被误解的中非关系

    “初来乍到”

    虽然十年来中非贸易有了长足发展，但中国和非洲的往来并不是什么新鲜事物。双方在当代的关系可以追溯到上世纪50年代，也就是大陆和台湾竞相争取国际社会认可之际。非洲国家纷纷独立，而且占据了联合国约四分之一的成员国席位，大陆方面迫切希望通过对外建立发展型关系让台湾陷入孤立。

    约翰•霍普金斯大学（Johns Hopkins）中国学者黛博拉•布劳蒂甘认为，“一个中国”政策一直在左右着中国对非洲的投资。援助主要是一种外交手段，和中国保持外交关系的所有非洲国家都得到了中国的发展援助（奇怪的是，这还包括南非这样人均GDP高于中国的国家）。援助是中非历史和外交写照的一部分，而不仅仅是用于谋取非洲资源的伎俩。

    “非洲可以收买吗？它已经被中国收买了。”

    可能有人认为中国不怀好意，觉得中国为了殖民非洲而正在搜集非洲各国的资源。读了某些报告后，人们可能会觉得已经出现了这样的情况。对此我要说两点。

    首先，经常有人对中国在非洲的投资大肆添枝加叶，但就是找不到真凭实据。中国政府一直没有公布对非洲的援助数字，两家主要对非贷款银行——中国进出口银行（China Exim Bank）和中国国家开发银行（aChina Development bank）也无数据可循。大多数估算都偏高，原因是重复统计以及涵盖范围过广，将所有政府出资的经济活动都归类为“援助”。布劳蒂甘指出，专门提供援助数据的组织AidData估算中国对非援助约为750亿美元（4,597.5亿元人民币），这个外界广泛引用的数字简直是无稽之谈。

    除了人们可能夸大中国对非援助数字以外，布劳蒂甘在2010年曾经撰文指出，美国向非洲输送的官方资金超过中国。此外，美国审计署（Government Accountability Office）提供的2007-2011年数据显示，美国对非洲的直接外商投资也多于中国。

    其次，从组织方面看，中国在非洲的援助和投资活动存在信息交流不畅的问题。这拨人往往不知道那拨人在干什么。中国的这些援助和投资活动小而分散，缺乏统一性，在政策上也不进行协调。换句话说，中国并没有在用医院换非洲的矿权。

    当然，这并不是说应将中国在非洲的所做作为都视为善举——其实根本无法对此进行总结。中非之间的互动多种多样，其中既包括中国承诺在非洲各地修建几十家疟疾诊所，也有中国经理向举行抗议活动的赞比亚矿工开火。中国在非洲有许多张不同的面孔。

"The new kid in town"

    While the past decade has witnessed dramatic growth in Sino-African trade, Beijing's engagement in Africa is nothing new. The modern association between China and Africa stretches back to the 1950s, when the People's Republic of China competed with Taiwan for recognition as the "real" China. As African states won independence -- and would come to populate about a quarter of the UN's membership seats -- Beijing was anxious to isolate Taipei while building development relationships.

    Deborah Brautigam, a Johns Hopkins China scholar, contends that Beijing's "one-China" policy continues to shape its African investments. Aid is primarily a diplomatic tool. As a consequence, Beijing offers development aid of some sort to every country with which it maintains relations (oddly including countries, like South Africa, which has a higher per capita GDP than China). Aid is part of a historical and diplomatic narrative, not simply a stratagem for snapping up Africa's resources.

"Africa for sale? Sold, to Beijing."

    One might have the impression of Beijing as evil mastermind: marshaling state resources for the colonization of Africa. From reading some reports, one might think that's already happened. There are two points to make.

    First, the scope of Beijing's investments in Africa are often grossly embellished. Good numbers simply aren't available. Beijing does not release aid figures, and China Exim Bank and China Development bank, the main lenders, publish no data. Most estimates are exaggerations, resulting from double counting and over-broad definitions that count all state-sponsored economic activity as "aid." According to Brautigam, the AidData estimate that Chinese aid to Africa is around $75 billion -- widely reported -- is rubbish.

    While China's African aid data may be exaggerated, Brautigam writes that in 2010 the U.S. disbursed more in official finance to Africa than China. Furthermore, according to U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) data for 2007-2011, American FDI to the continent was bigger than Beijing's.

    Second, Chinese aid and investment actors are organizationally stove-piped. Often the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Rather than acting in a unitary fashion, China in Africa is made up of many little actors. And those actors don't coordinate aid-investment policy. In other words, China doesn't build a hospital to win a mining concession.

    This is not to say that Chinese dealings in Africa should be generalized as benign -- only that it's hard to generalize at all. The spectrum of Sino-African interactions is broad. It ranges from a Chinese commitment to build dozens of malaria clinics across the continent, to Chinese managers opening fire on protesting miners in Zambia. In Africa, China has many faces.