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The reason African countries could now stand up to their former colonizers was an alternative and more attractive Chinese market, which has been offering African countries better prices and more investment…
Europe’s inability to bully Africa into submission — though a few countries have since caved in and signed the economic-partnership agreement — confirmed China’s status as Africa’s preferred trading and aid partner…
“China doesn’t ask anything of them,” Fredrik Erixon said. “They identify products and they make the investments and of course that’s the relationship that any African government would prefer. Europe’s demanding approach has raised the transaction cost to the point where it’s impossible for any African government to prefer European investment or aid to Chinese investment and aid.”
Commerce and trade relationships trump EU ideological priorities. Shock and amazement!
It’s a stretch for some to understand that doing business with someone is part of getting to where you can do more than business. And not the other way round.
Gee I wonder what the outrageous EU “demands” were? Probably something along the lines of quit killing each other and feed your hungry…
Let’s see if China allows emigration from Africa to China… ha ha ha ha ha
I think not.
The Soviets were always trying to undercut the “first world” too, difference was is we weren’t pumping billions of dollars into the Soviet economy, like we are with the Chinese.
What? I don’t get it. Honestly. What are they trading and investing?
Apparently, Africa’s use to the rest of the world is gems to make trinkets with.
Do you think the Third World has forgotten how unimportant your Western ideals were when it came to slavery – or colonialism?
Wonderful, wonderful. Now the utterly corrupt, incompetent and unfit-to-rule African gov’ts have an enabler who won’t criticize their slavery and genocide, like those evil, judgmental white people in Europe do.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s accelerating slide into the abyss has just gotten some lubricant. Swell.
#0 – Eideard
“Commerce and trade relationships trump EU ideological priorities. Shock and amazement!”
Three cheers for the victory of money over insistence on irrelevancies like human rights, right? 🙂
#2 bill
Maybe not immigration (and why would they want too?), China does freely issue work visas however, there is one condition, you need to be qualified to get a working Z visa and then a residence visa upon arrival and to do that you must meet the following conditions:
1: You must have a job with a Chinese or Foreign invested company as you will be required to submit a copy of your employment contract.
2: To qualify for a job with a Chinese or Foreign invested company:
A/ You must have a university degree unless your position with the company is at a senior level EG: General Manager
B/ A qualified expert in a particular field.
C/ Rotated ex patriot staff in a foreign owned company
3/ You own the damn company (me)
Once you arrive in China with your Z visa you need to then apply for residence and work permission, let the paper work begin! 😆
If you decide you didn’t like that job and you change your job while you are still in China you have to re-apply your the visa and residence with all the attending paperwork.
The point is, China wants only educated qualified people coming to work and reside in China. If you ever wanted to immigrate to China I would suspect you would be sent for a psychological evaluation as who would want a Chinese passport but a masochist? LOL
Cheers
#5 Pedro – I wasn’t going to say a thing! 🙂
Here is some news that I mentioned on a previous post.
China has recently started a program to encourage export trade to certain Asian countries – NO FREIGHT CHARGE!
Our new distributor in Jakarta, Indonesia was surprised (us too) when we found there was no cost for shipping a container to them recently!
I am not sure about shipping to Africa in general as we only have one distributor in South Africa and I am rather certain there is no free or discounted freight to them – but I will check after Chinese New Year.
Cheers
#9 – pick and choose which sentences you judge as your own context. As I stated in the following sentences – “It’s a stretch for some to understand that doing business with someone is part of getting to where you can do more than business. And not the other way round.”
Not especially different from how most nations conduct commerce and diplomacy – when they’re not stuck into being priests and pundits.
The Euros made a big deal a few years back about finally beginning a process of compensation for decades of their theft of African resources. Want to guess at how many of them are living up to it?
It ain’t a number higher than 1.
p.s. I’m going to keep tracking this young journalist – Leander Schaerlaeckens. Cripes, he’s only 24. And, sadly, a Mets fan.
According to Chairman Mao, who made the whole thing up, there were two countries in the first world: They were the U.S and U.S.S.R.
Moss, most of those slaves were _purchased_ from local slave takers or dealers. Further, there’s a lot more slavery in the third world today than there is in the developed world today.
#10 – TIHZ_HO – …who would want a Chinese passport but a masochist?
I can think of 1,300,000,000 Chinese citizens wanting one… 😉 And for something else… I really like reading your posts. I always learn something new. Now I know more about the work permit process. 🙂
Always enlightening to see educated Westerners still excusing slavery, colonialism.
The Chinese have been busy in the South Pacific, too.
There is only one single continent on Earth where slavery – and mass genocide, for that matter – is still commonly practiced; Africa. The only slavers alive today are black and the by-far biggest killers of black people, throughout history to the present day, are blacks. If we just continue to ignore these facts, they will conveniently go away and Africa will become a paradise.
[edited: see comments guide]
#18 Jägermeister
Yes, no problems for most Chinese to get one, however once you have it, what then? The vast majority of Chinese who travel overseas do not travel individually like you would by yourself or with your family. Chinese travel overseas with a Chinese tour group.
1/ Its cheaper
2/ Everything is booked and arranged – the vast majority of Chinese are not experienced in doing anything outside of China and they cannot speak English so booking hotels and tours is next to impossible.
