African-Asian Encounters: New Cooperations and New Dependencies 9789048534913

Citation preview

African-Asian Encounters

Publications The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) is a research and exchange platform based in Leiden, the Netherlands. Its objective is to encourage the interdisciplinary and comparative study of Asia and to promote (inter)national cooperation. IIAS focuses on the humanities and social sciences and on their interaction with other sciences. It stimulates scholarship on Asia and is instrumental in forging research networks among Asia Scholars. Its main research interests are reflected in the three book series published with Amsterdam University Press: Global Asia, Asian Heritages and Asian Cities. IIAS acts as an international mediator, bringing together various parties in Asia and other parts of the world. The Institute works as a clearinghouse of knowledge and information. This entails activities such as providing information services, the construction and support of international networks and cooperative projects, and the organization of seminars and conferences. In this way, IIAS functions as a window on Europe for non-European scholars and contributes to the cultural rapprochement between Europe and Asia. IIAS Publications Officer: Paul van der Velde IIAS Assistant Publications Officer: Mary Lynn van Dijk

Global Asia Asia has a long history of transnational linkage with other parts of the world. Yet the contribution of Asian knowledge, values, and practices in the making of the modern world has largely been overlooked until recent years. The rise of Asia is often viewed as a challenge to the existing world order. Such a bifurcated view overlooks the fact that the global order has been shaped by Asian experiences as much as the global formation has shaped Asia. The Global Asia Series takes this understanding as the point of departure. It addresses contemporary issues related to transnational interactions within the Asian region, as well as Asia’s projection into the world through the movement of goods, people, ideas, knowledge, ideologies, and so forth. The series aims to publish timely and well-researched books that will have the cumulative effect of developing new perspectives and theories about global Asia. Series Editor: Tak-Wing Ngo, Professor of Political Science, University of Macau, China Editorial Board: Kevin Hewison, Sir Walter Murdoch Distinguished Professor of Politics and International Studies, Murdoch University, Australia / Hagen Koo, Professor of Sociology, University of Hawaii, USA / Loraine Kennedy, Directrice de recherche, Centre d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France / Guobin Yang, Associate Professor, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, USA

African-Asian Encounters New Cooperations and New Dependencies

Edited by Arndt Graf and Azirah Hashim

Amsterdam University Press

Publications

Global Asia 7

Cover image: André Gröger Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 94 6298 428 8 e-isbn 978 90 4853 491 3 doi 10.5117/9789462984288 nur 740 © Arndt Graf &Azirah Hashim / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2017 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.



Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 7 Introduction 9 Arndt Graf and Azirah Hashim

Part I Outbound and Inbound: Observations from West Africa 1 In Constant Search of Money to Survive

17

2 The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponderance of Asians in Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) in Cameroon

47

African Youths in Malaysia Ute Röschenthaler

Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

Part II The ‘Chinese’ Factor 3 Does New Sino-African Cooperation Create New Dependencies? The Case of Higher Education Falk Hartig

81

4 Beyond the State in Sino-African Relations?

103

5 The Vietnamese-Chinese Migration Industry in Angola

133

Situating Civil Society Interactions Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

A Case Study André Gröger and Rainer Klump

Part III Africa’s other Asian Options 6 South-South Cooperation Strategies in Indonesia Domestic and International Drivers Susan Engel

155

7 South Korean Civic Actors in Rwanda

183

8 Enhancing Asia-Africa Relations through Further Discourse on the Mobility of Africans to Peripheral Asian Countries

217

Promoting Rural Development and an Emerging Civil Society in Contexts Controlled by the State Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

The Outcome of Exploratory Studies from the Philippines Satwinder S. Rehal

Contributors 239 Index 243

List of Tables and Figures Tables Table 2.1 Output of Respondents’ Opinions of the Impact of ASM on Environmental Components Table 2.2 Output of Respondents’ Opinions of the Impact of ASM on Social Variables Table 2.3 Output of Respondents’ Opinions of the Impact of ASM on Economic Indicators Table 2.4 Global Indicator According to Each Group of Variables Table 5.1 Major Chinese Oil-Backed Loans to Angola since 2000

58 60 62 65 147

Figures Figure 2.1 Figure 2.2 Figure 5.1 Figure 5.2 Figure 5.3 Figure 5.4

Annual Gold Production in Cameroon, 1935-2003 Map of ASM Activities in Cameroon Regular Recruitment Process Irregular Recruitment Process to Angola Structure of ‘Angola-Mode’ Arrangement Total Bilateral Gross Loan Commitment from China to Selected Sub-Saharan Recipient Countries (2000-2012)

52 56 148 148 149 149

Acknowledgments This book originated from a conference in 2014 in Kuala Lumpur, the ‘International Conference of the Africa-Asia Development University Network (AADUN) and Africa’s Asian Options’ with the theme ‘African-Asian Encounters: New Cooperations – New Dependencies?’ This conference was the result of a collaboration between the Africa-Asia Development University Network (AADUN) and the Centre for Civilisational Dialogue at the University of Malaya and the research project Africa’s Asian Options (AFRASO), Goethe University of Frankfurt. AFRASO started in February 2013 and is being funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of its strategy to strengthen area studies in the country. We thank the University of Malaya, Goethe University of Frankfurt, and the BMBF for generously funding the conference, which made it possible for scholars on Asia and Africa to come together to present and discuss new African and Asian interactions. We would also like to thank the BMBF for its support for the publication of this volume, as well as Kim Wehner for helping with the editing of the bibliographies. Our thanks also go to Dr Paul van der Velde (Publications Officer), and Mary Lynn van Dijk (Assistant Publications Officer) at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), as well as to Dr Saskia Gieling (Commissioning Editor for Asian Studies) and Drs Jaap Wagenaar (Production Editor) at Amsterdam University Press (AUP), and to the anonymous reviewers.

Introduction Arndt Graf and Azirah Hashim Since the early 2000s, an increasing number of publications have focused on the new relations between China and Africa. Their research design has often been informed by political science or economics, and the more or less implied question of whether these new relations can be characterized as asymmetric. In this vein, the question of neo-colonialism has also been raised, or that of a continued structural dependency. One example of a study in this framework is Ian Taylor’s Africa Rising? BRICS – Diversifying Dependency (2014). Taylor’s main argument is that African exports to China almost exclusively consist of commodities, which experienced a super-cycle over more than a decade. In his argument, therefore, the basic pattern of dependency of heavily commodity-oriented African economies from the outside world did not change structurally, just because of the appearance of new customers of these commodities. The current volume takes this sceptical perception seriously, as there is undoubtedly a strong empirical bias towards China and towards the kind of economic exchange patterns described by Taylor and others. At the same time, however, it has to be asked whether the China-Africa paradigm is suited to reflect the totality of the new interactions between Asia and Africa. Since the 1990s, not only has China been an important player in Africa, but other Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and India have also intensified relations with the continent. On the other hand, Africans are becoming increasingly visible in Asian countries. Adams Bodomo (2012), for instance, describes this new phenomenon in the case of Africans in China. Several hundred thousand Africans now live in China, constituting a new diaspora with various new patterns of intercultural encounters. Similarly, an increasing number of Africans now live in other Asian countries. This brings to attention the great variety of new interactions between the non-Chinese Asian countries and their African counterparts. In fact, focusing on interactions between ‘countries’ might obscure the fact that in China as well as in many other Asian and African countries, various players, and not only the government, are currently engaged in the new interactions between Africa and Asia. This observation casts doubt on the assumption that asymmetric relations between ‘Asia’ and ‘Africa’ are the general order.

10 

Arndt Gr af and Azir ah Hashim

The current volume thus examines a broader range of new interactions between Asia and Africa. China is covered in some respects, but the main emphasis of this book rests on smaller players from Asia, in particular, South Korea and the nations of South East Asia. In addition, in contrast to some classical studies in certain traditions of political economy, the current volume does not emphasize the great players and the grand strategic geopolitical landscape. Rather, this book sees itself in a tradition of area studies where empirical work serves as the entry point into overarching narratives. Consequently, it begins with empirical case studies focusing in an exemplary way on Africa and some of its new interactions with Asia. Ute Röschenthaler’s chapter on African youth in Malaysia deals not only with the experiences of African students and traders in Asia, but also looks at local African backgrounds for this outbound mobility. Locally, ‘bushfalling’, as this outbound mobility is called, has a cultural significance beyond the economic sphere. It also serves as a kind of initiation rite and improves the social and cultural capital of the entire family. Bushfalling as a local concept only came up in the 1990s and was historically preceded by outbound (student) mobility to Europe and North America. The new destinations in Asia, notably China and Malaysia, emerged in the 1990s due to economic challenges in the concerned African countries (Cameroon and Nigeria), and it was also supported, in the case of Malaysia, by the introduction of new laws on privately organized higher education. Push-and-pull factors thus played a role in the ensuing rapid increase in African student mobility to Malaysia. Undoubtedly, a number of these factors have very specific local causes. Others, however, are of a more general nature. This includes the move towards a partial privatization of higher education since the 1990s not only in Malaysia, but also in many other countries. As Ute Röschenthaler’s anthropological case study demonstrates, the role of the Malaysian government in this unprecedented increase of students from Africa was sometimes limited to providing an attractive infrastructure in the country, while hearsay and rumour among those interested in migrating was also an important factor. In Cameroon, for instance, Malaysia does not even have an embassy, nevertheless, Ute Röschenthaler could interview quite a few Cameroonians in Malaysia who only had heard about the country from friends and communicative networks. Röschenthaler’s anthropolitical entry point is complemented by an empirical and geographical perspective on the Asian impact on the smallscale mining sector in East Cameroon, as reflected in local stakeholders’ perceptions. As Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge point out, on the

Introduc tion

11

ground it is visible that not only Chinese companies, but Korean and other foreign concerns as well, are active in this particular area. A research design that only focuses on ‘China’ without taking into account the other players would therefore not be able to gauge holistically the degree of African (or in this case: Cameroonian) dependency on China. Rather, it appears that the diversification of external business relations carries the potential of more ‘African agency’. However, as Nguepjouo and Runge also demonstrate, a lot also depends on the role of the concerned African government (in this case the Cameroonian). Wider social and ecological impacts of Asian (and other) engagement in the mining industry require good governance in order to responsibly manage this sector of the economy. The second part of this book focuses on two aspects of the ‘Chinese’ factor that are often overlooked in research designs that are mostly based on quantitative data of economic interactions. Chinese Confucius Institutes in Africa have multiplied since the turn of the millennium, as Falk Hartig points out in his contribution. The big question is whether the occurrence of these many Confucius Institutes in Africa can be interpreted as a part of a soft power strategy on behalf of China to demonstrate its presence and increase its influence in Africa. In particular, this chapter concerns itself with a systematic discussion of possible dependencies of African nation-states that can be attributed to China’s cultural policy. Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel’s chapter on Sino-African civil society interactions covers a potentially related aspect of Chinese soft power in Africa. It is also demonstrated in her country comparison that in contrast to governmental relations these civil society interactions are much less developed and need to be sought at various political levels among different socio-political actors. This is in stark contrast to the threat that is sometimes assumed in certain Western media. If one were to add the abovementioned chapter on the mining sector in West Africa, the role of Chinese actors in Africa appears to be much less dramatic than anticipated. In fact, it has to be questioned whether the perceived “Chinese” presence in Africa is also partly due to a mistaken attribution of other Asians as Chinese. The case study on the Vietnamese-Chinese migration industry in Angola by André Gröger and Rainer Klump brings to light an empirical phenomenon that would have remained undiscovered under a narrow China-Africa paradigm. In fact, in Angola, most of the Vietnamese migrants are incorrectly held to be Chinese, while in reality they mostly come from poor areas in northern Vietnam. The question is whether such mistaken assumptions about the ‘Chinese’ presence in Africa occur more frequently, due to the local lack of knowledge about the differences between various Asian languages and cultures.

12 

Arndt Gr af and Azir ah Hashim

In their case study, Gröger and Klump investigate the case of several thousand Vietnamese workers currently living in Angola and establish the existence of a whole range of Vietnamese-Angolan cultural and social interactions. Many of these Vietnamese workers work in the booming construction industry in Angola through Vietnamese subcompanies also cooperating with Chinese firms. These Vietnamese workers are apparently willing to work for salaries lower than Chinese workers would. In this case, we therefore have a pattern of trilateral interactions. The question is whether similar trilateral patterns also exist with other Asian countries in the periphery of China, e.g. North Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar, Laos, Nepal, etc. In order to broaden the often employed narrow focus on ChineseAfrican interactions, it might be also possible that other Asian companies (or countries) – from Japan, South Korea, Singapore, or Malaysia – work with such schemes of cross-national subcontracting. In any case, this contribution is heuristically very valuable since it extends considerably our empirical knowledge on the complex Asian-African interactions, not least since it focuses on lesser-known actors from South East Asia and lusophone Africa. In fact, the narrow China-Africa narrative also poses the danger of overlooking the historical dimension of multilateral South-South relations. In her case study, Susan Engel departs from the Bandung Conference in Indonesia 1955 in her assessment of Indonesia’s long-term stand on SouthSouth cooperation. China also participated at the Bandung Conference, and much of the rhetoric of Chinese policies towards Africa and other ‘Southern’ countries in the 2000s and 2010s still reflects the spirit of Bandung. In the contribution by Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee the focus of SouthSouth cooperation shifts to Rwanda and South Korea. Besides the fact that these two governments successfully cooperate in various fields like Rural Development, ICT and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Korean civil society actors are also becoming increasingly involved. The authors take a close look at the way in which South Korean concepts of development, taken from the country’s own experience as a formerly colonized country that developed successfully after independence, are translated and implemented by Korean NGO experts into the Rwandan social and political development contexts. On the one hand these Korean development experiences find a fertile ground in Rwanda, as they often contain elements of ‘mental reform’ that the Rwandan government also employs. On the other hand one may question the extent to which progressive Korean civil society actors are able to support an emerging Rwandan civil society. Analytically, not only companies and business links, or state and NGO organizations should be taken into account in assessing the new

Introduc tion

13

interactions between Asia and Africa, but also individuals. Much of the new mobility of African students studying in Asian countries such as Malaysia and the Philippines is based on the decisions of individual students (and their parents) who are willing to pay tuition to be educated in Asia. Many of these students perceive that they will receive a better quality of education supplied by both government and private institutions of higher education in several Asian countries, as compared to education services in their home countries. Apart from the case of Malaysia, which attracted more than 20,000 African students in 2010 (cf. the contribution by Röschenthaler), the Philippines likewise benefits from this trend, as Satwinder S. Rehal points out in his contribution, where he also focuses on the role of African athletes in the Philippines. In general, this volume clearly demonstrates through a variety of case studies the need to go beyond the popular China-Africa paradigm in assessing the whole breadth of the new interactions between Asia and Africa – and possibly beyond. Also, various countries in South America and the Middle East have intensified their relations with African partners in the recent wave of globalization since around 1990. In this regard, the current volume could serve as an interesting stepping stone for our future research agenda.

