as a society, increasing the belonging to my goods washed, the shores forensic anthropologist takes a campaign for the dignity of the deceased for the right to crozier for the living to the european parliament. every friend particular to the thousands of migrant bodies, buried with 7 name in european cemeteries, fuel or unknown. witness documentary on a just china pharmacist, african nations, $15000000.00 in loans and funding of the summit of leaders in beijing. it underlines the countries position is the confidence number one invest. what does this investment means? that africa, china and it's western rivals? this is inside storage. the

airline james phase trips abroad usually mean expenditure for most of us. but african leaders will be coming home from a summit in beijing with patches of more than $50000000000.00 in loans and funding from the chinese host. more than 50 african nations or the forum on china, africa cooperation summit with the punches underlining, china is position as africa's top investor to the detriment of the us. and for my european colonial powers, china says this investment will create a 1000000 jobs and fund a wide range of infrastructure and other projects. but that, that comes with the cost to, with some countries anxious to restructure we payments from previous funding. so what's in this for both sides and what the such huge investment mean for african states political relationships with china and also for western competitors like me us, we'll discuss all of this with our panel of guests in a moment. but 1st, this report from cyber, colorado,

a taste of what's on off the from badging for leaders from across africa. and to show that china's influence that spreading across the continent for couldn't lead, is joined chinese president jiang paying. it's a forum to discuss everything from investment to trade, education, military support, and infrastructure development. and with china being africa's largest trading partner in credits or in recent years, it was an opportunity for doing things to decry what he called a new era. we live site yet over the next 3 years, the chinese government is willing to provide financial support amounting to $50000000000.00 to africa. and i mean, really strongly and i look into the future. i propose raising china is by less for relations with all african countries that have diplomatic ties to the level of strategic relationships. seasons all g said relations between china or enough for call are in the best period in history and separately pledged another $280000000.00

in military and food aids. lots collectively, nations on the continent or i d o china, billions of dollars. and beijing has been accused of lowering governments into taking out huge loans to build infrastructure projects that don't always benefit local people, live raising money for so many african states that relief as an urgent imperative to give decent countries economies of vital economic breathing space, showing ease investment has also been opposed by many african people who say it leads to projects that damage the house and the environment, push properties that are frequently to support china's funding. and she's promised to create a 1000000 new jobs. we are driven by a desire to achieve shed prosperity, a wild, recognizing our individual develops mental aspirations. joanna has been africa's

largest trading partner for 15 years, and the summit comes as western countries are imposing heavy, terraced on chinese in ports. critics, a beijing is engaging in the modern form of colonialism, but china and says it's an advocate for the global south as an opportunity to be an alternative trading pot. and that's a country's like view s. so the height of all just sarah for inside story of the well let's bring in, i'll guess, to discuss the whole list for today's inside story in beijing. honda, right. a is the c o development re imagined and independent development consultant . so she's also a full of diplomat and economist in cape town, solution i do is a senior research associate at the institute for global dot organs, written 2 volumes on africa, china relations, and also in beijing on a training is a senior fellow at the ty, her institute, thank to all of you for joining us on today's program. if i can start with,

you know, show you of the, in south africa, you are watching the events. where are the other 2 panelists off invasion and give us an idea of how people are viewing this? the temperature right now is showing a africa relationship from your view point. i think it's very upbeat from a political economic perspective, particularly from government, very much about the positive kind of engagement that this focus brings, both to set assets that are by luck for level, as well as the continental kind of engagement, president of a pose that has announced that he sees this relationship flushing a talked about the age of breeding type assigned as part of the by level. i don't think there's a general sense of optimism from the government in terms of the fact that this is the 1st kind of big thing for the newly constituted government that came into being often to be the national elections. a governments of national unity, which includes a witness to some of the democratic, the 9th, which was the form of opposition function of the continental perspective. i think

that it's a similar kind of feel, but i think there's also a sense that below the kind of stuff was outside of the kind of the could not be political business of architecture. there's a sense that people are beginning to also think about this relationship much more in the context of the discussions that are happening on regular stations from where i set up being invited to discuss this in local media as well as the continental media. okay. i know tell us a little bit about these summit because it's not a one off. these are beginning on for some years. in fact, they take places understand every 3 years. but this is a big one because the last one didn't happen properly was book show because of cove it and my understanding is the, the chinese are there. and then on the other side, every single nation in africa, apart from the small country, a best smart tv, because that still recognizes taiwan as, as an entity,

not china tell to tell us about these summits and how important they are. well, to put it in context, these began in 2000, so 2001 the china is joining the w t o. so this is prior to china as rapid economic rise. and the closest felt with africa was due to the fact that i forgot have supported china in the us and, and also in its struggles to be independent and vice versa. china had been very active and promoting the independence for many of the african countries or c, including south africa. so you go from that point. china has taken on a position where they are, you started off as a minor trade player and today they are the largest trade player with africa. it is unbalanced, but they are trying to capitalize on the fact that this has been a long, slow, steady upward journey over 10 years between belgian road initiative. and that,

