Cina, Africa, commercio Wsws 06-01-24
La crescita del commercio cinese con l’Africa indice di conflitti sull’energia
Brian Smith
- 2005,
primi 10 mesi: commercio
Cina-Africa + 39%, a $32,17MD,
sostenuto soprattuto da export di tessile cinese; (2004: + 59%; 2003, +
50%) - Commercio
USA-Africa, 2004, $44,5MD. - L’Africa fornisce oggi circa ¼
dell’import energetico cinese. La Cina sta cercando di firmare o
espandere contratti esistenti per il petrolio con Angola, Algeria, Chad, Guinea Equatoriale, Gabon, Nigeria e Sudan. - 2005, 11 mesi: surplus commerciale cinese $990,8MD,
x3 su 2004. - L’eccesso
di capacità e l’export pongono la Cina in concorrenza con UE e USA, dopo aver superato nel 2003 il Giappone come secondo maggior
consumatore di petrolio dopo USA. Consumi
petroliferi cinesi +7,5% anno, una crescita 7 volte quella degli USA. - Il fabbisogno energetico cinese è pari al
40% della crescita totale della domanda int.le di petrolio negli ultimi 4
anni; Cina importa circa 1/3
del suo consumo, per il 2025 ne importerà i 2/3. - Auto: per il 2010 previste un numero
di vetture 90 volte quelle del 1990,
con il sorpasso delle auto USA nel 2030. - Il 58% dell’import cinese di petrolio viene
dal M.O.; per aumentare e diversificarne il rifornimento, la Cina guarda a Russia, bacino del
Caspio, Mar cinese orientale e in particolare all’Africa. - L’Africa possiede circa l’8% delle
riserve petrolifere mondiali provate; il 70% di queste si trova nel Golfo di Guinea, dalla Costa d’Avorio
all’Angola; il petrolio dell’area
ha basso contenuto di zolfo. - Nel 2004 la Cina ha superato il
Giappone come 2° maggiore importatore
di petrolio africano dopo USA. - Sudan:
10 anni fa’ la Cina si è insediata per la prima volta nei campi petroliferi
sudanesi di Muglad, andando ad occupare il posto lasciato dagli USA, che nel 1997 ruppero i rapporti diplomatici
con il Sudan. - Attualmente
il 50-60% dell’export petrolifero
sudanese va in Cina, parti al 7%
del petrolio da essa importato. - La Cina ha investito in Sudan oltre
$8MD per: contratti di esplorazioni
congiunte, la costruzione di un oleodotto
dai campi petroliferi del Sud al Mar Rosso e di un terminal per le petroliere a Port Sudan. - Lavorano in Sudan circa 10 000 cinesi; 700 le imprese cinesi presenti in 40 paesi africani.
- Secondo
l’FMI l’Africa crescerà quest’anno del 5,8%, anche grazie alla spinta del
commercio cinese. - Gli investimenti cinesi in Sudan sono fortemente
aumentati e riguardano miniere, pesca, legname, tlc, ma anche miniere
di rame dello Zambia, abbandonate dai paesi occidentali e riserve
petrolifere del Gabon ritenute esaurite. - La Cina esporta personale e
conoscenze tecniche, invia medici
e infermiere, istituisce corsi
scolastici per studenti africani in città cinesi, prepara uomini d’affari e agenti per il commercio africani. - Dal China-Africa
Forum del 2000, la Cina ha
eliminato i dazi su 190 generi di merci provenienti dai 28 paesi africani
meno sviluppati; ha cancellato
$1,2Md. di debiti. - La Banca per l’Export cinese ha concesso
un prestito a basso interesse all’Angola, la quale ha in cambio dato
una quota dell’esplorazione
petrolifera in bassi fondali al largo delle sue coste. - Il
prestito è servito per la costruzione
di infrastrutture per l’industria petrolifera e il commercio. L’Angola
è ora meno interessata ai prestiti FMI, erogati sotto determinate condizioni.
Il trattato sottoscritto riserva
all’Angola solo il 30% dei contratti di costruzioni, il resto va a società
cinesi. - Tra i progetti in corso ferrovie,
strade, una rete in fibra ottica, scuole ospedali e 5000 nuovi alloggi; in
progetto un nuovo aeroporto con voli diretti da Luanda a Pechino.
