neocolonialist. rostock the future of africa i'm joined by robert guest in london he's a business editor at the economist and author of the book the shackled continent africa past present and future in washington we cross to jendayi frazer she's a professor at the carnegie mellon university and in oxford we have produced manji he's editor in chief of the punkers who can news all right this is cross talk lady and gentlemen and that means you can jump in anytime you want and i know they have difference of opinion so i want my viewers to see it if i go to you first in oxford i do like to go to the term africa in the new great game the scramble for influence because a lot of people are saying this right now as africa is stepping up its development some countries are getting ahead while some are not but nonetheless there's enormous foreign interest and i'm thinking of the united states and china if you

like the term great game well i think well i think there's been an enormous interest in africa since about the 1980's with the introduction of the neo liberal policies of the international monetary fund and world bank ever since then i think the situation in africa has become one in which which essentially we have not a neo colonialism we don't have a new colonialism what we have is essentially occupied territories territories occupied by the large corporations and supported by the international financial institutions and the aid agencies. and so what they are there to do is to reap as much benefits as they can avoid as much taxes they can profiteer. the price that is paid by most africans is massive dispossession of their land massive unemployment massive decline in in in in standard of living and more hungry people than there ever were. that's the situation we.

face now clearly there are competitions between the different international powers for because natural resources. and what is missing out of that element is the voice of african citizens about what they need it's all very well having investments in africa but if the country or the people of the country don't benefit from it then it's no really no good to anyone ok those shareholders ok if i go to you in washington would you agree with that assessment and a new occupation not even using the term new colonialism not imperialism occupation . well of course not i don't agree with that. portrayal of africa at all i think that in fact we've seen a new dynamism significant growth in these economies a rising middle class african civil society has grown has been more active it's

holding its government leaders accountable to a larger degree so i think that the projection of africa especially over the last decade has been nothing but positive there obviously are areas in which we have you know backtracking zimbabwe would be one case in point but overall i don't think it's a picture that can be simply reduced to an economic argument you know there's been dynamism on the political front on the civil society front on economic engagement the rise of our supreme nors the rise of the middle class and that all speaks to. more complex picture than one that is reduced to economic ok robert if i can go to you in london where you. progress or backtracking. growing economies growing independence or occupation as we heard earlier in the program. well i really can't think of any african country that is being occupied by corporations and i've traveled all over the continent and it seems to me that while there are one or two

places where nobody's in charge like somalia pretty much everywhere else the governments are in charge like they are in most other countries now many of those governments are very inefficient governments but by and large they've gotten a lot better over the past twenty years and when the dealings between corporations and african governments it's absolutely the african governments who call the shots if you go to somewhere like angola it doesn't matter whether you're an american oil company a british one or a chinese one you have to deal with the angolan government nobody disputes that they own the oil there and if you annoy them they kick you out as has happened to people for from both sides and so that they're striking the bargains now. jendayi frazer point i think that a lot of things have gotten better in the past ten years you've seen inflation has come down average incomes have gone up and while it's maybe a bit premature to say that there's this massive new african middle classes i think

the world bank did recently they're talking about a rise in the number of people who are earning between two and four dollars a day which is you know it's better than it was but it's still not what you'd call middle class in most places so i think it's a much more subtle and nuanced thing than the going on than than what rose suggests i think the idea that corporations are conquering the place is a bit of a caricature ok if you know it looks like it's two against one here you want to defend yourself go ahead oh no no problem you know i mean these are. you know well let me smoke me save my words the reality is that there is massive amount of land ground there's more land of the smiths across africa than there ever has been there is more hunger in africa than has ever been more be there's more unemployment than there's ever. ever been more importantly it's not just those physical resources that people have been dispossessed staub but the reality of the

last thirty years in africa has been that increasingly our governments are more accountable to the international financial institutions the defense of the befits the don't need has been need as cañete as of the world and they are no more come to blows to the international agencies than they are to citizens now i don't call that democracy what i've see that has is this and the company led to the dispossession of their material livelihoods has been the dispossession of their political. gains of independence and i think you know it's all very well saying there's been huge growth rates but who is benefiting from those growth from those growth rates in fact the division between the rich and the poor has actually increased dramatically over the last thirty years and as for the world bank and their apologists who talk about you know the middle class is beginning with two

