China-Africa cooperation: a win-win business relation or a new sort of colonialism?

João Dias

China and Africa never seemed to be so interconnected. The 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China - Africa Cooperation is a gigantic step to both China and the African Continent on several issues.

Many doubts, questions and scepticism remain in this cooperation, wafting in the air a sort of black cloud that one cannot neglect.

China has already secured 51 billion euros for its African partners and wants to see the money well spent as well as the debt paid. The numbers are impressive, yet what the African partners do to give sustainable counterparts? Can African countries pay the loans they are contracting on a large scale? What about the African civil society? Will they benefit from this cooperation?

To counter this view, both Chinese and African leaders have rejected claims that Beijing is trying to build a "new colonialism". President Xi Jinping enhanced that "China's investment in Africa comes with no political strings attached" and "China's cooperation with Africa is clearly targeted at the major bottlenecks to development. Resources for our cooperation are not to be spent on any vanity projects, but in places where they count the most".

Furthermore, China has denied engaging in "debt trap" diplomacy, and Xi also said government debt from Chinese interest-free loans due by the end of 2018 would be written off for the poorest African nations.

China has provided aid to Africa since the Cold War period, but Beijing's presence in the region has grown exponentially with its emergence as a global trading power. China loaned around 112 billion euros to the continent from 2000 to 2016. With the "Belt and Road" initiative, Africa is even more important to Chinese commercial interests, specially, taking into account the bitter "trade war" it is struggling against USA.

African countries, for their part, are criticized for providing counterparts that are ecologically unsustainable in the long run, and although they benefit from new infrastructures, actually population won't trully profit on key areas, such as education, employment and leave the state of poverty.

Most African leaders, however rejoice with China's partnership. stressing it is the most attractive partner for the African continent by not meddling in political issues and mainly lending money at "acceptable" rates and without many constraints.

if we are to examine all the issues, not all is rosy, however. For example, if Chinese products enter the continent easily, the same can not be said of African products on the Chinese market. In fact, China, subsidized exports of state-owned and multinational companies that destroyed African markets - with cheap products. Free trade with China actually, undermined the industrialization of African countries.

Moreover, many of the works are expensive and states, of course, have to pay them, the Chinese are not doing this for free. The problem, is that many African countries are falling into the debt trap.

Adding to all that, the african labour force is being exploited, specially when it comes to building infrastructures. The construction of infrastructures - bridges, railways and ports - has become a China's field of expertise. Yet, the relations of these companies with their workers have been criticized. China doesn't know the labor laws and donn't understand workers' rights. In some cases, the situation has improved with the help of labour unions, and even these have sometimes resorted to strikes.

Finally, we must bear in mind that what Africa exports to China shouldn't be limited to raw materials. Africa will profit less because traw materials go to China and then transformed back to Africa as finished product. That, obviously, is not good in terms of business relationships and the gains must also be felt in environmental terms.

Africa will be always attractive, but the ones who should benefit most are the Africans,the civil society, although openness to more developed foreign countries is an inevitability.. Is a new scramble for Africa taking place, yet with a more visible single player?