This is an interesting 24-minute video about China’s huge impact on Angola. The report is from Current TV, the internet network founded by former Vice President Al Gore.
The reporter interviews a number of Chinese and Angolan workers. At one point, looking for Chinese work crews, she says that the Chinese work so fast that it is hard to track them down. “They are here one week, then gone the next,” she says.
The Chinese say they earn three times the wages in Africa that they would get back in China. So the allure of migrating there is huge.
The Angolan tourism minister touts the benefits of the Chinese work crews, who he says build roads in places where others refuse to go. Even Angolan workers acknowledge that Chinese investment is changing the face of their country, while some complain that the Chinese are taking away jobs.
Take a look.
Where are the Europeans when you really need them? Didn't they just come and enslave the whole continent and its inhabitants, taking everything and giving nothing. We've seen too many examples of European colonization in Africa that just contributed to their devastation and more poverty. Tell Portugal, France, England or Germany to give them aid with no string attached. That hasn't happened and never will. Afterall, Europe should compensate Africa for the atrocities that they'd done, just like how Germany has to pay Israel billions of dollars in aid every year.
Posted by: Anonymous | December 12, 2008 at 12:38 AM
Where are Europeans when you really need them? They come and enslave the whole continent and its inhabitants, taking everything and giving nothing. We've seen too many examples of European colonization in Africa that just contributed to their devastation and more poverty.
Posted by: Anonymous | December 12, 2008 at 12:32 AM
Otoh's observation is spot on. Do the western NGOs have a stake in keeping the status quo in Africa? The Chinese have hears all these complaints before, starting with the United States in the 1800s.
Posted by: Pan | December 03, 2008 at 07:47 AM
I think it was Lenin who once observed: the future will be bright, but the road is winding.
If the Chinese investment leads to better infrascture etc., and then the African economy takes off, the future of freedom and democracy in Africa will be bright, even if in the short run the politicians are major beneficiaries of all those constructions. Poverty is a trap from which you can not escape to democracy. Social science research has plenty of evidences that democracy is not stable if it is built in a poor country (Prworski et al. 2000). Western donors' insistence on institutional reform misses one point, good institutions are often a result, not a cause. Look at the NGO ladies in the film. They're dressed up so nicely, but what have they got for ordinary people there.
Posted by: otoh | December 02, 2008 at 10:37 PM