What are Chinese activists doing about Africa?
Blogged by: Nina Brenjo
A visitor walks by a poster with the map of Africa in the meeting venue for the annual meeting of the Africa Development bank in Shanghai. Photo by REUTERS\Aly Song
The meeting of the African Development Bank in Shangai has just ended, with China making a $20 billion pledge for the African continent. Nothing new, you might say, we've seen China throw money at Africa before. But what was fresh this time was a smaller gathering on the sidelines of the main event: the first-ever meeting of Chinese and African civil society groups looking to "take some of the rough edges off (this controversial) relationship", Christian Science Monitor reports.
It's a tall order that may need organisations with far more experience than Chinese civil society groups, the Monitor writes. Without international experience and "politically restrained", they appear too weak to act as government or investor watchdogs.
"While international campaigning groups deliberately seek issues on which to attack their governments, Chinese NGOs... will look for points on which they agree with the government and start there. They are committed to being constructive," Nick Young, head of China Development Brief, which monitors the development of Chinese civil society groups, tells the paper.
Another problem is that Chinese NGOs mostly work on issues at home. As Justin Fong of the Moving Mountains, an NGO that trains public-interest activists, points out: "It is a far leap for Chinese citizens to think about the problems of African farmers." One reason is that they simply don't know what their government and companies are up to abroad.
But that's likely to change. As China becomes a much bigger player on the international scene, its citizens are bound to get involved in foreign policy issues, according to Fong.
Greater awareness would enable civil society groups to question China's way of doing business abroad - which carries "disturbing echoes of the way the West dealt with Africa," according to Walden Bello, a Philippine activist and academic, quoted by the Monitor. The worry is that most of the benefits from Sino-African deals will go to China.
On top of that, China's policy of non-interference means that its money sometimes ends up in the hands of authoritarian African regimes.
Given all these constraints, what can Chinese activists do when it comes to Africa?
"(It) would not dare attempt to mobilize a mass movement, as a Western NGO might try... (But) the government cares about losing face in the international arena. This is the perspective from which we can appeal to the government," Ge Yun, director of the Xinjiang Conservation Fund, tells the Monitor.
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3 responses to “What are Chinese activists doing about Africa?”
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23 May 2007 10:15:08 GMT
Until Chinese NGOs find a way to consistently lash out EFFECTIVELY at Chinese misbehavior in Africa, they'll never have much credibility, or worse draw suspicion on what their motives are.
23 May 2007 15:04:47 GMT
I can't imagine the Chinese government being even half as dishonest as our own (American) About half of the money raised for African hunger in the U.S. ever made it to Africa, and only half of that ever made it past the African politicians. God help us should the Chinese be that unscroupulous.
24 May 2007 13:50:58 GMT
How easy it is to simply talk of misbehavior towards those that have tried so much to help these African societies. It is the African leaders that should face up to their own misbehaviors towards their people. Their ruthless rule for personal gain, being bought off by Westerners to continue suppressing their people and nations is the real problem. They refuse to modernize and sell out their own people to the highest bidding price. Now, by trying to blame the benevolent Chinese for their problems, perhaps the world should leave them alone until they are overthrown by feed up rebels and proper governments become established to deal with. Until some new rebel leader makes his move to gain the respect of the World no one should offer a helping hand. They are a problem waiting for revolutionary resolve by someone that truly loves his country, if such can be found.