The Energy Issue - School of International and Public Affairs ...

AFRICA’S ROAD BUILDERS
CHINA’S GROWING ENERGY NEEDS ARE LEADING IT TO SOME OF
Chinese construction workers
have become a ubiquitous
part of the African
development landscape,
referred to by many as
“Africa’s road builders.”
Today, Chinese firms are
making some of the most
sizeable contributions to African infrastructure.
They have built roads in Kenya, bridges in
Rwanda, new train lines and airports in Angola,
and satellites in Nigeria. Their impact can be
seen in even the most dangerous parts of the continent,
where other investors wouldn’t dare to
tread.
Chinese interest in Africa is not a new phenomenon.
On average, Chinese trade with Africa
has doubled each year since 1995, reaching $37
billion in 2006. And its closest business relationships
are with some of Africa’s pariah states—
including countries with antagonistic relations
with the United States.
It should be no surprise that American policymakers
are taking note—and some are expressing
concern.
But what is driving China’s ambitions in
Africa? And do they pose a substantial threat?
At their most basic level, these ambitions are
fundamentally about oil. China’s economy has
averaged more than 9 percent growth in the past
three decades, and its population now exceeds
1.3 billion.
With that growth has come a voracious need
for resources, not the least of which is oil. The
U.S. Energy Information Administration reports
that China accounts for 40 percent of the global
growth in oil demand over the past four years. It
is the second highest consumer of oil, placing it
in direct competition with the number one consumer,
the United States.
Yet it seems that, for the moment, this is a
contest that China is eager to avoid. China is
seeking new markets where it won’t be chafing
against the West, most notably, the United
States.
There is no clearer example of this strategy of
avoidance than Angola. China had almost no
presence in the country until Shell divested itself
of its Angolan holdings in 2004. That year,
China purchased $2 billion in Angolan oil; in
2006, that figure stood at $10 billon.
One measure of just how close Angolan-
Chinese relations have become is the fact that 70
percent of all foreign business contracts in
Angola involve Chinese corporations. A Chinese
chamber of commerce was established there last
year. And this year, Angola has surpassed Saudi
Arabia to become the top exporter of oil to
China.
This investment has come with a substantial
amount of infrastructure development. Chinese
construction companies have built a new airport
in Luanda, the capital city, as well as new highways
from the capital to prominent mining districts.
While all of these projects are intended to
grease the wheels for future Chinese oil exploration
in Angola, from the current Angolan perspective,
this hardly matters. For a country
emerging from decades of civil war, functional
roads are good in and of themselves.
Perhaps the best example of China’s investment
in Angola is the Benguela Railroad.
Formerly running from the mineral rich Katanga
province in the Congo through Angola to
Zambia, it was part of a transcontinental railroad
that ran all the way from Dar es Salaam to
Johannesburg. Civil wars in Angola and the
Congo, along with rampant poverty in Zambia,
destroyed this vital regional lifeline.
“The Benguela Railroad was basically never
going to come to life again in our lifetime,” said
Walter Kansteiner, former Assistant Secretary of
State on African Affairs. “And lo and behold, the
reports are that half of the line from the coast to
the Angola-Congo border is now complete.”
Somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 Chinese
laborers are responsible for this infrastructure
that will reconnect that area of the continent.
Yet this kind of reciprocity between China
and its African trading partners has in other cases
born much more dubious fruit.
After Nigeria, Sudan is the second largest supplier
of African oil to the world. Nevertheless, its
vast supply has remained untapped by many
Western nations, including the United States,
which have forbidden their domestic oil industries
from trading with Sudan, in an effort to punish its
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