China's Silent Army
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With a few rare exceptions, this is exactly what is happening with Chinese investments in Africa, Asia and Latin America, as far as we could tell. In Peru, Burma, Russia and Mozambique, to mention just a few of the countries which China has turned to for long-term supplies, all these million-dollar investments and long-term supply contracts only serve to provide access to raw materials, which are exported in their unprocessed form. In Africa, the fiasco of China’s Special Economic Zones—which were originally conceived to lay the foundations of an industrial base on many different levels—shows that it is not only the receiving countries which are wasting a golden opportunity; the Chinese companies also seem none too interested in contributing added value. What wealth is therefore being generated by these gigantic investments? Who is really capitalizing on the opportunities offered by China? Are the local populations profiting at all?
To answer these questions, we gave a voice to the people who should presumably be benefiting the most from China’s presence in these countries: the employees working for Chinese companies and the communities where these corporations have set up camp. The conclusions are very revealing: not only do they not feel that they are benefiting but, furthermore, China is surprisingly not always welcome despite its enormous deployment of resources. This negative perception of the new employer is fed by the disastrous working conditions which are the common denominator in Chinese projects, as well as the companies’ complete lack of environmental sensibility, the meager transfer of technology and knowledge to the local populations, and the general conviction that China is there purely for its own gain.4 This feeling is shared even by those who are not directly affected by these projects. Talking to academics, politicians, journalists, trade union representatives and NGOs, the sense of disappointment caused on occasions by China’s expansion became even more evident.
In this sense, our experience in China has shown us that the overwhelming figures relating to the magnitude of Chinese projects—both inside and outside its own borders—often distort reality. Investments which seem very impressive in terms of quantity turn out to be irrelevant in terms of the quality of the benefits offered to the local populations. An example of this can be seen in the $6 billion contract between the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Chinese state-owned companies, whose enormous expenditure will all come to nothing or very little at all if it ends up being reduced to a mere exchange of minerals for infrastructure. Above all, the attitude demonstrated by Chinese corporations seriously calls into question the creation of wealth on a local level in the form of new jobs. Many of these corporations injure the sensibilities—and often the dignity—of their African, Asian and Latin American workers by importing their habitual inhuman treatment from China. The “win-win” rhetoric described by the Chinese government has certainly been thrown into doubt.
Therefore, the question is: who is capitalizing on the opportunities offered by China if it is not the local populations? Having read this book, you probably already know the answer: the local elites, whether economic and/or political, in both democratic countries and autocratic regimes. In many cases, these elites see business opportunities with China as a short-term transaction, or even as a chance to get themselves a slice of the pie. No doubt Beijing can most easily achieve its objectives with those regimes which pay no attention whatsoever to the standards—whether social, environmental or workplace—which must be observed in other countries around the world. Both sides win—China and the elites—while the prevailing lack of transparency allows them to keep their scheming under lock and key. The fact that the Asian country is silently managing to achieve its objectives and, in some countries, ousting its competitors, is not particularly surprising. The fundamental issue is not the fact that China is conquering the world; what is really important is how it is doing it.
It is all being allowed to happen under the tired pretext of no interference in the domestic affairs of other countries, an excuse which means nothing but suffering for millions of people as a result of Chinese projects. Is this the new world under China’s leadership? we asked ourselves as we witnessed first-hand the disasters taking place in northern Burma, the Peruvian mines or along the Mekong river.
In March 2011, when we had already visited almost all of the countries covered in this investigation, we were invited to participate in a China–Africa conference at the University of Oxford. At the conference, Qin Gang, the former spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, revealed, probably without noticing, the true nature of China’s global expansion in his presentation. Qin fundamentally defended two ideas: first, that “Africa’s great problem is the lack of development” and, therefore, that China’s investments and infrastructure-building are playing a decisive role in that development;5 and, secondly, that “China’s success [in Africa] is due to the fact that we never, ever take orders from foreign countries,” which confirms that “there will be no change in our foreign policy of no intervention [in the affairs of other countries].”
Qin Gang’s analysis could not be more accurate. Among his continuous references to “economic development” he never once mentioned the values which go hand in hand with progress, such as justice or equality, as if development was something abstract and separate from those it aims to serve—human beings. This confirms what we have seen so many times both in China itself and on our journey across three continents: the fact that China has engaged with the developing world with the old model of prioritizing mostly its own economic growth above everything else, without showing any interest whatsoever in the side effects of this policy.6 On the other hand, Qin’s insistence that Beijing will not make even the slightest modification to its policy of no intervention essentially means that it not only reserves the right not to observe internationally accepted practices, but also—more importantly—that it is not prepared to submit to any kind of scrutiny.
