Volume 40 2013 Issue

Review of African Political Economy, 2013 Vol. 40, No. 136, 233–250, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2013.794724 Accumulation with or without dispossession? A ‘both/and’ approach to China in Africa with reference to Angola Jesse Salah Ovadia∗ Department of Political Science, York University, Toronto, Canada In the burgeoning field of research on China in Africa, analyses generally fall on a continuum between two divergent positions. With reference to Angola, this paper reviews perspectives on China in Africa as well as the main features of Chinese engagement with the continent in order to interrogate the ‘divide’ between the ‘China threat’ and ‘peaceful rise’ positions. The goal is not to take a centrist position, but rather to suggest that China represents for Africa both a new imperialism and a new model of development. While differentiating between the new Euro-American and Chinese imperialisms, China’s new engagement, exemplified by its relationship with Angola, is a project of recolonisation and appropriation of economic surplus. The Chinese variety of imperialism, however, offers African states a compromise to their elite and to their citizens that has heretofore been missing from post-colonial Euro-American imperialism – the prospect of sustained economic growth and improvement to the quality of everyday life. Keywords: China; Angola; oil; accumulation; new imperialism [Accumulation avec ou sans de´possession? Une approche « a` la fois/et » a` la Chine en Afrique, avec comme exemple l’Angola.] Dans le domaine de la recherche en plein essor sur la Chine en Afrique, les analyses se situent geńe´ralement sur un continuum entre deux positions divergentes. En prenant comme exemple l’Angola, cet article examine les perspectives de la Chine en Afrique ainsi que les principales caracte´ristiques de l’engagement chinois envers le continent afin de questionner le fosse´ entre les positions craignant la « menace chinoise » et celle croyant en « la monteé en puissance pacifique » du pays. L’objectif n’est pas d’adopter une position centriste, mais plutoˆtdesugge´rer que la Chine repre´sente pour l’Afrique a` la fois un nouvel impe´rialisme et un nouveau mode`le de de´veloppement. Alors qu’il se diffe´rencie des nouveaux impe´rialismes euro- ame´ricains et chinois, le nouvel engagement de la Chine, illustre´ par sa relation avec l’Angola, est un projet de recolonisation et d’appropriation de l’exce´dent ećonomique. La grande varie´te´ de l’impe´rialisme chinois offre cependant un compromis, a` l’e´lite et aux citoyens des E´tats africains, qui e´tait preće´demment absent de l’impe´rialisme postcolonial euro-ame´ricain – la perspective d’une croissance ećonomique durable et de l’ame´lioration de la qualite´ de la vie de tous les jours. Mots-cle´s:Chine ; Angola ; pe´trole ; accumulation ; nouvel impe´rialisme The mid 2000s began a period in which academic research into China in Africa has become extremely fashionable. China has made inroads into several countries by offering large amounts of money for infrastructure development and becoming a major trading partner ∗Email: [email protected] # 2013 ROAPE Publications Ltd 234 J.S. Ovadia throughout the continent. From an African perspective, this new relationship suggests the possibility that China’s investment could spark economic growth and social development. On the other hand, China’s support has bolstered many leaders with questionable demo- cratic credentials while renewed ties have led to an influx of people and goods. Overall, China’s actions have therefore produced a decidedly mixed result along with charges of Chinese imperialism. Analyses generally fall on a continuum between two divergent positions. On one extreme, ‘China threat’ theory, popular among conservative elements in the US, sees China as exploitative and invokes claims of a new imperialist scramble for Africa. Conver- sely, theorists of what Giovanni Arrighi (2007) calls China’s ‘peaceful rise’ view Chinese engagement as a boon for the continent. The two extreme positions and their role in Amer- ican foreign policy have been widely commented upon in academic literature on China in Africa. In the West, the recent proliferation of scholarship about China in Africa has been domi- nated by notions of China as threatening and dangerous. This is perhaps why Arrighi high- lights China’s doctrine of ‘peaceful rise’ as a direct rebuttal to the idea of ‘China threat’. The notion of a peaceful rise expresses the view that China’s emergence as a global superpower benefits neighbours instead of exposing them to violence and plunder. However, China can also be viewed as both capitalist and imperialist. In the context of what is clearly a major Chinese play for the African continent, it is crucial to not only ask whether China’s development model can produce different outcomes for China and the world capitalist system, but also, fundamentally linked to that question, whether or not the theorised ‘Beijing Con- sensus’ can produce