you know just trying to do a pilot project. by ourselves and we're not using our special men we just use normal. school scoops. we just. come in. the small effort to bring some security to a community facing a scary and uncertain future in fukushima city sean thomas r t well that is going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered with r.t. dot com slash usa also check out our youtube page youtube dot com slash r t america we will have much more on that plane crash that happened but for now christine for .

the latest in some instances. the future. ok tom arriving here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

that. wealthy british. markets. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cancer for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to the report he. can. follow and welcome to cross talk i'm peter all about africa in the new great game outside interest in this continent is immense rich in natural resources and

a growing middle class china the u.s. europe and other powers are scrambling for influence and whilst there can africa avoid another wave of imperialism and colonialism. taking to. the 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 across the jendayi frazer she's a professor at the carnegie mellon university. and in oxford we have produced mangi he's editor in chief of the penguins who canoes all right this is lady and gentlemen that means you can jump in anytime you want and i know we have difference of opinion so i want my viewers to see it here as 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 do you like the term great game well i thought 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 and so what they're there to do is to reap as much benefits as they can avoid as much tax as they can and 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 with which africa currently face now clearly there are competitions between the different international powers for africa's natural resources. and what is missing out of that element is the voice of the 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. and inferred from it then it's no really no good to anyone ok those shareholders ok if i go to you in washington now and i would you agree with that assessment and you occupation not even using the term. colonialism not imperialism occupation. well of course not i don't agree with. her

trail 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 arthropod 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 can. progress. growing economies growing

independence or occupation as we heard earlier in the program. well i really can't think of any african country that's been 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 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 only oil that if you annoy them they kick you out as has happened to people. from both sides and so they're striking the bargains now. jendayi frazer

point i think 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 that i think that the 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 that's going on. than what rose suggests i think the idea that corporations conquering the place is a bit of a caricature ok it looks like it's true against one here you want to defend yourself. but the whole no proof no problem getting you through. you know well let me smear me say my words the reality is that there is massive amount of land grab there's more than the smiths across africa than there ever has been

there's more hunger in africa than has ever been the biz more unemployment than there's ever. have a penis more importantly it's not just those physical resources that people have been dispossessed of 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 defense that they need has been need as cañete as of the world and they are no more coal to bush to to the to the international agencies then they are to citizens now i don't call that democracy what i see that has is this an accompaniment 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 power new day these guys are if they think this is the middle class is there there must be we own 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 me three hundred billion dollars i mean this is when i get to the new term the great game i mean 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 say the values gap is always bench in between maybe like united states and china so. because i think there's a lot of things that western countries asco they deny people on the ground certain rights so what do you think about that i mean is it easier for the africans to borrow money 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 a fuel growth 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 in that some would ask whether china you know there's

a policy of not 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 doing bad things in africa that's not true it's more complex you know the west the 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 and african countries today then china has and 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 are ok robert if i could go to you you know i'm not sure that that's that's really that's really you can allow him to get away with that i mean just look at the downfall of mubarak and ben ali in egypt in tunis in 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've been overthrown not my civil society not by these these these new new missionaries of development the n.g.o.s but rather by a mass uprising and it hasn't been confined only to egypt in tunis here we've had libya we've had karbala and then 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

mass 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 some not for civil society or people are losing a real notion while crissy ok robert jobson before we go to break robert before we go to break i had. south africa the democracy the government there is chosen by the people in free and fair elections but yeah there's a lot of people who are locally upset with local corruption and things like that the argument is that it's like another egypt waiting for some to cater to be able to clear 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 party.

fish fish. fish fish fish. fish to.

can. welcome back to crossfire guy people about to remind you we're talking about africa and its future. king. ok and robert i want to go back to you in london right before we went to the break we were done by discussion flared up about the values gap that like the people as that term that some people like to use i mean it's been brought up that you know the west likes to say that it likes to prove it to support democracy and civil society i was already heard on this program the west is really back some 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. i mean the west baggs 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 so-called they don't see 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 western governments and the chinese government competing for influence in africa 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 got something sewn up like they will bakar. bashir in sudan and i think that will give them permanent access to the oil wealth there and then suddenly sudan saddam splits in half and they're finding them very rapidly having to make friends with the enemies of the guy they've been propping up so they're running into the same kinds of problems that the western governments 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 this the people are often rather silly 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 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're being very smart in in the 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 a bet that there is a room for negotiation but i'm surprised at how few african governments have actually use that leverage their negotiating i think on goal or certainly certainly has

a mile 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 the alliance with the big the big corporations and they're there and the u.s. and european governments as well as the japanese government 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 negotiate a deal to their advantage or are they continuously continuously at a disadvantage when it comes piece of beef for investors i mean east or west. well african governments have tremendous leverage to negotiate obviously they're in control of their countries and their resources i don't think that's because peroration 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 away in these countries and the world bank and i.m.f. but to do degree 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 our interests balancing our 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 or needed money would you go to the i.m.f. or would you go to the chinese 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 they are math rescues ok let's say where you rescue less you know rescue ok rescue but the chinese say they can't billion dollars of the economy ask questions. well i think what you would do is you would say what's the problem we're looking at the problem is you want lots of people to come and do business in your country then you wouldn't take 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 in most african countries south of congo you'll find that anti chinese sentiment is 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 or so it's just suddenly happened greely 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 and thousands and there's a guy at the african development bank said that 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 stretch. yourself to gross guy you just have to go to a place like disco if you have a look at a place like nairobi in kenya where i come from there are more was more and 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 let me. just add that really. the chinese are tiny in proportion to that. and certainly you don't see the scale of. s.u.v.s or for real drives and so warm that you see in the cities of of 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 it's open for business. but if it's open for business who benefits from that most of the profits made by these companies who are investing in africa are exported many of these companies and there's been recent reports by the tax justice network which have demonstrated that huge of milds people you indeed she 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 there's the screen all of that is going on is unprecedented out italy is has a lot of crap 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 make profits there and leave it at that i mean that's that's not what they do at all the net profit there but if you're looking at the whole example of the difference there has been made by mobile phone companies in africa it's completely transformed the way that that africans communicate with each other and the way that they do business with each other and if you look you know completely the traders who are not even slightly interested in the welfare of africans may still do a great deal of benefit in sambir for example since a lot of food chinese traders came into them over into the markets there the price of things like sort of chicken heart of these are these are serious penalties are really going to generally have any benefit to look at yourself i want to ask a question we will come up gentlemen gentlemen please please it is make sure everyone said here good 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 and making progress where do you stand in the between these two schools 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. b. to increase the number of jobs to reduce the income gap between the very wealthy and the very poor or to actually make agriculture benefit the farmers and the population as a whole rather than export the food externally and giving a large tracts of land to external called ponies 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 response of 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

and africa do not want to compete with bad deals given to chinese companies or even garstin 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 subsaharan 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 part people ations demonstrating with in the former prime work 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 . of you last more last ten seconds because that gives you an ox are going. on that she's living alone but the realities of poor people in africa there are more hungry

people or more london's people whose greater unemployment that's the sum total of the achievement of course thank you very much. we've run out of time thanks to my guest today in oxford washington and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here are the scenics time. remember cross top rules.

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