CHINA IN AFRICA: FRENCH ARE WATCHING CLOSELY AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 PARIS 005733

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/25/2016
TAGS: PREL PHUM ECON EAID ETRD CH XA FR
SUBJECT: CHINA IN AFRICA: FRENCH ARE WATCHING CLOSELY AND
SEEK DIALOGUE WITH THE U.S. IN MEETING THE CHALLENGE

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Classified By: CDA Josiah Rosenblatt, reason 1.5 (b/d).


1. (C) SUMMARY AND COMMENT: French observers believe
China's growing presence in Africa reflects a strategic
decision by the PRC to exploit a resource-rich continent
susceptible to an aggressive Chinese approach. French
contacts express apprehension at Chinese inroads into areas
of Africa once seen as a French preserve, and concern that
the way China provides assistance and does business --
employing dubious commercial practices and avoiding calls for
local reforms -- gives the PRC an advantage over France and
the West. An expanding Chinese diaspora in Africa (in the
500,000-750,000 range, according to MFA and MOD estimates)
facilitates and complements the official PRC presence. One
element of China's Africa policy is to limit, if not
eliminate, Taiwan's influence in Africa, with Chad's recent
recognition of the PRC an evident success. The French
nonetheless believe there are countervailing factors that may
inhibit Chinese expansion in Africa, with Africans possibly
becoming wary of colonial-style exploitation by the PRC,
racism on both sides that could impede progress, and
attractive alternatives offered by other global partners.


2. (C) SUMMARY AND COMMENT CONT'D: According to our
interlocutors, Chinese engagement in Africa is not
necessarily bad, with some Chinese projects likely to
strengthen Africa's economies. And, while the Chinese
currently express little interest in or sensitivity to
domestic political or "sovereignty" issues, they may
eventually need to join others in pushing for good governance
and the rule of law, if only to protect their investments.
Despite their concerns about Chinese activity in Africa, our
French contacts offer few thoughts on a French
counter-strategy. The challenge China presents is one of
several the French are confronting as they try to maintain an
influence in Africa that is slowly eroding. French calls for
a larger EU engagement in Africa partially in response to the
growing U.S. presence, and may now have a China focus as
well. Ironically, China's appearance in Africa and the
challenges China represents may lead France to view the U.S.
less as a rival and more as a potential partner in responding
to this new and important regional player. The French seem
eager to consult with us on China and Africa, and we believe
it in our interest to encourage such dialogue. END SUMMARY
AND COMMENT.


3. (C) The June 28-30 visit of Deputy NIO for Africa, Dr.
Eric Silla, provided an opportunity to discuss China's
presence in Africa with a range of experts (identified below
by name/affiliation as appropriate) at the MFA, MOD, and
Prime Ministry, and from the academic and think-tank
communities. These discussions followed several months of
tracking the issue in the French press (which reports
regularly on China's activities in Africa),other on-going
exchanges with our contacts, and via the many China-related
reports our missions in Africa have provided. French
perceptions of the China-Africa relationship are not seamless
-- few of our interlocutors are experts on both China and
Africa, and most expressed frustration that their views were
largely shaped by anecdotal evidence.

A Strategic Objective
--------------

4. (C) All of the experts agree that China has begun a
concerted effort (which some believe reflects a "master
plan") to establish and expand its presence in Africa, with a
focus on obtaining long-term access to resources, primarily
petroleum and minerals. China has made Africa a strategic
objective to a greater degree than have the U.S., France, and
the rest of the developed world, several experts believe.
The need for China to ensure resources for its expanding
economy and population is the obvious reason for this policy.


5. (C) China expert Professor Francois Godement
(Sciences-Po) shares the view that China's interest in Africa
has accelerated in recent years, and he attributes Chinese
urgency in part to the U.S. decision to intervene in Iraq.
In China's view, the U.S. presence in Iraq suddenly created
an uncertain and perhaps unstable global energy market,
causing China to take steps to secure access to oil and other
resources from places outside the Middle East. Godement and

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other local experts say that Africa, rich in resources and
often endowed with weak industrial, political, and legal
infrastructures, serves as an attractive target for the
Chinese, who gear their approach to exploit whatever
opportunities a target country may present.