dollars a day a pound a day have you tried living in nairobi on a pound a day these guys are if they think this is the middle class is there must be be on some other planet i'm afraid ok jenny if i can go to you i mean there's a there's a lot of talk about foreign investment in africa and the chinese have gone there in an amazing super amazing way and there's one estimate by the year two thousand and twenty though the chinese will have over over two trillion dollars in investment there the united states will have across many three hundred billion dollars i mean this is when i get to the term the great game i mean the the chinese see this is a very very interesting place to invest because there's a lot of baggage that they have to carry when they deal with the african leaders there's they're the same that would say the values gap is always bench in between maybe like the united states and china so-called because i think there's a lot of things that western countries ask of they deny people on the ground certain rights so what do you think about that i mean is it easier for their

africans to borrow money and get investment from the chinese than from the west because of the baggage. well i do think that the chinese have made a focused effort to invest in africa to increase their trade with africa mainly because they need to natural resources the fuel grows back home that is given african countries more options because they don't simply have to rely on the west and the conditionality that often comes with western assistance and with western loans and so i do think that there is in that sense it's a better environment for africa in terms of the choices that they have but i would also say that there i do agree that there is a bit of a values gap in that some would ask whether china you know there is the policy of non interference in the affairs of african countries some would say that that's not an interest in the welfare of african people and i don't want to make it seem like

the west is great and china is you know doing bad things in africa that's not true it's more complex you know the west united states and western european countries have a terrible history in africa in terms of some of the cold war policies and certainly the period of colonialism before that but there is this sense of which the west at least is more aligned it seems with civil society in african countries today then china has been you can see that of course in sudan you can also see that when the chinese were trying to export weapons into zimbabwe and civil society and workers in angola in south africa refused to offload those weapons going into zimbabwe and so it is there is a sense to which the west is more aligned with the democratic forces in africa ok robert if i could go you know i'm not sure that that's not really that's really you

could i wanted to get away with that i mean just look at the downfall of mubarak and ben ali in egypt in tunis. respectively i mean those people who were funded to the hilt by the western governments these were despotic regimes with with a strong military and they have been overthrown not by civil society not by these these these new new missionaries of development the ngos but rather by a mass uprising and it hasn't been confined only to egypt and tunisia we've had libya we've had got ball and been in brooklyn a far so swaziland ethiopia uganda and so on even in south africa the recent south african police report demonstrated that they they recorded over five thousand uprisings in south africa per year over the last three years now that is an indication of the degree of opposition of of citizens not just of not just civil

society or people are losing the scale real no social democracy ok robert jobson there before we go to the break robert before we go to break i had look at south africa's a democracy the government there is chosen by the people in free and fair elections but you know there's a lot of people who are locally upset with local corruption and things like that but they are you know sounds like another egypt waiting for some dictator to be able to play but i didn't say i did already see this juncture i'm going to jump in we're going to go to a break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the future of africa state r.t. . if. you could.

read you the latest in science and technology from the realm of. the future covered. to be soo much brighter. from science to. start dot com. if you. want to. welcome back to cross talk i'm people about to remind you we're talking about africa and its future.

ok and robert i want to go back to you in london right before we went to the break we were down there i discussion flared up about the values gap that like the people of term that some people like to use i mean it's been brought up you know the west likes to say that it likes to to support democracy and civil society know it we've already heard on this program the west is really back with some very vicious very vicious dictators have been overthrown lately so i you know one has to wonder or or understand why african countries will look to china because there are no strings attached or very few strings attached go ahead. well i mean the west bank democracies but it's not always the top priority and certainly if you're talking in the middle east where you have the issues of oil and you have the issues of israel it tends not to be the top priority quite often stability is preferred china is a dictatorship local trade and back democracy anywhere and you wouldn't really expect them to i think the important point though is that when you have both

