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China’s Growing Role in Africa: Implications for U.S. Policy
Hearing Held bySenate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African AffairsDirksen Senate Office Building1 November 2011Remarks by David H. ShinnAdjunct Professor, Elliott School of International AffairsGeorge Washington UniversityI thank Chairman Kerry of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman Coonsof the Subcommittee on African Affairs for inviting me to participate in this hearing. I havebeen researching China-Africa relations intensively over the past five years in connection with abook scheduled for publication next spring. Unless noted otherwise, the statistics and analysiscontained in this testimony refer to all fifty-four countries in Africa. China tends not to make adistinction between Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa as the U.S. government often does.
China’s Interests in Africa
China generally does not discuss its
“hard”
interests in Africa. Rather, it emphasizesseveral general themes such as
respect for African countries’ sovereignty and development
policies, support for African development, cooperation with Africa in the United Nations andmultilateral forums, and learning from each other. China also urges African countries to accept
the “one China” principle
by recognizing Beijing.
Based on my analysis, China has four “hard” interests in Africa:
Maintaining or increasing access to energy, minerals, timber, and agricultural products.
Developing good relations with all African countries so that China can count on theirsupport in regional and international forums.
Increasing significantly China’s exports to Africa, especially as
the economies of African states become more robust and Africans increase their disposable income.
Ending Taiwan’s o
fficial diplomatic presence in Africa and replacing it with recognitionof Beijing.I should point out that you can substitute the United States for China in each of the first threeinterests; they apply as much to the United States as they do to China. I would argue that the
2United States has several additional interests that do not yet apply in a meaningful way to China.First, the United States has an interest in military aircraft over flight and landing in Africancountries and access to their ports by U.S. naval vessels. Second, the United States puts a highpriority on countering a series of issues
—
terrorism, piracy, drug trafficking, money laundering,etc.
—
that pose a threat to American interests. While these issues may eventually becomeimportant Chinese interests, they have not yet reached that level.
Current Dimensions of Chinese Engagement in Africa
While China is not new to Africa, the magnitude of its engagement with the continent hasgrown exponentially since the mid-1990s. This period has coincided with enormous industrial
growth in China, the need to import increasing quantities of raw materials to support China’smanufacturing sector, and China’s ability to export significantly more competitively priced
products to Africa.
China’s in
terest in access to raw materials reinforced its long-standing policyof developing strong political relations with as many countries as possible in Africa.China has diplomatic relations with fifty of the fifty-four African countries. Four
—
Burkina Faso, Swaziland, Gambia, and São Tomé and Principe
—
recognize Taipei. Beijing hasan embassy in all but one of the fifty countries. The exception is Somalia where the securitysituation in Mogadishu precludes a physical presence. All fifty African countries that recognizeChina except the Comoro Islands and recently independent South Sudan have embassies inBeijing. Although the United States has diplomatic relations with all fifty-four Africancountries, it too has embassies in only fifty. It closed embassies in the Seychelles and ComoroIslands to save money and never opened in São Tomé and Principe. Like China, it is not inSomalia for security reasons. China has more consulates in Africa than does the United States.China is especially effective at state-to-state relations and attaches particular importanceto high-level personal contact. Hu Jintao has made six trips to multiple African countries
—
two
as vice president and four as president. China’s premier is a frequen
t visitor to Africa. Each
year since 1991, China’s foreign minister has made his first visit abroad, usually in January, to
an African country. China has a layer of high-level contact
—
senior Communist Party of Chinaofficials
—
that frequently visits Africa to expand relations with African party and executivebranch officials. The United States has no similar counterpart nor does it rely as heavily onpresidential and vice presidential visits to Africa. If you exclude annual visits to the United
Nations’
headquarters in New York by African leaders, where some do have meetings with theAmerican president, Chinese leaders extend more invitations to African leaders to visit Chinathan the United States extends to visit Washington. The Communist Party of China frequentlyinvites leaders of African political parties to visit China.China has no military bases in Africa but has some security interaction, however modest,
with all fifty countries that recognize Beijing. China’s share of the conventional arms m
arket inSub-Saharan Africa is about 15 percent. The percentage is higher for small arms and light
3weapons. High level military visits are an important part of the security relationship. Twenty-eight African countries have defense attachés in Beijing while sixteen Chinese defense attachéoffices in Africa are accredited to some thirty African countries. China has about 1,600
military/police personnel serving in six of the United Nation’s peacekeeping operations in
Africa. Most of the personnel are in Darfur, South Sudan, Liberia and the Democratic Republic
of the Congo. It has small numbers in Côte d’Ivoire and the Western Sahara.
Since 2008, Chinahas positioned two frigates and a tender in the Gulf of Aden to combat Somali piracy. Followinga lapse in naval visits to African ports since 2002, this engagement in the Gulf of Aden has led toa recent increase in Chinese visits to African ports.By contrast, the United States has a designated military command
—
AFRICOM
—
forAfrica located in Germany, a base with about 3,000 military and civilian personnel in Djiboutifor countering terrorism, a new facility in Ethiopia for operating drones and significantly moredefense attaché offices than does China. While the United States pays a higher proportion of UNpeacekeeping costs in Africa than does China, it has less than thirty personnel assigned to the sixoperations in Africa. The United States has played a leading role in the anti-piracy operation inthe Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean. U.S. military ships and airplanes regularly visitAfrican cities and ports. The United States also engages in far more training of African militaryforces than does China.China passed t
he United States and became Africa’s most important trade partner in
2009. It continues to hold that position. China-Africa trade (exports and imports) totaled $127billion in 2010 compared to $113 billion for United States-Africa trade.
While China’s t
radewith Africa has been growing at a rapid pace since the turn of the century, it constitutes only
about 4 percent of China’s global trade. China’s trade is, however, proportionally more
important for Africa and makes up about 13 percent of the continent
’
s total trade. Except for2009, when Africa collectively had a large trade deficit with China, its trade has been roughly inbalance. This is in sharp contrast with U.S.-Africa trade, which has witnessed a large U.S. tradedeficit over the past decade, primarily due to large oil imports from Africa. In 2010, the UnitedStates imported $85 billion worth of goods from Africa and exported $28 billion to Africa.
There are huge differences in China’s trade balance with individual African countries. Some
eleven African oil and mineral exporters have major surpluses with China, while the remainder,which includes the poorer countries, has significant trade deficits with China or the trade isroughly in balance.China imports about one-third of its total oil imports from Africa.
Of China’s ten
most important trading partners in Africa, six (Angola, Sudan, Nigeria, Algeria, Libya, and theRepublic of Congo) export large quantities of oil to China. In 2009, oil and gas accounted for 64percent of all African exports to China. While that constitutes a lot of oil, it is only about 13percent of total African oil exports. The United States and EEC countries each import almostone-
third of Africa’s total oil exports, significantly more than China imports. On
the other hand,the United States imports relatively modest quantities of African mineral products while China
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China’s Growing Role in Africa: Implications for U.S. Policy
"China’s Growing Role in Africa: Implications for U.S. Policy." Hearing held by Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on African Affairs, at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on 1 November 2011. Remarks by David H. Shinn, adjunct professor, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
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