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China needs African women, Khaki shorts and the Bible

Saturday September 25 2010
chinapix

China-Africa trade has grown tremendously in recent years diminishing Europe's influence in the continent.

Readers don’t have to take this too seriously. It’s what happens when you think and write with tongue in cheek.

It was in that state that I realised that China is going about its conquest of Africa in a terribly inefficient way.

I started out on that journey after I read a headline in Kenya’s Business Daily proclaiming that “China Grows Trade with Africa as Europe Loses Out.”

A few months ago, there were headlines about how China had overtaken, or was about to overhaul, the US as Africa’s largest trading partner.

I think China is winning in areas that will not give it total conquest in the long term. Someone in Beijing needs to look at that Pirelli advert that says that power is nothing without control.

So why will China not rule Africa, despite the fact that in a few short years it could be, by far, the continent’s most important trade partner? Ironically, it is because it does not behave like its trade rivals, Europe and America, whom it is vanquishing in Africa.

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Compared with Europeans, for example, the Chinese really don’t mix that much with the “natives.” They usually live in a compound, reproducing Communist-style command structures, with senior figures that keep a watchful eye to make sure that they don’t lose their “Chineseness.” So, the Chinese don’t wench around.

Take some of the Italians of old, who built many roads in East Africa. If you had a work camp with 24 Italians, each of them would probably have two girlfriends in the nearby town (bless their wretched souls, the Italians).

Immediately, you have at least 48 unofficial in-laws. Marrying local women — and men — has the advantage of enabling you to learn local culture intimately, a crucial element of success in a foreign land. But also, in Africa, in-laws are important distribution channels.

If the Chinese don’t date African women, they will never be truly loved.

Secondly, because religion is officially suppressed, China is atheist. Now to function in Africa, you need religion.

Either the traditional or pagan variety, or organised Christianity and Islam. It is no accident that, as the scholars of African history have observed, the bible came before the colonialist.

You cannot do business in Africa effectively if you don’t dabble in religion, because heaven, hell, and the afterlife are deeply important things on this fair continent. If you don’t have a religion, you are a bad man or woman.

It closes many doors in your face. China needs to have some Catholic and Protestant priests in a few African missions, donate money to a bible distribution scheme, and it will laugh all the way to the bank.

Then, if you a non-African, to click with African folk you have to embrace the African elements. The Europeans, again, figured this out long ago; you need to buy yourself khaki shorts, and show off your legs — no matter how ungainly they look.

It is an easy way to be authentic in the tropics, and you get a lot of street cred for that. The Chinese have got it right on the T-shirts and short-sleeve cotton shirts. And the open sandals too.

But they don’t do khaki shorts. Until Africans see their legs, they will never be fully accepted.
I sense that the predominance of state-owned companies in China (the majority of Chinese firms that mine and build roads and bridges in Africa are parastatals) also puts them at a disadvantage against the European and American companies.

State-owned companies do not have enough flexibility to bribe African officials and politicians to the level that private companies do.

Okay, the Chinese have learnt, because they dole out a bit of green here and there. Every Chinese built-stadium in Africa, for example, also lined a few Big Men’s pockets.

But a bribe is not enough. Our big people need to secure themselves and their families for the long term these days (this is what they mean when they say they are visionaries).

So they want shares in companies, and directorships. There is no way a construction firm owned by the Communist Party will give shares to the Infrastructure minister.

This is a blind spot for China. It means they cannot compete on the many medium-size projects, only the big ones that are too high profile to be derailed by the failure to pay off a couple of officials. The Chinese government needs to get out of business for the sake of its imperial success.

Finally, the starkest illustration of both China’s ignorance and the limitation of its social and political structures is the fact that it is not a player in the very lucrative humanitarian and non-governmental industries.

The success of the British, Americans, Japanese and countries of that ilk in Africa, is partly because that they give a lot to the non-governmental organisations and civil society.

Those fellows who criticise human-rights failures, the destruction of the environment, the inability of African governments to hold honest elections and to fight corruption, are a big door into the heart of Africa.

Some of them are great and committed people, but the majority seem to need to have their four-wheel drives, to travel business class to international conferences, to drink their cappuccinos at the fashionable cafes, and wear their chic kente to diplomatic receptions, the opening night of Vagina Monologues, the book and poetry readings, and the latest re-interpretations of Kafka at the National Theatre.

China, because it does not have such NGOs or even a civil society back home (or rather, it has them but the leaders are in jail) is totally out of these mercy, do-good, and look-smart markets.

I have never heard of a Chinese programme to save an African wetlands, empower the girl child, end impunity, teach HIV/Aids prevention, or to support local human-rights activism.

If African governments and politicians are God in Africa, the NGOs and civil societies are the Son. China will never step in Africa’s heaven until the NGOs have eaten of its harvest. Beijing should never say it was not forewarned.

*To comment on this article go to www.theeastafrican.co.ke and our sister Africa news site, www.africareview.com

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