Chinese Advantages
--------------

6. (C) The PRC's way of doing business offers advantages
over Western competitors, our contacts believe. China often
offers a single package to prospective partners, which
includes labor, support services for the labor force,
technology, and expertise. These single packages allow China
to avoid cumbersome bidding/procurement procedures and the
requirement to address each element of a project separately,
as China's competitors often must do. Although not making
the point explicitly, our interlocutors suggest that China is
less constrained by legally imposed ethical practices that
Western governments and businesses are required to adopt.


7. (C) In that vein, one of the PRC's biggest selling
points in Africa is its openly stated policy of
non-interference regarding local internal politics. Western
assistance is often accompanied by calls for, or predicated
on, reform in such areas as democratization, human rights,
good governance, and sound business practices. Calls for
reform may be hailed or resisted, depending on the country
involved and the segments of society that would be affected
by such reforms. From our perspective, many Africans are
receptive to calls for reform, even if some leaders and
governments resist change. In contrast, China's
"non-interference" policy makes relatively few, if any,
demands for political, economic, and social reform. Chinese
business projects and economic assistance come with
relatively few strings attached, and thus do not involve
"sovereignty issues," as CNRS expert Roland Marchal notes.
This makes Chinese offers attractive to African leaders tired
of Western insistence on good governance, human rights, and
transparent business practices as conditions for doing
business or receiving assistance. However, although China
may benefit from the status quo, the Chinese may have to
change their practices in order to operate in a more open and
transparent environment should reform spread in Africa, some
experts believe.


8. (C) Despite its emerging superpower status, China is
still able to appeal to notions of third-world solidarity
and, when convenient, depict itself as a "victim" of the West
and thus a logical partner of other such "victims." It does
not hesitate to take advantage of this perception in wooing
potential African partners not far removed from the colonial
era, in our contacts' view.

China's African Diaspora
--------------

9. (C) French experts agree that the growing Chinese
diaspora in Africa is also helping solidify China's presence.
MFA DAS-equivalents Bruno Foucher (West Africa) and Remi
Marechaux (South and East Africa) said that the MFA recently
asked its African posts to provide estimates of the number of
Chinese residents in each country, in an effort to supplement
anecdotal evidence. The MFA's final overall tally
(admittedly an imprecise ball-park figure) amounts to about
500,000 Chinese throughout the continent. The French Defense
Ministry's estimate is even higher, in the 500,000-750,000
range, according to MOD Africa and Middle East advisor
Colonel Eric Bonnemaison, who discussed the matter on August
22 with visiting U.S. Ambassador to Burundi Patricia Moller.
Steven Smith, co-author of "How France Lost Africa,"
estimates 40,000 Chinese in Nigeria alone.


10. (C) There is no clear agreement among our contacts on
the degree to which the expansion of this diaspora reflects
official policy or whether it is a natural phenomenon
resulting from China's population pressures and the
historical tendency of individual Chinese, in a pioneer
spirit, to seek their fortunes abroad, often in the form of a
simple restaurant. Our contacts did agree that this diaspora
complements China's industrial and trade policies by
providing a convenient continent-wide network that can serve
as an outlet for selling Chinese products. They also believe

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the diaspora sometimes functions as an in-place community
able to influence local views of China.


11. (C) China's official business and economic assistance
packages operate from a "top down" perspective, while the
diaspora functions at the grassroots level. Our contacts
related several anecdotes on the growing integration of
Chinese immigrants at the shop-owner and street-market level.
Although varying from country to country, small businesses
and traders are sometimes integrated into the local
commercial culture or may operate in a nearby parallel
environment. Susan Perry (American University of Paris and
expert on both Africa and China) was once offered a free meal
when she used an appropriate Mandarin dialect in addressing a
Chinese restaurateur in an East African country. She
described her surprise at seeing Chinese street vendors
intermingled with African counterparts lining a road to the
airport in another country. Several contacts believe that
the Chinese network of small merchants may rival, if not
supplant, the network of Lebanese and Syrian merchants that
has long existed across much of Africa.


