China: a threat to African development?

Above: Mr. Chen Yuan (right), chairman of the board of the Chinese Development Bank and Mr. Matthews Prosa (left), South African governmental official, attending the opening ceremony of the first representative office of the China-Africa Development Fund in Johannesburg, South Africa, March 16, 2009 (photo: China View)

As trade between China and African countries have risen from US$ ten billion in 2000 to US$ 107 billion in 2008 and Africa supplies China with one-third of its oil imports, voices have been raised claiming China is a threat to African development.

This claim was challenged during a seminar on "Governance for African development" in Dekar, Senegal, earlier this month. The seminar was organised by the Research Centre on Social Policies (CREPOS) of the University of Dakar and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of London University, in partnership with the Mo Ibrahim foundation.

"There is a manipulation effect through the media which describes China's presence in Africa as a threat to good economical governance. It is wrong to present China as a threat," said Mr. Carlos Oya, lecturer in economic development policies at SOAS, according to afriquejet.com.

"China is not a big donor agency. It gives about US$ 500 million to developing countries, as against US$ 30 billion for the countries of the Economic Cooperation and Development Organization (OECD)," he added.

Other speakers at the seminar said that the link between governance and development is an issue all Africans should concern themselves with:

"We organised this seminar to discuss 16 themes on good governance and development," said Senegalese scholar Alfred Ndiaye, referring to the question of mobilisation of financial resources in African countries, local governance, modernisation and corruption.