you know, these summits were the last 2 summits they gave. it weighs $60000000000.00 or pledge, $60000000000.00 has really made a huge difference in africa in terms of inter connectivity. and do johnny wants to put this and says, look, this should be the basis of all future relations. and it's based on security development. and respect i had um what i'm not sitting in this chair, my other jump route is or is covering global diplomacy. so i spend a lot of time going to summit and you see the banquets, you see the settlement is you see some pump, but lots of summits don't have it and then concrete coming out to them. but this already, we've had some pretty big announcements. how, how significant do you think what we've heard is we have, and i think probably the most significant announcement is of the equivalent of $50000000.00 us dollars in financing to the can. coincidence. that's not all just lending 10000000000, and that is for and rights investment, which was certainly

a kiosk from african countries, but lending also masses. this is scenario that china has really stood out for african countries in terms of infrastructure. finance. i think the overall feeling is that, well, this summit suggests is that china is but china is ready. the cost of it pandemic did create some challenges, especially in terms of creating a pipeline of good infrastructure projects to invest into. but china saying, look, even if we have some economic issues, we still see an interest in africa and perhaps our interest is even stronger now. in the african continent even see that through the upgrading and political ties with african countries. um, so it's a really a, i think us and you should put it up beat. okay. i know you as we have heard some very bold announcements, so come out of beijing in recent hours. there are some who watch these summits and

does he say they've been going on for 20 years now? who say there was a bit of a lack of transparency about whether things that are announced the summit. so i've actually achieved is that a fat criticism? does that need to be more transparency? well, the transparency is in the plant. everything that goes into these announcements that you need. this is not like america where they dream and up on the back of a napkin. these are very carefully orchestrated. there are lot of me, i know, i know i mostly, i know i'm not asking you about today. i'm asking you, you know, in a few years time whether all of these things to present have been promised. all right, so you going to be achieved was the transparency that well is the transparency is between the, the actual numbers that are being put out and whether or not there are tangible results at the end of it. and i think that the fact that you have 5354 countries representative that this is fairly clear. and it goes of

a $152.00 countries that came to the belgian roads tempe, or anniversary. so, i mean, clearly these countries believe that china has something to offer and they are doing it, have schools, hospitals, roads to electricity projects, and their branching out into making sure that our good starts developing its own capabilities in terms of manufacturing. one of the low issues is that africa has lots of resources, but it doesn't develop them and add value. and as a result, it gets a very slim margin of the total profit. so china is providing the machine race so that they can start doing their own processing, as well as sharing um, you know, high tech development. so through the co processes and joint ventures, this is something completely new and africa because this is not something your america has been willing to do before to okay, what is we said? china is africa's biggest trading partner. and if you look at total trade between

china and africa, it exceeded $280000000000.00 in the last year. let's look at some of the details. according to the united nations, south africa is trying his biggest trade partner on the continent. that combined business was worth $35900000000.20. the country was i bought more chinese goods than any of the african nation. trying. the 2nd biggest trade relationship was with and go not valued at $27300000000.00. the country has abundance of all the minerals, including diamonds, next to nigeria, with a joint trade valued at 20 full $1000000000.00. the democratic republic of congo shed trade was nearly $22000000000.00 in north africa. egypt has rapidly expanding its infrastructure and has more than $18000000000.00 worth of joint business with china and beijing's trade relationship with teneo stretches back over the decades. and is the biggest in east africa with $8500000000.00. so new shot, those are very,

very impressive figures, but it is fair to say that the balance and trade in most cases is massively in china, is paper or is it not as well? that's one of the issues that prisons revel pulls that has brought up that access and it is part of the, the, the, the discussion i think are the gray areas with regard to this focus that the trade deficit tends to kind of be in a, in a way doesn't necessarily favor effort this kind of venue edition and integration due to the value of trade. i don't think part of that challenge is really dealing with that trade because that's a deficit. and what is the value of distribution of production that venue, fax it? and that was one of the key issues that was spoken about both, i think at the bye left for level of countries, but also mentioned in president she's, you can speech that manufacturing and allowing for a number of goods until with almost a 0 terrifying issue with regard to value added production, and that's a big question for most african countries,

