Reddit reviews Will Africa Feed China?

> A third persistent myth is that Chinese companies employ mainly their own nationals. Last July, when President Barack Obama [told a group of African ambassadors] (https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/28/remarks-president-obama-people-africa) in Ethiopia that “economic relationships can’t simply be about building countries’ infrastructure with foreign labor,” everyone knew he was pointing the finger at China. But was this an accurate description of Chinese business practices? In a small group of oil-rich countries with expensive construction sectors — including Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Angola — governments do allow Chinese construction firms to import their own workers from China.
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> But elsewhere in Africa, the research is clear: The vast majority of employees at Chinese firms are local hires. Hong Kong-based academics Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong [surveyed 400 Chinese companies] (http://iems.ust.hk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/HKUST_IEMS_Thought_Leadership_Brief_Issue5.pdf) operating in over 40 African countries. They found that while management and senior technical positions tended to remain Chinese, more than 80 percent of workers were local. Some companies had localized as much as 99 percent of their workforces.
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> Our own research in Ethiopia found that nearly 4,800 Ethiopians were employed by the Chinese firm that built [Ethiopia’s urban light rail project] (http://www.equaltimes.org/ethiopia-on-track-for-new-light#.Vl0VFd-rRE4). Another 4,000 Ethiopians worked at Huajian, a Chinese shoe factory close to the capital of Addis Ababa. In both cases, some local workers were even sent to China for management training. These practices make economic sense for Chinese companies. In order to bring workers from China, they would have to pay much higher salaries, plus pay for airfare, room, and board. There are certainly tensions around many Chinese worksites in Africa, but they tend to stem from disputes about salaries and work conditions — not whether jobs exist for locals.
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> A fourth myth that won’t go away is that Chinese aid and financing is itself a vehicle for securing [oil concessions and mining rights] (http://www.cfr.org/china/china-africa/p9557). As Richard Behar wrote in a 2008 article in Fast Company, China finances “hospitals, water pipelines, dams, railways, airports, hotels, soccer stadiums, parliament buildings — nearly all of them linked, in some way, to China’s gaining access to raw materials.” The Rand Corporation study referenced above [similarly suggested] (http://www.rand.org/blog/2013/10/the-strategy-behind-chinas-aid-expansion.html) that China “gets an expanded supply of resource commodities expected as payback” for its aid. A 2009 Congressional Research Service [report concluded: “China’s foreign aid is driven primarily by the need for natural resources.”] (https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40361.pdf)
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> Yet earlier this year, a group of researchers who actually tracked Chinese aid commitments [reported] (http://aiddata.org/sites/default/files/wps15_apples_and_dragon_fruits.pdf) that natural resource acquisition did not explain the pattern. [Our own database] (https://deborahbrautigam.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/gp_brautigamgallagher.pdf) has yet to uncover a case where Chinese aid was directly swapped for a mining or oil concession. Only one well-known deal comes close to resembling this practice. In 2007, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and two Chinese construction companies founded a joint venture to bring a moribund copper mine back to life. They then negotiated with China’s Export-Import Bank to secure a $6 billion commercial rate loan, guaranteeing repayment out of the future profits from the mine. The loan, which was later reduced to $3 billion, would be used to finance infrastructure built by the two Chinese companies. Even in this case, however, it was clear that the primary interest of the Chinese companies was not access to mineral riches, but finding a way to finance the infrastructure projects they wanted to build in a country with a poor credit history.
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> In most other cases where Chinese banks have demanded a secure flow of income to guarantee large loans in Africa, there were no Chinese-operated mines or oil wells involved. For example, Ghana secured a $562 million loan to build its Bui Dam from China’s Export-Import Bank [with cocoa produced] (http://www.ghana.gov.gh/index.php/media-center/features/805-bui-and-the-tale-of-three-hydro-dams) by Ghanaian farmers. In a similar vein, it secured the $3 billion loan from the China Development Bank — the one that was later halved — with oil exports from a concession that was owned by British multinational Tullow Oil and other non-Chinese partners. In the Republic of Congo, China provided a $1.5 billion oil-backed loan, but has no oil assets. Petroleum is pumped there by European firms Total and Eni.
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> The fifth and final myth is that China has an insatiable appetite for African land, and perhaps even a plan to send groups of Chinese peasants to grow food in Africa that will then be shipped back home. In 2012, the chief economist of the African Development Bank called China the [“biggest land grabber”] (http://www.afdb.org/en/blogs/afdb-championing-inclusive-growth-across-africa/post/the-expansion-of-chinese-influence-in-africa-opportunities-and-risks-9612/) in Africa. One widely circulated story alleged that China had purchased [half the farm land] (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinas-africa-play/) in the DRC. Others claimed that Chinese were [establishing rural villages across Africa] (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinas-new-export-farmers-1215001.html).
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> But in a book [published in November] (http://www.amazon.com/Will-Africa-China-Deborah-Brautigam/dp/019939685X), my research team and I examined 60 stories about Chinese agricultural investments, including the one in the DRC. We spent three years doing fieldwork and conducting interviews in over a dozen countries to check the facts — and out of nearly 15 million acres that Chinese companies reportedly acquired, [we found evidence] (http://sais-cari.org/chinese-agricultural-investments-in-africa/) of fewer than 700,000 acres. The largest existing Chinese farms were rubber, sugar, and sisal plantations. None were growing food for export to China. And while countries like Zambia now host as many as several dozen Chinese entrepreneurs who grow crops and raise chickens for local markets, we found no villages of Chinese peasants.
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> Myth-making like this makes it harder to focus on a number of very real problems that exist with China-Africa engagement, such as resource transparency, sustainable timber certification, and the protection of endangered species. Distracted by imaginary problems like the ones outlined above, China-U.S. cooperation on Africa has moved at a glacial pace. Moving beyond mythology might make for a slower news day as Xi wraps up his visit to South Africa, but it will help create a better informed basis for Western engagement with China — in Africa and elsewhere.

China primarily follows its own interests in Africa, but give credit where credit is due. See also:

Will Africa Feed China?. Already in 2009, 78% of Africa's timber exports went to China. How much it is today? Chinese timber effectively ruined Madagascar forests.