China – a partner or a foe?
The People’s Republic of China (PRC), commonly known as China is also been referred to in other climes as the Republic of China (ROC). What China has not been able to do is to clear the confusion caused by the two names they are known for as some countries refers to them in one name and other countries in the other name. 192 countries are members of the United Nations, whereas out of that China has full diplomatic relations with 178. Looking at China it is obvious that China is an emerging superpower; China is very influential talking of its foreign policy and strategic thinking.
It is very important to note that much of Chinese foreign policies are formulated by committees set up outside government settings comprising of technocrats, which they referred to as think-tanks. Discussions between these discussants that form the think tanks are generally freer and less restricted than discussions between government officials.
“As of 2014, the Pew Research Center indicated that 21 surveyed countries had a positive view (50% or above) of China, the top ten most positive countries being Pakistan (78%), Tanzania (77%), Bangladesh (77%), Malaysia (74%), Kenya (74%), Thailand (72%), Senegal (71%), Nigeria (70%), Venezuela (67%), and Indonesia (66%). Meanwhile, the ten surveyed countries that had a negative view (below 50%) of China were Japan (7%), Vietnam (16%), Turkey (21%), Italy (26%), Germany (28%), India (31%), Poland (32%), Jordan (35%), the United States (35%), and Colombia (38%). The Chinese people’s own view of their country was 96% favourability. In the 2019 Pew survey, the nations with the most positive view of China were Russia, Nigeria and Israel.”
During the last decades of the 20th century, while China‘s relations with its Asian neighbours and Vietnam since a border war was fought in 1979 had been stable, a territorial dispute with its Southeast Asian neighbours over islands in the South of China Sea remains unresolved and so is the dispute in the East of China Sea with Japan. These conflicts have had a negative impact on China’s reputation in many parts of the world.
Chinese foreign policy in the late 1990 and early 2021 was basically on improving relations with Russia and Europe. Their aim was to come at pal with the U.S. That way, they felt they could checkmate the influence of the U.S. who was already a superpower through the alliance with other powers like Russia and the Europe.
Despite China’s policy to improve on relations, they worked against India and Japan from becoming permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which has resulted in bad relations among them.
On till now Eurasia and Africa have been enjoying China’s investments in many projects around to improve on their infrastructure. They also financed a very large port in Sri Lanka but when Sri Lanka defaulted on its loans, China took control of the port for 99 years which drew allegations of debt-trap diplomacy on China.
This debt-trap diplomacy by China was responsible for the cancelation of several Chinese Investments in Malaysia when the government of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad determined that Malaysia could not afford them.
This arrangement by China to get Sri Lanka to cough up a port was an indication that China’s debt traps around the world are a trademark of its imperialist ambitions, China’s hegemonic intentions and the challenge of the sovereignty of such states.
There is the suspicion that China’s imperialist ambition and hegemonic intentions is the reason for its estimated 800 Chinese corporations doing business in Africa, most of which are private companies investing in the infrastructure, energy and banking sectors. They also came with unconditional and low-rate credit lines to completely push the west from doing business in these regions.
It is also on record that China had been involved in peace-making mission to Africa. China provided military training, equipment to a few countries and dispatched around 1,500 soldiers under the UN umbrella to Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2004.
In an attempt to counterbalance Africa’s Western ally China decided to bring low the prices of Chinese-made weaponry and military equipment leading to an increasing number of African countries shifting their source of supply from traditional providers such as Russia and the U.S to China. China had been criticised of aiding war crime by selling arms to some states accused by Western countries of war crimes, such as Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Despite China’s Nine Principles to Encourage and Standardise Enterprises’ Overseas Investment, a charter and guide of conduct to Chinese companies operating abroad, Chinese role in Africa has more to do with neo-colonialism and all forms of discrimination especially against African products, which has led to the flooding of the African markets with low-cost Chinese-made products, thus harming the growth and the survival of local industries and businesses.
The increasing ties with China by many African Nations including Nigeria and Caribbean nations have been used as a way to decrease long time over-dependence on the United States.