Also in Oxford, Portuguese MEP Ana María Gomes, author of a report on China’s impact on Africa,7 hit the nail on the head in her speech. “Development cannot be achieved without good governance, respect for human rights and the rule of law,” she rightly said. In this sense, she pointed out that “China is largely responsible for maintaining and perpetuating the power of the rapacious local elites.” This is clearly a reference to the same elites who are capitalizing—occasionally obscenely so—on the benefits which go hand in hand with China’s resurgence. “To stop the elites from getting ever richer and the people from getting ever poorer, what is needed is civil society,” she insisted. The MEP had uttered the magic words: civil society.
Alejandra Alayza, co-ordinator of the Peruvian Network for Fair Globalization (RedGe) in Lima, put the value of civil society into perspective with a fitting comparative example. She told us that when Peru was negotiating its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States and Europe, her NGO was in constant contact with its American and European counterparts to lobby not only in Lima but also in Washington and Brussels to achieve fairer conditions in the treaty. In other words, NGOs in various countries went beyond the “national issue” in order to jointly influence the text for the benefit of their respective populations. “In the negotiations of the FTA with China, however, we found that there was no civil society in the Asian country to help us in the fight over issues such as labor rights or the environment.”
Alayza’s words indicate that the lack of a civil society, a free press or rule of law to keep watch, set limits and denounce or punish the inappropriate actions of China’s corporations abroad—as happens in democratic countries—means that it is left to the receiving countries to impose limits on these actions. The lesser the supervision, the greater the potential for conflicts and abuse. As a result, the counterweights that are common in other parts of the world, but are either scorned or non-existent in China, are now more important than ever in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Without this scrutiny, the companies—with their indisputable ties to the Chinese state—will have free rein to continue with their irresponsibl
e actions. As is obvious, the lack of checks and balances makes a difference.
“A country with free speech is wonderful, because things can be exposed to society. Rule of law is fundamental to the consolidation of democracy. You cannot fight corruption where rule of law is not respected,” said Paulus Noa, director of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) when we met him in Namibia. In his office in central Windhoek, Noa assured us that corruption—which is more widespread among Chinese emigrants than any other group on a local level—presents a real headache for one of the most democratic countries in Africa. “At the ACC I haven’t heard of any cases of corruption involving other foreigners, only the Chinese. I’m not saying that the others aren’t doing it, but the scale of the cases is not comparable. If we allow the Chinese or anyone else to come here and corrupt every official here, I am telling you: the future and democracy of this country will become very, very weak. If we do otherwise [than fight corruption], our economy will collapse and we will be like any other African country. We have to fight anyone who wants to corrupt our society.”
Noa’s words reflect the sense of fear caused by China in Namibia. This has been particularly true ever since an employee at the Chinese state-owned Nuctech, a specialist in manufacturing airport security components such as scanners and X-ray machines, was implicated in a corruption case which also indirectly implicated Hu Haifeng, the president of Nuctech at the time and the son of the Chinese president Hu Jintao. As soon as the Chinese representative of Nuctech in Namibia was arrested, along with two Namibian nationals, China’s censorship machine swung into action, escalating from the usual lack of coverage of the event on television, radio and in newspapers to a ferocious Internet censorship campaign. In an atmosphere of total paranoia, this went as far as blocking every webpage which contained the word “Namibia.”8 This information blackout on every level, which has hindered this investigation everywhere from Iran to Sudan and from Kazakhstan to Venezuela, just as it has during our years working as reporters in China, burst onto the scene once more to defend the interests of the party-state.9
With all its highs and lows, there is no doubt that China’s tempting and efficient formula—based on the firepower of its state capitalism—has allowed it to advance relentlessly through the developing world, which may perhaps be seen as a prelude to a future conquest of Western markets and, eventually, a new world order controlled by Beijing. The current growth of China’s influence is a natural consequence of Beijing’s growing confidence in its own strengths, which has been greatly affected by the Western economic crisis. In a way, the crisis has threatened the entire Western model, and in China it is seen as evidence of the decline of a system based on liberal democracies. “Today, China is the alternative. Our model shows that there is another way. And who knows, maybe it’s better than the Western way,” says Li Guofu, a diplomat who has worked in the United States and Africa and who is a Middle Eastern expert, with an unusual degree of openness.
“The West wants to impose its own system on the world, everywhere from China to the Middle East. They want to establish an agenda based on human rights and democracy … But, we ask ourselves why we should follow this model when it is perhaps out of date,” Li insisted, defiantly, in a café in central Beijing. This sense that the West’s momentum has now passed is fully or partially shared by other developing countries, and even by some Western scholars, which now see China as a new and unquestionable paradigm of efficiency. As if that were not enough, this new world leadership is being run by an emerging country—one of their own—which is also prepared to lend money, make investments and reinforce political ties without imposing any conditions or asking any awkward questions. Therefore democracy, the system, albeit imperfect, which has brought more prosperity, well-being, justice, liberty and equality to human life than any other idea conceived by Man, now finds itself having to compete with the “Beijing Consensus,” as the Chinese model has been labeled.
