Hu says Chinese drive will not hurt Africa
Source: Reuters
(Adds Hu comments, background) By Michael Georgy PRETORIA, Feb 7 (Reuters) - President Hu Jintao, apparently seeking to ease concerns over China's investment drive in Africa, said on Wednesday that Beijing's business interests would not hurt the continent. Speaking to a packed audience at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, Hu frequently used the word "trust" to outline his vision of China's economic ties with Africa. The Chinese president on Tuesday signed economic and agricultural deals in South Africa as part of his eight-nation tour of Africa, where the Asian giant's growing influence has been met with some unease. "The Chinese are a peace-loving nation," Hu said in his address on Wednesday. "We live in cooperation and harmony among nations and we hold that the strong and the rich should not bully the weak and the poor." China has been offering low-interest loans, debt relief and other incentives to increase its influence in the world's poorest continent, in return for access to the natural resources it needs to feed its booming economy. While many African governments have welcomed closer ties with Beijing, analysts say the region's poor countries must guard their weak manufacturing sectors against cheaper Chinese imports. "China has never imposed its will or unequal practices on other countries and will never do so in the future," said Hu. "It will certainly not do anything harmful to the interests of Africa and its people." The most controversial stop on Hu's eight-nation African tour has been Sudan, where China's "no strings attached" aid policy has angered many in the West who want Beijing to use its economic muscle to persuade Khartoum to end rights abuses in its Darfur region. Hu said he hoped Sudan would implement a peace package it had agreed with the African Union and the United Nations. He said China only had good intentions in Africa, which supplies a third of his country's crude oil imports. He referred to Zheng He, a famed Chinese navigator of the Ming Dynasty who sailed four large convoys to the east coast of Africa 600 years ago. "They brought to the African people a message of peace and goodwill, not swords, guns, plunder or slavery," he said.
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