Chinese had better beware of Africa (June 11)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, giving a speech in Zambia, raised the issue of growing Chinese influence in Africa. She said China’s rising role as an investor in Africa and purchaser of African resources isn’t necessarily bad, but perhaps is not meeting international standards of how its influence should be asserted. That’s another way of saying that China, in its way, may be trying to colonize Africa, or at least parts of that continent.
That would not look like a bad idea if you were China, which is just a little bigger than the continental United States, but has more than three times America’s population. All those Chinese people who come along in the future — heck, even a lot of those who are here now — are going to need someplace to go.
Africa has plenty of room and resources. The British, the Belgians, the Germans and the French all noticed that about Africa, and in the 19th century they established colonies there, only to have their hearts broken. What those European countries extracted in wealth didn’t make up for the high price they had to pay because of vast sociological miscalculations.
Despite monumentally expensive efforts to impose nationhood on colonial regions of Africa, that continent diddn’t change all that much. The Africans, not unlike the Afghans, are and always have been tribal in nature.
China needs African oil and other resources, as well as Africa’s markets, but before they move too far forward, they should study what the Europeans tried to do — and wound up undoing.
Clinton seemed to be warning Africa against China’s intentions, but she probably should be warning the Chinese about the Africans as well.
The United States over the past 60 years has poured uncountable billions into Africa, to almost no avail. If the Chinese wind up doing the same, they will find themselves with a bleak harvest.
