AllAfrica.com is running a Business Day article on South Africa’s interests at the upcoming China-Africa Forum in Beijing. it would appear that, while South Africa is “keen to see increased aid to” Africa, it is particularly “interested in gaining greater access to the vast Chinese manufactured goods market”, mainly in the form of cuts “in Chinese tariffs on goods to which value has been added” since it is “the only country in Africa that exports manufactured goods to any large extent”.

Furthermore, much like happened when South Africa and China reached an agreement on SA’s textile industry, the article points out that “SA is likely to push for a Chinese commitment to voluntarily restrict exports when local industries are threatened”.

South Africa’s overall thinking was quite clearly expressed by its Reserve Bank governor, Tito Mboweni, who said: “Let’s strengthen our relations with China.” He pointed out that while “The US might still be portrayed by some as the major economic growth engine in the world … in reality that picture was changing”, with China contributing more now (24.5%) to global domestic product than the US (16.3%). This should no doubt worry the US and Western markets, since they are the largest trading partner of South Africa in terms of total trade, with Germany and the UK falling second and third respectively. Historically, South Africa has always been within the Western sphere of influence, but this may change.

From China’s point of view, South Africa is probably the key to the continent, for two main reasons. The first, obviously, is trade related, because South Africa is quick becoming Africa’s new “colonial” power. While SA woos China to try and restrict its exports, SA has not been so kind to the rest of Africa. As the Christian Science Monitor points out, “South African foreign assets throughout Africa totaled about $5.1 billion in 2004, spanning a wide range of sectors from telecommunications to mining”.

South Africa accounts for about 25 percent of Africa’s total GDP and has produced striking trade balances with less developed African economies - a concern to regional leaders.

In Zambia, South Africa has supplanted former colonial power Britain as the country’s largest foreign investor. South Africans have poured about $300 million into Zambia since 1993, according to the Zambia Investment Centre. In 2005, Zambia held a trade deficit of more than $600 million with South Africa. Moreover, nearly half of Zambia’s imports are South African.

As David Robins, Pick n’ Pay’s deputy chairman acknowledged “[South African firms] have kind of moved in with a significant amount of brute force on the African continent.” This has led to the same sort of criticisms against South Africa that have been used regarding China’s threat to local businesses. It would seem, then, that being a favoured ally with South Africa would secure access to the rest of the continent, at least by proxy.

Secondly, South Africa is viewed as a top priority in terms of a possible diplomatic ally on the UN Security Council. Currently, SA holds a two-year, non-permanent seat on the Council, but has been pushing for the inclusion of African and Latin-American countries to have permanent seats on the council and a veto. As the Business Day article noted, South Africa’s Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma held talks on Thursday with China’s equivalent, Li Zhaoxing “to discuss SA’s upcoming membership of the United Nations Security Council”.

Several studies have predicited that “globalization is likely to take on much more of a “non-Western face”", with China and India giving it “more of an Asian look and feel“. South Africa, it would seem, is fast becoming a poster-boy for this global trend, as is Africa as a whole.

There’s been a lot in the press recently regarding the upcoming China Africa forum to be held in Beijing this weekend. Officially, the purpose of the summit is clear: to promote political dialogue, and to boost trade ties between China and at least 48 Africa’s 53 states.

However, as the New York Times puts it, unofficially China is hoping to “redraw the world�??s strategic map by forming tighter political ties” with African states that have turned their back on Europe and the United States. No doubt this is both historical - African countries have never forgotten European colonial dominance, and US interference during the Cold War that led to such tyrrants as Mobutu - and it’s also pragmatic: China is the world’s fastest growing economy, has massive reserves of $US and, more importantly, they’re following a policy of don’t ask don’t tell:

“It is never our view that a country should interfere in another country’s internal affairs,” Deputy Foreign Minister Zhai Jun said last week. “We’ve never imposed on other countries our values … and we do not accept other countries imposing their values on us either.”

This has proven beneficial for such countries as the Sudan. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, visiting China for the summit, “rejected a 22,500-strong U.N. peacekeeping force for Darfur”, while at the same time he “thanked China for its support in the face of western pressure over a humanitarian crisis”. Another beneficiary has been Zimbabwe’s Mugabe, who has been shunned by the West due to his human-rights abuses, and has found support from China in helping to continue to sustain his regime in the face of massive unemployment, food and energy shortages, and economic meltdown. A deal with China and Angola for a $2 billion loan that helped that country avoid issues with the IMF regarding corruption.

