Since the early 1990s, China has been strategically extending its reach into Africa, extracting resources, selling things, and setting up migrants and entrepreneurs to go forth and multiply. Some say this means nothing but trouble for Africa. Some say—what’s the big deal?
Filmmakers Nick Francis and his brother Marc belong more in the second camp. They began work on the film “When China Met Africa” in 2007. It took them two and a half years, and it is now available on DVD.
Rather than issue a global judgment about a highly complex issue, they opted to simply train their lenses and microphones on how the China-Africa relationship plays out at the grassroots. To observe these complexities and nuances, they chose Zambia, the African country that has had the longest diplomatic relationship with China.
Specifically, they chose three people in Zambia: Liu Changming, one of those entrepreneurial farmers who was given a credit line by the Chinese regime to set up shop; Li Jianguo, a conscientious engineer sent to build a road; and Felix Mutati, the jovial Zambian minister for trade and commerce, who works hard at courting Chinese money. Their stories unfold compellingly and intimately.
The film opens with Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, addressing a large conference in the Great Hall of the People. In his slightly rhinal voice, he tells his Chinese and African comrades that “common destiny and common goals have brought us together,” and that China and Africa will always be “good partners, good brothers.”
A couple of years after Comrade Hu’s magnanimous speech, we are in the scummy living quarters of Tian Xing farm in Zambia, owned by Liu Changming. There are plastic chairs, iron bars, and Chinese state television in the background. The Chinese occupants speak in their local dialect.
Chinese farmers come to register for the day’s work. They are kept outside and addressed gruffly. Liu explains how in China he was an employee, but here he is the boss, “a totally different position.” The blacks go to labor in the field as the Chinese bark at them in a mixture of Mandarin, Chinese dialect, and mangled English.
Why are Chinese farmers, rather than local Zambians, setting up farms on those vast swathes of arable land? Because the Chinese state is bankrolling Liu, and the Zambian government is too busy, or not, to help Zambians do the same.
There is intercultural resentment. Liu, bringing with him a bad habit from China, routinely withholds the pay of his workers. They don’t like that. Locals pinch pennies when purchasing his chickens at market, and they also steal his chickens—fully 10 of them on one Sunday. His wife suggests taking an iron bar next time and cracking the skulls of would-be thieves.
But Liu is going to stick around. With the help of the underpaid locals, he will expand his holdings and raise a family. They will continue the legacy. He works very hard, and is one of between 10,000 and 15,000 Chinese farmers in Zambia doing the same. He and his Chinese peers will assume an important role in the local agricultural industry in the years to come, and they will remain loyal to Beijing.
Filmmakers Nick Francis and his brother Marc belong more in the second camp. They began work on the film “When China Met Africa” in 2007. It took them two and a half years, and it is now available on DVD.
Rather than issue a global judgment about a highly complex issue, they opted to simply train their lenses and microphones on how the China-Africa relationship plays out at the grassroots. To observe these complexities and nuances, they chose Zambia, the African country that has had the longest diplomatic relationship with China.
Specifically, they chose three people in Zambia: Liu Changming, one of those entrepreneurial farmers who was given a credit line by the Chinese regime to set up shop; Li Jianguo, a conscientious engineer sent to build a road; and Felix Mutati, the jovial Zambian minister for trade and commerce, who works hard at courting Chinese money. Their stories unfold compellingly and intimately.
The film opens with Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, addressing a large conference in the Great Hall of the People. In his slightly rhinal voice, he tells his Chinese and African comrades that “common destiny and common goals have brought us together,” and that China and Africa will always be “good partners, good brothers.”
Farm Life
A couple of years after Comrade Hu’s magnanimous speech, we are in the scummy living quarters of Tian Xing farm in Zambia, owned by Liu Changming. There are plastic chairs, iron bars, and Chinese state television in the background. The Chinese occupants speak in their local dialect.
Chinese farmers come to register for the day’s work. They are kept outside and addressed gruffly. Liu explains how in China he was an employee, but here he is the boss, “a totally different position.” The blacks go to labor in the field as the Chinese bark at them in a mixture of Mandarin, Chinese dialect, and mangled English.
Why are Chinese farmers, rather than local Zambians, setting up farms on those vast swathes of arable land? Because the Chinese state is bankrolling Liu, and the Zambian government is too busy, or not, to help Zambians do the same.
There is intercultural resentment. Liu, bringing with him a bad habit from China, routinely withholds the pay of his workers. They don’t like that. Locals pinch pennies when purchasing his chickens at market, and they also steal his chickens—fully 10 of them on one Sunday. His wife suggests taking an iron bar next time and cracking the skulls of would-be thieves.