Works Cited Bodomo, A. 2012. Africans in China: A Sociocultural Study and Its Implications for Africa-China Relations. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press. Taylor, I. 2014. Africa Rising? BRICS – Diversifying Dependency. Oxford: James Currey.

Part I Outbound and Inbound: Observations from West Africa

1

In Constant Search of Money to Survive African Youths in Malaysia Ute Röschenthaler

Introduction In the course of the past decades, the number of Africans in Malaysia has significantly increased. One reason for this is the privatization of education and the active recruitment of students by private colleges and universities who make it relatively easy for foreign students to obtain a visa (Lian 2011; Daniels 2014). The situation in which these Africans find themselves in Malaysia, however, is not at all easy due to the work policies in the country that create immense challenges and urge these Africans to begin all kinds of activities to be able to survive during their stay. Their often informal, if not illegal activities have led to a bad reputation that tends to be stereotypically projected upon Africans, particularly upon Nigerians who form the largest African group of students (Ministry of Higher Education n.d.). The conditions that these Africans face in Malaysia are a good example of the situations in which, through their legal categories, states legally produce the illegality of migration trajectories (De Genova 2002). In such a situation, many Africans experience in their host country a reduction of their social status, encounters with racism, and stereotypical typecasting of them as criminals. This complicated situation has spurred African creativity and cultivated various forms of hustling, i.e. ‘be ready to do any kind of work’ (Alpes 2011: 14), among which are attempts at targeting the wealthy in the local and global community, to gain from them, what they feel is denied to them (see also Roitman 2005). Despite the multiple challenges Africans face in Malaysia, they have built up an entire infrastructure for fellow Africans, and some have amassed considerable wealth (Röschenthaler forthcoming). The movement of Africans to Asian countries, especially China (Bredeloup 2012; Bodomo 2015; Haugen 2012) but also South East Asian countries such as Malaysia, redirects the attention of migratory studies that has until the 1980s focused on movements from ‘developing countries’ to Europe and North America (Sassen 1991). Such movement was understood as a

18 Ute Röschenthaler

unidirectional procedure with the objective of integration and permanent settlement. Studies of transnationalism (Dunn 2005; Glick Schiller et al. 1992; Vertovec 1999; Dunn 2005) in contrast acknowledge the linkage that remains between migrants and their home countries and the potential for their development. However, from the perspective of those who move, it seems less important that national spaces are bridged. More important are ideas of translocal networks that connect distant places with each other as members of families live in different cities in one or several countries and continents. First of all they are interested in these family networks and the development of the home place (far more than the country of origin as such) as they feel that the relation to their state of origin is often complicated as well. They do not see themselves as migrants but rather as travellers who disappear for some time from their home place to spend time abroad and later reinvest in their homeplace, what they have “harvested” abroad, from as far away as Malaysia. My research has pursued the trajectories of some of these Africans in Malaysia. I analyse what makes Africans move to the country despite the difficulties they experience in finding work there, how they experience their situation, what strategies they develop to survive, and how some of them have built up businesses nevertheless. Most Africans in Malaysia live in what I call the wider Kuala Lumpur, which includes the capital of the country and the adjacent agglomeration of towns and cities in the Klang valley. I will first give some insights of how I got into the field, and continue with providing reasons why individuals in selected African countries (Cameroon, Nigeria) find it so important to move abroad or send their grown-up children abroad to study. Then I discuss their situation and experiences in Malaysia, look at some of the activities that they have developed to make a living, and outline the wide range of services and businesses that they have built up and the way they spend or reinvest the gains they have made.

Getting to the Field: From Africa to Malaysia The situation in Cameroon and Nigeria and the discourses that people cultivate about travelling out are familiar to me from field research in both countries since 1987. My studies on cultural mobility in south-western Cameroon and south-eastern Nigeria included the question to which places migrants from the area I studied had travelled to work in their own and adjacent countries, and why they had made this choice (Röschenthaler 2011: 466-469). During several travels and research trips, I met individuals from

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

19

the area in various other countries, such as Mali, South Africa, China, the UK, Germany, Canada, the Emirates, and also Malaysia. In Malaysia, my plan was to study activities and trade networks of Africans, particularly those of Cameroonians and Malians. Through internet research I knew that there was a Cameroonian student association in the capital, but that was next to all I had been able to make out beforehand. Indeed, I met many Cameroonians and also Nigerians and a number of people from other African countries, however, I did not encounter any Malians during my stay in Malaysia, as there were hardly any Malians there. Most of the Africans I met were young people between 20 and 40 years of age. In Kuala Lumpur, the first contact was through a friend of a Cameroonian friend in Berlin whose wife’s son was now staying in Brussels and who knew a friend in Malaysia. Other contacts came through Cameroonians at the AADUN-AFRASO conference that I attended in Kuala Lumpur in March 2014.1 Through them I got into contact with more Cameroonians and their mostly Nigerian friends. Some of them I present here for reasons of anonymity as professional figures. Among them is my first contact, whom I call the Allround Broker, a Cameroonian from the anglophone Grassfields who completed his studies in business management and offered services of transferring mobile phone credit, recruiting students, transferring money between Cameroon and Malaysia, and certain other things as well. Through him and through other friends I met the Student Agent, also from the anglophone Grassfields, who was enrolled as a student but mainly worked as an agent for several private Malaysian universities, profiting from his connections back home; the Event Organizer, a doctoral student from Nigeria who runs several night clubs and a magazine for Africans; the Money Doubler from the Cameroon Grassfields, who turned day into night; by using his various ventures, which included scamming, money doubling, cons, and using his verbal skills; the History Student from the Cameroonian South-West Region, who originally wanted to become a pastor but who went to Malaysia where he studied and ran an informal barbershop; the Business Student, who comes from the Littoral Region of Cameroon and works in a hotel. Then there was the female Restaurant Owner from the Grassfields who cooked African dishes in a private apartment; the Hairdresser from the North-West Region of Cameroon who studied at Limkokwing University; the Drone Constructor from eastern Nigeria who had studied electronic 1 Research was carried out in the context of the AFRASO project ‘Africa’s Asian Options’ at Goethe University Frankfurt in March 2014 and February/March 2017, and sponsored by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) and Goethe University.

20 Ute Röschenthaler

engineering and who owned a company with Malaysian friends; the Caretaker of a Cameroonian church; the Food Store Owner who sold African groceries; and the Apparel Seller, whose store had everything that Africans needed to look respectable, both from south-eastern Nigeria. My research introduces one dimension of African activities in Malaysia. Altogether I carried out interviews with 26 individuals, with some several times and for more than an hour. Most of them were Cameroonians and Nigerians who shared with me their and their fellow Africans’ experiences in the country. I also compared their narratives with those of other Africans and with Malaysians. I also accompanied my interview partners to places where Africans meet, to African shops, the university, and spent time with them. Doing research in a shady milieu was not always easy. The Allround Broker introduced me to a number of people, but he was always very careful about this because he was afraid that they might later blame him for allowing a white person who might be a spy (because she asks questions about their activities) into their midst. If something negative happened to them later on (which is always possible for people living in such precarious situations), then they might accuse him of being the cause of their trouble. When I once asked a Cameroonian woman what kind of business her husband carried out, he was immediately alarmed and interrupted me. Later on he begged me to never ask such questions because the businesses they were engaged in were mostly illegal. Others, such as the History and Business Students and the Money Doubler, however, freely told me about such activities. The anthropological method of getting to know the concerns of people and taking their perspective seriously provides a glimpse into the lived realities of these travellers but also entails challenges as to determine which details to disclose in a publication. It can, however, offer some cause for thought in which direction the entrepreneurial and developmental potential of individuals in a society can be pushed by legal regulations and state policies.

The Decision to Travel Out Why do so many African young people in their twenties or early thirties travel into a situation which is far from making their lives easy? In Cameroon and Nigeria – and not only there – many young people feel the urge to leave their country for a number of years in order to study or make money, never mind where. Even though Europe or North

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

21

America still are the first choice for those who want to study, because these countries have a high prestige as destinations, to which, according to the Event Manager, top government officials in Nigeria try to send their children. For many, however, travelling out is simply a matter of leaving for a distant country. In the late 1990s, families in almost every village in south-western Cameroon had a son or daughter in Europe, Russia, or North America. Most of these youths do not leave their country for another promising place with the objective to settle down, begin a new life, and remain there. They rather intend to explore such places to collect intellectual, symbolic, and financial capital, and then return to invest this at home, as Marfaing (2003) depicts for Senegalese in Germany. They want to become what anglophone Cameroonians since the 1990s call ‘bushfallers’, a pidgin word referring to somebody travelling abroad to make his or her fortune, as Alpes (2011, 2012) has aptly shown. The term relates not only to going to the forest for hunting or harvesting expeditions and return with prey and yield but also connotes a heroic image due to the dangerous experiences that the forest offers to travellers (Alpes 2011, 2012). In this imaginary, somebody who returns, comes back strengthened and in a different shape. In a more standardized form, such experiences form part of local knowledge and have been used in initiation rituals for the accomplishment of transforming the status of an individual. Initiation rituals normally are carried out in the forest and can take between a few days and several years during which the candidates pass tests of courage and have existential experiences. Not all candidates return from such rituals and so, from the local perspective it is considered an accepted fate that not all bushfallers return from their journey. As initiation rituals become rare at present, young people are no longer able to assume the status of adults in this way (Warnier 1993), and so bushfalling increasingly appears to replace the established experiences of becoming grown up during initiation rituals in the forest. Often the parents encourage some of their children to leave and organize migration projects for them. Having a bushfaller in their family is considered an insurance policy for old age and enhances their prestige as such a child is expected to bring home riches from abroad. Some of these young travellers are still dependent on their parents for their living, while others have already worked but feel that by going somewhere else they will find it easier to make the money they need to be able to marry, build a house, and become somebody in their own society. As Alpes (2011) observed, and my research corroborates, the problem is – more than the money to travel – to obtain the documents needed to leave successfully.

22 Ute Röschenthaler

Most people think that the appropriate way to get into the possession of travel documents is using the services of a broker. Bushfalling under this term emerged as a phenomenon only in the 1990s. At that time, youths or their families easily spent about 1.5 million FCFA (about €2300) for the brokerage services. Meanwhile the prices have risen to 1.8 million FCFA (about €2750) to get to China or Dubai and roughly 2.5 million FCFA (€3800) to Europe or Canada, which is more expensive because the documents are more difficult to obtain than for Asian countries (Alpes 2011: 45; see also Pelican and Tatah 2009), Malaysia included. The family of one young lady whom Alpes describes in her study of bushfalling even lost about 6 million FCFA (about €9200) in several unsuccessful attempts of the broker to bring the daughter to foreign places. People openly talk about how much they spent for this, which contrasts with the illegitimacy of many of the services the broker actually offers and the strategies by which he brings his customers abroad. This resonates with my own research in the region where discourses on spending form part of strategies to display wealth and generosity; by contrast, the amounts received for a service remain hidden because otherwise people would constantly nag to receive their share (Röschenthaler 2011). Alpes (2011: 54) notes the strategy of the broker to dramatize the departure. He creates an atmosphere of tension between hope and uncertainty, like in a film, in which the tension rises with every minute. When only a few hours before departure, the broker buys the ticket, receives the papers, takes the money, and sends his customer in the company of his family to the airport where the aspiring migrant catches the plane at the last moment. This departure has almost a ritualistic character during which the traveller is transformed from a normal youth into a bushfaller. Such a drama, even if it happens to be unsuccessful, is so impressive that the broker’s customers easily assume that he must have superhuman powers. They will narrate this experience to friends, which will raise their own and the broker’s prestige and bring him new customers. As powerful helpers in the realization of people’s dreams, successful migration brokers are locally admired as ‘new figures of success’ (Banégas and Warnier 2001) and considered ‘big men’ who have the necessary powers to make things possible (Daloz 2002), and only rarely become the object of suspicion. For the migrants, the broker or agent – and not an embassy – is the logical contact person because in the social imaginary, it takes extraordinary powers or money to be able to overcome the closure of boundaries and make it ‘to bush’, i.e. abroad. Following Kyle and Siracusa (2005: 158), Alpes (2011: 51) concludes that migration services are commodities in high demand. The

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

23

scholarly literature, however, as Alpes (2011: 46) notes, considers migration brokers rather less favourably than as human traffickers and smugglers who are either law-breaking criminals (Finkenauer 2001; Aronowitz 2009) or merciless businessmen (Salt and Stein 1997) who instigate trajectories of migration. The local conception of bushfalling and the precarious experience abroad can be understood as a way to live through a prolonged liminal phase during which these young people do not have an ascertained status. Seen from the local perspective, what Nieswand (2011) called the ‘status paradox’ – a migrant leaves their home country as a middle-class youth, arrives in a host country as a nobody, and experiences an increase in status after their return home – is not actually a paradox. Rather, it has all the characteristics of the well-known time period of absence from home. Upon their return, these young people and their families must celebrate with festivities to confirm their new status. In this logic, they cannot return home the same as or poorer than before.