The driving force for China’s interest in Africa is obviously driven by the need for oil and raw materials, such as iron ore and copper, to sustain its economic growth. Trade in the first ten months of 2005 jumped by a massive 39% on the back of massive investment into oil - primarily in Angola and the Sudan (25% of its oil imports come from these two countries), but also Nigeria, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, “China’s manufacturing sector has created enormous demand for aluminum, copper, nickel, iron ore, and oil” and, because of instability in the Middle East, they are focusing elsewhere for suppliers instead, such as South America and Africa. In addition to raw materials, China also “sees Africa as a growth market for its military hardware”, and also “textile manufacturers, for example, are reportedly investing in African factories”.

The increase in Chinese influence and arms sales has drawn criticism because of the don’t ask, don’t tell, see no evil approach China has taken. The U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, for example, commented that “In Africa, as elsewhere in the world, the Chinese government has shown that it is eager to embrace dangerous and or unsavory regimes in order, among other goals, to secure access to oil.” Former US assistant secretary of state for Africa Walter Kansteiner adds: “Does it worry the U.S. government that China is aiding and abetting Robert Mugabe? Yeah, it does and it should. You know, he’s a bad guy, doing bad things to his people. And so, if Beijing is supporting and helping him, from a policy-maker’s point of view, that’s counter-productive.” World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz also recently criticised China because “Chinese lenders “do not respect” a set of internationally agreed principles to ensure that loans to African countries fund projects that meet high social and environmental standards”.

All this is, of course, highly hypocritcal in light of the fact that US arms sales and military aid to Africa continue to increase (the US accounts for roughly 40% of the world’s arms sales). Also, as David Kang, a visiting professor of East Asia Studies at Stanford University, notes: “The United States is highly selective about who we’re moral about. We support Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia�??huge human-rights violators�??because we have other strategic interests. China’s not unique in cutting deals with bad governments and providing them arms.” Lastly, if the World Bank wishes to talk of “high social and environmental standards”, one only has to look at the Chad debacle (see also here) to understand that the World Bank has no leg to stand on.

US businesses also deal with less than wholesome regimes, such as in Azerbaijan where western countries turned a blind eye to corrupt elections in 2005, as well as brutal crushing of dissidents because Azerbaijan was a strategic Western ally (contrasted with support for Georgia’s revolution primarily where the western world had less influence). Despite being one of the world’s most corrupt countries, BP happily pointed out that “The desire of the [Azerbaijan] government to make this work has been key to our decision to stay. Conditions are very favorable to foreign investors here.” Oil trumps human rights, since the new Baku-Ceyhan pipeline will soon be transporting around one million barrels of oil per day for Western markets.

The real reason for criticism of China’s actions is, of course, their growing influence in the Third World, specifically Africa, in a way that undermines US strategic goals. As the New York Times pointed out, China believes its African influence “will give their diplomats an advantage at the United Nations and other international organizations, where African countries can constitute a powerful voting bloc”. Couple that with their growing influence in the traditional sphere of South America, and its easy to understand US concerns, especially since they’re mired in an increasingly unstable Middle East.

The US’s goal in the Middle East has always been about securing oil and energy, not necessarily only for its own possible consumption needs, but to ensure control of “two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions” which “would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination” (Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard). As noted in the Monthly Review, since the National Security Strategy of the United States was announced in 2002, it has focused on increasing “its activities in West Africa, centering on those states with substantial oil production and/or reserves in or around the Gulf of Guinea”. They cite Richard Haas, president of the Council of Foreign Relations, as saying that “sub-Saharan Africa is likely to become as important as a source of U.S. energy imports as the Middle East”, and point out that the US has stationed bases throughout the region, primarily under the guise of the “war on terror”, but mainly because “the real issues are not the African states themselves and the welfare of their populations but oil and China�??s growing presence in Africa”:

For the Council on Foreign Relations, all of this adds up to nothing less than a threat to Western imperialist control of Africa. Given China�??s role, the council report says, �??the United States and Europe cannot consider Africa their chasse gardé [private hunting ground], as the French once saw francophone Africa. The rules are changing as China seeks not only to gain access to resources, but also to control resource production and distribution, perhaps positioning itself for priority access as these resources become scarcer.�?� The council report on Africa is so concerned with combating China through the expansion of U.S. military operations in the region, that none other than Chester Crocker, former assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Reagan administration, charges it with sounding �??wistfully nostalgic for an era when the United States or the West was the only major influence and could pursue its…objectives with a free hand.�?�

The unfortunate reality is that, if history is any judge, the scramble for Africa between China and the United States shall have the same effects on Africa that occured during the Cold War: regimes playing the fears of both interested parties off one another; dictators and tyrrants kept in power in order to further strategic aims; wars fought by proxies in the battle for mineral resources; and the continued suffering of local populations. Some do express hope that the Chinese “will be forced to take account” of issues such as corruption, as well as the concerns of the African people and not just their elites. But, as long as competition between China and America persists in Africa, such concerns may well not be in their self-interest.

