China Hosts
Historic African Summit
In
Beijing Saturday, China kicked off a diplomatic event of unprecedented
proportion, the effects of which will resonate throughout the world.
Beijing welcomed 48 of the 53 African heads of state to discuss economic
relations and broker deals that will make China surpass the U.S. and France as
Africa's largest trade partner. With the rest of the world busy in the
Middle East, China, as stated in
Friday's Guardian, is quietly amassing an
empire. A University of Alberta political science professor put it like this:
Which major power could pull something off on this scale? The UK has influence in the Commonwealth, but this is far different. We are talking about an emerging world power that has the mobilising power to gather 48 out of the 53 heads of state in Africa. I don’t see any parallel in history. The US never did this, nor did Russia. Symbolically this is a very, very big event.
Saturday, Chinese President Hu Jintao promised $5 billion
dollars of aid to Africa and will double this amount by 2009. In China,
Africa has found a friend. A rich friend. And unlike Western
countries, China has no problem giving the royal treatment to controversial
leaders like Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir who took a brief vacation from his
Darfur
genocide to attend the conference. And then there's president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe, who
took time off from cleansing his country of homosexuals. China, since
the 1980s, abides by a strict foreign policy of not meddling in the internal
affairs of other countries. Business is business. And business is
exactly what China will get. China already gets a third of its oil from
Africa and over the weekend will be negotiating deals for copper, transport,
telecommunications and nuclear power. And while people in America and
Europe may think about this as a "who cares, its China and Africa kind of
thing," think again. In Beijing this weekend are leaders representing
nations with a fourth of all U.N. votes and a third of the world's population.
The China-Africa partnership is no joke and has the potential to tip the global
scale of power.
•Guardian:
China Pledges to Double Aid in Africa
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