Wikileaks: US monitors 'aggressive' China in Africa

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Wikileaks: US monitors 'aggressive' China in Africa

China has massively expanded its economic ties to countries across Africa in recent years, sparking criticism from human rights groups, who accuse Beijing of helping some of Africa’s worst governments stay in power.

China adopts a policy of not interfering in domestic politics, while Western countries sometimes make aid conditional on “good governance”.

The cable, published by the Guardian newspaper, quotes Johnnie Carson, US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, who had been meeting oil company representatives in Lagos.

He describes China as “a very aggressive and pernicious economic competitor with no morals”.

“China is not in Africa for altruistic reasons,” he says. “China is in Africa primarily for China.”

He adds: “A secondary reason for China’s presence is to secure votes in the United Nations from African countries.”

He argues that China is not seen in Washington as a military or security threat at the moment. But he says there are, what he calls “tripwires” in Africa for the US when it comes to China.

“Have they signed military base agreements? Are they training armies? Have they developed intelligence operations? Once these areas start developing then the US will start worrying,” he says.

“The United States will continue to push democracy and capitalism while Chinese authoritarian capitalism is politically challenging. The Chinese are dealing with the [Zimbabwean president] Mugabe’s and [Sudanese president] Bashir’s of the world, which is a contrarian political model.”