Malaysia as a Travel Destination How did Malaysia become a desired destination? Malaysia began to form part of the Nigerian and Cameroonian imagination as a promising destination when it became known that it was easy to get a study visa for the country. For example, the Hair Dresser opted for Malaysia instead of Europe or North America because ‘it was so easy to get the visa […] In my country [Cameroon] […] they want us to stay home but they don’t give us jobs’. She heard about Malaysia from a friend who studied there and told her that the country was nice. With the help of a broker, her parents paid her tuition fee for one year and sponsored her accommodation for six months. Cameroon does not even have a Malaysian embassy, but Nigeria has had diplomatic relations with Malaysia since 1991. (It was one of the first African countries to establish relations with Malaysia, even before Senegal [1992] and South Africa [1993].) As it was easy to get a visa to Malaysia, compared to Europe and North America, most Cameroonians and Nigerians entered the country with a student visa and the help of a migration broker. This was also the case of the Allround Broker, the Business and History Students. When he came to Kuala Lumpur, the History Student was already 31 years old and had worked in Douala, when he contacted a migration agent one day. He knew several offices of such agents in Douala and Buea: ‘You just tell them the country

24 Ute Röschenthaler

you want to go’. His broker worked together with another agent in Malaysia, quite likely also a Cameroonian, who organized his university admission papers and other travel documents. Also, the Allround Broker was already working as a sales manager and an administrator in a cyber café where he found his Malaysian university online. He saved some money and managed, with the help of his mother, to travel and study in Malaysia. A migration agent in Cameroon organized his documents in collaboration with an agent in Malaysia. (Later on he became a migration agent himself.) The Nigerian students told a similar story. The Drone Constructor at first studied botany in Nigeria; when he did not find a job he opened a snail farm with friends; his friends were involved in some dubious scamming business in which they lost all their money, so that he decided to begin anew and open a service company. To obtain the necessary capital for this, he decided to travel abroad. He went to Malaysia because it was easy to get a visa and began to study IT, and later with friends, opened a company with branches in Malaysia and Nigeria. The Event Organizer, as well, already held a BA diploma from a Nigerian university and was working as a consultant managing the projects of foreign expatriates in the country. I give his story in a bit more detail, because it shows how he came to take the decision to travel and realize his project. After two years in this job, he felt that At my office, there are a lot of people who have masters, some are doing PhDs. Some are also pushing. So I saw a need to further my studies. If I really want to get to the top level, so […] I was in desperate need for a school, and so if I look at it, my first degree was in Nigeria, so I needed to move to a different location because I need a foreign certificate that will be of help, you know, because in Africa, they value foreign certificates a lot […] I was searching on the net, I was looking for where to go. I applied for schools online and I was communicating with my younger brother. (Interview, March 2014)

The brother at that time had already been in the UK for two years and invited him to come there, but he declined, saying ‘two brothers cannot be in the same region, ya, because of [the] economic crisis […] but if I am in another country, I can tell you something about where I am and you can tell me something about where you are, so there is a diversification of knowledge and ideas’. He also did not like the United States because he disliked the gangster movies he had watched and preferred a more peaceful country. Then friends told him that he could have a visa to study in Malaysia in four or five days only, and that the visa fee was cheap.

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

25

It was 1000 naira, which everybody can have. I told my dad I got the admission, I needed to travel; he was able to provide the funds, because my dad is an average man, at least, he is doing OK. He gave the funds for the school fees and I went to the embassy; I applied and I got the visa. My dad presently is a rural farmer somewhere, and he also has his palace […] Within three weeks after matriculation I left Nigeria to Malaysia.

For most of these youths, this was their first time to travel abroad. When they arrived in Malaysia, many surprises waited for them. I asked them what the most surprising thing was. The Allround Broker said: The roads, the roads [silence]. When I came here, I arrived in Malaysia the 19 of April at around 8.30 am. First of all, I went to my school. When I arrived there it was quite a different thing from what they were saying in the internet. That same night, my [Cameroonian] friends called me; I took a taxi and came to Puchong […] Most of them are now back in Africa. From there we had to hang out, we went to the night club, and then we were retiring [getting back to the house], so the roads were really quiet by now, so serious, I have never seen a road like that […] you see all the fly-overs, so many, and really complicated […] When you come to Kuala Lumpur, there you have this [feeling]: […] actually you are no longer in Africa [he laughs]. (Interview, March 2014)

Asked whether there was anything he found strange, he said: The Indians, I never knew that there were black Indians. When I met them, their own black is like funny; that was really strange for me, and also the fact that there were no jobs as well. It was really difficult. It took me quite a while to see that Malaysians are like that, that I needed to ask for funds from Cameroon. I got too tired, but I think I paid my school fees, my tuition fee, for one year already before coming here. (Interview, March 2014)

Others mentioned similar things. The History Student – after his university had picked him up from the airport – was surprised that the climate ‘is so hot. And the food, they eat rice every day. We have more variety, fufu corn and many things’. He also complained that the agent had not told him how much he had to pay in school fees or that he was not allowed to work. Only after his arrival did he find out that this was not possible and that he had still to pay 52,000 MYR for his MBA programme for one and a half years of study. He only managed to talk to his agent in Malaysia once over the phone and then he never reached him again. He wondered: ‘I am 31 years old. Should

26 Ute Röschenthaler

my parents still send money to their 31-year-old son?’ Not only was finding a job complicated, their universities were expensive and in many cases did not meet their expectations. The Event Manager was shocked by the criminal activities going on. He recalled: ‘Coming to Malaysia, to be honest, I was having the perspective that there were no Africans here. I was thinking, “I will be the only African”. It was in early 2009, until I realized that Malaysia [is full of Africans and …] is […] – How do I [put it]? – a drug country’. These statements indicate that the experiences in Malaysia were often quite far from the Africans’ expectations and had a sobering effect. These Africans do not come from the poorest families (as these do not have the means to send their children abroad) (see also Şaul and Pelican 2014: 5) but nevertheless have travelled to ameliorate their situation at home, become responsible and care for their siblings (pay their school fees), invest and create a business for themselves. At home they are considered very fortunate, but they found themselves in Malaysia in an extremely complicated situation.

Living and Studying in the Wider Kuala Lumpur Africans appear to have been living in Malaysia on an individual basis in earlier decades, but their presence in the country only began to grow in the 1990s and has greatly increased since the 2000s. Among the first to arrive were Sudanese and Nigerians. Muslims from anglophone African countries found it easier to get along than francophone students and non-Muslims. Accordingly, a number of Sudanese found employment as scholars at the International Islamic University of Gombak.2 Larger numbers of Sub-Saharan students arrived after the privatization of the higher education sector. Private universities often form part of larger education businesses with branches in many countries. Inti College in Niela, for example, forms part of the American Laureate Group and has more than 500 branches worldwide (including some in the UK, and Singapore, and in Malaysia under the brand Inti in Kuala Lumpur, Subang, Sarawak, and Penang). Limkokwing, another private university, was founded in Malaysia and has branches in several southern African countries. Lian (2011) argues that this internationalization and globalization has created a market for active recruitment of international students to Malaysia (see also Yoshino 2010; Mulumba et al. 2008). They advertise student mobility with an easy move on to North America 2 In 2013, for example, most of the 50 Senegalese living in Malaysia studied Islamic finance. Nigeria-Malaysia relations: http://www.nigeria.org.my/.

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

27

and UK, but seen from the African perspective, this rather sounds like an euphemism as, when students actually wish to transfer, they realize that this promise comes true only when they again pay large sums of money. Among the African students most of Africa’s 53 nationalities are represented, the majority coming from anglophone countries, with the Nigerians making up the largest group (Lian 2011; Daniels 2014). An internet source mentions that, according to Malaysia’s immigration department, in 2012 altogether 79,352 Africans entered the country and 25,467 student visas were issued to Africans.3 This means that the students described here only make up one part of the Africans arriving in Malaysia and contradicts the estimation of most of my student interview partners that the majority of Africans in Malaysia were students, at least officially. The much higher number of African entries is (most likely) due to frequent travellers, especially business people, moving in and out of the country. The majority of students are anglophone not only because of the language but because Malaysia has special agreements with some Commonwealth countries and provides fellowships of one to two years for obtaining a master’s degree and of three years for a doctorate.4 Altogether, Malaysia has diplomatic relations with twelve Sub-Saharan countries in which it also has ambitions to invest.5 Despite their nations’ having bilateral relations with Malaysia and Malaysia’s interest in investing in Africa, African students complained that their opportunities in Malaysia were limited, the school fees were high, and that they were not expected to work but to leave the country quickly after completion of their studies. Not all Africans who come into the country with a student visa and pay their school fees are actually studying. Some have chosen the student visa option only because it was easy to get. Others came with a 30-day tourist or business visa and upon realizing that finding work is difficult, sought the help of an agent who organized their admission at a university and a 3 African migrants aspire to a better life in Asia: http://www.dw.de/african-migrantsaspire-to-a-better-life-in-asia/a-17014189. 4 Malaysian citizenship: http://www.justlanded.com/english/Malaysia/Malaysia-Guide/ Visas-Permits/Malaysian-citizenship. 5 Malaysia has diplomatic relations with Nigeria since 1991, with Senegal since 1992, and with South Africa since 1993, where Malaysia has massively invested since 2001. It also has diplomatic relations with Ghana, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Namibia, Malawi, Mauritius, Tanzania, and Uganda in which Malaysia maintains trade relations and invests, especially in Ethiopia, Senegal, Nigeria, and Ghana. Cameroon has only two embassies in Asia (in China and Japan) and consulates in Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The consulate in Singapore is responsible for Cameroonians in Malaysia. http://www.cameroon-embassy.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ cameroonian_embassies_asia.pdf. For visa issues at home, Cameroonians have to travel to Abuja, Nigeria.

28 Ute Röschenthaler

longer-term visa. The Business Student noticed that as long as they pay their fees, the university did not care whether they were really studying or doing something else, so even elderly business men or prostitutes could officially be students. However, those who are actual students carry their student pass (student visa) to show to police in case they are questioned. The police would call the university to verify that they are attending school regularly. Students normally live in what they call a condo (short for condominium). These are huge apartment complexes, often with several towers. Many live in Subang Jaya as numerous universities and colleges are situated there.6 Often several students share one apartment to reduce the costs of the rent, which in 2014 was between 200 and 500 Malaysian ringgit per month. Landlords do not always welcome African tenants, and there is a growing attitude among Malaysians that a condo with many African renters reduces the value of the building. Some owners have even banned Africans from renting apartments in their condominiums, which has led to protests of Africans, so far mainly online.7 As mentioned earlier, the students have to find the means to pay their rent. Only the lucky ones have parents who are able to sponsor their entire studies. Most of them, however, need to do more than just survive; they also need to send money to their families and save for their future return. Most students were ready to work and have tried but nearly always without success. The Allround Broker complained: ‘They don’t offer jobs to Africans in Malaysia’. He was not alone. All African students to whom I talked moaned about the working situation and that it was so difficult if not impossible to find a job. There are contradictory answers as to the work policies for foreign students. According to a bill of 2002, international students are indeed allowed to work part-time in addition to studying full-time in Malaysia. This rule is subject to immigration requirements (under section 9 (1) (a) of the Immigration Act of 1959/1963, Amendment 2002). The procedure is far from uncomplicated. They need a valid student pass/student visa and the approval of their university for which they submit a copy of their passport, their address, a contact number, and a letter from the prospective employer; this application must be forwarded by the representative of 6 An example of such a condo in which mostly Africans live is Mentari Court in Subang Jaya, where the police are a regular presence as much criminal activity is supposed to be going on there. 7 See for example: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/in-subangcondo-ban-against-african-tenants.

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

29

the educational institution in the presence of the student at Immigration Department Headquarters Malaysia. If the application is approved, the student is interviewed. They are allowed to work a maximum of 20 hours per week during semester breaks or holidays of more than seven days in restaurants, petrol kiosks, mini-markets, and hotels, except in the following positions: cashier, singer, masseur, musician, guest relations officer, or any activity deemed to be immoral. The passport of a student whose application has been approved will be sanctioned accordingly. Extension of the work should only be given to students who maintain a good academic record.8 My interview partners stated that in all these different stages of the process, the processing of the documents can be delayed, and in any case Malaysian citizens received first preference when hiring was done. (The conditions have been ameliorated a little since then so that students are now allowed to work in a wider range of jobs.) One of the more fortunate students is the Hair Dresser. Her parents had paid her accommodation for the first six months and her tuition fees for the first year at Limkokwing University, so the beginning of her first year was smooth. Soon, however, her life became difficult because it was hard for her to find a job. Since she was a good student, she was able find a part-time job at her university, which she did for two years. It was a stressful time, but she got through it. She also began to work informally as a hair dresser, and also gave manicures and pedicures. During her third year at the university, the year in which she intended to graduate, she began to look for another position that would enable her to combine work and study. At first she worked as a cashier in a small supermarket (which was allowed by then). This meant standing all day for 5 ringgit an hour, except when she went to classes. She was earning 45 ringgit a day, but when she got home she was too tired to study. Then a friend told her about a hair studio which was owned by a Nigerian who would pay her a monthly salary. She works whenever there is a client and in the down time she is able to study on her laptop. After graduation she hopes to get regular work at her university. The Event Manager recalls that during the time he was studying for his master’s degree that ‘no matter how much your parents send to you, sometimes it’s not enough because their money here has more value’. He began by distributing flyers with event announcements to students, and then organized events in night clubs himself. After he completed his master’s 8 Malaysian Education: http://www.mohe.gov.my/educationmsia/education.php?article​ =immigration; and: http://www.shiksha.com/can-students-work-in-malaysia-article-4737-1; see also Legal Research Board (2014).

