Redefining ‘Aid’ in the
China-Africa Context:
Renewed relations through
old ties?
May Tan-Mullins (University of Durham, UK),
Marcus Power (University of Durham, UK) and
Giles Mohan (Open University, UK)
Outline
• Introduction: Angola’s
‘unconditional’ loan
• Current debates on China’s
‘new’ aid offensive: Rogue
aid?
• Historical & deconstructive
analysis of Chinese aid in
Africa
• Democratisation, rights
discourses & politics of aid
• Conclusions: emerging
issues
Introduction: Angola’s ‘unconditional’ loan
• In 2006 the ExIm Bank of China offered a $2 billion lowinterest loan in return for an agreement to supply 40,000
barrels of oil per day.
• China’s ExIm Bank originally offered this loan to the
Angolan government at 1.7% interest over 17 years but it
has been extended & refinanced several times, with the
interest lowered to 0.25%.
• The deal ‘came with very low rates of interest and a
generous payback period. But more critically, none of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) meddlesome
conditionalities regarding corruption or graft are included’
(Taylor, 2007: 90).
‘Unconditional’ loan’s conditions
• Agreements of co-operation
between the national oil
companies of China and
Angola (Sinopec and
Sonangol) .
• Tied to this loan is the
arrangement that 70% of all
public enterprise contracts
financed by Chinese money
will be built by Chinese
companies.
China’s ‘new’ aid offensive
• 1983-1995 China’s aid contribution to Africa stood at an
average of US$200 million per year
• A permanent Forum on China-Africa Co-operation
(FOCAC) was established in 2000 at the Beijing SinoAfrican ministerial conference
• 2006 - China committed US$8.1 billion to Africa
compared to just US$ 2.3 billion from the World Bank in
the same period
• A US$5 billion China-Africa Development Fund was
launched in 2006
• In 2006 China published the equivalent of a White paper
entitled China’s Africa strategy
• China plans to open three to five trade and economic cooperation zones in Africa by 2009
Criticisms of China’s aid offensive:
Rogue Aid?
• Lack of political, environmental, or human
rights conditions (often attached to
Western agency funds)
• Inhibits good governance and institutional
strengthening
• Blurring between aid and investments
• Lack of transparency in aid allocation
Rogue aid
• China as exceptional, as impervious to
western logics of rationality, humanitarianism
& ‘development’
• China’s ‘rogue aid’ is said to be undermining
international development policy in that it
offers: “development assistance that is nondemocratic in origin and nontransparent in
practice. Its effect is typically to stifle real
progress while hurting average citizens”, and
China is “underwriting a world that is more
corrupt, chaotic and authoritarian” (Naim,
2007)
• US Treasury Department has called China a
‘rogue creditor’ practicing “opportunistic
lending”
• Simplistic, racialised readings of SinoAfrican relations, exotica as hallmark
Main criticisms
Key gap in Rogue aid discourse:
1. Ignores longer history of Chinese ‘solidarity’
with Africa - reveals continuities, geopolitical
strategy and ‘other’ ways of conceiving
development
2. Lack of engagement with liberal myth of aid as
‘apolitical’ – all donors use discourses of
‘partnership’ to conceal interests
3. Establish western development discourse in a
better and ‘morally right light’
Historical geography
• 1950s, focus on Afro-Asian
solidarity, shared history,
common enemies, exporting
revolution from China to ‘Africa’
• Asian-African Conference in
Bandung, Indonesia and
establishment of the Afro-Asian
People’s Solidarity Organisation
(AAPSO)
• TAZARA
• Cold war context, ideology &
geopolitics, confrontation with
the U.S (1950s/60s) & U.S.S.R
(1960s/70s) e.g. Angola
Historical geography
• 1980s- focus on
domestic development
and non-interference
policy
• 1989 Tiananmen, 1991
collapse of Soviet bloc
• Post reform period and
the 1990s: need for
resources and new
hegemon: United States
Historical geography
• Aid given as grant, strictly bilateral, Chinese aid workers did
not “loll in hotel suites & run up expenses as other expatriates
did” (Snow, 1995)
• Aid as a means of exposing the limitations of China’s
opponents, reluctance to co-ordinate with other donors
• Rhetorical unity of ‘third world’ post-Bandung, focus on SouthSouth co-operation for development, ‘camouflage tactics’ and
aid programmes aimed to ‘showed up to the North’ (Snow,
1995)
• Countering the international recognition of Taiwan, building a
‘third world alliance’ in Africa
• China happy to work on projects that were inessential
monuments to the glory of African regimes they worked with
• Principles for aid and co-operation reflected China’s own
experience as an aid recipient with ‘client’ status
Evolving geopolitical agendas and
alternative development models
• Not just about semantics but part of a geopolitical
tradition of China seeking to avoid ‘donor’ status,
presenting itself as a friendly developing country (with
experience of external oppression) and broker of ‘southsouth’ co-operation
• Ideological inflections of foreign policy diluted in favour of
flexible, differentiated and proactive stance
• Post-Mao focus on modernisation of PRC economy,
access to foreign markets, capital & technology
• Post-Tiananmen re-evaluation of foreign policy, focus on
access to energy resources, efforts to counter US
hegemonism
Democratisation, rights discourses
and politics of aid
‘To begin with, China has no
intention to undermine Africa's
democracy. China is working hard to
build a socialist democracy and
promote human rights and good
governance at home. And China is a
responsible major country in the
world. I doubt there is any tiny
political gain China can get by doing
such things against the historical
trend and the common wish of the
people of all countries.’ (Liu Guijin,
Chinese government’s special
representative to Africa, 2006)
Democratisation, rights discourses
& politics of aid
• Lack of political and institutional
conditionalities through which sound economic
management might emerge
• concern about community participation and
promotion of democracy, whereas the Chinese
discourse does not.
• Willing to deal with rogue regimes such as
Sudan and Nigeria
• Lack of transparency in aid allocation (OECD)
• Fear of jeopardising achievements in good
governance and in aid effectiveness and that it
will seek trade and investment opportunities
without worrying about stability and
governance issues in recipient countries.
• China can be ‘socialised’ into the norms of the
international aid business/community.
Democratisation, rights discourses
& politics of aid
• The demonization of Chinese aid projects in Africa presented an
ideological inflection of the ‘West’ as the model of ‘moral and
correct’ practices
• The Soviet Union and the United States spent decades giving
‘development aid’ to dictators in exchange for their allegiance…..
nor is China the only regime offering rogue aid (Naim, 2007: 95)
• Renders Africans as ‘helpless’ and denies agency to African
regimes
• Inappropriateness of some IFIs
• Historical stress of non-interference
• Non interference policy, the Africans were more willing to look to
the Chinese model of successful economic development and
provide them with leverage in global economy
Conclusion
 China has always engaged strategically with
Africa and used the continent to bolster its
geopolitical aims.
 Aid has been, and will always be political, and
Chinese practices of aid disbursement are no
more demonic than other donors.
 Rogue aid discourse conceals realities of all
donors’ agenda, and the criticism on Chinese aid
sets western aid up as ideologically and morally
better.
• It also denies agency to African regimes which
are treated as victims of Chinese opportunism
Conclusion
• Evolving Chinese policies?
e.g. Sudan?
• China versus Africa or China
versus 53 states?
• Other stakeholders such as
grassroots leaders and civil
society?
• Chinese understanding of
Chinese development
discourse?