because the more you actually start to manufacture us, you're actually getting into the venue edition of demand and supply chain. and that comes with this phone kind of gray areas in terms of the catalogs, etc. one of the key issues of, from what we seen in the setup and discussion with president she pink, was a wrong specifically and fight to send a cri issues regarding our agriculture products. in particular, beef with regard to the foot and mouth disease. and that kind itself was seen as a winful setup to go with the chinese government had decided that it won't actually create an entire kind of impact on all of our agriculture. exports of beef. because one of our centers that is producing b has a foot and mouth disease, the isolated and of course going forward. that's part of the agreement. but i think the real big area for, for, for, for monitoring and evaluation is around the impact of this in the next 2 years at. but it could be what are some of the projects that may be tangled with projects from 3 to 21. and previously so if we look back over the last decade,

china is pulled more than $120000000000.00. and in terms of hydropower plans, railways, roads of 35 major ports. how is it, how is it transformed? how is it transformed the these countries will some of these countries? well, i think most african countries that have boards from china in order to fund infrastructure, the vast majority have from large and small projects can easily attend us to just how important those infrastructure projects are my country. can you a for example, you know, we have this new out, well, no, no, no. so new starting to gauge well way for instance, between never be a member. so it has, as massively improved a trade in logistics as well as passenger trips between our bmw on buses. so there is an obvious, effective infrastructure and i think that's one of the aspects that makes kind of

china is chinese engagement. so interesting and useful. let's just do this, let me stop you that how know? because you mentioned this right away project which is an amazing project. it seems, linking mombasa and not rosie, but then it was supposed to go further and apparently the right way long just ended up in a field because because of both uganda and it could be supposed to go to, you've gotten to both you kind of and, and kenya, well then we're struggling with the financing and we've seen your country, recent street protests because of the government proposes pose new taxes to fund the budget deficit. i mean, there's problems here. can you chose a lot of money to china? there's a downside to not. yeah, i mean, that's great too, in terms of the end of the roadway where it's got to is it's to, uh no, to my voucher and then my logo it, those are places where there's plenty of things going on, including a dry port in life. i show which then they're able to ship things like cuts, flowers into one bathroom and so on. so there's still some productivity,

even though it's just we didn't, can you at the moment. but it was definitely meant to be a regional infrastructure project that special and there were still discussions as to how to can support that financing. but the way that many large costs buddha infrastructure projects are done is by breaking them up. it's completely not unusual. we think, let me imagine that it should be different, but there should be a way of making sure that these kinds of infrastructure products go across country should be done at the same time. but it would be doing something completely unusual . now it's of the usual kind of financial system of that. if that if time is tough to do that, hopefully it will. but it hasn't been done yet. i know potential issues with the test, so i'm going to bring in the now people do talk about a debt trap. in some scenarios. is china worried in any way that countries not being able to afford that debt, please. and this positive relationship between china and these african nations and

is trying to think of doing things in some cases in a different way. well, they are doing things differently. uh right now. i mean they, they have to learn the hard way that when you have a government to government loan, when the party that's controlling that government goes out of power. the only thing you know for certain is that the opposition coming in is going to say that that loan was ness unnecessary, unnecessary, or subject to corruption, or they're going to blame. in essence, china. so the new model is they do it like a bank, or they look at the feasibility of the project, then they fund the project itself based on its abilities supported. so these are the kind of approaches that a china has had to make up. it's learned it's lessons in terms of dead trapped promises. this is a narrative that's set up and repeated often. but the fact is, china only has 12 percent of the total african debt. and quite frankly, it's a 2.7 percent versus the private debt that's out there, which is have 5 percent. so you tell me where the real debt trap is. and lastly,

you know, let, let us be clear here. um china, i can't solve everyone's problems. africa has to decide its own way. the unique thing about the way that china operates is it says, it is up to you. we can fund projects, but your economy and how it develops is up to you. we cannot make decisions for you . we're not washington and certainly not a parts of europe. it's going to have to be something where you, everyone is, meets halfway a solution when your opinion countries, 1st colorized african nations, a large part of it was about plunder, about getting ahold of the rich national results. this is not possibly the case of what china is doing here. it wants to get hold of some of these minimal results is things like lithium, cobalt, manganese nickel, those sorts of things that mean is that part of it to but it can be seen in terms of deception that that's part of what the value changes the box i mean the critical bundles is really an important value chain. next step to full try to particularly

it's rolled in the green technology and of course it's rolled in the electric vehicle market. but what time is also done? and i've seen this in south africa is that it's made affordability, and access to affordability to those kinds of goods that have that kind of impact with regard to the electric vehicle market. just in august, our cost sales show that china's vehicles have actually been most popular in south africa. now again, i think that's part of the way in which we need to start thinking about what the value change is in africa in terms of production that sol suite in welcoming me there is actually being able to beneficially kate, produce our, our overall materials into a higher grade of products and whether or not that is how we need to do it and how we need to negotiate on those processes around the critical bundle of value change . and i think we call and ignore the fact that we do hold in africa quite