30 Ute Röschenthaler

degree in one and a half years, he received a doctoral fellowship from the Malaysian government. When he came in 2009, students were hardly ever allowed to work, but he acknowledges that in the following years there were slight improvements. However, the changes were still not a bit favourable, because you work for an hour, you have 5 ringgits […] Most of the Africans in Malaysia come from an average home […] as Malaysia is a developing country […] and so when people were entitled to work in 2012 and 2013, it was still like 5 ringgit per hour […] and the places you can work, as a waiter, you work like this […] I can’t do such work. (Interview, March 2014)

He found such work too exploitative and refused to work for 5 ringgit per hour, since a simple taxi ride from home to the university (which is often the only way to get there) easily costs 20 ringgit. The situation illustrates that when Africans come to Malaysia, completely different expectations and imaginaries run into each other. Malaysians expect them to come with enough money, pay the fees, study, and subsequently leave the country. By contrast, the Africans come to increase not only their intellectual but also their social and economic capital before they return home. Accordingly, many Africans feel cheated and additionally have to endure the unfriendly attitude of the locals. The dilemma is that even if they succeed in completing their studies, their goal is not just to return with a diploma. ‘You cannot come home empty-handed’, the Event Manager explains: Everybody has to come back to Africa with something. Back in Africa, they don’t want to know whether you go to UK, to Canada, Australia, Malaysia, or Dubai. They think once you leave, you fly, you don’t have to come back the same. So [we], the people in Malaysia, also want to meet up with the people in UK, in Canada, in Australia. My friend who returned from Canada, he came home and built a house. They see me spend two years in Malaysia, come back, build a house. You see how the mentality is. But in UK, Canada, Australia, America, there are more chances of working and making a living, because apart from the chances, their currency rate is more valuable. When you make a 100 Canadian dollars, compared to a 100 ringgit, there is a difference. (Interview, March 2014)

None of the Africans I talked to found Malaysia the ideal place to stay. Most of them wanted to leave earlier rather than later. Comparing their

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

31

situation in Malaysia to that of students in other countries such as North America, Europe, Australia, South Korea or Thailand, my informants were sure that everywhere else the work situation was much better elsewhere. The History Student knew that in Thailand, somebody with qualifications could find work as a teacher: ‘There is no unknown local philosophy. They don’t care where you come from. They are more flexible. As soon as you have an employment letter, you get a work permit and a visa’. One of his friends was in Thailand and presently decided to move to Dubai. Another was working in Dubai and was planning to move to South Korea because there, he expected to earn more.

African Creativity in the Invisible Ghetto In the almost complete absence of decent jobs for African students, they had to become entrepreneurial. The Student Agent stated: ‘They are all only looking for money’, but for the time being the capital for a real business was lacking. The consequence was hustling. The Allround Broker explained: ‘Seriously, everybody in Malaysia is hustling […] We are all hustling, you know […] trying to make cash and finding a possibility to make ends meet’. He continued: [Hustling] is a good thing because it makes you […] to be smart, you have to be like you don’t sleep enough because you will think of how will you pay your bills, how will you go to school, how will you get to renew your visa, because you constantly mingle around people, ask: ‘What do you need? How can I help? What does that other person need?’ You are trying to connect two people, try to be a middleman in many things, ya? If somebody has something he wants to buy and he does not know the location, like when we came here, there were still people who had difficulties trying to call back [to] Africa […] or this person wants to renew a visa. He does not know the school that will give the visa very fast; this one wants to go back to Africa, he has overstayed his visa maybe for one, two years, [so] he is afraid to go to the migration. Maybe you link him to a migration agent who will help him facilitate his departure. (Interview, March 2014)

This form of hustling is basically networking, mediating, and finding opportunities to sell a service to another who needs it. The Allround Broker stated that he personally knew about 150 Cameroonians – about the estimated half of all Cameroonian students in the country – to whom he tried to sell his services.

32 Ute Röschenthaler

The most important tool of the broker is the mobile phone. It is his capital, his office, and provides access to his social network. The broker receives a fee or a certain percentage of the money involved for his mediating services. All this follows unwritten rules and is based on trust among the two partners involved. Such hustling activities can hardly be sanctioned by official means. They are informal in the sense that they are beyond the reach of the state. They include different activities that are situated somewhere in the grey zone between informal, legitimate, illegitimate, and illegal. They include teaching younger African students, selling cheap telephone credit, transferring money between Malaysia and Africa (usually to their home country), or recruiting students for a university. Some definitely exploit the plight of their fellow Africans when they encourage them to come to study in Malaysia without telling them that the situation will be difficult and they will lose their money. The African agents with whom they come to the country might not even know, and the African agents in Malaysia cannot tell them without taking the risk that the migrant will back out because they will not be able to pay the school fees. Only after they have paid the fees does the agent receive a commission of 3000 ringgit per student. As stated earlier, and as Alpes (2011) has illustrated, however, there is a market for these brokerage activities and people in Africa accept the risk as part of the game in the hope that they will be one of the lucky ones who will be successful. The services of a hustler may also include the organization of events and parties at night clubs, as the Event Manager is doing. Event organization is an example where brokerage service merges into a more sustainable business with fixed structures that are no longer out of the reach of the state (as will be described further below). Other forms of hustling include prostitution, the drug trade, counterfeiting money and documents, human trafficking, and, more rarely, stealing, burglary, and kidnapping. Among these hustling activities, the drug trade is the most dangerous, as the punishment for convicted drug criminals includes the death penalty. Notwithstanding the possible penalty and the warnings stamped on the visa inside the passports of immigrants, many of them continue to be involved in the drug trade. Human trafficking is mostly carried out by female bosses who lure young women to Malaysia. They tell them that they have jobs in a restaurant that will enable them to study. When they reach the country, their boss confiscates their passports and tells them to repay their travel expenses in instalments of 1000 ringgit per month. Prostitution is the only way to come into the possession of the money. So around midnight, these women leave for the night clubs where they find customers. These young women mainly come from Nigeria, especially from Benin city from where young women

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

33

also reach many other destinations through firmly established networks (see Kastner 2014) and from Uganda, as the regulations allow Ugandans to come to Malaysia for 30 days without a visa.9 Not all women who engage in prostitution are victims of trafficking. Some come to Malaysia with this intention, but most women take up this activity after discovering how difficult it is to find regular work. These are the women whom the Allround Broker would call ‘lazy girls’ because they are ‘only trying to get money from men’. The Business Student described the prevalence of prostitution. When he returns from university in the evening, from 6 pm onward, he sees these women sitting in the garden of the condo: ‘They dress so sexy [and] they sit in the garden. If you come by, you just approach them. You go with them in your apartment, or you just take their number, and call them, or give them your apartment number.’ He explained that African girls preferred African men as customers because Africans pay them well, whereas local men only pay half price.10 Other common forms of hustling include confidence tricks and advancefee fraud, such as internet scamming, money doubling, and various methods to extract money from potential victims. The Allround Broker confirms in a low voice: ‘If you really want to be the hustler who drives in big cars or whatsoever, you have to be doing something illegal’. The Business Student stated that Africans would among themselves talk very openly about this, and would even ridicule those like him who refused to participate. He recalls, that when he was recently invited by one of his Nigerian friends to come to his birthday party, one of them asked him where he came from and what he was doing. He said he was studying and working on Sundays in a hotel. The guy said: But why are you killing yourself, you are suffering? Don’t you know how to press the computer to do what they are doing here?’ I said: ‘I know how to do it.’ He said, ‘How do you know?’ I said: ‘I am with you Nigerians; you guys do it, so they do it in front of you, so you will know, but I am not interested.’ He said: ‘You have to do it. You see the government here is bad, and so on. You want to go back empty-handed? (Interview, March 2014)

9 See conditions to qualify as a student: http://www.mohe.gov.my/educationmsia/education. php?article=immigration. 10 According to the Business Student, for time spent with an African prostitute a customer has to pay a minimum of 400 to 500 ringgit. Girls from Indonesia or Philippines accept 150 to 200 ringgit. An African girl might accept 200 ringgit only if it is for less than 30 minutes, for which an Asian girl would accept 50 ringgit.

34 Ute Röschenthaler

Such conversations might easily convince people to join in illegal activities since they see how these guys have a more luxurious life. Hustling was, of course, not invented in Malaysia. Forms of hustling were first described by scholars of the Chicago School in Black urban ghettos in American cities (Lindner 2004) as an informal way of making money, and often involved drug dealing. In Africa, hustling has been studied in Nigeria (Chernoff 2003; Apter 1999; Smith 2001) and Cameroon (Ndjio 2008; Malaquais 2001; Frei 2012; Hibou 2004). Hustling activities are a form of negative reciprocity which Ndjio (2008) calls an ‘economy of breach of trust’. In it, the hustler feels entitled to engage in his activities because of his own situation, which denies him access to opportunities of employment and social mobility. In these countries, hustling and the need to travel to make money can be seen as a direct result of the structural adjustment programmes and the privatization of state enterprises, which greatly reduced the job opportunities of youth in the public sector (Banégas and Warnier 2001). Since the 1990s, these activities also have taken a more global dimension. Some of these hustlers work on the internet. They use dating websites to find potential partners, contact large companies to propose business deals, and engage in hacking, bank fraud, email scamming, or money doubling, i.e. convincing people to give them cash on the promise that they can double it for them. In Malaysia, some propose money doubling to Africans or other foreigners who are new in the country and in need of means. Others fall in love or pretend to fall in love with a local woman. When a lot of money is involved, there are always rumours of how this individual was able to achieve his success. The Business Student is convinced that some use magical items that they get from Africa or from an Indian and which they place ‘under their computer so that those with whom they communicate on the net will send them the money’, while others use ‘black magic to destroy their victims’ will power to make them accept everything they propose’. Other hustlers constantly walk around in town, get to know very important people, and try to involve them in business. The Money Doubler knew the story of a hustler who proposed to the manager of an international hotel chain interesting business deals to the point that the manager handed him over 18 million ringgit. Subsequently, the hustler disappeared with the money to his home country. The Money Doubler said I should look at the websites of all these huge shopping malls at Berjaya Times Square – it was all foreign investment managed by people with lots of money and whom he considered his ‘potential clients’. While he told me this, his phone was ringing every second minute and in between he received a number of text

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

35

messages. Hustlers usually have several mobile phones with changing phone numbers for different customers. The Event Manager explained the situation of these people: [They are here and say to themselves], I am here, I have already spent my money for school fees, I have already paid this, paid that, something must come out from this country. Like some people, it’s so bad, they came here with just 500 dollars, and after that 500 dollars, they have nothing forever, and if they don’t have anything back home, they don’t have anything here […] It’s a challenging world, they must survive [it] […] [They say to themselves: ] I have to do this because I have no choice. (Interview, March 2014)

The History Student confirms: ‘Those students here, the Nigerians, they are not bad people, they need to survive. It is often not their fault, but they are forced into it. You need to help yourself if no one else helps you.’ This situation of a lack of acceptable jobs that leads to illegal activities, refusal of social acceptance, and racism pushes them into what remains of the concept of the ‘ghetto’, which is a term that has been coined in the context of US cities where black people are territorially relegated to certain neighbourhoods that become disadvantaged places ridden with crime. Lindner (2004: 188) quotes Wacquant who, arguing against the ubiquitous use of the term, specified the basic meaning of the ghetto as the forced relegation of a stigmatized social group into a closed area with distinctive institutions, which form a parallel universe to the dominant society (1997). There is no territorially delimited ghetto in Kuala Lumpur, except for some of the condos, but as a matter of fact, Africans are socially and economically segregated into an invisible ghetto. Even those who have the proper documents are not encouraged to develop any sense of normality in their lives, not to mention to feel like a citizen with equal rights. In relation to the Malays, who are the dominant social group in the Malaysian social fabric, the Chinese and Indians already feel like second- and third-class citizens, along with other recognized Malaysian indigenous minorities (Barlocco 2014; Hefner 2001; Khoo 2014; see also Manickam 2012), and the many other Asian legal and illegal labour immigrants (Pillai 1995; Sadiq 2005), among whom in the Malaysian social imaginary Africans are situated at the far end of society. All of these do not make Africans’ cooperation with these groups any easier. When the Malaysian government realized that the many African students were not following the law, despite its minor ameliorations of the labour conditions, it attempted to regulate migration and restrict the extension of

36 Ute Röschenthaler

students’ visas (see also Malkki 2002: 353) with the argument that students who are there for a shorter time can do less crime, as the Event Manager noticed. Students are finding it increasingly difficult to renew their visas because the policies are changing so frequently. As a consequence, but different from official expectations, Africans evade the migration officers and prefer to bribe the police. Even in this unfavourable situation, there is an instance of what Wong refers to as ‘self-control over the migration project’ (Wong 2005: 87). Despite the fact that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmed Badawi won a landslide victory in 2003 with the promise to establish greater transparency and shake up the corrupt and inefficient police force (Sani 2010: 47), apparently not much has happened so far (Welsh 2008; see also Case 1993; Heryanto and Mandal 2003). The Event Manager explains it that way: Some of the officials, like [he laughs] they need to survive, you know, they are paid, but not too good, just an average payment. They think, ‘Oh, I don’t want to use the normal Proton car. I want to use a BMW.’ And those people are corrupt officials who want to penetrate the Africans and make the renewal of visas no longer easy. But if you look at it, it is creating creativity. (Interview, March 2014)

