So, while I'm interested in the macro-economic stats presented by the international economist Dambisa Moyo from Zambia (w+dly celebrated among conservative economists), I'm also interested in how businesses (from the small to the transnational) thrive or don't in the various African states where new entrepreurial energy is beginning to emerge. The thawt can be recast as a question as to where North American and European investors of Christian commitment m+t deploy some of their funds to capital investments, for example, in Dr Moyo's Zambia. Or where? By what Christian strategic evalutation. Then, it becomes a sidebar as to how China's neo-colonialism in Africa relates to the continued emergence of thriving smaller and very small businesses in the countries on the list of China client states in Africa. How far, for instance, will the bad union, bad labour policies that run China be developed in the African countries into which China moves.
Why focus on China's neo-colonialism, for the moment? Bekawz China and its lead-language will be the most populous linguistic digital-entity on the World-Wide Web. People, maybe you (if you're young enuff), will go to Chinese text/graffix/audio-source/video-source webs+ts to read the news, gather opinion, play games, share religious expression, support kawzez, buy and sell, gamble, and view great film/video/entertainment art (at the moment I'm thinking of the TV production company that gave us "The Borgias" series on TV! — it will be dubbed Chinese for a vast new audience, looking for realistic historical ins+t). There will be a shift in what books are important, as judged by volume in print (including Braille and digital versions), purchases, and readership. You'll get further in international business if you know standard Chinese. Tourists will come out of China to visit everywhere, your neibourhood perhaps, maybe they'll rent your cottage by the lake or your oceans+d home in Cape May, New Jersey. Or, Brighton on the Sea. Or, the Isle of Iona to which Chinese Presbyterians will come on historical-spiritual pilgrimage. Will the guides learn to speak enuff Chinese to observe all the amenities of politeness for politeness's sake. The francophones have just the word (le mot just") in the normativity embedded in the French tongue's "politesse."
Without making a scientific argument, I can leave the reader to distill a crisper concept from my drift.
All this comes by way of saying, there are certain horizons we must share to even know what to pray for. I'm praying for the emergence of a viable sustainable Christian Labour Association of China (and thus for the break-out of CLAs in England, Philippines, Brazil, in readiness for the shift of Christendom in the West to a Christendom headquartered in China). It woud be wrong not to share the vision of a developed Christian way of unionization of workers, structured around the biblical dignity of workers and the emancipation of all from life-negative forces in the workplace and in the w+der society.
—EconoMix
Beijing, a Boon for Africa
by DAMBISA MOYO
IN June 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a speech in Zambia warning of a “new colonialism” threatening the African continent. “We saw that during colonial times, it is easy to come in, take out natural resources, pay off leaders and leave,” she said, in a thinly veiled swipe at China.
New York Times (June27,2k12
by Dambisa Moyo
— intro reposted here by
EconoMix, refWrite Frontpage
economics, business, and
labour columnist
In 2009, China became Africa’s single largest trading partner, surpassing the United States. And China’s foreign direct investment in Africa has skyrocketed from under $100 million in 2003 to more than $12 billion in 2011.
Since China began seriously investing in Africa in 2005, it has been routinely cast as a stealthy imperialist with a voracious appetite for commodities and no qualms about exploiting Africans to get them. It is no wonder that the American government is lashing out at its new competitor — while China has made huge investments in Africa, the United States has stood on the sidelines and watched its influence on the continent fade.
Despite all the scaremongering, China’s motives for investing in Africa are actually quite pure. To satisfy China’s population and prevent a crisis of legitimacy for their rule, leaders in Beijing need to keep economic growth rates high and continue to bring hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. And to do so, China needs arable land, oil and minerals. Pursuing imperial or colonial ambitions with masses of impoverished people at home would be wholly irrational and out of sync with China’s current strategic thinking.
Moreover, the evidence does not support a claim that Africans themselves feel exploited. To the contrary, China’s role is broadly welcomed across the continent. A 2007 Pew Research Center survey of 10 sub-Saharan African countries found that Africans overwhelmingly viewed Chinese economic growth as beneficial. In virtually all countries surveyed, China’s involvement was viewed in a much more positive light than America’s; in Senegal, 86 percent said China’s role in their country helped make things better, compared with 56 percent who felt that way about America’s role. In Kenya, 91 percent of respondents said they believed China’s influence was positive, versus only 74 percent for the United States.
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