Ha’aretz is reporting that flights used by the CIA to transport terrorist suspects stopped over in Tel Aviv. The “straw” company owning the plane, Prescott Support, is apparently a front for the CIA. The interesting thing, though, is that you can go here and have a look at photos of the plane in question. It seems to get around, with photos being taken as far back as 2001, in a variety of places including Malta, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Iceland, USA, Portugal, Malaysia and Singapore.

When Michael Franti mentioned in the opening scenes of his new film I Know I’m Not Alone (you can buy it here) that he was growing “frustrated” at the reporting on the Middle East, I could relate. I can’t say I’ve always been political, and I wish I could proudly confess that I’ve always been aware and concerned about what was going on in the world. The truth is, I used to avoid reading or watching the news in South Africa, and I remember complaining to my step father that there should be a “good news” newspaper out there, as if the media were supposed to stop reporting the bad stuff and everything would be fine. When the fall of apartheid exposed whites for the first time to the crime that had plagued black communities for decades, you became desensitized and frustrated at the monotony of reporting, and preferred instead just to close my eyes, at least for a while.

Fortunately for us, Franti wants to keep his eyes wide open. Taking a camera, a few friends, and his guitar, he heads to Iraq, Palestine and Israel, hoping to bypass the politicians and the soundbites and speak to the people on the ground, see how they live and listen to what they think. He talks to taxi drivers, shop owners, families, children, musicians, soldiers - the everyday people who rarely, if ever, have a voice on television. I could probably count the number of documentary films that have truely moved me through their simplicity and power on one hand. This most certainly belongs at the top, and I wouldn’t mind calling this one of the most lovely pieces of film I have ever witnessed.

First and foremost, Franti is a poet, so the film is layered with his songs and lyrics reflecting the world he sees and hears around him, and his ideas and thoughts about that world. Of course, Franti goes out of his way to try and find musicians in each location: in Iraq, a death metal band; in Palestine, a trio of hiphop artists; in Israel, he jams with an excellent group of Israeli musicians.

One of the wonderful things about a smile and music is that they’re excellent ways to break down barriers between cultures. Time and again, he is welcomed with open arms into families singing “Habibi” (an Arabic term for showing someone you love them), bringing smiles and laughter to children running along rubble-strewn streets and pock-marked buildings. Generally, though, it seems as if his music is Franti’s way of expressing himself to the viewer. While he himself does sometimes talk to the camera directly or with a voiceover, or he speaks to those he meets, it is the voices of the people he meets that have center stage: Franti sings about what he thinks, but we hear from them what they live and feel.

What is highly enjoyable is that Franti is not trying to impose his thoughts or ideas on the people who are living through occupation or terror. As he explains towards the end, he doesn’t want to choose sides, except for the sides of the “peacemakers”. He just wants to know what they think and, in turn, to let them tell us, the viewer. When ex-Saddam dissidents tell him that if Iraq invaded America, and Americans fought back, they would be considered to be fighting for their country instead of being terrorists, or when someone else tells him the Americans should leave, he doesn’t attempt to argue or justify what’s happening. Nor, when he plays to a room of American soldiers, does he try and judge them even though it’s clear that Franti doesn’t agree with the reasons that they’re there. The film is more effective in its subtlety and non-confrontational style, something that a number of documentary makers could learn from.

There are some genuinely touching moments that are inspirational testimonies of the human spirit, one of the most poignant being towards the end when a Palestinian and Israeli soldier talk to one another about the possibilities for peace and friendship. Religion, says the Israeli soldier, must not be part of the government of either side otherwise that leads to trouble. There’s a nodding of heads, and understanding between two people portrayed as mortal enemies.

All in all, I cannot recommend this film highly enough. It is exceptional, and deserves to be watched all over the world because its message is cultureless and timeless. From the Israeli army dissenters courageously speaking out, to the Palestinian mother who sleeps on the street because she’s afraid her house will be demolished around her; from the Israeli and Palestinian families who’ve lost loved ones and have come together to find forgiveness, to the Iraqi taxi driver who just wants peace. There are beautiful tales here that deserve to be heard, and to be witnessed by eyes that should no longer be closed.