However, the readiness of the authorities to take money makes the situation for Africans more complicated, especially for those who do not have the cash to pay each time they encounter the police. Students told me that the police regularly search houses in which Africans live for illegal residents. When somebody has no money, they take his belongings, his jeans or television. When there is nothing they can take, they say, ‘Call your friend and tell him to bring money.’ They can be in plain clothes or in the uniform of security officers. I was advised not to visit Africans at home in their condos. If drugs are found in an apartment, the authorities arrest everyone present. The Business Student explains: ‘If you share your apartment with other Africans, as most of us do, you have to trust your fellow residents.’ I was told the story of three students who shared an apartment. One was a serious student, one a scammer, and one had begun to deal drugs, which the others did not know. One day the dealer came home with a prostitute, and later in the night the police arrived, found the drugs, and arrested all four, who were later sentenced to death. In many cases, such a problem can be dealt with by paying a bribe. If a drug dealer, for example, is caught on the street by the police, he might be able to negotiate his way out of the arrest, but once the arrest becomes official, escape is impossible. When Africans are arrested,

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

37

even on minor charges, they stay incarcerated until somebody finds the money to pay the bail. As a result, the prisons are full of Africans. The History Student visited a prison and was shocked by the conditions there. He also met friends there who he did not know had been arrested. They had not been visited by anyone for a long time and they had no idea whether they would ever get out again, as they did not have lawyers to help them. The movement of people to other countries generally presents opportunities but also challenges to both parties. Often, the challenges are predominant and do not foster cosmopolitanism but rather lead to nonassimilative cultural differentiation (Kearney 1995: 552). As I will argue here, the Malaysian state does not generally perceive foreign students as candidates who could contribute with their creative ideas to the development of the country but with its migration and labour policies rather directs these creative potentials towards informal ends and into what I have called the invisible ghetto. Policies will not easily change the objectives of why people came into a country.

The Successful Hustler and Entrepreneur: Display, Reinvestment, and Philanthropy The unfortunate Africans ended in prison, were deported, or were executed when they were caught with drugs, but the more fortunate hustlers either disappeared quickly with their money or reinvested it in more sustainable ventures. Engaging in dangerous hustling activities increased one’s prestige, as successful hunting proved a hunter’s talents, powers, and cleverness. The Money Doubler reasoned: ‘If you are clever, you make money in Malaysia […] [and] if you have money you can survive here […] You just have to be smart.’ Part of the ‘prey’ has to be redistributed among their friends. Once a hustling activity was successful, the lucky one first of all invited his friends to generous feasting. This materializes their talents, places their friends in their debt, and serves to elevate their social status. He also displayed his success by wearing expensive clothes, acquiring a respectable car, and consuming dishes made from expensive imported African ingredients. The Money Doubler told me about his and his friends’ frequent drinking sessions in Bukit Bintang, where they consumed great quantities of beer and whisky at large tables until the morning hours. Of course, the police often disturbed them, although in this business district there were no people sleeping in houses nearby. If the amount was high enough, the next step would be to send some of the money home as remittances and/or reinvest

38 Ute Röschenthaler

it in a business. Several of my interview partners were convinced that those who had a larger business or a shop in Malaysia initially obtained the start-up capital from some illegal hustling activity, or would still engage in hustling and use the shop to demonstrate that they had a legitimate source of income. In addition to their brokerage services and small-scale businesses which did not need much start-up capital, Africans have built up an entire infrastructure for their fellow Africans. They have set up businesses such as hair salons, bars, restaurants, night clubs, clinics, banks, cargo agencies, African churches, and shops where they sell groceries, shoes, apparel, and accessories. Most of the foods they are selling are imported from Nigeria, while other commodities are from Europe or China. Some of the Africans, women included, travel regularly to China to return with clothes, bags, and shoes which better suit African tastes and sizes and which are hard to find in Malaysia. They also send part of the goods to Africa. Not all African business people, of course, acquired their capital by hustling. Some brought capital from abroad or worked hard to create it. Some Africans have created their own company together with local partners, construct and produce commodities and technical instruments. The Drone Constructor, for example, has a company together with his Malaysian friends (two Indians and a Chinese) where they supervise online students for an Indian university and work on the construction of the civil drones that are fabricated in China.11 If they want to open a business, a shop, a nightclub, or a restaurant, foreigners have to work together with a local partner in whose name the business is registered and who has the right to receive 30% of the income created from the venture. They also have to employ Malaysians to work in the shop. These local partners can be local business people, study friends, or their Malaysian wife. But the money, the strategy, and the initiative comes from the Africans (according to my informants). Nigerians are especially successful entrepreneurs who have created employment and contributed to development in Malaysia. The Drone Constructor mentioned that there are a number of Nigerians in responsible positions in Malaysian society and are owners of palm oil plantations. One of them runs a car restoration business with a Chinese friend. In 2013, he handed over financial donations to less privileged Malaysians in an orphanage. The ceremony was featured in the magazine Black Legacy, 11 The businesses of Africans will be discussed in another article: Röschenthaler (forthcoming).

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

39

produced in Malaysia by a Nigerian. Another initiative inaugurated the African Social Awards Malaysia (ASAM). At these annual events, which began in 2011, the favourite stars of the African community are honoured. The venues indicate that considerable amounts of money are involved. The events were organized by the Nigerian company Play Entertainment and have been a huge success with the objective to recognize Africans and work towards ‘a homogenous society in Malaysia’ (Black Legacy 2013: 47-50). The luxurious magazine Black Legacy intends to portray successful African individuals with the objective to re-brand the image of Africa. All these activities confirm that the projects of African expatriates involve serious businesses that not only enhance the situation of individuals and their families but also entire national economies (Tilley 2007), be it the home or the host country.

Conclusion With this chapter, I have illustrated, with examples mainly of Cameroonians and Nigerians, how in the past decades growing numbers of Africans have travelled to Malaysia, despite – or, better, in ignorance of – the fact that Malaysia does not welcome migrants with economic aspirations but only paying students who quickly leave the country after graduation. Accordingly, the state makes it easy to receive a study visa and complicated to find work for students and migrants, not to mention citizenship. In this situation, which denies them reasonable access to making a living or even business opportunities – except for big business and investment – Africans develop creativity by offering services to fellow Africans and tapping global capitalism from below (Ndjio 2008) in order to complete their project of accumulating intellectual, social, and economic capital. The larger part of their illegal activities and networks can be attributed to this situation, and the comparison, for example, with Dubai, where many Cameroonians and Nigerians are also found, and the rate of illegal activities is low and the migrants’ trust in the local police to protect them is high, corroborates this conclusion. Upon arrival in Malaysia, they have to begin with less than they had before, resist the negative stereotypes of Africans, and make huge efforts to survive in order to make a fortune despite rules and regulations and the challenges presented by authorities and society at large. The state regulations force them, at least at the beginning of their stay, to assume often unwanted identities when they have to become victims of trafficking,

40 Ute Röschenthaler

criminals, illegal migrants, hustlers, or sometimes husbands of local women to be able to open a business, and often also the student identity is only assumed. The situation forces them to assume these roles if they do not want to return home empty-handed. In constant search for money to survive, Africans have built up an entire infrastructure mainly but not exclusively for fellow Africans which is partly informal in the case of brokerage services and partly formal when physical structures are necessary and local partners have to come in. Paradoxically, with their activities they lure more Africans to come to Malaysia, who find themselves in the same awkward situation as those who now make a living from their plight and their needs, and make the shadow economy grow, instead of sparing the newcomers such situations. The outcome of their adventure is uncertain. Many of the more successful hustlers indeed return home quickly and invest at home, as their families expect them to do. The more unsuccessful ones continue to try their luck and remain illegally or as captives in the country. Those who have married a local woman or made enough capital to work with partners, often continue to stay and reinvest in the Malaysian economy. It is an existential experience from which, as often in initiation rituals as well, not all candidates reappear again – some die in the dangers of the wilderness. The analogy of the temporary migration experience with an initiation ritual, during which young people remain for months or years in the forest, where life is different or even reversed, without – from the home perspective – a specified social status, fits best for those who return home after graduation. These more lucky ones emerge strengthened from the journey. This is what many interview partners suggested (without being asked particularly for that). They experienced this existential and complicated situation, as anthropologists know from initiation rituals, not necessarily as purely negative. The hairdresser, for example, was convinced that she appreciated Malaysia if only for fact that It has helped me a lot because I faced a lot of difficulties, and through these difficulties it has helped me to have strength, to know how to live an independent life without my parents though they always call and encourage me. It has seriously helped me because I have become strong, different from back home. Back home they used to do everything for me but now, I have to take care of myself, I have to save something, all these things. (Interview, March 2014)

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

41

In a similar vein the Allround Broker reasoned that he somehow gets along with the country, even though there have been hard times, but not as hard as compared to [home, where they remain dependent] […] I cannot call that really hardship, because even here if you feel hardship sometimes, it is better than being in Africa […] Because here, at least you know you may have a prospect, you may easily do something. But in Africa […] everybody is dependent. In Africa there is nobody over 40 years who is no more dependent. But here, when you are here, you are your mother, you are your father, you are your sister, you are your brother, all in one because you are alone. (Interview, March 2014)

In recent times and in the urban context in Africa, where there are hardly any initiation rituals any longer, these travels abroad can be compared to the experience of growing up, becoming responsible, and being able to care for oneself and others. For some this experience never ends in the way they or their relatives at home expected. They remain in the country because they have founded a family, even though they regularly have to renew their visa because, to my knowledge, no African (i.e. no one with two African parents) has ever received a Malaysian passport since the creation of Malaysia. Or, if the opportunity arises, they move on and try their luck in another country. My research leads me to three tentative conclusions: First, Africans who mostly come as students to Malaysia have in their home countries a certain standing; many come from well-to-do families, some have already studied or worked and earned their own money. They reach Malaysia and nearly all of them experience – the extent of this varies with the viability of their families – a reduction of their social status to mere paying customers of a school. They are confronted with racism and, worse, are often typecast as criminals. With whatever means available, the luckier and more clever ones among them make immense efforts to reverse this situation and regain status (at least among their own African community and at home), make money, and establish a business. From an outsider’s perspective, this resonates with what Boris Nieswand (2011) called the status paradox of African migrants. From an insider’s perspective, the experience might be compared with the liminal phase of an initiation ritual in the forest. Second, the labour laws and immigration policies of Malaysia determine to a great extent the situation and activities of migrants. They are confronted with a ‘legal production of their illegality’ (De Genova 2002) in which they have to arrange themselves. Third, Africans have built up an entire infrastructure for Africans, sell African commodities or those which

42 Ute Röschenthaler

appeal to Africans, create service enterprises and offer all kinds of informal brokerage services. In doing this, however, they also often exploit the plight of their fellow Africans to whom they offer services against payment and in these activities legal and illegitimate methods often melt into each other when they take what they feel the wealthy and powerful deny them. In many cases it is hard to neatly distinguish a legitimate service from the more exploitative or illegitimate and illegal character of other brokerage services, all called hustling. As such, most Africans live in a constant and routinized situation of crisis and stress (Mbembe and Roitman 1995) which necessitates social associations of mutual help, mostly with their fellow expatriates from the same countries. These relationships, however, are not free from distrust and suspicion of each other’s activities. The successful entrepreneurs largely overcome this stage and invest their capital in the infrastructure they build primarily for Africans but with growing success, reinvest their capital either in Africa or create employment in Malaysia, or both, and extend their activities with philanthropic acts to society at large. In short, there are many different trajectories for Africans in Malaysia, which are situated between hustling, legal business, and acts of philanthropy. They depend on the good luck, as well as the seriousness, intelligence, and talent of individuals to surmount the almost insurmountable challenges of migration to a country that only sees them as paying clients.

Works Cited Alpes, M. 2011. ‘Bushfalling: How Young Cameroonians Dare to Migrate’. PhD dissertation, Amsterdam University. Alpes, M. 2012. ‘Bushfalling at all Cost: The Economy of Migratory Knowledge in Anglophone Cameroon’. African Diaspora 5.1: 90-115. Apter, A. 1999. ‘§419: Nigerian Democracy and the Politics of Illusion’. In Civil Society and the Political Imagination in Africa: Critical Perspective, ed. J.L. Comaroff and J. Comaroff. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 267-309. Aronowitz, A. 2009. Human Trafficking, Human Misery: The Global Trade in Human Beings. Westport, CT. Greenwood. Banégas, R., and J.-P. Warnier. 2001. ‘Nouvelles Figures de la Réussite et du Pouvoir’. Politique Africaine 82: 5-21. Barlocco, F. 2014. Identity and the State in Malaysia. New York: Routledge. Black Legacy. 2013. Black Legacy (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) 1, December. Bodomo, A. 2015. ‘Africans in China: Guangzhou and Beyond – Issues and Reviews’. Journal of Pan African Studies 7.10: 1-9.

