"China's Africa Strategy" (#283, Topic F)

This afternoon, the Carneige Endowment for International Peace offered a seminar on "China's Africa Strategy." Being a "hot" topic, it attracted nearly 200 -- from the list of attendees, it seems that about 20 came from various executive departments/agencies (State, 6; Treasury and Commerce, 3 each); another 20 or so from congressional offices/committees; 20 or so from various embassies (China, 5); and 30 or so from various think tanks around town. The main speaker is a visiting scholar at Carneige; on each seat a paper of his was placed, which I hastily read, since I showed up early. Though its US-centered views are to be expected, I thought the paper is unnecessarily antagonistic to China. At one juncture, it says: "China's involvement [in making aids to Africa] could threaten this African renaissance. Growing Chinese loans to Africa, especially at high commercial rates, could threaten billions in recent forgiveness by the World Bank and IMF's Heavily Indebed Poor Countries Initiative, since China also loans to these nations." The renaissance he talked about is Africa's "strongest growth rates since independence" -- no mention, of course, of the continent's past history of being enslaved by the west. The speaker's presentation was coupled with slides. Interestingly, the "high commercial rates" in his paper was never mentioned; instead, he talked about China's forgiving loans to Africa. The talk took many issues with China, particularly her Confucius Institutes (teaching Chinese language around the world, including Africa), and her offering "aid without any conditions". Both, of course, are tradition-shattering moves -- the former, not mentioned in his paper, laments, it seems to me, at the break-up of the cosy duopoly of English and French language usage, while the latter, covered in both the paper and the talk, laments at the break-up of single-source aids taken for granted by the aids community. A second speaker, an ambassdor with earlier postings in Africa, offered comments on the first speaker's talk; his views were both more moderate and temperate, befitting his earlier training in diplomatic talk. During the Q&A period, one asked about India's role in international aid -- answer: so far, not a factor. I wanted to ask two questions -- one, the seeming discrepancy between his mention of "high commercial interest rate" said to be charged by China in his paper and her forgiving loans talked before this audience; and two, the concern the speaker seemed to have on teaching Chinese in Africa. But I restrained myself and did not open my mouth (except to sip coffee, which was good) during the entire proceedings, a rare occasion for me.