Earlier this month in Washington D.C., Thomas J. Christensen (Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs) and James Swan (Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs) briefed the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on China’s growing presence in Africa and its impact on U.S. policy.
Among their key briefing points were:
* The U.S. does not see a “zero-sum” competition with China for influence in Africa.
* There’s no evidence that China’s commercial or diplomatic activities in Africa are aimed at diminishing U.S. influence on the continent.
* The U.S. is actively looking for areas of complementarity and cooperation with the Chinese, while engaging at multiple levels on differences in approach to specific issues.
* China is now Africa’s second largest trading partner after the U.S.
* China, like the U.S., has become an important source of both export revenue and investment for the continent.
* China’s trade with Africa is lower than with the Middle East or Latin America and is a minute percentage of its trade with the rest of Asia (2006).
* China’s investment flow into Africa constitutes only 2.9% of its global outward direct investment.
* The influx of low-cost goods from China frequently undercut local industry.
* Chinese infrastructure projects tend to underutilize indigenous labor, finance, and resources
* There is concern with a general lack of transparency regarding China’s foreign assistance practices in Africa.
* China continues to be reluctant to coordinate its activities in Africa with groups like the IMF and World Bank.
* China often uses foreign assistance to African countries as a trade tool.
* Chinese companies are active in financial markets, telecommunications, manufacturing, textiles, agro-business, and a variety of extractive industries.
* Observers sometimes ascribe too much coordination and grand strategizing to the Chinese leadership’s policies toward the developing world.
* China’s large oil companies are not dominant players in Africa’s energy industry. In 2006, total output by all Chinese producers was approximately one-third of a single U.S. firm’s (ExxonMobil) African production.