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

43

Bredeloup, S. 2012. ‘African Trading Posts in Guangzhou: Emergent or Recurrent Commercial Form?’. African Diaspora 5.1: 27-50. Case, W. 1993. ‘Semi-democracy in Malaysia: Withstanding the Pressures for Regime Change’. Pacific Affairs 66.2: 183-205. Chernoff, J. 2003. Hustling Is Not Stealing: Stories of an African Bar Girl. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Daloz, J.-P. 2002. ‘“Big Men” in Sub-Saharan Africa: How Elites Accumulate Positions and Resources’. Comparative Sociology 2.1: 271-285. Daniels, T. 2014. ‘African International Students in Klang Valley: Colonial Legacies, Postcolonial Racialization, and Sub-citizenship’. Citizenship Studies 18.8: 855-870. De Genova, N. 2002. ‘Migrant “Illegality” and Deportability in Everyday Life’. Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 419-437. Dunn, K.M. 2005. ‘A Paradigm of Transnationalism for Migration Studies’. New Zealand Population Review 31.2: 15-31. Finkenauer, J. 2001. ‘Russian Transnational Organized Crime and Human Trafficking’. In Global Human Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives, ed. D. Kyle and R. Koslowski. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 166-186. Frei, B. 2012. ‘“I Go Chop Your Dollar”: Scamming Practices and Notions of Moralities among Youth in Bamenda, Cameroon’. In Urban Life-Worlds in Motion: African Perspectives, ed. H.P. Hahn and K. Kastner. Bielefeld: transcript, 41-72. Glick Schiller, N., L. Basch, and C. Blanc-Szanton. 1992. ‘Transnationalism: A New Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration’. In Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered, ed. N. Glick Schiller, L. Basch, and C. Blanc-Szanton. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1-24. Haugen, H. 2012. ‘Nigerians in China: A Second State of Immobility’. International Migration 50.2: 65-80. Hefner, R. 2001. The Politics of Multiculturalism: Pluralism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Heryanto, A., and Mandal, S. 2003. Challenging Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia: Comparing Indonesia and Malaysia. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Hibou, B. ed. 2004. Privatising the State. Oxford: Hurst & Co. Kastner, K. 2014. Zwischen Suffering und Styling. Die lange Reise nigerianischer Migrantinnen nach Europa. Münster: LIT. Kearney, M. 1995. ‘The Local and the Global: The Anthropology of Globalization and Transnationalism’. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 547-565. Khoo, G.C. 2014. ‘Introduction: Theorizing Different Forms of Belonging in a Cosmopolitan Malaysia’. Citizenship Studies 18.8: 791-806.

44 Ute Röschenthaler

Kyle, D., and C. Siracusa. 2005. ‘Seeing the State Like a Migrant: Why So Many Con-criminals Break Immigration Laws’. In Illicit Flows and Criminal Things: States, Borders, and the Other Side of Globalization, ed. W. Van Schendel and I. Abraham. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 153-176. Legal Research Board. 2014. Employment Act 1955 (Act 256), Regulations and Orders & Selected Legislation (as at 20th January 2014). Petaling Jaya: International Law Book Services. Lian, I.T.A. 2011. ‘An Exploration of African Students in Malaysia’. US-China Education Review B 1.6: 856-861. Lindner, R. 2004. Walks on the Wild Side. Eine Geschichte der Stadtforschung. Frankfurt: Campus. Malaquais, D. 2001. ‘Art de Feyre au Cameroun’, Politique Africaine 82: 101-118. Malkki, L. 2002. ‘News from Nowhere: Mass Displacement and Globalized “Problems of Organization”’. Ethnography 3.3: 351-360. Manickam, S. 2012. ‘Common Ground: Race and the Colonial Universe in British Malaya’. Journal of Pacific History 47.3: 593-612. Marfaing, L. 2003. ‘Le Retour des Migrants, Mythes et Réalités: Le Cas des Sénégalais en Allemagne’. In Etre étranger et Migrant en Afrique au XXe siécle, ed. C. Coquery-Vidrovitch et al. 2 vols. Paris: l’Harmattan, vol. 2, 473-489. Mbembe, A., and J. Roitman. 1995. ‘Figures of the Subject in Times of Crisis’. Public Culture 7: 323-352. Ministry of Higher Education. N.d. Total Enrolment of International Students in Public and Private Higher Education Institutions, Year 2003-2009. Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia. http://jpt.moe.gov.my (no longer available) Mulumba, M.B., A. Obaje, K. Kobedi, and R. Kishun. 2008. ‘International Student Mobility in and out of Africa: Challenges and Opportunities’. In Higher Education in Africa: The International Dimension, ed. D. Teffera and J. Knight. Accra: Association of African Universities/Chestnut Hill, MA: Center for International Higher Education, 490-514. Ndjio, B. 2008. ‘Cameroonian Feymen and Nigerian “419” Scammers: Two Examples of Africa’s “Reinvention” of the Global Capitalism’. ASC Working Paper 81. African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands. https://openaccess.leidenuniv. nl/handle/1887/13016. Nieswand, B. 2011. Theorizing Transnational Migration: The Status Paradox of Migration. London: Routledge. Pelican M., and P. Tatah. 2009. ‘Migration to the Gulf States and China: Local Perspectives from Cameroon’. African Diaspora 2.2: 229-244. Pillai, P. 1995. ‘Malaysia’. ASEAN Economic Bulletin 12.2: 221-236. Roitman, J. 2005. Fiscal Disobedience: An Anthropology of Economic Regulation in Central Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

In Constant Search of Money to Survive

45

Röschenthaler, U. 2011. Purchasing Culture: The Dissemination of Associations in the Cross River Region of Cameroon and Nigeria. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Röschenthaler, Ute (forthcoming 2017). ‘African Businesses in Malaysia: “You Just Have to Be Smart” to Survive’. In: Mobility between Africa, Asia and Latin America: Economic Networks, Cultural Interaction and Aspirations of Success (ed. U. Röschenthaler and A. Jedlowski). London: Zed Books, 156-180. Sadiq, K. 2005. ‘When States Prefer Non-citizens over Citizens: Conflict over Illegal Immigration into Malaysia’. International Studies Quarterly 49.1: 101-122. Salt, J., and J. Stein. 1997. ‘Migration as a Business: The Case of Trafficking’. International Migration 35.4: 467-495. Sani, M. 2010. ‘The Politics of Islam Hadhari and Ethnic Relations in Malaysia’. In Ethnic Relations and Nation Building: The Way Forward, ed. M. Khemlani David et al. Petaling Jaya: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, 47-71. Sassen, S. 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Şaul, M., and M. Pelican. 2014. ‘Global African Entrepreneurs: A New Research Perspective on Contemporary African Migration’. Urban Anthropology 43.1-3: 1-16. Smith, D. 2001. ‘Ritual Killing, 419, and Fast Wealth in Southeastern Nigeria’. American Ethnologist 28.4: 803-826. Tilley, C. 2007. ‘Trust Networks in Transnational Migration’. Sociological Forum 22.1: 3-24. Vertovec, S. 1999. ‘Conceiving and Researching Transnationalism’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 22.2: 447-462. Wacquant, L. 1997. ‘Three Pernicious Premises in the Study of American Ghettos’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 21.2: 341-353. Warnier, J.-P. 1993. ‘The King as a Container in the Cameroon Grassfields’. Paideuma 39: 305-319. Welsh, B. 2008. ‘Malaysia’s Democratic Opening’, openDemocracy, 11  March. https://www.opendemocracy.net/article/democracy_power/politics_protest/ malaysia_democratic_opening. Wong, D. 2005. ‘The Rumor of Trafficking: Border Controls, Illegal Migration, and the Sovereignty of the Nation-state’. In Illicit Flows and Criminal Things: States, Borders, and the Other Side of Globalization, ed. W. Van Schendel and I. Abraham. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 69-100. Yoshino, K. 2010. ‘The Englishization of Higher Education in Asia and Migratory Flows of International Students’. Policy Innovations, 26 January. http://www. policyinnovations.org/ideas/commentary/data/000169.

2

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponderance of Asians in Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) in Cameroon Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

Introduction and Objectives Gold mining in Africa has a long pre-colonial history. The Kingdoms of Ghana and Mali were well-known for gold exploration and processing. Iron and copper were extracted all over the continent, inducing technological change and transformation within African traditions over two and a half millennia. These early mining operations in Africa have been largely ignored by the Western world (Humphris 2010). Today, African countries account for 20% of the annual gold production (2400 million tons). Africa’s largest gold producer, the Republic of South Africa (SA), is responsible for slightly over half of the continent’s production and about 10% of the global output (AfDB 2002). SA’s production started in 1884 and accounted for approximately a 70% share of the global gold output in 1970 and for 32% of the historical global gold production. South Africa has dominated the gold mining industry for over 125 years. Besides the prominent gold producers (SA, Ghana, Mali, Tanzania), several other African countries, including Cameroon, are involved in gold production (Short and Radebe 2008). Although Cameroon is only a modest contributor to global gold production (about 25 tons), more than 90% of the Cameroonian gold production is not included in official records (Barthélémy 2011). Nowadays, gold production is gaining in importance due to the opening up of the artisanal mining subsector to small mining companies with its corollary of the voluntary monthly declaration of production (République du Cameroun 2014). Since 2004, Asian, Western, and African entrepreneurs have owned part of Cameroon’s gold mining business, but local perceptions about their practices have not yet been studied. Presenting some characteristics of Cameroon’s mining sector as the entry point, this chapter focuses on how the dominance of Asian stakeholders are being perceived within the ASM subsector in East Cameroon, especially in the mining communities of Bétaré-Oya and Colomine, respectively in Lom and Djérem and Ngoura subdivisions. It

48 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

is hypothesized that their environmental and social records lead to their being negatively perceived by host communities threatened by the negative effects, arising from an emphasis on realizing quick profits for international investors tolerated by the government of Cameroon.

Main Characteristics of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) The picture of ASM as it is taking place in Cameroon is rather colourful. Before presenting Cameroon’s ASM and its recent developments, the concept of ASM will be discussed as well as its associated characteristics. Theoretical Background Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is subject to various conceptualization efforts as illustrated by Hilson and McQuilken (2014), who reported nine selected definitions provided by different bodies dealing with the issue, displaying the complexity and the lack of consensus about the concept of ASM. From the way it is worded, there is no indication whether the two main features of mining (‘artisanal’ and ‘small-scale’) are inclusive or not. In fact, on the one hand, ‘artisanal’ refers to the way the mineral is being extracted and concentrated and therefore has much to do with rudimentary techniques and practices used in mining operations, while on the other hand, ‘small-scale’ relates to the size or scope of the mining project (Veiga 1997: 3). As a consequence, when these adjectives are juxtaposed in the generic appellation (ASM), it can result in two different understandings. The compartmental approach promotes the point of view that artisanal mining and small-scale or petty mining are separate and distinct components or subtypes (UNECA 1992) under the ASM banner solely for reasons of convenience. The ‘artisanal’ character of mining is understood to be ‘primitive’ and labour-intensive, using manual labour and simple tools and in very small operations usually reserved for rural dwellers (Davidson 1993) with limited resources. In contrast, ‘small-scale’ indicates a more advanced form of mining which uses more or less modern technological means in midsized ventures involving investors having a better financial footing, and thus access to machinery or, at least, basic mechanization. The idea of ASM segmentation coincides with situations that can be seen all over West Africa (e.g. Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal).

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

49

For a complementary approach, ASM is a generic name referring to mining operations which are different from industrial mining by the annual production of unprocessed materials by a single mining operation which must not exceed 50,000 tons (UN 1972) or 100,000 tons/year run-of-mine production according to Seccatore et al. (2014). It is carried out by ‘individuals, groups, families or cooperatives mining with minimal or no mechanization’ (Hentschel et al. 2002: 4). As envisaged by UNEP (2012), the appropriate definition is best decided at the national level. Constantly changing in Cameroon, the concept of ASM was largely ignored or even banned until after independence and the adoption of a suitable definition in the early 2000s, including ‘non-industrial mining’ (in the 2001 Mining Act), meaning manual and non-mechanized mining, and, f inally, a compartmented def inition as of 2010 with two subsets (‘non-industrial mining’ and ‘small mine’), under the small-scale mining section (National Assembly 2010). The 2014 decree emphasized the segmentation by acknowledging the recourse to minimal mechanized processes for Cameroonian citizens or any foreigner who partners with a Cameroonian to develop a low-mechanized mining operation with maximal equipment limited to one loading shovel, three excavators, and one washing unit (République du Cameroun 2014). ASM is identified as the lowest stage of industrial mining (ILO 1999) with some key associated elements. Marginality is deemed to be practiced on subsidiary or small deposits (Buxton 2013; ILO 2003), which are located in remote rural areas that are excellent grounds for informality. Informality goes in line with illegality when the subsector is – as it often is – undersupervised by the government (Hentschel et al. 2002). Thus, ASM operators are often poorly educated people with limited skills in planning. It is a spontaneous, self-organized, and itinerant activity driven by poverty where operators fight for survival within a context of limited alternatives. ASM is also seen as a stopgap for peasants who can afford to invest in the basic tools used in mining in order to complement the income they can generate from agricultural activities (Hilson and McQuilken 2014; Spiegel and Veiga 2010; World Bank 2013). Conversely, in advanced technological ASM projects, investors are driven by profit expectations, the dream of getting rich quick as the return on investment is a fair reward for all average entrepreneurs (Noetstaller 1987; SDC 2011; Bakia 2014). Impacts generated by ASM in countries hosting such projects are also discussed. It is positively perceived as a tool that could have been used for poverty eradication because it is a socioeconomic shock absorber, an essential source of poverty alleviation for poorer populations in Third

