China, it seems, has never seen a conflict in Africa it did not want to fun. For Beijing, bad governance sometimes means good business, to spite ‘western’ democracy.
The rejection of a shipment of weapons to Zimbabwe three weeks ago confirms China’s race to catch up in exploiting Africa’s potential. The Asian giant wants oil, gas, copper, iron, fish and timber. And it is sometimes ready to trade these with arms.
China’s propensity to get its timing wrong, especially with arms exports, is legendary. Darfur bleeds as China celebrates. In the eyes of ordinary citizens of Darfur, China is as much an enemy as the Arab junta in Khartoum. The junta, whose source of arms is China, has been accused of financing the Janjaweed militia that kills villagers in Darfur.
Arms trade
Aviation Week and Space Technology journal reports China has sold the Islamic government weapons and $100million worth of Shenyang fighter planes, including 12 supersonic F-7 jets. Helicopter gunships reportedly used to terrorise civilians in Darfur may have been from China.
During their border war between 1998 and 2000, China was reportedly selling arms to Ethiopia and Eritrea. In January and February, Kenya bled as China reaped. There was an excuse of “wrong timing” for the legitimate business of exporting arms.
Zimbabwe moans as China enjoys an arms export boom. International Broadcast Bureau says China provided a radio-jamming device to Zimbabwe that allows the Robert Mugabe regime to block broadcasts of independent sources like Radio Africa from a military base outside Harare.
In 2000, China is reported to have swapped a shipment of small arms for eight tonnes of ivory. Those arms may be in the hands of ‘war veterans’ who terrorise civilians for change.
China does not mind inflaming conflicts provided there is a business opportunity. After all, the West exploited conflicts in Africa during classical imperialism.
Now it is China’s turn.
Three weeks ago China was caught with its pants around its heels trying to export arms to Zimbabwe to prop up a drowning Mugabe.
The Zimbabewean despot is drowning under an avalanche of pro-democracy votes, whose outcome he was too embarrassed to publish. Mugabe, a former liberator, could not believe he is no longer wanted. But even the vote recount that confirms he lost, even after rigging, has not opened the dictator’s eyes to the reality of rejection. Instead he is scheming to rig a runoff with his thrasher Morgan Tsvangarai, the Movement for Democratic Change presidential candidate.
Military generals who have always supported Mugabe are restless. Cushioning war veterans and generals against a dead economy as Mugabe has always done, won’t help.
A former Mugabe ally and Minister for Information Prof Jonathan Moyo, was quoted, as saying: “The generals around Mugabe experience (economic problems) in ways that are different. They have access to subsidised fuel. They have State vehicles, they get subsidised foreign currency so they are able to live in a fantasy world within hell for everyone else.”
Mugabe hangs on, and wants to move on, because he holds the instruments of power and violence. But it is dockworkers of South Africa who exposed China’s plot inflame abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe. The workers refused to unload weapons from a Chinese ship.
Reuters quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu, saying: “To my knowledge, the Chinese company has decided to recall the ship and the relevant goods bound for Zimbabwe.”
The ‘relevant’ goods aboard the ship, An Yue Jiang were 77 tonnes of ammunition, mortars and rifle grenades. The ship arrived amid claims Mugabe is mobilising against the people. A number of these people have been brutalised in anticipation there could be a runoff.
Again China’s timing was wrong, as did the arrival of such goods in Kenya in January when the country was bleeding. But that is China, increasingly known for cutting deals with bad governments and arming them to subvert ‘western’ democracy.
China was a late starter in the arms trade, and especially its trade ties with Africa are nascent. But the haste to catch up, and beat the West at its own game, should not justify blatant complicity in human rights abuses, under the guise of official policy that de-links business from politics. But the business of selling arms is always political.
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