In the Western press the conventional wisdom holds that China is emerging as a new colonial power in Africa. American University professor Deborah Brautigam has written a provacative new book, “The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa,” that challenges that view. Indeed, Brautigam contends that China’s “idea” of development may in the end prevail over the often fadish Western approaches to aid and development in Africa. Triple Crisis blogger Kevin P. Gallagher interviewed professor Brautigam on China’s role in Africa.
This is all well and good – China as “new colonialist” is not a very illuminating term. But the more nuanced question that skeptics ask is whether Chinese investment is enabling unaccountable or incompetent leaders to maintain or tighten their hold on power, and if so, whether the malign effects of this power concentration will outweigh or cancel out some or all of the positive effects of investment and the “opportunity” provided by infrastructural gains and commercial activity. It’s fine to see some knocking down of the simplistic “new colonialist” notion, but it would be nice to see some discussion of the more complicated issues as well.
yeah, what was up with that swastika? i almost did some performance art of my own on that piece. of the bodily fluid variety. the armory art orgy was overwhelming to say the least. some pretty nice work in there though.