western companies and chinese companies both the western governments and the chinese government can. influence in africa and that puts power with the african government because they can play the two off against each other and they can say to western firms if you don't offer better deals maybe the chinese will and they can do the same to the chinese and that's what they're doing you see them doing it in a number of countries in angola and sometimes you see you know the chinese think that they've they've they've got something sewn up like they will back a dictator like year in sudan and they think that will give them permanent access to the oil wealth there and then suddenly civil saddam splits in half and they're finding they very rapidly having to make friends with the the enemies of the guy they've been propping up so they're running into the same kinds of problems that that western government because it's interesting going back to point you made earlier maybe we can all agree with robert because it's the people on the ground that suffer the most. well in indeed what i was saying about the uprisings that

have been happening across the continent is a reflection of the discontent that is brewing and great and increasing across the continent but looking at china i mean i think you know people are often rather sort exaggerated about about the actions of china if you look at foreign direct investment the united kingdom and usa are the leading foreign direct investment investment in in the in in africa followed behind by by france and by germany and all the asian tigers put together are still much smaller proportion of what germany germany's foreign direct investment is so you know i think and that's not because they're nice it's because they came to the show late they already all the oil fields all the mineral resources were already taken by the time china was ready to come into africa so they are being very smart in in in in offering all kinds of deals and offering offering loans which can be repaid in

commodities and so on so they're being very smart about what what what it is but i'm i'm less convinced i mean i think the point is quite right that robert makes that that there is a room for negotiation but i'm surprised at how few african governments have actually use that leverage in negotiating i think angola certainly certainly has one or two other countries might have but it in general it is not been the case and in fact they are strongly dissuaded from that doing so by by they are alliance with the big corporations and they're there and the u.s. and european governments as well as the japanese government's agenda if i go to you in washington it's very interesting point you are at the african governments have enough leverage actually to be able to to go shoot a deal to their advantage or are they continuously continuously at a disadvantage when it comes visa vive foreign investors and i mean east or west.

well african governments have tremendous leverage to negotiate obviously they are in control of their countries and their resources i don't think they'd be cooperation to control everything and i think that the sort of broad brush picture that's being painted is in correct of africa africans and african governments as victims of some system that's external to them they have responsibility they are making deals certainly there is it is true that i think the international financial institutions have tremendous soy in these countries on the world bank and i.m.f. but to agree that they get their macro economic performance in place to the degree that they're more responsive to their own citizens into their own population that gives them the leverage with all sides external to the continent so i don't see african governments african leaders or african people and citizens as somehow victimized by the international system i think that they are fully in charge and

can play this game of balancing of interests balancing of interests and that you know they have tremendous leverage that they could utilize if they would do so ok robert if i go to you if you were an african leader and you wanted to get foreign investment needed money would you go to the i.m.f. or would you go to the chinese what which would you prefer if you put yourself in a position of being an african leader well the i.m.f. doesn't do foreign investment may i.m.f. rescues. rescue less you know rescue ok rescue by the chinese say they have ten billion dollars in the economy ask no questions. well i think what you would do is you would say what's the problem we're looking at if the problem is you want lots of people to come and do business in your country then you wouldn't pick either or you'd say we're open for business for both chinese and the americans and anyone else who wants to come so long as they abide by the law and the basic minimum standards and there are always going to be occasions where that doesn't

happen and most african countries south of congo you'll find that anti chinese sentiment is a a pretty big political factor now that's not because they're the most influential it's because they knew i mean chinese investment in africa was almost nothing fifteen years ago and now it's about one hundred twenty billion dollars a year so it's just suddenly happened really quickly and with it there's come a very large number of chinese people into africa we don't really know how many but it's certainly in the tens of thousands probably in the hundreds of thousands and there's a guy at the african development bank said but more chinese people have come to africa in the past ten years than europeans had in the past four hundred years so this is a big change and it's a very visible it's something that you could lose yourself to your i was going to just have to go to a place like your school if you have a look at a place like nairobi in kenya where i come from there are more was zoom or more white europeans and americans sitting there making

a buck today than there have been in any time in kenya's history and that's true all over africa in fact although that doesn't include three rows or so it doesn't really. have the chinese are tiny in proportion to that. and certainly you don't see the scale of of s.u.v.s or four wheel drives and so warm that you that you see in the cities of africa which are all western in fact. you can see them sort of nature of what is what is happening in africa everyone says that you know ok you know it's open for business. if it's open for business who benefits from that most of the profits made by these companies who are investing in africa are are exported many of these companies and there's been recent reports by the tax justice network which have demonstrated that that huge of molds even the un d p talks about twenty

