China’s diplomatic and economic engagement with Africa can be dated back to the period of African decolonization (the mid-1950s to 1975), when African countries started to gain independence. In recent years, however, the Chinese government, through state-owned and state-funded enterprises, has poured massive sums of money into sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to more than 1.1 billion people — over 75% of China’s estimated population.
This was further accelerated by Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s launch of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 to create more “international collaboration.”
Africa’s rapidly growing population and increasing urbanization have increased the demand for development, particularly in the infrastructure industry. In 2020 alone, it is estimated that Chinese companies were responsible for 31% of infrastructure projects on the African continent. China continues to pour billions of dollars into Africa in efforts to dominate the continent’s natural resources sector and use its presence in Africa to promote the Chinese Communist Party’s anti-Western foreign policy agenda.
In the decades that followed the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, China’s rapid economic growth was virtually unparalleled in the history of human civilization. Pundits sometimes refer to this as the “China miracle.” This “miracle,” however, would not have occurred without the following four features — one high and three lows of China’s system of autocratic governance: high corruption, low human rights, low environmental regulations and low morality (i.e., an absence of, disregard for, or inability to discern right from wrong).
In a sense, China has disseminated the same model to Africa. This makes the CCP much more competitive in Africa (in terms of its ability to engage in influence peddling) than in Western democracies such as the United States and Canada.
Beijing’s involvement in Africa raises several red flags, not only because of the Chinese government’s exploitative intentions but also because of the “China model,” in particular serious human rights abuses and corruption against Africans. According to a recent report by the London-based nonprofit Business and Human Rights Resource Center, of 1,690 allegations of human rights abuses related to Chinese investments worldwide, 181 were reported in Africa. Most of these human rights abuses occurred in Africa’s mining and construction sectors. In every single case, the Chinese companies involved either denied the allegations or simply ignored them.