Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

This trend can only be good for Africa, bringing in outside knowledge and trade to help where direct assistance has always failed. Know-how and markets, of course, always beat largesse. You can be sure, though, that if it were any Western state promoting policies to encourage citizens to work in Africa, it would be instantly decried as imperialism.

I was going to ponder how such a policy, if promoted here, could help the US (other than the 'overseas Chinese' and successful agriculture/business practices help to elevate African states that would otherwise languish in the Gap), but I don't think it's possible. For the short-to-mid term, the only Americans/Europeans decamping for Africa will be riding large paychecks to work in self-isolating corporate concerns, rather than in some form of the grassroots concerns that the Chinese described seek to start. This influx from China may be a direct good for both China and for Africa, but the benefits for the West will be indirect and intangible.

I sincerely hope, for the sake of the people living in Africa right now, that Africa is not China's New World. Most of the inhabitants of the New World - both in South and North America - died by violence or disease over the period of colonial settlement by the Europeans.

I know that's not what you meant, but it's easy to forget how the New World was built.

I saw a report on this on BBC's website. Looks like for now the Chinese workers are living in Chinese only compounds with Chinese cooks brought over to cook for them. They are staying for about five years & then going home but if they can make enough of an impact then there may be a movement to immigrate & bring over their families.

If looking to plot the future flow of human capital out of China, the Russian Far East (or ex-Chinese Far North when you rotate the map and recall the history prior to 1860) is a lot closer and easier to get to than Africa...in fact the process is underway now, prompting occasional outbursts from Russian provincial leaders but no serious attempt to fence that border. Not surprising since much of the entreprenurial dynamic in the RFE is generated by Chinese business/labor. Trouble is of course not much in the way of good arable land in the RFE, so that limits agriculture's potential a bit for would-be homesteaders.

Ok, there is no way this will happen. The New World analogy misses by a mile for one simple reason ... the New World was basically empty, having been depopulated by disease before mass European immigration happened.

Africa, on the other hand, has many hundreds of millions of people, and one of the fastest growing populations in the world.

So now it's the Chinese. Please let me suggest a very interesting book. "The Washing of the Spears" by Donald Morris. Morris was a Navy man who ended up at CIA. He became fascinated with African history and concentrated on the period from 1870 to 1880. "Washing of the Spears" is about the Anglo-Zulu War. Read about that conflict and you will understand what led to the Boer War, the founding of Rhodesia, South Africa and much of the mess that was Africa from 1870 to Mandela. It ought to be a mandatory read for some folks in Beijing.

A couple of thoughts came to me while reading:
1) How many descendents of whites who came to Africa in the 19th century are now leaving, partly because some politicians found them to be easy scapegoats instead of assets? The ultimate test will be how many of the rulesets, technologies and methods they introduce are actually adopted by Africans.

2) How long will it be before China borrows another page from the European colonial handbook-- 'encouraging' members of restive minority groups (Scots and Irish then, Tibetans and Uighurs now) to migrate to understaffed factories in the heartland or to far-away frontiers? Heck, depending on how voluntary the relocations are, they may actually do some good.