Comparative Education Bulletin - Faculty of Education - The ...

grounds for caution. Major concerns about the Chinese cooperation
with Africa are related to China’s policy of “non-interference” in local
affairs and hence its dealings with a number of leaders who have
been criticized for human rights abuses, environmental destruction
and large-scale corruption. For example, China has declared that
“developing friendly relations” with Robert Mugabe’s regime in
Zimbabwe, “accused by opponents and rights groups for using torture
and arbitrary arrests to quell dissent”, is “an unshakeable policy”
(South China Morning Post, 6th November, 2006). Also, China’s lack
of transparency for the provision of loans to African countries has
worried Western donor countries, especially in view of their recent
canceling of US$50 billion in debt to African countries. The World
Bank’s president, initially critical of China’s lack of transparency, later
seems to have changed his mind on this matter (South China Morning
Post, 1st November, 2006).
This disapproval from Western observers of China’s African
policies is weakened by a certain double talk. Most Western countries
still have close relationships with governments that are in flagrant
violation of basic human rights (Sautman and Yan, 2006; King, 2006).
However, other observers have pointed out that “two wrongs don’t make
a right” – in other words, because the West largely prioritizes market
access and economic dominance rather than human rights should not
mean that China need follow a similar pattern.
China’s economic successes and its engagement with African
nations, which are taking different paths than those envisioned and
proposed by Western nations and institutions, have led many observers
to question whether there is a Chinese model for development. It is
to the discussion of the existence of such a model – the “Beijing Consensus”
as it has been called – that we will now turn our attention.
Is There a Chinese Model for Development?
Although there is evidence of worsening inequality between poorer
rural areas and the eastern seaboard of China (Chaudhuri and
Ravallion, 2006), international recognition of the country’s success in
moving millions out of poverty, and the sustained increase in GDP
per capita and rate of economic growth, have encouraged observers to
consider China as a possible model for poverty reduction. According
to the Government and the UNDP (2005), “China has now achieved
the target of halving the number of poor people from the 1990 figure
of 85 million”. Likewise, the UK’s Department for International
Development (DFID) indicates that the number of those living on less
than $1 a day has fallen from 600 million in 1979 to 135 million in 2004
(2006), although there are still some 500 million living on less than $2 a
day.
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