My wife once traveled with a Chinese tour group to the States for trade show as the air-fare and hotel accommodation was really cheap! After that she swore NEVER to do that again! She was soooo embarrassed by what the Chinese were doing she distanced her self from them as much as possible.
3/ The vast majority of Chinese people travel overseas more for “bragging rights” that they have been there. The Chinese tour takes them to all the famous photo ops for to take stiff passport type photos of them standing in front of famous shit.
They are not very interested in experiencing the culture aside from curiosity and certainly not the food as Chinese food is the best so why go down a peg? The Chinese tour includes three Chinese meals a day. (Two weeks in France and only Chinese food which they complain about how bad it is compared to China!)
4/ The most important reason – many countries simply do not issue tourist visas to individual Chinese – only if they are in a group! All of Europe is like that – too many Chinese jumping ship, far more than in the US.
When applying for a visa many countries treat Chinese very badly. The Chinese who work at the foreign consular office are worse than the foreign staff. My wife and I often travel together so she is not subjected to the abuse as I am standing right there next to her.
Once she needed to travel to France for a meeting alone and the French consular staff gave her such a hard time even though she showed them her previous French and Schengen visas AND her US green card. They insisted there are no individual French visas even though she is showing them her old one – multiple entry and one year! She finally got it after calling the (very large) French company she was meeting and they in turn gave the French consular staff an earful! I went with her to pick it up and gave them that “look” you give to piss someone off more when you’ve won an argument.
So that is why I said – so why would you want a Chinese passport! 😆
Also, thanks Jägermeister for the kind words! 🙂
Cheers
Damn I didn’t close the the block quotes! SHIT!
Uhhh Ed?
Would you mind…please? I promise to be more careful in the future….
Cheers
I have a quick comment. China may very well be the most insular society on earth. Being insular, they do not care what others think about their business practices. And being a country emerging from a long shadow, they have more in common with Africa than either America or the EU.
Let us not forget who ultimately benefits from this China-Africa relationship…We Do!
Why? Because we buy Chinese stuff made from African resources. So it’s all good and fine for us to complain about China taking advantage of Africa, just as long as we overlook the fact that we are the one’s paying for it.
And, TIHZ_HO, Happy New Year!
#27 Ah_Yea
Thanks! 🙂 Happy New Year to you too!
Have you been in China during Chinese New Year? Amazing stuff!
I have my camera ready for the neighborhood fireworks that makes Shanghai look like Baghdad during Desert Storm…on a bad day! I’ll upload some vids to YouTube.
Cheers
You’re welcome!
I wish I was there! One of my favorite desserts are the moon cakes, especially those with the fig and nut filling. (The red bean comes in a close second).
So I can see the videos, what title will you be posting them under?
You are one of the few people who actually eat Moon Cakes – I like them too if not too sweet.
When Chinese people receive expensive Moon Cakes they will often give them to other people and then they in turn give them to others as well.
So if you ever get expensive Moon Cakes close to the end rest assured they could well be second or third hand! LOL!
Thats why when we give Moon Cakes we like to make a small mark on the bottom corner to see if they end up back where they had started from! 😆
TIHZHO is my ID on YouTube. I’ll also send DU the link as perhaps DU might like to post it.
Cheers
Too funny, Pedro, that you brought up the drug trade along with slavery. Because in both instances, the key was/is the market.
When slavery was ended in the former colony of the United States, the market for 99% of slaves disappeared and as an economic forces, it went away. It was an economic form already outdated by mercantile capitalism in the Western world – on the way towards industrialised capitalism.
The sensible argument that drug reformers make vs. the “War on Drugs” morality argument – is the incredibly inflated cost of drug use vs. essentially removing gang cartels from the process through decriminalization.
But, then that would require “doing business” with drug users – in this case, a significant portion of Americans. The kind of sensible solution that wouldn’t surprise a businessman – and frustrates someone on a crusade.
Speaking of crusades…
Thanks! I’ll check TIHZHO after new years!
#23 – TIHZ_HO
Interesting stuff as usual. 🙂 I liked the story about your wife distancing herself from the others in the tour group. It reminds me of what happend at my previous company. We had a group of Chinese mainlanders for a visit. As pretty much all companies nowadays, you’re not allowed to smoke inside the building… well, you know Chinese men… most of them smoke. So, they all sneaked into the mensroom and smoked. It stank for quite some time. It reminds me of yours and my experience in the elevators in China.
Regarding “bragging rights”… it applies somewhat to Chinese immigrants (or emigrants, depending on how you see it), my wife always say that a lot of Chinese immigrate here just to get the passport and then go back to show off. Not all of them do, but we’ve got three of our friends who have done that.
The food issue was – and still is – somewhat hard for most Chinese. My wife just loves Chinese cuisine. Well, sometimes we do get to eat western food, but if she have a choice… forget western food. 😉
As for the incident in France… The French are the worst. 😉 My wife has a different experience from Germany (she used to travel a lot since she’s an expert in her technical area). No airport or visa problems, but the freaking German staff at the hotel pretended they couldn’t speak English. I’ve been to Germany several times, and they sure as hell speak English to me. This was not some old folks, but young fellows. If I were there I would have given them some nice words in German.
Now I understand your comment about the passport. 😀
Cheers,
Jägermeister
#27 – Ah_Yea, #28 – THIZ_HO
Gong Xi Fa Cai!
#36 – Myself…
Or Xin nian kuai le in Mandarin… *wife slapped my fingers*