Vote Before -
For: 154
Against: 106
Don’t Know: 124
 
The no-nonsense Chair Lindsey Hilsum kicked off the night in Cadogan Hall, insisting that by the end of the night those who voted don’t know/haven’t a clue what’s going on had made a decision by the end. It set the sharp, divided and yet joshing tone of the event.
 
George Ayittey’s central tenet was that the solutions to African problems lie in Africa. Highlighting the insignificance of Western aid in solving African problems, he outlined that the $30 billion in aid was huge, but the $148 billion lost in corruption alone outstripped it. He was opposed to the secrecy of the deals signed and the nepotistic nature of them, as African oil is exchanged for presidential palaces and stadiums.

Deborah Brautigam, who had addressed the US Congress on this issue last year, countered that in opinion polls 20 African countries had rated China as highly as the rest of the West. She urged us to reject our preconceptions about Africa in China, and pointed out the link between the 7.7 million people lifted out of poverty every year for every 1% increase in Chinese economic growth. To me, it suggested that it might not be just Africa that should look to China. African manufacturing is also rising by 5% in response to, and often supported by, Chinese factory production. Additionally, China is successful where NGO’s are not as they, critically, provide infrastructure.

Ana Maria Gomez said that the West needed to stop regarding Africa as ‘the lost continent’, and that it was through Western re-intervention that Africa has a chance. The Portuguese MEP humorously observed that it was through the poor quality of Chinese infrastructure that Portuguese engineering firms were thriving in nations like Angola. What Africa needs is accountability and empowerment of civil society.

Steven Chan drew on his experience as a peacekeeper in Sudan to highlight the positive African attitudes to the Chinese for their development in the 1980s. He described our attempts to push out China as a repetition of our self serving colonial attitude in the first Scramble for Africa. China, he argues, appreciates the African aspirations in a way the blindly patronising West has not through its construction not just of schools but universities. He said that African politicians and economists know what the African economies need, and that this form of ‘exploitation’ is willing through the signing of mutually beneficial deals. China also acts as a reformative force, especially in Angola, where it has insisted on democratic elections and budget controls. His parting comment was to remind us that the world has changed; Angola just offered to bail out Portugal in the recent Eurozone Crisis.


Vote After -
For: 149
Against 212
Don’t Know: 25