Armi:
- la Cina ha venduto armi per $1MD. ad Etiopia ed Eritrea durante il conflitto sui confini del 1998 e 2000, paragonabile alle
armi vendute dagli USA alle due parti nella guerra Iran-Irak; - ha
venduto armi sia allo Zimabwe che al Sudan, durante l’embargo occidentale
sulle armi; - ha
venduto elicotteri a Mali, Angola; - armi
a Namibia e Sierra Leone; - armi
e uniformi al Mozambico. - Nel 2004
la Cina ha inviato oltre 1500 soldati nelle missioni ONU in Africa,
soprattutto nella Rep. Dem. del Congo e Liberia, inviati due mesi dopo che
la Liberia aveva riconosciuto diplomaticamente la Cina invece che Taiwan;
- Le incursioni
della Cina in Africa hanno messo in allarme le multinazionali, e il mondo politico
americano. - L’americano
Council on Foreign Relations, in un rapporto bipartisan, accusa
l’amminstrazione Bush di non avere una strategia di lungo respiro verso l’Africa,
occorre nominare un ambasciatore statunitense presso l’Unione Africana, e
inviare un maggior numero di missioni nelle più importanti città dell’Africa,
soprattutto nei paesi petroliferi. - Il
rapporto critica gli svantaggi portati da un approccio umanitario, occorre
un’elaborazione complessiva degli interessi americani.
La lista delle precedenze negli interessi USA vede nell’ordine:
- petrolio
e gas; - crescente
concorrenza cinese; - guerra
al terrorismo; - pandemia
HIV/AIDS; - risoluzione
conflitti e peace-keeping; - democrazia
e diritti umani;
sviluppo economico di lungo termine.
Wsws 06-01-24
China’s growing trade with Africa
indicative of Sino-Western energy conflicts
By Brian Smith
Trade between China and Africa
jumped 39 percent to $32.17 billion in the first 10 months of 2005, fuelled by
increased oil imports and the export of Chinese goods, largely textiles. This
follows rises of 59 percent in 2004 and 50 percent in 2003.
The rate of increase in Sino-African
trade could see China
threatening the United
States’ predominant position in the next
period. US-Africa trade was $44.5 billion in 2004.
Energy is China’s
main concern and over the last few years it has struck or expanded on existing
oil deals with Angola, Algeria, Chad,
Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria
and Sudan.
Africa now supplies around one quarter of China’s energy imports.
China is expected to overtake both the UK
and France
this year to become the world’s fourth largest economy, and is growing at
around 9.3 percent per year. China’s
trade surplus was $90.8 billion for the first 11 months of 2005, three times
the level of 2004. This was boosted by textile exports following the end
of the quota system. China’s
excess capacity and reliance on exports is antagonising both the US and European
Union.
In 2003 China
overtook Japan to become the
world’s second largest consumer of oil after the US.
Demand is increasing rapidly and its oil consumption is growing by 7.5
percent per year, seven times more than the US. China’s energy needs accounted for
40 percent of the total growth in global oil demand over the past four years.
It currently imports about one third of its consumption, but is projected to
import two thirds by 2025.
By 2010 China
is expected to have 90 times more cars than it had in 1990, and is projected to
surpass the total number of cars in the US by 2030. China is also
attempting to increase and diversify supplies, particularly away from
the Middle East, where it currently
sources about 58 percent of it oil. Areas of interest include Russia, the Caspian
Basin, the Americas,
the East China Sea and particularly Africa.
Africa contains about 8 percent of
the world’s proven oil reserves, 70 percent of
which is off the west coast in the Gulf
of Guinea, which stretches from the Ivory Coast to Angola. The low sulphur
content of West Africa’s oil makes it of
further strategic importance.
Last year China displaced Japan as
the second largest importer of African oil after the US, which currently
imports about 15 percent of its oil from Africa. China first established a presence in Sudan’s Muglad oilfields 10 years ago, and
filled the vacuum when the US
broke diplomatic ties with Sudan
in 1997. Currently between half and 60 percent of Sudan’s
oil exports go to China,
amounting to around 7 percent of China’s imported oil.
China has invested more than $8 billion in joint exploration contracts in
Sudan, including the construction of a pipeline from the southern
oilfields to the Red Sea and a tanker terminal at Port Sudan. About 10,000 Chinese people work
in the country.
China has greatly increased its investments throughout the continent in booming sectors such as mining, fishing, precious woods and
telecoms, but also in less profitable sectors neglected or abandoned
by the West, e.g., Zambia’s
Chambezi copper mines and the supposedly exhausted oil reserves in Gabon.
There are currently around 700 Chinese
firms operating in 49 African countries. According to the IMF Africa
should experience growth of 5.8 percent this year, the highest for 30 years,
fuelled in large part by China’s
trade with the continent.