China’s “magic formula” is well known: on the one hand, the interventionism of an omnipresent state in its economy and society; and, on the other hand, a fierce degree of political control which includes the submission of the state powers—as well as the media—to the one party which holds a monopoly on power without having to be accountable to anyone. The efficiency of this authoritarian system, which is grossly described as “harmonious” by the propaganda machine, offers many countries a shortcut to development at a very high price, paid for by the people left behind. This Chinese pragmatism has clearly triumphed in the developing world. In emerging nations which are characterized by civil liberties and the division of power, the local political elites show signs of giving in under the pressure of the excitement caused by China’s arrival. On the other hand, this formula is particularly attractive to despotic regimes in Africa, Asia and Latin America, whose shady alliances with the biggest dictatorship on the planet help them keep their heads above water. Wherever China sees an opportunity, it chooses to act as an accomplice in these excesses rather than acting as a guardian of the law.
It is not just the fact that China has become the great champion and favorite business partner of the world’s most repressive regimes (Burma, North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Cuba), or that its state-owned companies often enjoy carte blanche in their dealings as a result of the dizzying effect of the all-powerful Chinese state. What is just as important is the infiltration and acceptance of Chinese standards and values—which are highly ambiguous when it comes to good business practices or labor, social or environmental issues—throughout Beijing’s sphere of influence, from the countries where it is investing to international institutions such as the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank.10 It seems that the theory put forward by the British historian and journalist Martin Jacques may be becoming a reality: the world thought that China would become more Westernized as its process of economic opening up continued. What is actually happening is the opposite of that: the world is being “sinicized.”11
Will this new world under China’s leadership be a better world? Will it consist of more equal and just societies? Will there be a greater respect for the human rights of the weakest members of society or a fuller awareness of preserving the environment? Will the world be safer and more participative? In the face of such questions, this book gives an account of the impact which modern-day China is capable of having in places as remote and distant from one another as Russian Siberia and the Congolese province of Katanga in the mining heart of sub-Saharan Africa. We need a greater temporal perspective in order to find definitive long-term answers to these questions and to determine whether the Chinese model and formula are administering the sickness or the cure. But following our extensive research and experience, we cannot be very optimistic.
The West has tried to explain the nature of China’s supposed future domination through the use of a Manichaean argument based on evolution and the Asian country’s recent past.12 Politicians, economists, diplomats and all kinds of experts insist that China is destined to gradually become a Western-style democracy, complete with division of power, a multi-party system and the liberalization of civil society. This will all supposedly happen as an inevitable consequence of the Chinese people’s gradual increase in wealth and their growing desire for liberty, participation and justice. These same sources insist—as they have been doing for decades—that if these reforms do not take place, the only future for China will be either revolution or the implosion of the State. Following this argument, they suggest that Beijing is conscious of this fact and that it has a roadmap in place to ensure that, at some point within the next 100 years, China will have a free, just and equal system which will not be based on economic growth at any price, repression or the wielding of power with an iron fist.
For anybody who has spent years researching and living in China, these theories and reflections sound hasty to say the least. Right in the middle of this investigation, in October 2010 the first Chinese winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiaobo, received the news of h
is prestigious award in the depths of a prison in Liaoning province, where the regime had incarcerated him for being one of the instigators of a manifesto proposing the democratization of China: Charter 08. His eleven-year sentence for a crime of opinion was not an isolated case, but rather the beginning of the greatest wave of repression against Chinese civil society since the 1989 Tiananmen Square student massacre. Coinciding with the revolutions in the Arab world, which set alarm bells ringing within Beijing’s circles of power, the regime decided to crank its police system up a notch. Since then it has used both legal and illegal measures, such as kidnapping, torture or de facto house arrest, to silence hundreds or thousands of dissidents, activists, artists and lawyers.13
With their indestructible courage, humanity and sense of justice, these people—many of whom work on a charitable basis—had become the last beacon of hope for many citizens who have been trampled by the excesses of twenty-first-century China. The regime saw their determination as a challenge to its authority and, therefore, made them a target of its repression. “Lawyers working on human rights cases have been moved towards positions of dissidence. They didn’t want it to happen, but the system has forced them into a type of ‘radicalization.’ Activists who have been able to work in China for the last ten years can no longer work there,” explained Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch when we met him in Hong Kong. “The Chinese authorities’ fear of losing control [of power] as a result of activism has been exaggerated in order to carry out more repression.”