By
Abdul-Gafar ‘Tobi’ Oshodi
at ECOWAS Symposium in Ouagadougou,
Burkina Faso Held Between the 3rd – 5th October,
2010
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First, can ECOWAS region benefit more from
Sino-African relations in spite of continental
orthodoxy?
Second, in what key areas do ECOWAS need
China and how can FOCAC help?
Third, what are the needed strategies and
policy measures for a more beneficial relation:
Chinese West Africana?
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Introduction
What is Development?
Africa’s Historical Trajectory & Sino-African
Relation
The Chinese Option: A Clarification
Chinese Domestica
 Chinese Internationa
 Chinese Africana
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Chinese West Africana: Towards a Developmental
Engagement
Conclusion: Some Policy Measures
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The historical trajectory of ECOWAS cannot be isolated from that of Africa
especially in terms of developmental blueprints as ISI, EPS, LPA/FAL, APPER,
UNPAAERD, UN-NADAF, SAP, AAF-SAP, and currently NEPAD.
These developmental agendas have both being endogenous and exogenous.
Sometimes it has been enxogenous. Of these, SAP has received the most bashing
from academics and policy analyst.
SAP had not only failed to bring about development but it has also engendered a
debt crisis. Africa’s debt climbed two and half times to US$272 billion than what
it was in 1980. SSA’s external debt trebled from US$56 in 1980 to US$161
billion in 1990 just as Nigeria’s debt, for instance, also galloped from a modest
US$3 billion in 1980 to US$33billion in 1990.
Yet the irony continues to stare Africans and non-Africans: massive population
most of wish live in poverty sometimes mixed with violent crisis, water and
fertile land, yet thirst/drinkable water and food security are serious challenge
while in the face of massive natural resources, there is hunger and crudity.
NEPAD is based on ownership and partnership. Ownership in terms of African in
origin. Partnership in terms of building on interactions within and outside Africa.
Today there is a challenge of meeting some of its programmes owing to funding:
about US$64 billion annually.
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There is no universally accept definition even as there is a multidimensionality in
socio-economic and political as well as individual, group and systems manifestations.
There are different definitions, perspectives, and agendas. Three broad views can be
identified.
First, it was situated in terms of statistical and mathematical increase, of up to 5 to 7
percent, in GDP and other economic indicators.
Second, there is the ideologically radical and liberal perspectives which either situate
development as a dialectically and dualistically interacting manifestations on the one
hand and an ongoing normal process towards self actualisation or high mass
consumption on the other, respectively. There is by no means uniformity even within
both the radical and liberal perspectives.
Third, there is the increasingly accepted view, mainly pushed by Amartya Sen, and
promotes an individual-centric or humanistic definition which dwell on capacity to
function in terms of freedom, standard of living, longetivity, inequality, self-esteem,
employment, education and other socio-reality indicators. This line of thinking is
obtainable in UNDP and the Commission on Human Security.
Development in ECOWAS sense will therefore likely include a betterment of the lives
of the toiling masses of the region through provision of the necessary infrastructure,
socio-political stability, education, improved standard of living, security and a general
upliftment in the lives of ECOWAS citizens.
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Africa’s historical trajectory, in the main, is marked by two transitions. First,
from expansion to contradiction in economic performance. Second, from
optimism to pessimism in political analysis.
Explanations for non-development have been hinged on colonization and
colonialism, nature and character of the states, “cultural pluralism” or ethnicity,
visionless leadership, lack of the Asia’s “Eastern Strategy,” and international
conspiracy among others. Just as there are different explanations are solutions.
It is this that have led to the emergence of ISI, EPS, LPA/FAL, APPER,
UNPAAERD, UN-NADAF, SAP, AAF-SAP, and currently NEPAD. But just like
the early developmental agendas, followers of the trajectory have feared for the
future of NEPAD owing to the challenge of funding, implementation by
challenged countries, international conspiracy and reality as buttressed by
mechanisms like CAP, TRIPS, and TRIMS some of which clearly truncated
earlier blueprints.
Meanwhile, there seems to be an emerging power in the East. Sino-African
relations dates back to over 50 years. A relations that have crystallized from
Tazara (1960-1980) to anti-Taiwan push (1980-2000) to a more economic one
following the inauguration of the Forum for Chinese African Cooperation
(FOCAC) in 2000. Today, almost all African states have embraced China and
reconsidered relations with Taiwan. Over 800 state-owned enterprises are now
operating in SSA. This figure does not include small private sector concerns and
Diaspora capital. This will be termed Chinese Africana.
