On 12/30/06, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
In Latin America, China similarly bestowed on Brazil favourite nation
status. However, Brazilian soon discovered in spite of this their
products faced huge tariff barriers in China. Furthermore, China
promised to invest billions of dollars in infrastructure projects in
Brazil. Predictably this was very slow to materialize. Another
sticking point was that China insisted on bringing Chinese nationals
as work crews, instead of transferring local skills. This is already
a sore point across Africa.
Many African businesses complain Chinese companies dump cheap end of
line stocks, often bypassing customs and import duties. Not only does
this drive locals out of business, the cheap items are often of poor
quality. The influx of cheap Chinese goods to Africa decimates the
struggling local manufacturing industry. In South Africa, official
figures shows that cheap Chinese textiles have led to the lost of at
least 67 000 jobs the past 4 years. South African unions have lobbied
the government who is busy negotiating a free trade deal with China
to include clauses committing China to respect minimum labour, human
rights and environmental standards. Most African countries, just like
South Africa export the capital-intensive commodities or raw
materials that China hungers for, and import labour-intensive
manufactured goods from China. So, the rise in exports to China
typically generates few jobs, while imports from China take away
jobs. If this continues, argues South African President Thabo Mbeki
the African continent could be "condemned to underdevelopment", and
"recolonisation". Africans should heed the warning.
Full:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/needtoknow/2006/12/china_colonizing_africa.html
China is now a capitalist power, so the complaint that it does not
behave like a socialist Santa is off the mark. What's new is that its
capitalist development makes it an alternative trade partner and
source of investment and its hunger for raw materials keep commodity
prices higher than without it. It's up to the governments of Africa,
Latin America, etc. to drive hard bargains and make the best of this
new development, just as it's up to them to do the same with Western
governments and multinational corporations.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
