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Chinese bid to woo Africa

CHINA’S president, Hu Jintao, embarked on his country’s latest effort to woo Africa with aid and business yesterday, leaving on an eight-nation tour that will include a controversial visit to war-stricken Sudan.

Liu Jianchao, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said Mr Hu’s tour was “another major diplomatic move” towards Africa after an African summit held in Beijing in November.

China sought then to show that its rapidly expanding ties with Africa went beyond the oil and minerals that Beijing has been snapping up to fuel its economic boom. And Mr Hu’s visit has been promoted to send the same message.

At the summit, Mr Hu offered 2.5 billion in loans and credit to Africa along with a doubling of aid. And on Monday, China went some way to acting on that promise, announcing that it will lend African nations 1.5 billion in preferential credit over three years and double aid and interest-free loans over the same time.

The announcement stressed that China’s offer came with none of the “political conditions” that Western countries often demand - and which irk many African leaders.

China has faced criticism from Western aid groups that it encourages corruption and misrule by failing to demand accountability when giving aid, loans and investment.

In 2006, trade between China and Africa reached 27 billion, a jump of 40 per cent on the previous year and accumulated direct Chinese investment in the continent reached 3.3 billion.

But Mr Hu appears likely to also face wariness and criticism as he passes through Cameroon, Sudan, Namibia, South Africa, Seychelles, Liberia, Zambia and Mozambique.

Some African analysts and official advisers warn that poor African countries may lose from expanding trade with China unless they carefully examine the deals and protect their weak manufacturing sectors from China’s shiploads of cheap clothes and household goods.

Since last year, Beijing has seen Chinese oil workers kidnapped in Nigeria, its investment policies attacked in Zambia’s elections after tales of mistreatment at a Chinese-owned copper mine and its textile exports to South Africa criticised for destroying jobs.

At the end of this week, Mr Hu will visit Sudan, where Western human rights groups and governments have said China’s reluctance to confront the president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has frustrated international efforts to staunch civil war and mass killings in the Darfur region.

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, urged Mr Hu to press Bashir to accept UN peacekeepers in Darfur. “Millions of civilians face this nightmare because of the Sudanese government’s policies of supporting abusive armed groups both within Sudan and across Sudan’s borders,” the group said in an open letter to Mr Hu that it issued on Monday.

“China can demonstrate its support for regional peace and security by publicly calling for an end to abusive domestic and foreign policies.”

Jiang Yuan, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, told reporters that Beijing hoped the Darfur crisis could be solved through negotiations and felt encouraged by recent signs of compromise.

“We hope that all sides will be able to grasp the opportunity and keep up the trend to dialogue,” she said.