a large level of deposits, whether it's the cold book, the p and whatever. but these are important because it actually brings back the question of how do you negotiate your relationship with try to remember that this is also about the kind of regional connectivity projects that could actually be imported. particularly if you look at and go to and the kind of vito kara door which is linked to zambia. know, and kind of a railway that is being the carpet of goods, a altered zambia into that room. they've been glenda really big and leading up to them to be to colorado, opting out and going to that is important, but it's about the negotiations of those visual project. and i think that's for me . one of the critical areas around focus is that it enables the bilateral, which could then fall into those regional spaces. and it's important for us within the african context, i think as well to realize that china is not up just a bit of a bit alicio for us. it has to be about how do you also reconfigure the

relationship? kind of, i'd like to look at the political dimension to all of this to, i mean the un secretary general as well. and several times that the world might be frank mentoring into to comes is there an element of this that china is trying to get these african nations on each side? the un, for example, being a t for them where there are plenty of votes in the un general assembly from african nations of all the un such a general as what's here in beijing, in any case, and davis beach today. however, i think what we also see in lots of the documents that have come out is a, is a big emphasis on global south and also some areas. if you look at the beijing declaration, for example, the areas where there are a lot of a co ins, coinciding views and consensus between china and african countries from issues such is called the a and, and on the sort of multi polar world that seems to be

a lot of consensus and so that's interesting in itself. but also it means that for instance, in this summit we had china upgrading the relationship with the overall continent to an or with a partnership. that sounds very talking me, but it does mean of effectively african countries are becoming much more important and time is for him policy. okay, so a new shift we had mentioned that of cause your country took out the international court of justice case against israel. there's real needs and i've spent time in new york in the un general assembly among some african nations with regard to the way that the world looked russia's invasion of ukraine and the way western nations put a great deal of pressure on african nations to support ukraine. and then what they see is double standards on a golf. so do you think that that political dimension that helps china in, in,

in willing african countries, do you think, do you think garza and ukraine have had a role in this? well, it certainly seems like the way in which the narratives have played out around the situation with regard to israel and palestine and not close to the gods. a conflict and role. that's what i have to complete. i mean, so that's a good has been afforded for standing up and taking on the normative global rules based system. obviously it does as well. that is not always been the kind of impact the sabbatical wanted. yes, it sees itself as, as moving into that space. but i think it also is important for us to realize that within this context of, of, of trying to africa, africa, china, however you want to p c, p, fix the narrative. you have to also remember that part of this challenge is about a country dissolved in africa, where for example, the piece, the ability and development angle is critical to inclusive development. and i think

that's part of the extraction that you take from the, the speech president. she's, you king made this to the, to the summit today, and that was about the political role. the piece of development has to be african continent and the role that can be on dependent in there. but it's also the understanding that these conflicts and africa are into and the interest. so they, within the state and they have viewed smoke spillover effects. look at sedan, look a chat, look at a pulse of what's happening besides you. i think these are because of the question around how do you define you'll economic state croft, particularly around economic development infusion. and i suspect part of this is also about what's going to come in in terms of the un system of what's going to come in terms of the some of the future in it later this month. and of course, the way in which the agenda tricky thought, choose fashion. so these are some of the dynamics i think do today out, but okay, so, so let me, let me, let me bring in,

i know the end because we had present. she being mentioned that he gave a speech. of course, he's been running his country for more than a decade longer than any us president get just, but he's being to africa 5 times. joe biden hasn't been to africa n, as in taught to him. in fact, he said in bay, when he met the canyon president, it was going to go in february, next year off the was re elected. well, that's not going to happen. helping us drop the bowl here. do you think? well, yeah, they have. i mean, if you look at the trade numbers, it's very, very low, and it's under 5 percent of the total trade with africa. it's just been pushed aside. there's been lots of fanfare about doing something about africa, but there is no concrete results. and that's really what amazing is taking advantage of. now keep in mind, this is not a contest, choose china over the us. what china says is, don't choose be non aligned. all we ask is that we trade together and that we build the friendships and partnerships that can benefit us. both us is the one who says,

ideologically, you're either with us or against us. you're either at the table or on the menu. thank you very much to all 3 of you today. all guess. well, i know timing how to ride on some new shot and i do if you missed any of our discussion, you can always watch it again by visiting our website, which is 0 dot com. and remember, we always want to hear from you to go to our facebook page, that's facebook dot com, forward slash ha inside story. or you can contact us on this look for us at a inside story. next time on the program would have been discussing the us election campaign until then me james space and the team here. bye bye. for now. the a unique perspectives team, arkansas bushman is going to go into the dr. using kamala harris's identity of the black women on heard voices, people who are close, political affiliations, can get

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a mazda file called mostly specially the traditional reform is with as much as i think was thing died for the president's delivering his faith. the nice and the address, the

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