1998 and nearly 20 percent of the total China-Africa trade in 2009. In 2010, their trade reached US$25.6 billion.
Zhong said China and South Africa can greatly expand cooperation. For example, South Africa has always paid great attention to environmental protection and labor protection. Also, their labor safety standards are as strict as some developed countries'. These are all things China can learn from. Likewise, a high unemployment rate has been a headache for the South African Government. From 2007 to 2008, China suspended its textile exports to South Africa to help alleviate unemployment. However, once China ceased exporting, cheap products from other Asian countries rushed into the South African market. So the Chinese Government is still working with South Africa to solve this problem, Zhong said. Although China also has similar trouble, it has a lot of experience to share with South Africa.
Zhong warned Chinese enterprises in Africa not to exchange long-term development for short-sighted profits.
"If their behavior cannot be accepted by local people, they will never have friendly neighbors, and they will never be welcomed by the country they invest in." Zhong said. "All Chinese enterprise should take corresponding social responsibility in accord with their capacity."
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