China’s policy in these regions was the utilisation of dollar diplomacy or the attempts of currency swap which is looked at from the point of cheaper China made products.
In a similar objective with Africa and the Caribbean, the Arab world had a wide-range of shared interests that enabled China and Arab to strengthen cooperation, which China to always be a sincere friend of the Arab world no matter how the international situation changes.
The Sino-Arab Cooperation Forum was formally established during China’s paramount leader Hu Jintao’s visit to the League’s headquarters in January 2004 and Li stated that the establishment of the forum would be conducive to expanding mutually beneficial cooperation in a variety of areas.
It was in the spirit of expanding mutually beneficial cooperation that the PRC submitted four proposals as follows:
- Maintaining mutual respect, equitable treatment and sincere cooperation on the political front.
- Promoting economic and trade ties through cooperation in investment, trade, contracted projects, labour service, energy, transportation, telecommunications, agriculture, environmental protection and information.
- Expanding cultural exchanges.
- Conducting personnel training,
Arab foreign ministers attending the meeting agreed that the formal inauguration of the forum was a significant event in the history of Arab ties with China. At the conclusion of the meeting, Li and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa signed a declaration and an action plan for the forum, which makes the Arab world not to be subservient to China, that is exactly the strategies Africa never put in place that continually puts the continent on the disadvantage in their economic ties with China because they enter into agreements without looking at the defects in the agreement.
China is a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking. Women, men, and children are trafficked for purposes of sexual slavery and forced labour. There are more of internal trafficking in China when compered to international trafficking of Chinese citizens. Most of the time women are lured through false promises of legitimate employment into commercial sexual exploitation. In China, there very powerful men and who serves as agents in the business of smuggling Chinese men and women out of China to other parts of the world at enormous personal expense and then forced them into commercial sex workers or exploitative labour to repay debts to traffickers. Women and children are trafficked into China from neighbouring Mongolia, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, and Vietnam for forced labour, marriage, and sexual slavery. Some of these sex workers enter north-eastern China voluntarily, but others reportedly are trafficked into China from North Korea. Domestic trafficking remains the most significant problem in China, with an estimated minimum of 10,000–20,000 victims trafficked each year within China.
Drug laws in China are very harsh, many foreigners have been sentenced to death in China for drug trafficking but when it comes to human traffickers, China failed to show evidence of increasing efforts to address transnational human trafficking. Though the government provides protection to internal victims of human trafficking, protection for Chinese and foreign victims of transnational human trafficking remain inadequate.
Despite the hash drug law in China, it is also on record that China is a major trans-shipment point for heroin produced in the Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia. There is a growing domestic drug abuse problem in China, which to a larger extent shows that the hash drug law in China is more of an indictment of foreigners.
In summary, China is a foe rather than a partner as I submit that while China‘s relations with its Asian neighbours and Vietnam had been stable, a territorial dispute with its Southeast Asian neighbours remains unresolved and so is the dispute with Japan. Though China is improving relations with Russia and Europe, the motive behind the alliance is to dominate the world economy where the influence of the “West” would be checkmated and pushed out of prominence and ensured that their possible upcoming rivals, India and Japan are not permanent members of the United Nation. China’s investment in infrastructure in Eurasia and Africa by way of unconditional and low-rate credit lines is to take control of their economy as seen in Sri-Lanka, clearly shows China’s imperialist ambitions, hegemonic intentions and the outright challenge of the sovereignty of such states through debt-trap diplomacy. China’s involvement in peace-making mission to Africa is to create room for acceptance for their provision of low prices of Chinese-made weaponry and military equipment, an attempt to counterbalance Africa’s Western ally, which actually supports unrest in the region. China’s dollar diplomacy or currency swap in the regions is an attempt of neo-colonialism which is looked at from the point of cheaper China made products against local production. China as a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking for sexual slavery and forced labour is not in the interest of the world especially that China is a major trans-shipment point for heroin.