“China is competing for anything and
everything at this stage,” explains Dianna Games, a South African economic and
political analyst. “They know Africa is wide
open to them.”
China also exports manpower and
technical expertise, sends doctors and nurses to the continent, establishes
scholarships for African students at Chinese universities, trains African businessmen
and trade officials, and encourages Chinese businessmen to invest in Africa.
China has invested heavily in
privatisations and infrastructure projects intended to aid trade and the
movement of goods, including: trains, roads, buildings, electricity and phone
lines, mining prospects and oil refineries. It has also invested in tourism and
has launched Nigeria’s
first satellite.
Since the China-Africa Forum in 2000,
China
has scrapped tariffs on 190 kinds of imported goods from 28 of the least
developed African countries, and cancelled $1.2 billion in debt.
China’s export bank has recently
given a soft loan to Angola, which has given it
a stake in oil exploration in shallow waters off the coast. The loan is to
be used for infrastructure projects, many of which facilitate the
development of the petroleum industry and wider trade.
Projects under way include railways,
roads, a fibre-optic network, schools, hospitals, offices and housing
developments of up to 5,000 units. A new airport with direct flights from Luanda to Beijing
is also planned.
The deal guarantees Angola just 30
percent of the construction contracts, with Chinese companies expected to win
the remainder. This has caused some concern in Angola’s
unions, but not in the government. “Why would you stop these guys coming?” asks
Isaac Maria dos Anjos, a ruling party MP. “It absolutely will help the ruling
party. We have to build hospitals. We have to build bridges. And we will do a
lot of it in just one year,” i.e., before the next election.
Angolan Finance Minister Jose Pedro
de Morais explained that Angola’s infrastructure is being rebuilt quickly,
which has helped it to normalise relations with other banks who are now ready to expand their lines of credit.
China’s loan, and its policy of non-interference, has made Angola
less interested in accepting an IMF conditional loan, which calls for
economic transparency and the opening up of its books to corporate governance
concerning its oil contracts.
The multinationals who have traditionally and historically exploited the continent’s
resources are alarmed at China’s
rapid incursions into African trade, as are US policymakers and the Western
press.
Western analysts have criticised China by claiming that Chinese money is
enriching corrupt leaders, buying influence, gaining access to resources, and
is being used as a means to garner support regarding Taiwan and United Nations Security
Council issues.
Gal Luft of the neo-conservative think
tank Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, complains along these
lines, saying that “it will be much easier for [some African] countries to work
with Chinese companies, rather than American and European companies, which are
becoming more restricted by the publish-what-you-pay initiative and others
calling for greater transparency.”
The US
Council on Foreign Relations has also issued a bipartisan report accusing the
Bush administration of lacking a comprehensive, long-term strategy for dealing
with Africa and urging policymakers to give it
greater attention. It calls for an upgrade in
diplomatic and intelligence capabilities by appointing an ambassador to the
African Union and opening more missions
in key African cities, particularly in energy-producing countries.
The report criticises the
shortcomings of a humanitarian approach, and calls for a comprehensive
elaboration of US interests. “The United States
must recognise and act on its rising national interests on the continent
through a far higher mobilisation of leadership and focused resources that
target Africa’s new realities.”
It lists a hierarchy of US interests:
oil and gas; growing competition with China; war on
terrorism; HIV/AIDS pandemic; conflict resolution and peacekeeping; democracy
and human rights; and long-term economic development.
The report hypocritically bleats that China “does not share US concern for issues of governance,
human rights or economic policy.” Duncan Innes-Ker, of the Economist
Intelligence Unit, concurs. He believes “Chinese firms are a little less
ethically constrained” than their Western counterparts.
China
has become more forthright in its arms sales in line with its growing economic
influence. It sold an estimated $1 billion worth of arms to Ethiopia and Eritrea
during their border conflict between 1998 and 2000, comparable to the US selling arms
to both sides during the Iran-Iraq war. It has also sold arms to both Zimbabwe and Sudan
whilst they have been under Western arms embargoes, and has sold
helicopters to Mali and Angola, arms to Namibia
and Sierra Leone, and army
uniforms to Mozambique.
In 2004 China
contributed more than 1,500 troops to UN peacekeeping across the continent,
primarily in the Democratic Republic
of Congo and Liberia. Chinese peacekeepers were sent to Liberia
two months after Liberia
switched its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan
to China.
“The centre of gravity of oil is shifting,” believes Daniel Yergin, chair
of the Cambridge Energy Research Associates. “Last year, Asia consumed more oil
than North America”.
This shift is having an impact on Africa where it will stimulate more intense rivalries for
access to that continent’s resources.