BEIJING – Billboards here show elephants and giraffes roaming the savanna. Traffic has been curtailed and construction sites shut down.
Beijing has put on its best face to court Africa, “the land of myth and miracles,” as official posters call it. Political leaders of 48 of the 53 African countries, including 40 heads of state, are to arrive this weekend for a huge diplomatic event, the China-Africa forum.
The official purposes of the three-day event are to expand trade, to allow China to secure the oil and ore it needs for its booming economy and to offer aid to help African nations improve roads, railways and schools.
The unofficial purpose is to redraw the world's strategic map by forming tighter political ties between China, the country with the fastest-growing major economy, and Africa, a continent whose leaders often complain about being neglected by the United States and Europe.
“African leaders see China as a new kind of global partner that has lots of money but treats them as equals,” says Wenran Jiang, a political scientist at the University of Alberta who has studied Chinese-African relations. “Chinese leaders see Africa, in a strategic sense, as up for grabs.”
China's enthusiasm for Africa has raised concerns among many in the West while the United States is distracted by its efforts to curb terrorism and France, Britain and other former colonial powers exert less influence in Africa than they once did.
China does not follow the international lending standards intended to fight corruption in the region. It has embraced the leaders of Sudan and Zimbabwe, two countries that are under heavy pressure to improve their poor human rights records. Major oil companies have complained that China uses its influence – backed by nearly $1 trillion in foreign currency reserves – to secure concessions for state-owned companies.
China's economic goal is to secure Africa's abundant supplies of oil, iron ore, copper and cotton at the lowest possible prices, analysts say. Chinese companies view Africa as an open market, neglected by Western multinationals, that they can cultivate with their trademark low-priced goods.
The forum's slogan – “Peace, Friendship, Cooperation, Development” – underscores China's pledge not to discriminate or intervene. It even invited the four African countries that still extend diplomatic recognition to its rival Taiwan, though none agreed to attend.
China's trade with Africa is growing faster than with any other region except the Middle East, increasing tenfold in the past decade, to nearly $40 billion last year. China buys timber from the Congo Republic, iron ore from South Africa and cobalt and copper from Zambia. An estimated 80,000 Chinese expatriates live in Africa, selling shoes, televisions and other Chinese goods.
Africa has helped quench China's growing thirst for oil. Angola has edged out Saudi Arabia as China's largest foreign source of oil.
Sudan, shunned by the West for its genocidal civil war in Darfur, was a net oil importer before China arrived there in 1995. China has since invested heavily in oil extraction, helping Sudan export about $2 billion worth of crude annually, half of that to China.
