China gambles on the Third World

Big push in Africa
China’s more controversial but dramatic headway is playing out in the vast continent of Africa, and even in the U.S. traditional backyard of Latin America, showing China’s ability to extend its influence where the U.S. or Western presence is on decline.

Most of Africa’s 54 countries are now forging various economic, political and military links with China, with overall China-Africa trade growing by leaps in bounds, reaching over $46 billion last year, a 35 percent increase, according to Chinese figures, after nearly doubling from 2000 to 2003.

“China has simply exploded into Africa,” Walter Kansteiner, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said recently.

• In Ethiopia where the U.S. scaled down aid programs after the country went to war against neighboring Eritrea in the late 1990s, China saw the opportunity to expand links and now, with a large embassy, maintains a dominant presence, involving infrastructure projects, oil exploration, military installation and the strategic dam construction on the head waters of the Blue Nile River.
• In war-torn Sudan with a military regime that is accused of complicity in humanitarian crimes, U.S. oil companies had to halt investments in compliance with a 1997 law. 
  Chinese oil companies came in and invested over $2 billion, eventually transforming the oil-importing country into an exporter, with about half of its yearly $2 billion oil exports going to China. 
• China also has energy projects in Nigeria, Angola and Gabon, and is prospecting for a partnership in Kenya.

The China connection is even more important for countries like Sudan and Zimbabwe, which have been ostracized by the U.S. and European countries for their human-rights abuses.

With China’s veto threat, Sudan escaped harsh U.N. sanctions that would have been imposed for its involvement in the Darfur atrocities. Chinese aid and investment is also blunting the impact of Western sanctions on the government of President Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

Move into Latin America
Meanwhile, China’s global search for resources has brought Hu himself to Argentina, Brazil and Chile late last year, resulting in business agreements worth some $30 billion. Stronger partnership with oil-exporting Venezuela was forged after a December visit to China by President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of the U.S. administration.

China’s growing influence in Latin America is “an emerging dynamic that could not be ignored,” warned Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, head of the U.S. Southern Command, in a recent congressional testimony, adding that the recent U.S. aid cuts and sanctions against 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries has created an opening for China to extend its military influence as well.

China represents a "slowly and calculatingly awaking giant,” said Indian political analyst Siddhartha Reddy. "It has consciously opted for the diplomatic and economic route, rather than the military route.”

China does not deny its intentions. “Of course one goal of Chinese diplomacy is to raise China’s international influence and prestige and in the process check the excessive influence of the United States, but for now our main goal is to promote trade and business links,” Professor Shi said.

“Maybe if China’s rise continues, then perhaps there may be some change in the balance of power, but that’s a very long future,” he added.

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