military force in the event of a foreign conflict, even if it violates any of its preceding interests.
Case study II: China and Zimbabwe
Over the past decade, China has developed a reputation as a patron of the po-litically questionable. From Kim’s North Korea to Chavez’s Venezuela, China’s
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financial support of authoritarian regimes has tested their policy of “oppos[ing]
interference in other countries’ internal affairs under the pretext of democracy and human rights.” 36 Zimbabwe, an oil-producing country that has been under the rule of the authoritarian Mugabe regime for decades, aptly fits this descrip-tion. In his article “Africa and China: Building a Strategic Partnership,” Piet Konings notes that Chinese support for Mugabe’s original liberation move-ment in the 70s and 80s “laid the foundations for the close relationship that still exists between China and Zimbabwe today.” 37 In 1980, as one of the first acts of the independent Zimbabwean government, Foreign Minister Simon Muzenda visited Beijing to thank them for supporting Mugabe’s Zanu Party. 38 What is at the basis of current Sino-Zimbabwean relations and Sino-African relations in general? In a 2007 New York Times editorial, former Foreign Policy editor Moisés Naím discussed the phenomenon of Chinese invest-ment and the influence it has on developing economies. Naím cited “money, international politics, and access to raw materials” as the primary motivation behind China’s newfound generosity.39 Naím’s observation is not far off from China’s own stated policy, particularly regarding the influence of money.
In 1982, Chinese Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang identified four principles that would be used to guide Chinese economic policy in the future — equality and mutual benefit, stress on practical results, diversity in form, and common progress. With this intention, Konings notes, China “signaled a shift in objec-tive” and began to place a greater emphasis on economic gain.40
The role of international politics is perhaps the least apparent of the three factors Naím identifies. It is generally acknowledged that the original intention behind China’s investment in Africa was to provide an alternative to the West. Dur-ing the Bandung Conference in 1955, a meetDur-ing of 29 Asian and African states, China stated that the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence would apply to its relations with Africa.41 China continued to develop diplomatic relations with Africa and indirectly support the nations in their struggle for independence from Western imperialism. A 1983 Beijing Review article stated, “Third World countries… should have no leader/follower relations among them… Any country which attempts to pose as a leader and control others will be spurned.” 42
For many African nations, peaceful, non-militaristic China was a welcome change from the martial powers of the Western world. In the late 70s and 80s, Chinese policy in Africa moved from an emphasis on developing world soli-darity to an emphasis on trade and profit. Since then Chinese trade has grown exponentially in this region of the world, with expectations to exceed $110 billion in 2011, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.43 With this “shift in objective,” however, there has also been a shift in the benefits that each side attains from this relationship. “China’s aid to Africa was never unconditional,”
Judith van de Looy points outs in her article “Africa and China: A Strategic
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Partnership.” She goes on to explain, “Over the years, interest-free govern-ment loans became discount loans offered through Chinese banks and aid grants were replaced by joint ventures.” 44
In Zimbabwe alone, Reuters reports that bilateral trade was worth approxi-mately $717 million in the first nine months of 2011.45 Much of this trade un-doubtedly consists of Zimbabwe’s natural resources — the sizable oil reserves the country contains, along with platinum reserves valued at $500 billion and significant diamond, copper, and gold deposits.46 Nevertheless, total bilateral trade seems disproportionately dominated by Zimbabwe’s weapons buying sprees, with the country spending an estimated $240 million in 2004 47 and buying an estimated one-third of all weaponry acquired between 1980 and 2009 from China.48 Additionally, neither of these figures includes a recent
$98 million loan from China’s Export-Import Bank to build a defense college.49 Investment in Zimbabwe, in terms of Naím’s reasoning, benefits China in the form of economic profit, and “access to raw materials,” 50 and benefits Zimba-bwe in the form of unconditional investment and arms trade.
In his article “The Paradox of China’s Policy in Africa,” Seifudein Adem de-scribes academic trends in evaluating Sino-African relations and the para-doxes that arise within them. Among the more interesting ones he observes is China’s tendency to invest in economically unprofitable, resource-poor regions just as heavily as in more wealthy and seemingly more relevant regions. Adem uses the example of Ethiopia, a resource-poor country that has ranked among the top four countries in terms of large Chinese infrastructure projects in recent years.51 Two possible explanations exist for China’s involve-ment in financially unpromising regions. The first is solidarity with the devel-oping world and a genuine interest in improving the lives of the people living in these regions, at the expense of risky investments. The second is an interest in attaining geopolitical power in a particular region — in the case of Ethiopia, most likely the Middle East and North Africa. It is still too early to tell where China’s intentions lie, but the issue of motivation in such cases is an important point to keep in mind.
The central paradox in Adem’s article, of course, is whether Chinese invest-ment produces more harm in Africa despite its seemingly important contri-butions. While Africa undoubtedly still benefits from Chinese investment and infrastructure projects, recent reports suggest that certain Chinese business policies, such as importing Chinese workers rather than hiring from the significant unemployed populations found in many African nations 52 or paying bribes to secure contracts, have actually undermined efforts to im-prove the welfare of those who live there. In the previously mentioned edi-torial, Moisés Naím calls out China and other “rogue aid providers” in their attempts to “price responsible aid programs out of the market exactly where
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they are needed most” and to “underwrite a world that is more corrupt, chaotic and authoritarian.” 53
Examining Zimbabwe in the context of this complaint, we can see that the lines are just as gray. As one of the world’s poorest countries, with a $500 per capita GDP, Zimbabwe has a great deal to gain from China’s investment in infrastructure and industry.54 As one of the most repressed nations in the world, Zimbabwe has a great deal to lose from China’s efforts to undermine attempts to pressure Mugabe into stepping down. Significant evidence ex-ists to suggest that this is precisely what China has done. In addition to being Zimbabwe’s top weapons provider, China, along with Russia, vetoed a UN Security Council vote to adopt trade sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2008.55 While China’s stands opposed to all trade sanctions on the premise that it hurts civilians more than it harms the state, China justified its actions by stating that the sanction would undermine current negotiations.
The picture is anything but black and white. While much of the recent re-search on Sino-African relations portrays China in a negative light, a great deal of good has obviously also come out of the infrastructure, education, and medical projects that China has underwritten. China’s involvement in Zimbabwe and its political implications present a scenario in a shade of darker gray, considering its alliance with the Mugabe regime. In general, China’s relations with Zimbabwe and Africa in general demonstrate four im-portant principles in China’s foreign policy:
preference for mutually beneficial investment over Western-style aid,
as evidenced by its extension of credit for African business ventures and significant spending on infrastructure projects, many of which em-ploy Chinese workers;
strong belief in “non-interference” in a country’s domestic affairs and its
use of this principle to justify support for authoritarian regimes, as evi-denced by its continued financial support and arms sales to Zimbabwe’s Mugabe;
a desire to increase geopolitical power,
as evidenced by its increasing
involvement in African affairs and investment in resource- and industry-poor nations, e.g. Ethiopia; and
an unwillingness to use direct military force, but a more accepting
atti-
tude of indirectly supporting a country’s domestic military, as evidenced by China’s military-free history in Africa comparative to Western impe-rialist nations, but heavy involvement in arms trade and unconditional financing of authoritarian governments.
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