Mathabo Le Roux
17 March 2009
Johannesburg — AFRICAN National Congress treasurer-general Mathews Phosa says the partnership between China and SA will be stepped up after the election.
"After the election we will see an increase in co-operation between China and SA. The seeds have been sown," he said.
Phosa was speaking at the launch of a representative office of the China-Africa Development Fund in Johannesburg -- the first of its kind in Africa.
Established in 2007 by the China Development Bank, the fund stems from a pledge by Chinese President Hu Jintao at the China-Africa Co-operation summit in Beijing in 2006 to foster closer ties with the African continent.
It was set up with an initial capital injection of $1bn by the China Development Fund, but capitalisation will eventually reach $5bn, said Chen Yuan, chairman of the China Development Fund.
The Department of Trade and Industry yesterday also signed a record of understanding with the fund to establish a framework for co-operation.
Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Elizabeth Thabethe said the collaboration would earmark strategic sectors for investment, including mining, transport, energy, agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure development, and the information and communication technology sector.
Phosa said the fund's pledges to invest in the continent at a time when the financial meltdown had seen investment and trade finance in emerging economies dry up, should be welcomed.
Since its inception, the fund has invested $400m in 20 projects in Africa, notably a cotton project in Malawi, a power plant in Ghana, a glass factory in Ethiopia and trade zones in Egypt and Nigeria.
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Well said. even after so-called independance many in the west, and unfortunately, many Africans and African "leaders" still believe in the legitmacy of European and American "entitlement" to possess and to control the natural resources of their former colonies and, the right to dictate their domestic and international politics. The rise of China and of India and of others as global players is a golden opportunity for Africans to start dealing with other non-Western states and cultures which have a relatively clean slate in Africa with a new paradigm. This change is beginning of the long hoped for opportunity to replace the poison of Western "aid" with relationships which are based more upon the creation of win-win trading relationships. Once the West accepts the fact that in the modern world, it is no longer the only alternative, its behavior will change. If not, then so be it.
The West? The rot.
Are you not sick of this Western Tradition; this tradition of inconsistencies, a tradition founded on tolerance only for 'WHITES'?
That is the point: if the Chinese can stand up to the West, perhaps, they know a thing or two Africans don't: time to learn from them, then.
South Africa had no choice but to cozy up to China. The ANC leadership is riddled with corruption, incompetence and a sense of entitlement. The chinese don't seem to mind this as long as they make a buck. We in the west are tired of their immaturity and lack of business sense.
The "Chinese" lack "business sense"?
Fortunately, rationality winks the other way: the US Federal Reserve knows better; so does the US Treasury. All those US treasury bills in the bank vaults of the "immature" Chinese attest to their "lack of business sense"?
Please.
Forget racism, which is crap: if the Chinese were real commies, they could implode capitalism by just dumping their trillions of USDS in the world currency markets. But, alas, they lack "business sense."
Beyond money, which grows on trees in China, China's cultural tradition is more authentic than the West's; moreover, no "immature" Chinese ever an African enslaved or African land stole.
Glory then to immaturity and business naivete.
Go for it, SA. The west has disappointed us, time and time again, for decades, before, during and after apartheid. Black Africa's relationship with the West is nothing but exploitative and paternalistic, to put it mildly, using the likes of Tutu and Annan as their black faces.