different outcomes for Africa than the neoliberal orthodoxy of the Washington Consensus. The placement of a particular analysis on the ‘threat–benefit continuum’ often depends on the author’s theoretical approach and subjective point of view. To argue either extreme is to take either with a pro-Western or pro-China position. Most sophisticated analyses – particularly analyses that claim to take an ‘African view’ – tend to reject the dichotomous understanding and instead fall somewhere in the middle. Clearly, then, the context of the African locale selected and the sector of the economy that is being investigated are important variables in determining exactly how a particular analysis is formed. Angola has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention from those who wish to investigate the role of China in Africa (see Corkin 2011; Alves 2010; Vines et al. 2009; Campos and Vines 2008). Around the world, headline-grabbing announcements proclaim the vast amounts of Chinese investment in Angola and the new importance of the country – which currently alternates on a monthly basis with Saudi Arabia as China’s top supplier of crude oil – for China’s energy security. The Angolan case is most often selected due to the depth of Chinese engagement and is particularly useful in making wider generalisations to other cases in which China is engaged in significant natural resource extraction. Within certain limits, the Angolan case can also be applied to draw broader conclusions about China in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper reviews perspectives on China in Africa, as well as the main features of Chinese engagement with the continent, in order to interrogate the ‘divide’ between the positions outlined above. The goal is not to take a centrist position, but rather to suggest that China represents for Africa both a new imperialism and a new model of development. While differentiating between the new Euro-American and Chinese imperialisms, China’s new engagement, exemplified by its relationship with Angola, is a project of recolonisation and appropriation of economic surplus. The Chinese variety of imperialism, however, offers African states a compromise to their elite and to their citizens that has Review of African Political Economy 235 heretofore been missing from post-colonial Euro-American imperialism – the prospect of sustained economic growth and improvement to the quality of everyday life. The new scramble for Africa Political economy scholars have mainly dwelt on the question of whether China will compete with Europe and the US, either in terms of global dominance or in shifting the world system away from the hegemony of neoliberalism. However, this question cannot be disentangled from the context of Euro-American and Chinese imperialisms. It is here that Africa presents not only case studies, but entirely different perspectives for evaluating claims of a ‘Chinese model’. Scholars of African political economy are increasingly speaking of a ‘new scramble for African resources’ (see Yates 2012; Southall and Melber 2009; Ampiah and Naidu 2008; Guerrero and Manji 2008; Alden 2007; Manji and Marks 2007; Klare and Volman 2006; Watts 2006). In the current moment, not only China, but also Europe, America, and other strongholds of global capitalism, are looking to Africa for new opportunities. The past decade has seen a shift in how the rest of the world views Africa. Today, Africa is more likely to be called a new frontier of opportunity than a lost continent. It is in this geo- political context that John Saul refers to the ‘recolonisation’ of Africa by the ‘Empire of Capital’ (Saul 2008, 2010). Just as Africa has been peripheral to the centres of global capitalism, it has historically been peripheral in debates about global political economy. However, in the current moment of world history, African development is becoming an increasingly central theme in key debates about global political economy in the same way that the exploitation of Africa’s resources is becoming increasingly important for the functioning of the capitalist world system. The new scholarly focus on China in Africa shifted into high gear in 2006. In a show of its new power and influence, China attracted 41 African heads of state and government to its African cooperation forum in Beijing.1 The summit, along with China’s sponsoring of the annual meeting of the African Development Bank in Shanghai a year later, marked the begin- ning of increased scrutiny of China’s involvement in Africa in both mainstream and critical scholarship. At the same time, increasing attention has been placed on China’s energy situation in light of its growing demand for oil, fuelled by a booming Chinese economy, which incredibly grew an average of 9% per year between 1978 and 2005 (Lee and Shalmon 2008, 110). As Alden notes, China turned from net exporter to net importer of petroleum in 1993 and now consumes more petroleum than Japan (Alden 2005, 148).

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