Deborah Brautigam

Chinese involvement in Africa has drawn much global attention in recent years but some of the standard assumptions – for example, that China is engaged in a neo-colonial mission on the continent and that the Chinese government tightly controls the activities of all Chinese companies in Africa – don’t hold up to close scrutiny.

Deborah Brautigam, the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and Director of the International Development Program (IDEV), and the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI), at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), works through the myth that China is buying vast tracts of land in Africa in order to grow food for the Chinese in her recent book, Will Africa Feed China?

The Diplomat talked to Brautigam about the realities of Chinese investments and engagement in Africa.

Your recent book – Will Africa Feed China? – attempts to address a common, but misguided, perception that China’s government is vacuuming up African agricultural lands and products to provide for China’s own population. How does this narrative compare to reality?

China is often portrayed as having only recently come into Africa, driven by a single-minded “voracious hunger” for African resources. The gap between this perception and the reality is particularly large when it comes to agriculture. The conventional wisdom here is that, as you put it, the Chinese government is leading an effort, through its state-owned firms and sovereign wealth funds, to acquire large amounts of land in Africa to grow food to send home to feed the Chinese people – and that they’re sending Chinese peasants to grow this food. At one point, The Economist circulated a rumor that there were a million Chinese farming in Africa.

In doing the research for the book, my research team and I traveled to 12 countries and dug into 60 cases where someone had claimed that “China” had acquired at least 500 hectares of farmland in Africa. If all this land had actually been acquired, it would have amounted to over 6 million hectares.

We found 34 existing Chinese farms of 500 hectares or above, some dating back to 1987. This demonstrates a point I made in my previous book, The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa, that the Chinese have been engaged in Africa for a long time, but no one really paid much attention to this until about a decade ago. Up to the end of 2014, these investments added up to less than 250,000 hectares, and most of this was for the purchase of existing plantations: rubber, sisal, sugarcane. Some Chinese farms in Zambia, Mali, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe were growing rice, wheat, and corn for local markets. None were exporting, and all of them had hired local workers – we found no villages of Chinese peasants anywhere in Africa.

Some of these farms were acquired when African governments privatized their own state-owned farms during the 1990s. Some were more recent investments by a variety of companies. We also found many cases where Chinese agribusiness companies were interested in investing, but the lack of roads, electricity, and other difficulties discouraged them. So the picture could change in the future. These were entrepreneurial ventures spearheaded by Chinese firms interested, like agribusiness firms from other countries, in profit and in biofuels, in particular. Those who assumed without much, if any, evidence that China was looking to outsource its food security to Africa neglected to consider that Africa is a food deficit region. The continent imports over 10 million tons of rice annually from Asia, for example. Someday it might make economic sense for the Chinese to import rice from Africa – but that day is far in the future, if it ever arrives.

What do you make of accusations that China engages in “neo-colonialism” in Africa? Is there any truth to that claim – and if not, where does it come from? 

“Neo-colonialism” usually refers to the intentional practice of using business investment, cultural and political ties to influence or control other, weaker countries. It also implies a replication of the economic model of colonialism: export of raw materials from the colony and import of finished goods from the colonizer. The classic example would be French relations with its former colonies in Africa – language, culture, economic ties continue even after military and direct political domination end.

There’s no question that China’s trade relationship with the continent is largely based on the import of raw materials and export of finished goods. This is also the case for African trade with Europe and the United States. The reason for this is not that wealthier countries have imposed this model on Africa, but that in the half-century since independence, most African governments have not put in place the conditions for their economies to move beyond being suppliers of raw materials. Even though Asian countries also suffered colonial domination, you rarely hear serious accusations about neo-colonialism in places like Korea, Singapore, Malaysia – or China. That’s because these governments took structural transformation seriously, and put in place measures to move their economies up the value chain.

In your research, you seek to go beyond official government policy to look at the role of private companies and individuals from China in African countries. How do China’s public/private spheres intersect and diverge when it comes to engaging with Africa?

Many people believe that the Chinese government is in charge of all Chinese economic activity in Africa, a kind of “China, Inc.” directing the activities of companies, even individual migrants. This is far from reality, but it leads to a general blaming of “China” when individual companies misbehave.

The Chinese government is very concerned with its image in Africa, with retaining and building positive relationships. This has influenced the Chinese policy banks, whose lending decisions have evolved to consider the social and environmental implications of projects. The government also has some influence with the state-owned companies that invest or trade in Africa, although this influence is not as controlling as people often believe. In things like corporate social responsibility, environmental protection, resettlement, labor relations, the Chinese government issues recommendations and guidelines, but doesn’t have active enforcement powers, and certainly not overseas where any enforcement would have to be done by host governments.

When it comes to private companies and individual entrepreneurs, which make up the largest numbers of investors, the Chinese government has almost no leverage. Labor relations, safety concerns, problems with pollution -- all seem to be more intense with private firms, which are often replicating in Africa the practices that they knew in China. 

Chinese foreign policy in general has evolved under Xi Jinping as Beijing becomes more comfortable with its “major country” status. Have you seen China’s approach to Africa change in the past few years since Xi came to power?

There haven’t been any major changes. I was surprised, for example, at the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) that took place in early December in Johannesburg. The FOCAC meeting happens every three years and, among other things, it signals the level of finance Beijing is prepared to make available over the next three years. I expected, given China’s economic slowdown, that the Chinese pledges of new loan commitments would also slow. This didn’t happen. They had been doubling every three years – and in 2015 they doubled again, and then some.

One thing I noted on this second visit by Xi Jinping: He visited Africa’s aged pariah leader, Robert Mugabe, in Zimbabwe. Chinese leaders have been avoiding Zimbabwe over the past two decades, but Xi pushed aside any concerns about the impression this might make. This could reflect his more assertive stance in the world.

What role do you see Africa playing in China’s larger foreign policy strategies, such as the “Belt and Road”?

China has a lot of overcapacity in the construction and building material industry. This complements African needs for infrastructure, estimated to be some $93 billion annually. Knitting the east coast of Africa more efficiently into Chinese trading networks is a win-win – as long as the quality of the infrastructure is high, its maintenance is planned, and the debt is repayable. These are not guaranteed, which speaks to the need for vigilance.