50 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

World countries (AU 2009; Spiegel and Veiga 2010). For instance, in northern localities of Ghana, ASM brought considerable wealth and improved living conditions to numerous peasants by complementing their income, which was in a freefall since the government stopped subsidizing agricultural inputs (Hilson et al. 2013; Hilson 2013b). ASM stimulates considerable local economic development, generating up to five times more income than other rural poverty-driven activity and employing ten times more people than large-scale mining (Bakia 2014). Each individual employed directly in the sector ‘creates’ six downstream jobs attracting skilled and semiskilled people from all over the country and reducing the positive effect on outmigration in remote rural areas (Hilson and McQuilken 2014). Conversely, ASM operations are regularly held responsible for many problems affecting hosting communities and the local environment. Among other negative social effects, locals suffer from drug use, prostitution, and sexually transmitted diseases. Workers and their families are exposed to mercury pollution and residents of nearby and downstream communities consume fish that have been contaminated with methylmercury. They can experience health problems such as mercury poisoning, silicosis (lung disease caused by inhalation of crystalline silica dust), neurological and kidney damage, cardiovascular and respiratory dysfunctions, as well as injury and fatality from landslides, cave-ins, and chronic physical overexertion (Spiegel and Veiga 2010; Seccatore et al. 2014; Gibb and O’Leary 2014; Hilson and McQuilken 2014). Other ecological impacts caused by ASM operations include diversion of rivers, silting, water suspension, landscape degradation, deforestation, and destruction of aquatic habitats (Tieguhong et al. 2009). However, despite the impact of ASM, the government and ASM-supporting organizations have not granted ASM the importance it deserves (Hilson and Osei 2014; Labonne 2014). This needs to be addressed in order to ensure social and environmental justice for the people of the affected regions and to develop sustainable poverty-reduction measures (Bakia 2014; Labonne 2014; Childs 2014). In this regard, one of the problems to be addressed is the lingering informality associated with ASM and other negative issues (Hilson et al. 2013). As a consequence, ASM is always cast in a negative light due to its association with investors. Decoupling the impact of ASM and the practices of investors is difficult to do. For example, China’s involvement in ASM in Ghana can correctly be perceived as variegated and complex (Hilson et al. 2014), rather than simply understood as a negative relationship. The involvement of China in Africa arouses feelings ranging from ‘love to suspicion’ on the continent (Wang and Elliot 2014: 2) and should not therefore be solely associated with negative actions. Cameroonian views

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

51

of Chinese involvement in the ASM subsector have not yet been gauged. A survey on Cameroonian perceptions of the Chinese presence showed that 92% of surveyed people thought that China helps Cameroon’s economy by providing foreign direct investment (FDI) and infrastructure. Still, 8% maintained that the China-Cameroon relationship harms Cameroon’s economy by undermining local entrepreneurship and production capacities; 81% indicated they welcome Chinese products entering Cameroon, mainly as affordable to the poor and aiding locals to set up businesses (such as motorbike drivers), as cited by 35% of participants; 70% of informants estimated that the government benefitted from the Chinese presence while 30% thought they were poor through accession to affordable Chinese goods (Ngome 2007; Sautman and Hairong 2009). Perkins (2012) compared perceptions of China and US investors in Cameroon, and stressed the fact that China emerges with concrete achievements while the United States is seen to be more value-oriented (human rights, democracy, transparency). For interviewees, ‘Cameroonians are frustrated with the United States’ lack of infrastructural projects and the transformative effect its political interests have on Cameroonian culture [while they] appreciate the visibility of Chinese infrastructural projects but are wary of what economic or political power China might wield over Cameroon in the future’ (Perkins 2012: 3). This analysis corroborates findings made by Rebol (2010) about the positive effects on perceptions of China in Africa as long as these projects deliver what they promise, knowing that it can quickly turn negative when problems arise.

Small-Scale Mining in Cameroon Despite a long-established mining tradition (Warnier and Fowler 1979; Maceachern 1993), gold was discovered in Bétaré-Oya after Germans departed from Cameroon in 1914. France partly took over the country and managed the sector through the Mining Bureau of Overseas France (Bureau Minier de la France d’Outre-Mer) with several mineral exploration campaigns in southern Cameroon from 1929 to 1933. As a result, 1000 research permits were granted to 30 French private companies (Barthélémy 2011) with favourable tax and custom duty conditions (Atangana 2009). Although operations were not mechanized and the work was carried out by forced labourers recruited by the local administration (Mimbang Zouya 2013), these companies produced 7375 kg of gold before the country became independent in 1960, with rises and declines of the official production (figure 2.1).

52 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge Figure 2.1 Annual Gold Production in Cameroon, 1935-2003

WORLD WAR

Pressure of informal networks The fall of national recuperations The end of gold standard

650 600 550 500 450 400 350

The Second Oil Shock

SECOND

I N D E Artisanal miners P discovered Kambele E N D E N C E

The First Oil Shock

Revaluation of gold standard prices from 20.67 to 35 (Oz./$US)

700 95% of gold is collected through informal networks

300 250 200 150 100 50

1930 1932 1934 1936 1938 1940 1942 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002

0

Production (Au/kg)

Gold price per Troy Ounce in $US

Source: adapated from Barthélémy (2011)

As from 1960 on, international actors have gradually abandoned mining for agriculture, promoting the rise of new investors in an unregulated environment. Prompted by France (UNECA 1992), Cameroon adopted the 1964 mining law, without any mention of ASM. Instead, restrictions – to be detailed in an upcoming regulation – were imposed on ownership, possession, transportation, trade, and processing transactions, making prior authorization assuming the existence of ASM necessary. For example, the possession and exporting of diamonds was prohibited (Garrett et al. 2010). It took ten years after the law was created to directly address crafts mining through Decree No. 74/411 of 24 April 1974, which identified ASM as the preserve of Cameroonian citizens (‘permittees or gold mining cardholders’) and trading operations of ‘Commissionaires or licensed collector’ were available for all applicants. Yet, given the fact that the regulation granted no compensation (incentives) to these operators and the limited capability of the government to monitor the sector, legalization of ASM turned out to be virtually impossible (UNECA 1994: 5). From 1987 onwards, Cameroon was been seriously affected by economic crises. The country went through a series of economic reform programmes – Structural Adjustment Programmes (I: 1989-1995; II: 1997-2000; III: 20012005); Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (2003-2007); and Growth and Employment Strategy Paper (2010-2020) under the auspices of Bretton Woods institutions (AfDB 2002; Gauthier and Zeufack 2009) – which focused on

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

53

promoting hydrocarbons exploration, redefining the government’s role in the realm of mining, and revising the mining law (World Bank 1989). This culminated in April 2006 with Cameroon’s entry into the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC). Although solid mining was a marginal segment of the economy during that period, Decree No. 96/337 of 30 May 1996 regulating artisanal mining and precious stones, supplemented by Regulation 006MINMMEE/DMTNI/SRDM of 2 June 1997 laying down the implementing conditions, broke down ASM into two components (artisanal mining and semi-industrial mining), as reported by UNECA (1998). Indeed, ASM was perceived as capable of growth if appropriately supported (Republic of Cameroon 2003). One outcome of these reforms was the financial support that was granted to the Mining Handicraft Support Framework (CAPAM) under the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). Even the vision of Cameroon to become a middle-income country is resting on its primary assets (agriculture, mining) and an equal distribution of income resulting from mining operations. That’s why, according to the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper (GESP), actions ‘should firstly concern foreign direct investors and allow for the acquisition of new technologies here and there’ (Republic of Cameroon 2009a: 9). The relentless attempts of the government in combination with the support of various international partners (Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières, International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations Development Programme, World Bank Group) failed to stem the rise of clandestine operations (Barthélémy 2011) because it was mainly geared towards geological exploration campaigns (Ndougsa 2009). Although these surveys spawned better knowledge of the geological resources (figure 2.2) within the basement rocks (iron, uranium, titanium, cobalt-nickel, bauxite), knowledge of primary gold deposits did not substantially increase. As a consequence, purchase transactions were mostly controlled by West Africans businessmen through their Cameroonian middlemen. Few purchase offices were legally operational because informal buyers dominated the entire gold value chain. In anticipation of the production, the brokers provided equipment (mining shovels, pumps, crowbars, pans), food, and sometimes small amounts of cash to diggers. Gold and diamonds resulting from the artisanal operations were primarily sold to these traders under their own conditions. It is worth balancing this analysis by adding that the informality was almost in every sector of the national economy measured by the National Institute of Statistics (INS 2008), showing that 90% of the labour force is employed within the informal sector.

54 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

Largely under the direction of bilateral and/or multilateral cooperation partners, the policy framework deliberately marginalized and fuelled the growth of informal ASM. The culmination of this orientation of attracting foreign direct investment is now attained thanks to the 2014 implementing decree which finally finds a way to involve foreign operators into ASM by dissolving the principle of differential access to mineral rights for different classes of mining investors (République du Cameroun 2014) and in doing so, encourage all potential interested operators (World Bank 1992). Henceforth, ASM is reserved for people owning capital and not for local ‘barefoot operators’ because there is a need for increasing financial contributions of ASM through taxation of mining operations and shrinking space for artisanal mining and fewer incentives (Hilson et al. 2014: 298). The official revitalization of the sector with policies to attract investors from all over the world through diplomatic means (Nguepjouo and Runge 2014) is largely based on new regulatory and institutional arrangements that promote fast economic development based on natural resources and siding with capital against local communities (Veltmeyer 2013).

Asian Involvement in Cameroon: Recent Trends Law No. 2001/1 of 16 April 2001 inaugurated a new era for mining operations in Cameroon. The law was clearly pro-investment. In it, ASM referred to ‘non-industrial mining operations’, opposing it to ‘industrial mining’, which was deemed mechanized and large in scale. Its implementing decree (No. 2002/648/PM of 26 March 2002) followed the same line, stating that each non-industrial mining authorization would be a quadrilateral shape of which each side could be no more than 100 metres long. A maximum of four plots (4 ha) could be granted to a single Cameroonian applicant for a validity period of two years from the time it was registered in the mining title register. It also recognizes that the non-industrial prospector has the right of free disposal of the samples gathered in the course of his activity by monetizing their discoveries with different kind of individuals or corporate bodies. This right is neither assignable nor transferrable and no one may be associated therewith as co-owner. Non-industrial mining authorizations are issued by the divisional delegate of mines having jurisdiction after verification of the geographical coordinates of the perimeter at the registrar’s office (Nguiffo and Nkenfack 2011).

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

55

The new legislation seems to be inclined towards the intensif ication and industrialization of non-industrial mining and towards the opening up of the subsector to foreign investors. To address this matter, the 2010 adjustments (National Assembly 2010: 5) amended and supplemented certain provisions of the 2001 law. There was the introduction of a ‘small-scale mining permit’ in addition to the ‘non-industrial mining authorization’. At least 40% of the shares of every small-scale mining project must be held by Cameroonians and must be carried out on proven reserves ‘using standard rules, semi-industrial or industrial processes whose annual production [must] not exceed a certain tonnage of the marketable product’ (National Assembly 2010) for an initial validity period of ten years. The 2014 decree detailed provisions of the 2010 law acknowledging the mechanization of processes for foreigners partnering with Cameroonians to develop low-mechanized mining projects (one loading shovel, three excavators maximum, and one washing unit) (République du Cameroun 2014: 1). Still, a revision process is ongoing to offer an opportunity to different stakeholders to participate and contribute to the elaboration of a more consensual legal instrument (Nguepjouo and Runge 2014). As part of the operational measures, CAPAM was created in 2003 to stimulate the development of the subsector. Although CAPAM failed to implement sweeping transformations in the ASM sector (formalization, mechanization, and professionalization), it has been quite successful in supporting joint ventures involving some small companies (Cameroon Mining Company (Caminco SA) and Cameroon and Korea Mining Inc. (C&K Mining Inc.)). As a result, artisanal mining slowly moved to a kind of industrialization while strong artisanal mining was overlooked (Republic of Cameroon 2009b; Tieguhong et al. 2009). According to CAPAM’s records, in 2014, 53 companies were active in the East region and 38 of them in the area of Bétaré-Oya, while Ngoura and Kadey in Colomine represent less than 20% of the total engagement of the companies in ASM (Nguepjouo and Runge 2014). The largest gold chain falls almost entirely in the informal sector and less than 5% of miners are legally involved in ASM. There are about 15,000 people working more than 200 days per year. If jobbers and extended family members are included, there are nearly 100,000 people who are concerned with more than 75% of them in the East Cameroon region (Barthélémy 2011).

56 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge Figure 2.2 Map of ASM Activities in Cameroon

Source: Barthélémy (2011) and CAPAM (2014)

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

57

Fieldwork and Methods Both qualitative and quantitative data-collection methods were used. Readings of archives and different sources, field observation, a focus group interview, and interviews with officials were the channels used to gather qualitative information from our informants. Surveys were conducted among 167 local inhabitants and workers randomly selected on mining sites and in riverine communities roughly located within a radius of 60 kilometres around the two main mining towns of Bétaré-Oya and Colomine. People’s perceptions were collected through a face-to-face questionnaire administered during three field visits (March 2013, March 2014, and September 2013) in Lom and Djerem division. A brief review of the interviewees reveals some major characteristics. The surveyed population was young with an average age of 37.63 years ranging from 18 to 79 years old. The gender structure of the group was not balanced as only 25% of the interviewees were women (who were mainly involved in the processing of the ore in the washing and gold-selection operations). The other interviewees’ working experiences were varied: small-scale mining employment (geologist, machinist), artisanal mining employment (collector, artisan), indirect mining employment (driver, guardian), and some mining-related employment (trader, moto driver). However, prior to the current mining development, several non-mining jobs, mainly traditional activities (farmer, breeder) and others (unemployed, traditional rulers), were found in the region. These experienced participants originated from all over Cameroon with a slight dominance of the East region (47.9%) – the administrative hotspot of small-scale mining projects (Betaré-Oya, Ngoura, Ketté, Batouri subdivisions), which accounts for more than 85% of ASM in Cameroon. The northern regions included mainly the Adamaoua region (32.9%), the Centre (8.4%), others (North-west, South-west, West and Littoral: 10.8%). Each respondent was asked to indicate his/her perception of each selected item (variable) using a unidimensional scaling method based on the five-point Likert scale. A five-point response continuum scale rested on the inverted Likert scale scored as follows: 1: ‘strong positive impact’; 2: ‘positive impact’; 3: ‘no visible impact’; 4: ‘negative impact’; and 5: ‘strong negative impact’. Each quantitative questionnaire made up of a set of 30 variables grouped into the three sustainability dimensions (environment, economy, and society) and were later submitted to logistic regression analysis (t-student). The measured perceptions recorded from these interviewees are presented in the following results section.

