Host: Angela (UCL Asiatic Affairs) 

Podcast Participants (in order of appearance): Larissa (UCL Africa Conference), Stephen (UCL Africa Conference), Lisa (UCL Africa Conference) and  Min Jing (UCL Asiatic Affairs) 

Angela: Hello everyone. Welcome to yet another episode of Narratives of Asia. This episode will be the third episode of our collaboration between UCL Africa Conference and UCL Asiatic Affairs. As part of our mini podcast series on China-Africa relations, in our third episode, we will be looking further at China's involvement in Africa and specifically ruminating over its apparently neocolonial practices.

I’m Angela, Publications Officer at UCL Asiatic Affairs and second-year European Social and Political Studies student at UCL, and I will be the moderator for this discussion. Joining me today is Min Jing, one of the members from the Writers’ Group at Asiatic Affairs and I'm joined by Larissa, Stephen and Lisa from the UCL Africa Conference.

If I could ask you all to please introduce yourselves.

Larissa: Hi, I'm Larissa. I'm a second-year law student at UCL and I am part of the logistics team at UCL Africa Conference. I am half German and half Cameroonian. 

Stephen: Hey, I'm Stephen. I'm currently a second year mechanical engineering student at UCL. I'm originally from Nigeria and I'm currently co-executive of the UCL Africa Conference. 

Lisa: Hi, I'm Lisa. I'm a second-year law student and  I'm co executive of UCLA alongside Stephen, and I'm also of Nigerian descent. 

Min Jing: Hi, I'm Min Jing. I'm a first year English student and I'm part of the Writers’ Group at Asiatic Affairs. 

Angela: In our previous episodes, we've talked about the broader China-Africa project, we've talked about China's foreign policy towards Africa, and often has it been viewed in media that China's infrastructure practices in Africa are actually contemporary manifestations of neocolonialism and this is practiced in Africa and also other areas around the world. What are your initial thoughts on this?

Larissa: I think there are two things that we should consider, one speaks for this thesis and one speaks against it. One thing which is definitely comparable to colonialism, as we have seen it in history previously, is that China is using projects in Africa in order to gain influence. You can definitely see that China all in all is trying to become, actually is becoming already, an international, a global, superpower. If you look very closely, it is much talked about when it happens in Africa but it also happens in many other countries around the world, including western countries on a smaller scale, that China's increasing its influence; that is definitely one vertical that you can compare. But on the other hand, I think one main aspect, or characteristic of colonialism, is that the purpose was the exploitation of the region, of the resources, of the labor force, and that is not necessarily China's primary aim. I think you can compare but China's focus is much more on the picture and not as much on gaining resources and advancing its own economic status. 

Stephen: I would kind of disagree with Larissa’s point because some of the debt that African countries are down to, for example, are backed by natural resources. If they don't pay back their debt, that means they have to give China natural resources such as copper, coal, oil, and so on. I think some of the actions that China is doing is quite malicious in some sense because their idea is that they're trying to gain natural resources through countries defaulting on debt just to better their economy.

Lisa: Some have argued that that China's practices now resemble what European countries were doing in the past With it now being neocolonialism, in the way that Steven described, China is offering loans that are backed by resources and such resources will go back to China rather than benefiting just the general economy in Africa.

Min Jing: Well, with that in mind, though, I think there's also room to consider how these loans and how these collaborations, if we can call them that, actually materialized in the first place. When you talk about colonialism in the more conventional sense, it is how the oppressor just tries to do things their way in the country that they are trying to colonize. 

In terms of how China is actually distributing all these loans, you can see that they embark on a policy of what we can call non-interference. In a sense, that is very different from, how the Western countries and the IMF, how these organizations actually conduct their loans practices. China just doesn't interfere in whatever they want to do, which can say that it gives rise to an increased risk of corruption but at the same time this is the thing that actually entices some African states to having these agreements with China in the first place. It's not in the most definite sense, I think, colonialism. It's not neo-imperialism in that sense because it's a fully consensual agreement in the first place.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree. Well, it doesn't resemble colonialism at all because as you mentioned, it is consensual in some ways. But if we do look at the definition of neocolonialism, I think it's defined as the use of economic, political, cultural, or other pressures to control or influence other countries, especially former dependencies. So yeah, they are kind of using loans to influence countries and we can see that with just China's view, trying to export its viewpoint, like in terms of wanting allegiance in the UN, although it's quite tacit. It's not said, but it's like an unspoken thing where they are looking to gain support on the world stage through their practice and I would still define it as neocolonialism.

