On Friday we posted ‘Africa in China: Part one’ which broadly outlined the argument in favour of China’s involvement in the continent. Today we look at the criticisms of China’s emerging role in the region…

China has invested large sums of money into Africa’s economy and infrastructure but is Africa getting a fair deal from this investment? There have been numerous accusations of environmental laws flouted, workers poorly treated and unfair agreements routinely struck.

In Zimbabwe, for example, China has bought the exclusive rights for the exploitation of their platinum deposits. These deposits cover an area of 110 square kilometres and have a valued worth of at least 40 billion US dollars. China, however, paid only 3 billion. Cries of ‘foul play’ have echoed around the international development community, although Chinese investors argue that given the high level of inputs needed to extract the metal (far higher than Zimbabwe could afford) this is a fair price.

Similarly in 2002 Gabon designated a quarter of the country as a nature reserve, protecting 67,000 square kilometres of mostly virgin rain forest. However, it has emerged since that Sinopec (a Chinese state-run oil firm) has been prospecting for oil in one of Gabon’s protected national parks. This blatant disregard of environmental law has led to Gabon to view Chinese investment with fair more suspicion.

There have also been multiple accusations of the poor treatment of labour by Chinese bosses. In September 2010 Zambian police charged two Chinese mine managers with attempted murder after live rounds were used to quell protests over pay and conditions at a coal mine south of the capital, Lusaka.

China’s credo of “non-interference in domestic affairs” and “separation of business and politics” has also raised concerns. China has invested heavily in countries such as Sudan and Zimbabwe where the regimes of Omar al-Bashir and Mugabe’s are regularly denounced for their human rights abuses. Moreover, China’s indiscriminate funding is also harming the efforts of the IMF and EU encourage democratic reform in the region by making said reform a pre-condition of any aid they give out.

All these factors lead some to pessimistically view Africa’s future with China as a new form of colonialism in which African countries are once again exploited for their natural resources.

We’ll be discussing the issue of China’s involvement in Africa at our debate on November 28th 2011 “Beware of the dragon: Africa should not look to China”