Jul 20 - China Pledges $20 Billion in Loans to African Nations

BEIJING — President Hu Jintao said Thursday that China would lend $20 billion to African governments for infrastructure and agriculture in the next three years, in a speech to a gathering of African leaders.

The loans outlined by Mr. Hu, which doubled the amount offered at the last such conference here, in 2009, signaled that China was pressing ahead with aid programs in African nations with abundant energy and mineral resources but with more focus on gra#s-roots projects.

China’s aid to Africa has expanded rapidly in the last decade as the continent has become a major source of oil from Sudan and Angola, and copper from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. China has come under heavy criticism for offering its aid without conditioning it on human rights performance or governance, especially in the case of President Omar Ha#san al-Bashir of Sudan.

At the same time, its projects — roads, pipelines and ports — have focused on benefiting China’s extractive industries, not African people, critics say. The infrastructure is generally built with Chinese labor.

The president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, addressed the meeting and praised China’s approach, saying it was preferred to Africa’s experience with Europe. “We are particularly pleased that in our relationship with China, we are equals and that agreements entered into are for mutual gain,” Mr. Zuma said.

However, he was also quoted as saying: “Africa’s commitment to China’s development has been demonstrated by supply of raw materials, other products and technology transfer. This trade pattern is unsustainable in the long term. Africa’s past economic experience with Europe dictates a need to be cautious when entering into partnerships with other economies.”

In his speech, Mr. Hu said China would train 30,000 Africans, offer 18,000 scholarships and send 1,500 medical personnel to Africa. He said China would mount programs to improve drinking water and protect forests, new endeavors for China.

Li Xinfeng, an African studies scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the change was notable.

“Before,” he said, “China had more of an attitude that ‘We’ll give what we want to give you,’ but now the aid is more focused on African needs.”

But how much of the aid promised by Mr. Hu will be disbursed, and where exactly it will go, was unclear because China’s aid programs to Africa are not clearly documented, development experts said.

“An accurate number of what China actually gives is difficult to come up with because Western countries have different definitions of foreign aid to China,” said Yun Sun, a foreign policy expert on China and Africa at the Stimson Center, a nonprofit research group in Washington.

For example, China can say building roads and infrastructure benefits the people, she said, but the real aim is to strengthen the legitimacy of the government and get natural resources.

In an[..]essment of how Chinese aid works, the Congressional Research Service, an independent arm of Congress, said, “China appears to administer foreign aid in an ad hoc fashion, without a centralized system, foreign aid agency and mission or a regularized funding schedule.”

The conference of African leaders held at the Great Hall of the People seemed a lower-key event than in the past when Beijing was decorated with banners announcing “Amazing Africa.”

Many leaders were not present, perhaps a reflection that the timing of the conference was pushed forward so it would not clash with the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party, which will choose China’s new leadership in the fall.

China’s experience in Africa has not been so smooth in the last year. The flow of oil from Sudan has stopped because of a feud between Sudan and South Sudan, which became independent in July 2011.

The China National Petroleum Corporation has pulled most of its engineers from the oil fields in South Sudan, and Chinese-built infrastructure, including a pipeline from the fields to Port Sudan, and a refinery near Khartoum, are virtually abandoned.

In Libya, China was a longtime backer of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and since the revolution and his [rip], the new leaders have failed to honor China’s contracts.

Criticism from some quarters in Africa became so intense last year that a senior Chinese official felt compelled to answer.

In an interview with an African magazine called Jeune Afrique, the director general of the Department of African Affairs at the Foreign Ministry, Lu Shaye, defended the sending of Chinese workers to Africa. In doing so, China was more efficiently spending its[..]istance than Western donors to Africa, he said.

“They work in three shifts a day and work all day and all night to speed up project schedules,” Mr. Lu said of the Chinese workers.

“Take government[..]istance projects as an example,” he said. “China spends 95 percent of the money on the project and on the recipient countries, while the West may spend 80 percent on their own staff.”

The Congressional Research Service reported that total United States foreign[..]istance to Africa in 2009 was $8.2 billion. Under the Obama administration, a new emphasis has been placed on health care, and more than half the $8.2 billion went to health-related programs.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/wo...n-nations.html

China takin over

Well, that's what those ghost cities in Africa are being built for. The Chinese breed like rabbits and with this i expect Africa, as a whole, could be majority Chinese within 100 years. Perhaps even 50. Think "capitalist" companies aka corporatists and the west are bad? Wait and see how far the Chinese go to exploit...

Years of chinese jokes by blacks and your countries will soon b taken over [pic]

Learn chinese !! niccas [pic]

africa has over billion itself and they also breed like rabbits so idk if the chinese will populate africa that heavy, but i can def see corporate interests investing heavily and gaining heavy influence

china been pitching this for the past few years... They've been shooting it down. America tried to force entry under the disguise of KONY 2012

Every good deed comes with a price from any country.

the can build more empty cities with all that dough.

What are you mad at son?

Black people don't even crack that many chinese jokes, especially Africans. I see white people making more chinese jokes than anyone.

[pic]

Notice the word loan...they will loan 20 billion dollars to the governments then charge interest rate of 1,000 making it impossible to pay it back thus the african nations default to china and china takes over things....same !! happen to us in 1913 with it ending with social security and a debt being placed on everyone....this is just the same game with a different name