July/August 2005: Lead theme:The Chinese are coming: China's Deepening Relations with Africa in the 'New period'
About This Edition
ISSN : 1744-2532 (Print)
ISBN : 2516-5305 (Online)
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From the Editor/Publisher
The Chinese Are Coming!
China-Africa Relations in the new period
Jideofor Adibe, PhD
In the May-June edition of the journal we discussed the report of Prime Minister Tony Blairs Commission for Africa, which was launched on March 11, 2005. We noted that while many Africanists have reasons to suspect a hidden agenda each time another save-Africa initiative is launched in the West, there are still some who are ever ready to give each initiative the benefit of the doubt. We brought contributors who offered various perspectives on the Commissions report, including an assessment of the chances of the CfA report succeeding where others have failed.
In this edition, we focus on China-Africa relations in what Chinese diplomats like to call the new period a euphemism for a period of its emergence as a great economic power. While many remain fixated on what the G8 countries can or cannot do to help make poverty history in Africa, some analysts and policy makers are beginning to pay special attention to Chinas new engagement with Africa, and are asking critical questions: Will Chinas desire to find markets for its goods lead to policy options that will do for the continent what decades of the Wests engagements have so far failed to achieve Will Chinas hunger for such resources as oil and timber and its subtle competition for global influence with the traditional powers lead to a different set of behaviour towards Africa that will in the end unwittingly empower Africa and Africans Is the extreme courtesy and humility which currently characterise Chinese dealings with Africa and Africans indicative of a a beautiful bride status that Africa is destined to enjoy under the new period as China competes with the traditional powers for Africas love Are the Chinese merely using Africa to test their goods as some cynics insist, which once they have perfect, will lead to their abandoning Africa to seek higher rewards for those goods in the more advanced economies of the West , Japan and Russia Can Africa capitalise on any beautiful bride status to win concessions from its suitors
The articles we have assembled try to proffer answers to some of these questions. Liu Guijin, Chinas Ambassador to South Africa, and a former Director-General of the African Department at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a special article for African Renaissance, traces the history of China-Africa relations, and its key elements in the new period, arguing that China-Africa relations have historically been characterised by friendship and mutual support. Drew Thompson, an Assistant Director of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, USA, examines the challenges and opportunities to both Africa and the United States of Chinas rise as an economic giant, and its deepening relations with the continent. Jin Yongjian, the President of the United Nations Association of China and the countrys former Under Secretary General of the United Nations (1996-2001) in a special article for the journal discusses the talking points in Chinas relations to Africa. John Kuada, an Associate Professor of International Management at Aalborg University, Denmark, and the editor of our sister journal, African Journal of Business and Economic Research,(AJBER), argues that Africa has a lot to learn from Chinese and Asian management practices. Tina Butler, a freelance writer based in San Francisco, California, discusses how Chinas hunger for timber is driving her into Africas heartland. Michael Sachs, a Research Coordinator at the Office of the Secretary General, African National Congress, Johannesburg, South Africa, traces the rise of China as an economic power, and argues that China is poised to become the largest economy in the world by mid 21st century, and that the real challenge will not be Chinas rise but Americas noisy decline. Jean-Christophe Servant, a music critic and regular contributor on political debates in Africa, discusses Chinas trade safari in Africa, while Marcel Kitissou, a regular contributor to African Renaissance and Faculty Director, Global Humanitarian Action and International Development Programmes at the Centre for Global Education, George Mason University, USA, contends that China and Africa are neither friends nor enemies and that its relations with Africa need not be a source of tension with the US.
Besides articles in the lead theme, we have also assembled other articles you will find quite topical. For instance, Steven Friedman, a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, Johannesburg, South Africa, and a Contributing Editor to African Renaissance, raises crucial questions about the G8s forgiveness of Africas debts. While not opposed to debt forgiveness, he questions a number of the assumptions on which that forgiveness is based. Issaka Souare, a regular contributor to the journal, assesses the successes and challenges of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) thirty years after the regional body was formed.
Holler Africa!
Our free, news feature online magazine makes it debut on August 1, 2005. With holler Africa! (meaning, shout or hail Africa!), we are merely extending our goal of using different media formats to make ourselves heard. Besides, it is common knowledge that most serious journals or magazines on Africa are either published monthly, and for academic and semi academic publications, even less frequently. This means that rather than taking a lead in discussing and shaping many issues that face the continent, by the time these African monthlies and quarterlies get to them, the issues will have already been shaped, (unfortunately not always correctly), and the world has perhaps moved to another issue that generates the necessary buzz and razzmatazz. As a daily online free magazine, this is one of the gaps holler Africa! hopes to help plug. Keep a date with the journal.
Online versions of our journals
The online versions of our journals will be offered on the holler Africa! website. We will keep you informed. The online magazine debuts August one at: www.hollerafrica.com
From the Publisher
Jideofor Adibe
The Chinese are Coming!
China-Africa Relations in the New period
All-weather friends in need and indeed
China-Africa relations seen from the eyes of a Chinese diplomat
Liu Guijin
Chinas Emerging Interests in Africa:
Opportunities and Challenges for Africa and the United States
Drew Thompson
Talking Points on Chinas Foreign Policy
Jin Yongjian
Learning from Asia:
Chinese Investment Inflows to Africa and their
Possible Impact on African Management Practices
John Kuada
Growing Pains and Growing Alliances:
China, Timber and Africa*
Tina Butler
Chinas Leap into the heart of the twenty first century
Michael Sachs
Chinas Trade Safari in Africa
Jean-Christophe Servant
China and Africa: Neither Friends nor Enemies
Marcel Kitissou
Somalia
Somalia: State reconfiguration and the role
of the Diaspora and Civil Society
Abdulkadir Osman Farah
Kenya
Kenya: Dictatorship in Prosperity or a
Democracy in Poverty
Frederick Kangethe Iraki
Senegal
Senegal Reflection
Anne Serafin
Nigeria
Reminiscences on corruption in Nigeria
Johnson Funso Odesola
Africa and the world
In whose debt
Debt Cancellation and Democracy in Africa
Steven Friedman
Chinua Achebe and the Nobel Lords
Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
Africas Migration and Terminal Brain Drain*
Amadu Jacky Kaba
Africana Women: A Revisionist Perspective on
Their Historic Pastand Future Activism
Rose Ure Mezu
Thirty Years of ECOWAS and Regional Integration
Experiment in West Africa (1975 2005):
A Retrospective Look and Suggestions for the Future