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China, a state that was one of the poorest when the Communist came into power
in 1949, has not only successfully removed between 250 and 400 million of its
citizens out of poverty in twenty years but its local industries have continued to
find their ways into homes all over the world. China’s rise is not a miracle in the
sense that it was actually worked for and achieved. Chinese Domestica speaks to
the increasing ability by the domestic Chinese government to engender
development of its people and economy. This has often been explained in terms
of the “Eastern Strategy” and leadership. By the time it joined the WTO in 2001
it already had the tools for bargaining.
Chinese Internationa is a logical implication of Chinese Domestica. It has been
marked by increasing capacity of Chinese firms not only to compete with their
Western counterparts but have in fact gone ahead to acquire some of them even in
the most technological challenging and services area of information and
telecommunications (ICT), automobiles and banking.
Chinese Africana is an aspect of Chinese Internationa which concerns Africa.
While this is encapsulated in the FOCAC, it has also gained expression in others
interactions like China-Africa Cooperation Fund (CACF) established in 2000,
Chinese Eight Point Proposal of 2006, Beijing Declaration, and the ChineseAfrican Entrepreneurs Conference, among others. This has been termed “Beijing
Consensus” Joshua Copper Ramo. In the last FOCAC held in 2009, China has
pledged to support Africa with US$10 concessional loan. The latest era has
witnessed ‘invasion’ of African markets by cheap Chinese products.
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SCCEP: A Strategic Confrontation between China and the Early Players (SCCEP) will
involve China against Early Players like the United States, Japan, France, and Britain who
hitherto had had strategic relations with West Africa on the bases of primary resources. As
of today, not only has China dislodged some of these early players but it is also heading to
become Africa’s biggest trading partner in few years if it continues with its present
increases (e.g. from US$4.5bn in 2001 to US$50bn in 2006, to about US$100bn in 2009).
The import of this is clear in the Nigerian case.
STF: Science and Technology Forum (STF) need to be established to tap the required
technological and scientific knowledge from China. STF will not only be partnership
among member states’ scientists, but also between them and their Chinese counterparts.
When established, the gauge of STF should be in terms of their ability to solve the pertinent
and peculiar challenges facing the region in the areas of energy and power, health and
agriculture. Under this arrangement, STF should be held not less than biannually with
emphasis placed on practical inventions and not a forum for mere theoretical
intellectualism. STF should have mandates covering agriculture, steel-based
industrialisation, infrastructure, power and energy.
FOCAC: FOCAC provides ECOWAS countries [just like other African countries] an
opportunity to access Chinese support in terms of funding and aid without necessarily
being subjected to the conditionalities of the West. Through Beijing Consensus, ECOWAS
members can access much needed funds from the Chinese without stringent reform
conditions such as devaluation or re-valuation, removal of state subsidy, liberalisation or
privatisation or deregulation among others as postulated by the Western states and
International Financial Institutions (IFIs) like the International Monetary Funds (IMF) and
the World Bank. President Abdullahi Wade of Senegal confirms this.
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Africa’s, and indeed, ECOWAS challenge is not insurmountable, they are
solvable. It’s mainly about “getting it right.” It is also fundamental to note that
China, just as its predecessors, do not have a magic wand. ECOWAS leaders
must take hold of the emerging opportunities to engage China. Three measures
are suggested in this regard: partnership, regional and national policies.
Partnership: The partnership here speaks to the need for realisation by
ECOWAS member states to seriously engage other states other than the West in
their quest for development. Thus, member states, individually and collectively,
need a radical shift which will fundamentally rupture the existing relational
configuration to the extent that interactions with either the West or China will
have to be determined by actual potentials for development.
Regional policies: ECOWAS needs its own plan that will be keyed into broader
NEPAD. While having its own plan, a clearer Chinese policy particularly in terms
of agriculture, science and technology must follow. Also, there is the need for an
integrated regional anti-corruption mechanism. Even if the Chinese treatment of
corrupt officials is termed inhuman or dehumanising, it must also be recognised
that corruption must be viewed as a crime against humanity.
National policies: Individually, there is need to give bite to regional policy.
Evaluation, SCCEP, STF, and industrialisation among others should be localised.
Thank you for your attention