12. (C) One unanswered question concerns China's interest
and ability to protect the growing number of its citizens in
Africa. While none of our interlocutors thinks that China is
likely to develop a force-projection capability that would
allow rapid deployment to protect or evacuate its citizens in
times of crisis, MFA DAS-equivalent Marechaux confided that
the Chinese have on occasion asked the French discreetly for
help with respect to PRC nationals in Africa requiring
assistance.

Taiwan
--------------

13. (C) Reflecting a commonly held view, Emmanuel Lenain (a
foreign policy staff member at the Prime Ministry) stressed
that China's policy of expanding its presence in Africa was
also designed to reduce Taiwan's influence, a worldwide
Chinese objective. At present, five African countries
recognize Taiwan -- Burkina Faso, Gambia, Malawi, Sao Tome
and Principe, and Swaziland, with Chad switching relations
from Taiwan to the PRC on August 6, 2006. One of our
contacts quipped that PRC engagement does come with at least
one string attached -- no recognition of Taiwan. Several
experts believed that China's policies in Sudan have been
intended to pressure Chad to cease its recognition of Taiwan,
which may have played a role in Chad's August 6 decision to
do just that.

Obstacles to Chinese Success in Africa
--------------

14. (C) Notwithstanding China's successes to date, several
French experts believe that its Africa policies may not
remain trouble-free. Africans may begin to view Chinese
engagement for what it is -- another exploitation of Africa
by non-Africans -- and several African leaders have already
expressed this concern publicly. Cultural differences may
limit China's ability to engage Africans -- our contacts
commented on the crude racist views Chinese sometimes have of
Africans and vice-versa, and they reported a number of cases
of friction between local merchants and Chinese immigrants.


15. (C) Despite some persisting anti-European sentiments in
Africa dating from the colonial era, our contacts believe
that France and other Western countries will continue to
benefit significantly from the cultural, linguistic, and
commercial ties developed over many decades, if not
centuries. China may offer attractive packages, but in many
ways Westerners will retain certain advantages in Africa
reinforced over time that the Chinese may never be able to
match. One expert notes that the U.S. enjoys several
advantages in this respect; Africans have a generally
positive view of the U.S., in part because it was never a
colonial power in Africa.


16. (C) Deals with Western business sometimes provide
ancillary benefits that Chinese projects may not. These
include much broader job opportunities for locals, improved
infrastructure given over to local control, and more
willingly shared technology and expertise. Our group of
experts said that Africans have begun to complain that

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Chinese companies arrive, build their own facilities with
their own labor, ship raw materials back to China, and do not
add much to the local economy other than by making cheap
Chinese goods readily available. Over time, Africans will
probably grow to resent this mercantilism, our contacts
predict.

China's Engagement Isn't All Bad
--------------

17. (C) Sciences-Po Professor Godement reminds that we
should resist the temptation of assuming that China's
enhanced African presence is necessarily all bad. There are
positives we should acknowledge, he notes -- some economic
and technological benefit for Africans (even if limited) and
a larger role for Africans in the global economy. Chinese
success in expanding the world's energy resources would be a
net gain. Paradoxically and despite China's pretensions of
non-interference, Godement observes that the PRC may
eventually come itself to advocate good governance and the
rule of law, if only in the interest of protecting its
investments. In discussing a relatively new France-China
strategic dialogue on Africa, MFA AF PDAS-equivalent
Elisabeth Barbier disclosed that France wanted to identify
projects for partnership with the PRC in Africa that would
help to commit Beijing to the cause of good governance.


18. (C) On Chinese recognition of the need for sound
business practices, MFA DAS-equivalent Marechaux noted as an
example that the Chinese had approached the French for advice
on Zimbabwe. France had previously furnished a large portion
of Zimbabwe's armaments but curtailed this arrangement
following an EU decision to ban arms transfers to Zimbabwe as
a result of President Mugabe's erratic leadership. The
Chinese stepped into the void. Not long after, the Chinese
asked the French for suggestions on now to make Zimbabwe pay
for the arms China had supplied. Marechaux said the French
response was along the lines of "welcome to the club" in
terms of expecting prompt payment from a client not known for
its reliability. These kinds of experiences, he believes,
will encourage the Chinese to support, if not insist on, good
governance and sound business practices as their ties to
Africa grow.

