July 21, 2008

Top 10 Misconceptions about Chinese Investment in Africa

There's been a good bit written on the Africa/China relationship of late so the African Politics Portal put up their Top 10 Misconceptions about Chinese Investment in Africa.  Here's #7:
7. China is not a promoting a new form of colonialism on the continent. They are building roads designed to help them take minerals out of Africa; Chinese are getting privileged, under-market prices for the commodities they are shipping out from Africa (oil, timber, coal, copper, coltan, etc.); they are creating segregated neighborhoods for Chinese people only: Chinatowns have sprung up throughout the continent just like the Apartheid era white farms; they are paying Africans very low salaries and fire them when they try to object (see the cases registered in Zambia, South Africa and Angola). All these considered, we still haven’t gotten to the “new” colonialism. All the above are replicas of the policies used by the white racists 50 years ago.

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