How China's 'trade not aid' strategy became construed as charitable help: deconstructing the 'touching' idyll of Li Li's investment in Africa
In recent years, China has increased investments in Africa and its “Trade Not Aid” model appears to be the best delivery of sustainable assistance. By reviewing the history of Chinese aid to Africa, examining race-relations literature, and deconstructing contemporary models of aid, the author argues that, at least in terms of agricultural endeavors, China’s current approach resembles the colonialism that it once sought to disassemble. T have been many arguments against traditional patterns of aid to Africa. In 2009, Dambisa Moyo provided one of the most recent and prominent rationales, asserting that trade-based economic relationships encourage investment, production, as well as technical knowledge exchange, which therefore provides the effectiveness and sustainability that are lacking in traditional aid projects.1 This “ Trade Not Aid ” approach has become synonymous with contemporary China-Africa economic relations, and as it enhances its investments in Africa, China is also winning Moyo’s praise as Africa’s best friend.2 Nonetheless, a closer inspection of their relationship reveals that, at least in terms of agricultural investment, China’s strategy is not as radical of a departure from colonialism as the existing literature would suggest. This paper takes Li Li’s Jonken Farm situated in Moyo’s home — Zambia — as a case study to explore the dichotomy between perceptions of aid providers and recipients. Li and her husband Wang Chi built Jonken Farm in 1992. Their story first became known in a 2004 television interview,3 and after 2 How China’s “ Trade Not Aid ” Strategy Became Construed As Charitable Help Li assumed the management of the 3573-hectare farm when Wang passed away in 2005, she became a national celebrity in China. Beijing crowned Li with titles such as “the Chinese who touches Africa the most”, “National Heroine”, and “Distinguished Communist.” She was also mentioned in two important English-language publications on the Sino-African relationship. Basing herself on Jonken, Deborah Brautigam concludes that Li’s private investment generates profit as well as employment opportunities for locals.4 Serge Michel and Michel Beuret add that trade-based relationships buffer interracial discontent in ways aid does not; despite recent anti-Chinese revolts in Zambia, they find that Jonken is described as “a perfect example of the cooperation between China and Zambia”5. I deconstruct the Jonken story in the context of Beijing’s agricultural endeavors in Africa since 1960. Chinese assistance to Africa began with altruistic roots, but these have been lost over time even though Chinese media frames investments as “help” to its former aid recipients so it appears that China has not discontinued any aid. While Chinese perceive the contemporary business relationships as assistance, however, “aid” recipients often do not; while Beijing paints Li as a national hero, Zambians find her a bigoted and harsh. Despite investments being more efficient than traditional forms of aid, the racism that has accompanied the capitalism foretells grave risks in the future of Sino-African relations.
Anti-Black Racism in Post-Mao China
Expressions of anti-black sentiment by Chinese students have caught the world's attention periodically since the end of the 1970s. Demonstrations against African students in Nanjing and other cities between late 1988 and early 1989 received wide press coverage. Because the African population in China is small and transient, some observers saw these events as a manifestation of a vestigial xenophobia, not as part of a developing trend of thought within a key segment of Chinese society. Placed next to the brutal ethnic conflicts that plague much of the world, the episodic, non-lethal incidents in China seemed evanescent, with only fleeting implications for China's foreign policy.
Trade, exchange rate, and agricultural pricing policies in Thailand
Thailand is still largely an agricultural country. In 1984, agricultural work was still the main source of earnings for more than 70 percent of the population. For much of the 25 year period covered by this report, government intervention in the prices of rice, maize, and natural rubber was extensive. For these products, intervention took the form of explicit export taxes and restrictive quotas. Sugar, on the other hand, was imported until 1960. For many years prior to that, government policy was to encourage growers and thus achieve self-sufficiency. One conclusion of this study is that the Thai sugar industry would have shrunk dramatically if the government had refrained from intervention. Intervention in the prices of rice and natural rubber had the effect of penalizing farm producers by reducing their output prices. There was, as a consequence a shift of resources towards Thailand's small industrial sector. In 1981, the Thai government lifted its quota restrictions, and liberalized its trade by eliminating its intervention in the maize, rice, sugar and natural rubber markets. Unfortunately for export growers, however, the gradual elimination of intervention was overshadowed by sharp declines in the world prices of Thailand's major agricultural exports.