Japan and India
--------------

19. (C) Our interlocutors seem to take for granted that
Japan and India will try to expand their presence in Africa
to counter China's efforts. India (which they discussed less
than they did Japan) may have certain advantages given the
South Asian communities already established in eastern and
southern Africa. With respect to Japan, notwithstanding
clear indications that Japanese attention to Africa is
increasing in part because of China (e.g., Asia Times August
15 article "Japan Takes on China in Africa"),our French
contacts, in our view, tended to overestimate Japan's
willingness and ability to compete in Africa with China and
on China's scale. The Chinese employ practices the Japanese
may be reluctant to adopt. Moreover, the Japanese are likely
to require higher comfort levels for operating in Africa than
are the Chinese, and the development of a Japanese diaspora
in Africa similar to the Chinese diaspora is an
impossibility. In addition, Japan's growing engagement in
Africa may in part be driven by an entirely separate agenda
-- the desire for increased African support for Japan's
campaign to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security
Council, which was one reported objective of PM Koizumi's
visit to Ethiopia and Ghana in April-May 2006. The Japanese
are certainly following France's Africa policy closely -- two
Japanese emboffs in Paris cover Africa, assisted by a MOFA
specialist. (We would welcome Embassy Tokyo's views on the
extent to which the Japanese are tracking China's activities
in Africa and how China's approach is affecting Japanese
thinking.)

A New Challenge For France
--------------

20. (C) Local experts did not articulate what, if anything,
France and other Western countries should do in response to
Chinese activism in Africa. There are several likely reasons
for their lack of advice on next steps. First, the issue is
a relatively new one that has only recently risen to the

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level where it is receiving focused attention. The French
are in an information-gathering mode and give the impression
that they are just now beginning an analytic process. As
noted, they are hampered by the fact that much of their
information on China and Africa is anecdotal. Second,
several of our interlocutors state bluntly that ex-colonial
power France is not in a position to lecture Africans on the
ills of foreign exploitation.


21. (C) In broader terms, France is grappling with the slow
but steady erosion of its influence in Africa as the colonial
era and initial period of independence recede into the past.
Although ties with former colonies remain, and are in some
cases still strong, they are gradually weakening. Today's
Africans do not share their predecessors' reflexive look to
the colonial power on matters of importance. Political
leaders in France and Africa seem less likely to develop the
close personal ties that have often been central to
relations. Many observers view President Chirac as the last
in a line of French politicians able to charm, cajole, or
reward African leaders into doing France's bidding. Africans
are more willing to look beyond the former colonial powers to
meet their needs, with the U.S. an attractive interlocutor.
Global popular culture (often defined by the U.S.) is
increasingly accessible to Africans, offering alternatives to
traditional French and European cultural norms.

Conclusion: An Opportunity for the U.S.
--------------

22. (C) Within this context, China's move into Africa is
one of many challenges to France's former predominance. As
with other challenges in Africa, there seem to be no simple
solutions for the French. France has increasingly sought an
expanded EU presence in Africa in an effort to retain
influence, albeit at one step removed. Some of France's
concern has heretofore been directed at the growing U.S.
presence in Africa, with the French ambivalently expressing
both unease at this growth but also relief that the U.S. may
be able to do more to "share the burden." China's appearance
and status as a "rival" raise new concerns and may provide an
opportunity for the U.S. to work with France and other
Europeans more comfortable with an expanding U.S. rather than
Chinese presence.


23. (C) We expect that French interest in China's role in
Africa will grow, both within the private sector, now
increasingly forced to compete with China, and within the
GOF, which will seek diplomatic and foreign assistance
leverage to preserve French influence. Whether the French
will be able to develop such leverage remains (to the French
as well) unclear The French seem eager to discuss this issue
with the U.S. -- they asked DASD for Africa Theresa Whelan
specifically for a briefing on China and Africa during her
June 26-28 consultations, and were quick to accommodate
Deputy NIO for Africa Silla when he arrived on the heels of
DASD Whelan's visit. We would encourage a continuing
dialogue on China and Africa with the French, as a topic for
both periodic senior-level consultations and working-level
exchanges.


Please visit Paris' Classified Website at:
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm

Rosenblatt