Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

Without doubt Africa is the world’s poorest continent, in terms of money. Yet it has great riches, especially mineral, but the continent and its people have never been able to benefit from this. At first colonial exploiters stole from Africa, but then when Africa’s nations became independent, the larceny continued. A very small elite, usually closely related (often literally) with the countries’ rulers benefitted massively, salting their misgotten gains in bank accounts in Switzerland and New York. Their people meanwhile languished in extreme poverty, facing chronic malnutrition and disease, in societies denied even basic infrastructure. The result has been that those countries which have not been “blessed” with mineral resources, whileremaining very poor, have nevertheless seen economic and social improvements far in excess of those “enjoyed” by nations which, because of their mineral and hydrocarbons, should be rich, but aren’t. This wicked irony has been christened resource curse.

Some leading mining companies have started to counter resource curse, and are committing time and more importantly money into attempts to spread the benefits of natural resources among larger sections of the population. Unfortunately a fairly new player has joined the ranks of exploiters: the government of the People’s Republic of China and its parastatal procurement agencies. The unprecedented growth in the Chinese economy depends on huge resources of raw materials and fuels which cannot be supplied from domestic sources. As a victim of nearly two centuries of colonial exploitation one would expect mainland China to the threats posed to countries in the Third World to short-term exploitation, without giving anything tangible to these nations and their infrastructures. Nothing could be further from the truth. Deals are often reached in secret with governments, whose people can only watch with anger and dismay as the huge figures spoken of are ciphoned off and disappear into a small handful of well-placed pockets. Recently an agreement was reached between China and the land-locked nation of Niger worth $5bn for the exploration and exploitation of the nation’s oil reserves. This agreement was reached behind closed doors, and nobody knows its details or where and how the money is to be spent. The country’s people will however continue to suffer hardships such as drought, decimation of crops by locusts: all of which are being worsened by global warming.

The People’s Republic of China is now a major member of the club of neo-colonialists or “neo-cols”.