But Liu is going to stick around. With the help of the underpaid locals, he will expand his holdings and raise a family. They will continue the legacy. He works very hard, and is one of between 10,000 and 15,000 Chinese farmers in Zambia doing the same. He and his Chinese peers will assume an important role in the local agricultural industry in the years to come, and they will remain loyal to Beijing.
Read more...On the Road
On the Road
Li Jianguo is a manager at China Henan International Corporation, a private company that won the contract to build the road fair and square on a public tender. “Since I chose this job, I feel it’s my mission to completely devote myself to the China Henan International company,” Li says.
There is a revealing scene at Li’s construction yard. Oil has been spilled, and the local Zambians realize that it can be sold for use in lamps. They get down on their haunches and scoop up oil with their hands, splashing it into jugs, milk cartons, and large plastic food dishes. A Chinese bulldozer comes over full of dirt to cover the spill. Before the locals are done scooping they are shooed away, and the dozer dumps red dust all over their pocket money.
Both Li and Liu are several times framed smoking. The lens hovers on the smoke, the ash, and the cigarette packets. These are suggestive images about Zambia’s repeated drags on Chinese investment money. We all know what happens to long-term smokers.
The final thread begins in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, with the optimistic Mutati. He has a large piece of wall art featuring Chinese characters written in the florid and out-of-control grass script. “We don’t understand what it writes,” he says, smiling, “but it gives a spirit of imagination of where you’re going to lead the country to.”
He ponders the difference between the Western and Chinese approaches to engagement with his country. The former dawdle on income statements, balance, sheets, risk assessment, and other such blather. “I’ve never seen those with the Chinese,” he says. “They just ask: What are the incentives? Where is a piece of land where we should go and work?”
The crucial questions for African countries when dealing with China are about the strength of their institutions, their ability to resist corruption, and whether, after the resources leave the ground, they will fetch a market price and be efficiently deployed for the furtherance of a prosperous society.
If the elite are lured into a vortex of graft, the Chinese will happily buy resources at cheap prices, and after a generation there will be nothing to show for it. The country’s people will have lost.
Zambia’s status here is ambiguous. The Francis brothers’ film largely shows us the bright side. But how many contracts are won under-the-table? How much money changes hands directly, not entering the public treasury? Cameras aren’t allowed into those meetings.
In October last year, two Chinese managers shot at and wounded 13 miners who were protesting the appalling working conditions. In Zambia and elsewhere there have been riots, car torchings, and kidnappings of Chinese, who the locals feel are exploiting them.
The cigarette and the oil images seem to coalesce—as when you drop a cigarette into a puddle of oil, it goes bang.
There is a revealing scene at Li’s construction yard. Oil has been spilled, and the local Zambians realize that it can be sold for use in lamps. They get down on their haunches and scoop up oil with their hands, splashing it into jugs, milk cartons, and large plastic food dishes. A Chinese bulldozer comes over full of dirt to cover the spill. Before the locals are done scooping they are shooed away, and the dozer dumps red dust all over their pocket money.
Both Li and Liu are several times framed smoking. The lens hovers on the smoke, the ash, and the cigarette packets. These are suggestive images about Zambia’s repeated drags on Chinese investment money. We all know what happens to long-term smokers.
The final thread begins in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, with the optimistic Mutati. He has a large piece of wall art featuring Chinese characters written in the florid and out-of-control grass script. “We don’t understand what it writes,” he says, smiling, “but it gives a spirit of imagination of where you’re going to lead the country to.”
He ponders the difference between the Western and Chinese approaches to engagement with his country. The former dawdle on income statements, balance, sheets, risk assessment, and other such blather. “I’ve never seen those with the Chinese,” he says. “They just ask: What are the incentives? Where is a piece of land where we should go and work?”
Uncertain Future
The crucial questions for African countries when dealing with China are about the strength of their institutions, their ability to resist corruption, and whether, after the resources leave the ground, they will fetch a market price and be efficiently deployed for the furtherance of a prosperous society.
If the elite are lured into a vortex of graft, the Chinese will happily buy resources at cheap prices, and after a generation there will be nothing to show for it. The country’s people will have lost.
Zambia’s status here is ambiguous. The Francis brothers’ film largely shows us the bright side. But how many contracts are won under-the-table? How much money changes hands directly, not entering the public treasury? Cameras aren’t allowed into those meetings.
In October last year, two Chinese managers shot at and wounded 13 miners who were protesting the appalling working conditions. In Zambia and elsewhere there have been riots, car torchings, and kidnappings of Chinese, who the locals feel are exploiting them.
The cigarette and the oil images seem to coalesce—as when you drop a cigarette into a puddle of oil, it goes bang.
