Is China Colonizing Africa?
My answer is a resounding no
Thu, Sep 5, 2019
The exploited layers including workers, peasants and urban poor of every African country led by vanguard revolutionary movements must fight for the unification and socialist transformation of Africa.
Moses Uneh Yahmia
My answer is a resounding no. Rather than agreeing, it is logical to say China is practically demonstrating to Africa how to exorcise oneself from the ghost of over 400years of incessant imperialist exploitation - an exploitation that first began with the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and then European Colonialism and now present day Neo-colonialism which has kept African countries in that straitjacket as producers of raw materials for western monopoly capital, outposts for the importation of manufactured goods and playground of US and NATO’s military expansion. This should claim the attention of those who argue that China is Africa’s newest colonial master that is exploiting the continent’s vast resources to the detriment of its toiling people.
The argument that China is colonizing Africa is flawed by logic. It is also an attempt at waging a campaign of slander to dismiss the enormous benefits of South-South cooperation. The aim of the messengers is not to promote Africa's self-determination. They have that terrible objective of keeping the continent in the orbit of a senile and decayed Western imperialism. What I know of China/Africa’s relations is that China benefits more in relation to trade and investment with African countries. And this is natural not because of the imposition of colonial policies as we know colonialism to be. It is as the result of the socioeconomic potential of China on one hand and the economic and political weakness of African states on another hand. Africa is not the only victim of Chinese economic potential in trade and investment. The richest country on earth, the United States of America is one of the biggest victims of China’s economic prowess.
China has a favourable term of trade at the expense of the richest country in the world (United States of America. What more about small, weak and poverty-stricken countries of Africa?China has a huge landmass with a population of 1.4billion people as well as the second largest industrial economy in the world. Africa on th other hand is balkanized and consists of weak nation states with very small individual markets and backward economies trapped in the extractivist mode of production and trade. The latter is the consequence of European colonial conquest. And this has had a devastating effect on the continent even after political independence in the mid-20th Century. European imperialism used hard power to enslave Africans in the Caribbean, Latin and North Americas. It later forcefully occupied the continent to exploit its labour and resources and expand the lifespan of European capitalism. We cannot say same about China. The Southeast Asian country is using soft power; that is its political, cultural and economic attractiveness to invest and trade with African countries.
Read more at: https://www.africanexponent.com/bpost/5162-my-answer-is-a-resounding-no
On youtube.com too, there is something like CGTV, China Global TV; and then, that CGTV has a special African service. Doggoned! The Chinese are indeed preaching Communism to Africa, at least, that's the way I see it. It's the same ol' Communist pitch, you'd hear similar in Cuba and the old USSR. One can look it up.
