China in Africa: The Real Story
Quoting journalist Howard French, the report says that "unlike the West, China 'has declined to tell African governments how they should run their countries, or to make its investments contingent on government reform'." And quoting Fanie Herman and Tsai Ming-Yen, the report says: "The U.S. focuses on humanitarianism, good governance, and democratization of petroleum-producing states in their oil diplomacy approach," unlike China.
I would have expected better than this in a report coming from the Council on Foreign Relations. Is the US oil diplomacy approach really focused on good governance and democratization in Equatorial Guinea, Angola, or Saudi Arabia? I don't think so. Have Western companies like ExxonMobil, Freeport McMoRan, American Tobacco, etc., made their natural resource investments in Nigeria, Chad, the DRC, or Zimbabwe contingent on governance reform? Again, I don't think so.
We're more likely to have a solid basis for understanding Chinese engagement in Africa if we in the West stop assuming that we're the good guys, that our oil diplomacy is pure, that our companies wouldn't think of investing in a non-democratic country ... "unlike China".
