Reuters: “Chinese President Xi Jinping faces growing calls from policymakers and economists in Africa for a more balanced trade relationship between the continent and China as he arrives in Tanzania at the beginning of an African tour on Sunday.
China’s ties with the continent dates back to the 1950s, when Beijing backed African liberation movements fighting to throw off Western colonial rule. It has built roads, railways, stadiums and pipelines to win access to Africa’s oil and minerals like copper and uranium to feed its booming economy.
Many across Africa see China as a valuable counterbalance to the West’s influence. But as the relationship matures there is mounting discomfort in Africa that the continent is exporting raw materials while spending heavily to import finished consumer goods from the Asian economic powerhouse.
“He will be looking to tone down the feeling that China is just here to exploit resources. I think that is going to be his main job,” James Shikwati, director of the Nairobi-based Inter Regional Economic Network think tank, told Reuters.
China’s new leader is due to land in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, on Sunday for a state banquet before delivering his first policy speech on Africa in a Chinese-funded conference hall on Monday.
Xi will go on from Tanzania to South Africa where leaders of the world’s major emerging economies, known as the BRICS, will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday and could endorse plans to create a joint foreign exchange reserves pool and an infrastructure bank at a summit.
The proposal underscores frustrations among emerging markets at having to rely on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which are seen as reflecting the interests of the United States and other industrialized nations.
Xi’s visit to Africa – which ends in the Republic of Congo – on his first trip abroad is seen as a demonstration of Africa’s strategic importance to China, driven by Beijing’s hunger for resources and African demand for cheap Chinese imports.”
via Africa’s trade ties with China in spotlight as President Xi visits | Reuters.
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