China's creeping arm across the world

On 12 July, China set up its first military base abroad for 50 years in the Horn of Africa state of Djibouti. However this is just one step in the gradual escalation of China’s foreign policy as it increases its global influence, announcing itself as a global player. Just three decades ago, China’s navy was an outdated green-water navy, but has since been rapidly developing a blue-water navy able to protect its growing number of interests worldwide, launching its first aircraft carrier in April. In a brazen display of China’s newfound naval power, it conducted naval exercises with Russia in the Baltic, an area fraught with tensions between NATO and Russia. China’s island building in the South China Sea have come under the most spotlight by the international community as China seeks to ensure one of the most important shipping lanes in the world is kept open for China’s lifeblood: trade (the natural resources beneath the waves are an added bonus) and by doing so have risen tensions with their neighbours. However it is China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative and their enormous presence in Africa that should be receiving more attention.

“The One Belt, One Road” initiative is a huge plan to put a staggering $900 billion into infrastructure in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to boost trade and stimulate economic growth, but also to expand their influence in the region. A good equivalent of the initiative is the Marshall Plan following WW2 which spread US influence in post war Europe to the dismay of the USSR. If successful, China hope it will boost China’s geopolitical influence in areas such as Central Asia and the Indian Ocean (through the construction of a $54bn land route from China’s Xinjiang province to a deep water port in Pakistan) as well as help put impetus into a slowing Chinese economy by creating markets for Chinese products. Regardless the project is without doubt a huge statement of intent; China is set on becoming a global superpower to match the US turning away from their previous isolationism prior to the turn of the millennium.

Since the 2000s as China’s economy has rapidly grown and as the West have withdrew from Africa, China stepped up their involvement in the continent. Billions of dollars of investment and loans have been put into African nations, but as opposed to investment from the World Bank or Western Nations, they come with no stings attached; no need to have a good human rights or fiscal record. This proposition, where leaders of African nations can have full control over their future, is certainly attractive as are the huge infrastructure schemes China is investing in such as a railway between Mombasa and Nairobi in Kenya. In return for their investment, China has gained international allies (especially useful in the UN) and has had Africa’s bountiful natural resources opened up for them from oil in Angola to Uranium in Namibia (especially useful as China seeks to transition from away from Coal).

Although critics deem such a project economically foolish, this huge projection of soft power is to be vital in China’s progression into a global superpower. Africa is on the rise regardless of how fast you believe it will take and with China-Africa trade increasing from $10 billion to $220 billion between 2000 and 2014. Moreover, China is further projecting their soft power by promoting a Chinese model of a One Party state government (surprisingly attractive to African dictators) as an alternative to Western liberal democracy. This is most evident in the case of Ethiopia where $12.3 billion in loans has gone into the country (the second biggest recipient of investment from China in Africa) where members of the ruling EPRDF party receive political training from Beijing’s Communist Party. In addition ens of thousands of scholarships have been handed to African students resulting in China being home to the second largest number of African students after France.

However despite China’s supposed benign intention of alleviating the poverty of African nations, it has come at a cost and many Africans simply see them as a new colonial power. The process by which China offer investment in return for raw materials and influence in the region has saddled countries’ economies with debt thus providing China with additional leverage over the nations if their loans can’t be repaid. Although Chinese companies like to be seen as helping the local economy and providing jobs to locals (80% of workers on Chinese projects are African), the various projects are all run by Chinese companies resulting in most skills and profits remaining in Chinese hands, leaving African nations with only a debt burden. Moreover, Chinese citizens disdain for the environment has resulted in a large backlash from locals. Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni even personally accused local officials and two Chinese diplomats of smuggling 1.3 tonnes of ivory in 2014. Despite the recent ban on the trade in ivory, demand for Ivory is still sky-high along with demand for hardwoods, rhino horn and other exotic flora and fauna used in Chinese medicine which has resulted in decimation of populations of endangered wildlife across Africa. Locals are also angry with Chinese companies lack of care for the environment with plans to clear-cut part of Namibia’s only virgin forest and to capture orcas, penguins, dolphins, and sharks in Namibia for Chinese zoos were met with public backlash. In Zambia, simmering anger at Chinese immigrants who don’t integrate, poor working conditions in Chinese mines and corruption resulted in the election of an anti-Chinese president in 2011 and violent protests outside a Chinese run coal mine that left a Chinese mine manager dead. More recently in April, hundreds of Ugandans protested the growth in the number of Chinese small businesses in Kampala that were threatening locals echoing Idi Amin’s expulsion of Indian merchants in 1972.

Despite there being some anger at China and their apparent attempt at colonialism, most locals are happy with China. The huge investment into infrastructure is unmatched by any Western nation and their involvement has offered African nations with a route towards economic growth through improved infrastructure in addition to greater trade with China, a huge market of 1.4 billion people. China’s support of authoritarian governments from an outside perspective is simply a sacrifice that may have to be made for African nations to escape the trap of poverty many of them are ensnared within no thanks to their treatment from Western colonial powers. More importantly though, from the perspective of an African leader, the deal China offers remains a better option than those offered by the West so China will likely continue to build their influence in the continent.

China’s rapid rise towards a superpower has made some in America nervous of a potential war between the two nations with the South China Sea considered a huge potential flashpoint. However any war is highly unlikely since both countries have common interests. As opposed to the Cold War, China is not as eager to spread its political ideology across the world as the USSR whose ideology was in direct opposition to America’s. Both countries are each other’s biggest trading partner and with China’s reliance upon trade, the downside of war greatly outweighs any potential benefit, especially considering China’s military strength is still much weaker than America’s. Although America don’t see the rise of China as a benefit to themselves, Trump’s isolationism and withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership and Paris Climate Change Agreement have handed China with a brilliant opportunity to gain influence as a leader in green energy and as the dominant trading partner in the Pacific.

It is not America who should fear China though, but Russia. Although both are united by their shared disdain for America, Russia is and definitely should be wary of China. Despite Putin’s best attempts to reaffirm Russia’s status as a global power (that have been largely successful), Russia is on the decline. Although Russia still possess a strong military and diplomatic power (which is unlikely to diminish any time soon), they have a declining population and a stagnating economy. On the other hand, their neighbour China is set to become the largest economy in the world and their population of 1.4 billion is still growing (albeit with an ever growing number of elderly that is becoming a major problem). As a result, China is able to fund their aspirations globally and begin to supersede and eclipse Russia with an invasion of eastern Russia even being a possibility as the number of Chinese immigrants begin to grow and threaten to outnumber native Russians in territory that lies far closer to Beijing than they do to Moscow.

As a major power it is not surprising that China has began to reach out to protect their own interests. It would be naive and foolish to attempt to do anything about it and unless western nations offer a better alternatives, it will carry on as China continues to fuel their insatiable demand for raw materials. China has a right to be doing what they are doing now and despite some of their actions being undoubtedly unsavoury, such as support of strongmen and lack of care for the environment, the deal offered by China is too good for African nations to turn down and unlike the West’s involvement in Africa a century prior, it does not entail the deaths of millions or war. The US has far less interest in Africa than it does in the rest of the world and the naval base in Djibouti should be accepted as good for the benefit of international trade, but instead focus on the Pacific where their interests do lie. In that regard, Trump has failed due to his attitude of isolationism, but no matter what happens in Washington, China - through its global soft power projection- has firmly set itself up to be a superpower alongside the United States for the decades to come. What those decades hold is anybody’s guess.

#InternationalPolitics