three billion dollars over the last year being being siphoned out illegally from from africa from all kinds of tax evasion schemes like offshore banks and so on i mean the scale of theft that is going on is unprecedented doubtlessly those there's a lot of that going on but you seem to be under the illusion that the the most important thing that a business does for a country is to do to make profits there and leave them there i mean that's that's not what they do it all and that part of it but if you're looking at the horizontal at the top the difference that has been made by mobile phone companies in africa has completely transformed the way that the africans communicate with each other and the way that they do business with each other and if you look even at you know completely the traders who are not even slightly interested in the welfare of africans may still do a great deal of benefit to them you see in zambia for example since the chinese

traders came into the mobile into the markets there the price of things like to check in whole of these are these are series one of those are very good example generally you have the new benefit to the people you sell i want to ask a question we will come up gentlemen gentlemen please please make sure everyone's in here. there seems to be two different points of view here africa is exploited now more than ever before or on the other side of the ledger it's actually speaking it's getting its act together in making progress where do you stand in the between these two stools of this program. i certainly agree that is getting its act together and it's making more progress that said i do think that part of their progress has to be. to increase the number of jobs to reduce the income gap between the very wealthy and the very poor to actually make agriculture benefit the farmers and the population as a whole rather than export the food externally and giving her large tracts of land

to external companies or governments so that they can export food to their population so i think that it's a very complex picture but what i the bottom line is that africans are more in charge of setting the agenda and africa they have the rules they are responsive more responsive to their populations traders in africa do not want to compete with chinese workers and so they are holding their governments to account businessmen in africa do not want to compete with bad deals given to chinese companies or even western companies that are very opaque so they're pushing for greater transparency and that's because there's a dynamism within african populations and civil society in sub-saharan africa in particular i agree that north africa stability was more of a priority i've always said that there was no democratization and that's why north africa has collapsed so significantly you do not see mass uprisings across africa what you do see is populations demonstrating within the framework framework of

greater rule of law and greater democratization it's not one hundred percent but it's certainly more than it was ten years ago and so i'm on the side more progress . if you last more last ten seconds cause that goes to you in our cargo and world climate. that she's living on but the reality is that poor people in africa there are more hungry people there more lot of those people who's great to unemployment that's the sum total of the achievement of course thank you very much. we've run out of time many thanks to my guest today in oxford washington and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t.c. next time and remember. crosstalk rules.

by plane crashes on its way to karelia and russia's northwest up to forty three people including children are dead. also this hour nature admits it launched as tried to killed nineteen billions of tripoli so that while british taxpayers are wary of reckless spending hundreds the bill for three months of blood is telling me. also japan gets a grilling in here and members of the international nuclear watchdog gathered to look at ways to avoid another fukushima crisis while people that don't feel safe even kilometers away from the exclusion. of europe's finance ministers postponed a decision on a french but allowed to leave they say more austerity is needed in the country all right shaken by a violent protest against spending cuts to the say. international

news live from moscow this is all she was me thanks for joining us and straight top top story now a passenger plane has crashed in northwest russia with fears that most of the forty eight on board may have died the internal airliner was flying from moscow to karelia when it crash landed short of the runway at but first of all it's and we can now talk to our correspondent tom barton with the latest details about that tom so please update us on the story also latest information that we have. all of these forty eight people on board the. plane five have now been taken to hospital it's reported there sir said to be in a serious condition of those people there was forty three passengers and five crew and eight of the passengers were thought to be children as well it's thought that

all the other people apart from those five taken to hospital may indeed be dead the plane was on its way to petras avoids a city in karelia it's a really a region in russia's northwest it was on the on the way there from moscow when it crashed not much is known at the moment as to why the crash may have happened but it's known that the plane broke up on impact with the ground and also caught fire that fire is now being put out but it hit the ground very hard the emergencies ministry is at the moment saying the causes could be anything from pilot error through to a mechanical fault on the plane and they're investigating that further at the moment. all right tom thank you very much for that update and of course we'll bring you more information when we have it so the to pollute fifty one forty four is that twin engine allying designed in the early sixty's in the u.s. a sign that this model has.