{"id":15526,"date":"2022-05-26T08:03:04","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T08:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid"},"modified":"2022-05-26T09:26:53","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T09:26:53","slug":"china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid","title":{"rendered":"China-Africa: Its the politics, stupid!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. <\/strong><\/span><\/a>Forget all the talk of economic colonisation: China wants African votes, not African ports.<\/p>\n

While Africa\u2019s value to the outside world has historically been framed largely in economic terms \u2014 as a place to extract resources and as a market to sell goods \u2014 China is changing that equation.<\/p>\n

The fact is, Africa just isn\u2019t that important to China economically. All 54 African countries combined account for less than 4% of China\u2019s $4+ trillion global trade balance, and Beijing still lags far behind the U. S. , France, and others in terms of FDI.<\/p>\n

I know this is counterintuitive. 9.9 out of 10 people you meet who want to talk about the Chinese in Africa will start the conversation by going on about Beijing\u2019s appetite for natural resources or its ambitions to drown the continent in unsustainable loans.<\/p>\n

The fact is that most of the oil, timber, and minerals China buys from Africa (accounting for about 70% of all African exports), can now be sourced from dozens of other places along the Belt and Road.<\/p>\n

Take oil, for example. Former U. S. Ambassador and acclaimed China-Africa scholar David Shinn noted that in 2008, China imported 30% of its oil from African countries.<\/p>\n

By 2018, that number had fallen to just 18%. And as the Chinese become more reliant on Saudi and Iraqi oil, their dependence on African suppliers will continue to decline.<\/p>\n

And what about all those loans that we\u2019ve been talking about in such detail over the past several months? Sure, it\u2019s a lot of money\u2026 but not really. Remember that we\u2019re talking about $154 billion or so of outstanding loans in Africa to a Chinese economy worth around $13 trillion.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, these loans are important to the Chinese but if Africans can\u2019t or don\u2019t repay them it\u2019s not going to hurt China in any meaningful way. China\u2019s new priorities in Africa are increasingly political, not economic.<\/p>\n

That 25 African countries signed on to the United Nations Human Rights Council statement supporting China\u2019s position on the introduction of a new national security law in Hong Kong provides far more insight into what Beijing prioritizes today.<\/p>\n

Forget about the commodities that the Chinese can pretty much buy anywhere. Beijing is becoming more interested in the African votes that bolster its global standing and support core strategic interests in its increasingly acrimonious stand-off with the U.<\/p>\n

S, Europe, and others. The more pressing question now is whether African stakeholders fully appreciate that their political capital may actually be worth far more to the Chinese than all those raw materials they\u2019ve been selling them for the past two decades?<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Mauritius<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Mauritius. Forget all the talk of economic colonisation: China wants African votes, not African ports. While Africa\u2019s value to the outside world has historically been framed largely in economic terms \u2014 as a place to extract resources and as a market to sell goods \u2014 China is changing that equation. The fact is, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":15525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,12,16],"tags":[242,233,245,171,241],"class_list":["post-15526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-mauritius","tag-china","tag-mauritius"],"yoast_head":"\nChina-Africa: Its the politics, stupid! - Mauritius<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Forget all the talk of economic colonisation: China wants African votes, not African ports. ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"China-Africa: Its the politics, stupid!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Forget all the talk of economic colonisation: China wants African votes, not African ports. ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mauritius\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-05-26T08:03:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-05-26T09:26:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/sites\/61\/2022\/05\/postQueueImg_8-628f47c7bab9e.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"517\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"296\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"China-Africa: Its the politics, stupid!\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-05-26T08:03:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-05-26T09:26:53+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid\"},\"wordCount\":455,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/sites\/61\/2022\/05\/postQueueImg_8-628f47c7bab9e.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa\",\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Mauritius\",\"CHINA\",\"Mauritius\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/mauritius\/all-news\/china-africa-its-the-politics-stupid\",\"name\":\"China-Africa: Its the politics, stupid! 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