Min Jing: I think with money now being in the picture and how we talked about the debt trap.  Now that it is in the picture, it resembles more neocolonialism. Although we also have to keep in mind that whatever that's taking place in the UN, trying to form a block with Africa or things like that, they have been going on since before this whole thing even started. But yeah, I agree. I mean, money always complicates things. 

Stephen: Just to add to Lisa and Min’s point, I would also say we should also consider the reasons why African countries can't get debt from other places and other sources because they could also play a part in why African countries have possibly fallen into this debt trap. Credit ratings from the IMF, for example, mean that African countries can't get debt from (northern banks) which is where other countries traditionally used to get debt. So it's also important to consider the other countries apart from China's well.

Min Jing: I think it might also be a part of this global phenomenon, this illusionment of decades of aid projects from the West. Particularly in Africa, which still results in this underdevelopment that we see. I think it's not just a Sino-Africa thing and, Stephen is right, we should also look at how it all works out globally.

Angela: In this whole portrayal about the US, Min Jing you made a really good point about how it’s not just in China-Africa relations, you also see elsewhere in the world, and when you think of the US and its cultural hegemony, do you think it is another manifestation of neocolonialism or not? 

Min Jing: I think that's a very loaded question. I don't think I've read up enough about it to actually give a measured opinion. I think from what we've all mentioned earlier, is that every country has their own interests in mind. Perhaps some of our African counterparts would tend to say that their leaders need to take the country's interests in mind better, but when we view the US-China discourse, it's always with the lens of how both countries are sort of fighting for dominance. Maybe not hegemony, but I think dominance is perhaps a better word for it. 

I'm not sure if we can call it imperialism because that's quite a strong word to use and I don't think I've read up enough about it. I think a lot of it boils down to the conflict between two strong powers. In mandarin, there is this idiom that goes like, there can't be two tigers on a mountain. So that is what's playing out here and that there just can't be too many strong players on the global arena. Which, you know, is how the Cold War came about.

Lisa: Off the back of that and mentioning something that Stephen said, I do think it's a bit different with the US because they have that whole background of how they've mistreated Africans and everything, so I think they're a lot more careful in the way they approach Africa, whereas China doesn't have that history. I think it's viewed a bit differently and also just the fact that China outputs so much, so it really does need the resources. There's more motivation behind it in comparison to the US, which doesn't export as much as China does.

Larissa: Yes, I think one important distinction between China and the US is that many African countries are more dependent or reliant on the exports of China than the US. Therefore, China has more force and more impact on these countries. Whilst the US government still applies a lot of coercion, it does not create the same dependence that put countries, even rich countries, into this dilemma of whether they should go with the trade deal and the economic benefits or whether they should restrain concerns, for example, human rights concerns, but also the impact of China on African countries.

Stephen: Yeah, I guess looking at it in terms of foreign policy, the US is aggressive in its foreign policy to other countries compared to China and China is much more submissive, if that makes sense. The US is a lot more aggressive overall because they've tried to take the role of the Big Brother of the world, and of every other country in the world; they try not to hold China in check. Whereas China is more or less trying to find a way to go about this without making it seem as aggressive as the US would do. If the US were to do the same thing, they're probably doing a much more aggressive manner.

Angela: Absolutely. Just to bring the discussion back to Asia and Africa relations, we qualified the relevancy of determining China's investment and involvement as neocolonial and discussed briefly over its non intervention policy and how it compares to actions by the US or European countries. 

Our discussion over these three episodes has opened up new narratives, proving it difficult to term China-Africa relations as being a collaboration. Given the narratives about China's involvement being neocolonial and exploitative in both economic and political senses, is there common ground for solidarity between the two regions?

Larissa: I would actually say that that is difficult because I think one problem, with the kind of cultural background and also the political systems, is that China has fundamentally different political systems to Western society. Obviously, due to the colonial history, many African citizens are also not too fond of the European system, but what they're experiencing are also more authoritative systems that resemble the regime of China more than our own countries, which are those governments that are corrupt and malfunctioning. So I don't think that the political philosophy of China, which is evident in every single one of their actions, is very appealing to African citizens.

Angela: Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. But that was a really insightful note to end on. Again, thank you so much for joining me today, we've managed to cover a lot of ground in terms of discussion over the past three episodes. 

If you've enjoyed today's discussion, we really like to encourage you to listen to the other episodes in the series. Finally, thank you for tuning in to the mini podcast series on China-Africa relations, co-produced between UCL Asiatic Affairs and UCL Africa conference. This has been Angela, Stephen, Min Jing, Lisa, Larissa and Hafsa, who join us for an earlier episode.