58 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

Results How people perceive ASM and practices of mining entrepreneurs on human beings and their environment was the concern that guided each item of the questionnaire. Apart from identifying issues, the 30 others were grouped into three main categories (environment, society, and economy), addressing each dimension of sustainable mining.

Perceptions of ASM Impacts on the Environment Table 2.1 shows results of the first set of ten variables investigating ASM’s impacts on various components of the environment as perceived by the surveyed population. Table 2.1 Output of Respondents’ Opinions of the Impact of ASM on Environmental Components Mean

Std. Error Mean

T

p-value

Abandoned sterile on-site Biodiversity

-1,365±0,088 -0,299±0,085

0,044 0,043

-30,730 -6,978

0 0

Discharge of sewage, grease in nature Landscape Loss of agricultural land and other uses Pollution (air, soil, water, noise, vibration) Rivers and streams Soil erosion and derelict sites

-0,407±0,098 -0,264±0,089 -1,198±0,079 -0,234±0,080 -1,204±0,077 -0,856±0,088

0,050 0,045 0,040 0,041 0,039 0,044

-8,203 -5,841 -29,898 -5,740 -30,533 -19,303

0 0 0 0 0 0

Vegetation Wildlife and natural habitat

-0,359±0,119 -0,335±0,082

0,060 0,041

-5,969 -8,125

0 0

When p-value ≤ 0.05, the measurement of the variable is significant and the sign of the arithmetic mean indicates the direction of the significance (negative or positive).

Whatever the environmental section reviewed, the calculation of the indicator of perceptions is significant (p-value) and clearly negative (t), revealing the perception of the harshness of impacts over mining regions. From the beginning, ASM hurts the environment by cutting down the thorny savannah grasses, grasslands and shrub lands to access the mineral underground. Barthélémy (2011) estimated an average progression rate of 6.2 ha per year for an ASM company. Based on 43 active small companies in Colomine (Kadey, Ngoura) and Bétaré-Oya, the vegetation cover lost yearly can be estimated

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

59

at 266.600 m², without taking into consideration the fact that a company can hold up to 20 operating licenses simultaneously (CAPAM 2014). In the Lala region, the hippopotamus population has shrunk from 40 to 2 or 3 individuals, a development that is illustrative of the lack of knowledge about this species, which is on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (Maha 2012; Journal du Cameroun 2014). Disruptions in biodiversity that have been recorded include, for example, disturbing animals so they flee the area, a diminution of local natural resources in ‘natural’ habitats, and serious negative affects on local community livelihoods (non-timber forest products, agriculture, hunting, fishing), all of which are inextricably dependent on their environment. The scope of biodiversity lost is unknown because no prior appropriate inventory (animal and vegetal) was conducted in relation to ASM. Soils have been left bare and were exposed to erosion and areas devoted to ASM are usually covered by wells and cuttings, which will remain unsuitable for agricultural for a long period before any kind of vegetation resumes. A few cases of geomorphic depressions associated with haphazard excavation can be found in Colomine, Mali, Nakoyo, Lom, Sarambi, Monbal, and Bangbel. Waters resources are affected as well, especially because this activity can occur in alluvial places which tend to follow the former or current course of streams in the region. By deflecting or blocking river courses, companies disturb the water system and cause siltation detrimental to fishery and household uses of the same water resources (Nguepjouo and Manyacka 2008). Furthermore, muddy water is ejected directly into river courses, which causes them to become yellow downstream, along many kilometres from the mining site, resulting in conditions that support the spread of waterborne diseases and threaten fish breeding grounds and other ecosystems (Tetsopgang et al. 2007). The well-funded projects (for example, Dubai International Clima, Good Luck Mining Metalicon) have a number of machines (four to six excavators, three to five trucks, two shovels, and a washing unit) while the smaller projects tend to have only limited equipment (an excavator and a washing unit), but all consume supplies of fuel and lubricants. Maintenance operations are generally made on-site without taking special care to avoid spills, which result in localized pollution. The excavators and other machines also constantly produce noise and vibrations that have a negative impact on the surrounding areas. Only a few mining projects refill their mining pits when the job is finished, despite the stipulation in the regulation that companies must fill in holes after finishing mining on a site. Abandoned open holes are scattered

60 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

everywhere in areas where ASM takes place. These holes present a serious danger to local people as well as to wild and domestic animals, as well as affect the landscape by exposing degradation points. These worrying phenomena are further exacerbated by clandestine and illegal practices of some mining operators and ASM companies, which certainly increase the level of environmental degradation. This was recently denounced by the Lom and Djerem subdivisional delegate in charge of mines (Chimete 2014). As the perception of environmental impact is negative, what about that of social impacts?

Perceptions of ASM Impacts on Society The following set of ten variables (table 2.2) assesses the perceptions of ASM impacts on local communities. Table 2.2 Output of Respondents’ Opinions of the Impact of ASM on Social Variables

Conflicts Displacement and relocation of local populations Healthcare and education systems Increase in prostitution and depravity Infrastructural development (road, school) Insecurity, violence (crimes, theft, armed gangs) Landslides and other accidents Local resources (land, crops) Social and family ties Traditional values, cultural sites

Mean

Std. Error Mean

t

p-value

-0,018±0,026

0,013

-1,345

0,180

-0,060±0,050 -0,557±0,108 -1,659±0,075 0,120±0,169

0,025 0,055 0,038 0,086

-2,390 -10,165 -43,917 1,397

0,018 0 0 0,164

-1,527±0,082 -0,892±0,120 -1,329±0,091 -0,018±0,026 -0,569±0,107

0,041 0,061 0,046 0,013 0,054

-36,838 -14,705 -28,843 -1,345 -10,527

0 0 0 0,180 0

When p-value ≤ 0.05, the measurement of the variable is significant and the sign of the arithmetic mean indicates the direction of the significance (negative or positive).

Out of the ten variables, three are not significant, underlining the rather positive appraisal made by interviewees on those variables while people’s views are different about conflicts, infrastructure development, and social and family ties. ASM did not favour the occurrence of conflicts. This acknowledges the fact that some social achievements exist and capture people attention. As an illustration, Korean companies (Goldex Mining,

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

61

C&K Mining) and South African Caminco built and renovated some infrastructures (chiefdoms, hospital entrance, classrooms, schools, bridges, roads) that are now dating a few years back. All this was done when CAPAM was managing some HIPC funds with a strong presence at the local level to bargain for such social impacts. Nowadays there are fewer records of such infrastructure built in the mining region. In contrast, despite some sporadic medical campaigns and drug donations, the sample population is not concerned about ASM impacts on healthcare and education systems. Instead, ASM brought people together from everywhere into the mining region, and quite often they had to stay away from their family for long periods of time, therefore contributing to an increase in antisocial behaviour, including involvement with prostitution, narcotic consumption, and alcoholism, all of which led to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and ultimately put intense strain on an otherwise weak health care system. Furthermore, due to the ongoing social and security concerns in the Central African Republic (CAR), young Central Africans cross the border to settle in Bétaré-Oya in order to find work or make a living. Among these young people, some of the females work as domestic or bar staff, and others are involved in prostitution. Although no case of villagers’ displacement and relocation has been mentioned, local communities are impacted from inside as ASM moved into villages, scattering and occupying lands. ASM operators have shrunk spaces originally devoted to locals’ livelihood activities with their mining tenements (prospecting licenses, mining authorizations, constructions, excavations, overburden disposals) and therefore are perceived as favouring land grabbing because ‘mining authorizations issued to investors […] lead to appropriate thousands hectares of lands in the villages [which] […] are also bounded and then sold to expatriates’ (Agence Ecofin 2014: 1). Likewise, many migrants lured by the expected economic windfall of ASM compete with locals in accessing arable lands, which can sometime result in friction and conflicts over access, usage, and control of the resources (lands, water, mining), resulting in an increase in insecurity (crimes, armed gangs). These issues poses challenges to ASM’s future despite its positive economic outcomes.

Indicators of the Perceived Impacts of ASM on the Economy The variables in table 2.3 have been investigated in order to find out what are the perceptions of ASM’s impacts on the economy in mining regions.

62 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge Table 2.3 Output of Respondents’ Opinions of the Impact of ASM on Economic Indicators

Mean

Std. Error Mean

t

p-value

Access to income Corruption Embezzlement Indirect and induced economic activities Inflation Integrated local economy

-0,293 ± 0,072 -0,323 ± 0,081 0 1,180 ± 0,083 -0,832 ± 0,062 0,617 ± 0,146

0,036 0,041 0 0,042 0,031 0,074

-8,073 -7,892 /* 28,171 -26,521 8,344

0 0 / 0 0 0

Job creation and training opportunities Monetary circulation (investments, taxes) ‘Traditional’ livelihood Traffic of all kinds

0,827 1,168 -0,437 -0,275

0,057 0,046 0,040 0,036

14,506 25,682 -10,839 -7,716

0 0 0 0

± ± ± ±

0,112 0,090 0,080 0,071

When p-value ≤ 0.05, the measurement of the variable is significant and the sign of the arithmetic mean indicates the direction of the significance (negative or positive). * t cannot be computed because the standard deviation is 0.

One variable (embezzlement) was not computed, but output variables show both negative and positive outcomes. The negative side is made up of inflation, loss of traditional livelihood, traffic, corruption, and access to income. Cash flow circulating also generates inflation: housing, food, and other consumer products are generally overpriced, especially for unemployed people and local populations that continue to rely mainly on their traditional activities. Moreover, corruption and other practices such as traffic and embezzlement are frequently mentioned in ASM. Likewise, local communities are still suffering from their marginal position within the mining business and consider themselves as overmatched in other income-generating activities, entailing the persistence of grinding poverty within communities. ASM is seen as having positive impacts on job creation and training opportunities, economic activities, monetary circulation, and integration of the local economy. At least 400 contracted people (geologists, drivers, mechanics, watchmen, human resource officers) earn attractive salaries in mining companies while local entrepreneurs foster the development of self-employment in local small businesses (bars, bakery, housing construction, shops) that result in an unprecedented cash flow and provide a solid foundation to the integrated local economy. As a matter of fact, most of the employees invested in housing and small economic activities in order to lower their dependence on mining and the changing face of mining

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

63

localities. In addition, ASM operators were supposed to pay up to €1,717,600 monthly as shares to be received by the government and rural mining councils, calculations based on a production level of 113 kg in October 2012 (CAPAM 2013). Thus, the sector attributes significantly to the economy both at local and central levels.

Discussion Though the sector is a mixture of local, indigenous, and foreign (mainly Asian) actors of different regional origins, surprisingly during the field survey, no specific group was mentioned. This could be due to the fact that interviewees refer to all companies without segregating them in terms of their origin, perceiving foreigners as a homogeneous group of people separated from Cameroonians. It is clear that negative qualities are attributed to the predominant Asian operators. In fact, some local elites could differentiate between the international investors, but it is of no interest to regular rural dwellers because Westerners and Asians did not recall any relevant specificity. They would indifferently call them ‘Blancs/Whites’, referring to their skin colour, or ‘Chinois/Chinese’, representing the largest group of investors. The discussion section addresses the issue of Asian involvement in Cameroon by characterizing it and understanding the perception of the government regarding the matter and the perspective constituted by several international mining investors who are involved in the country.

The Rebirth of ASM and the Characterization of Asian Mining Operators The official rebirth of ASM is largely attributed to Koreans (former AFKO: C&K Mining) under the supervision of CAPAM. Other Korean mining operators invested in the subsector (Kocam Mining, Goldex Mining, AK Mining, JS Mining), leading Koreans to play a dominant role. Nowadays, Chinese operators have taken over the leadership and Asian operators account for 68% whereas Chinese companies alone represent 52% of the total operating companies. Asians under the leadership of the Chinese are increasingly shaping the ASM subsector (Nguepjouo and Runge 2014) and they belong to the third wave of Chinese migration to Africa made up of settlers and business people who are in Africa for the long term and who have positioned

64 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

themselves as stakeholders with their capital (Spring and Jiao 2008). Some of these mining investors are also involved in other commercial activities locally or in main cities like Douala and Yaoundé. Cameroonians, French, Italian, South African, and Spanish investors account for only 16%. Regarding the issue of Asian involvement (mainly Korea and China) in ASM in Cameroon, findings suggest that they are having an influence on policies and practices in the subsector. Asian companies make up more than two-thirds of companies active in the sector and actively seek to reduce the legal restrictions affecting access to the subsector, which was formerly reserved to nationals. The first step has been to partner with local people in order to access mining sites and the situation today is having full access to a special mining title (‘artisanat minier peu mécanisé’) tailored in accordance with their needs (République du Cameroun 2014: 1). The needs of those involved in ASM do not yet play a determining role in Cameroonian diplomacy and their image is less politically salient because these small private businessmen seek economic opportunities rather than political influence. Asian citizens entering Cameroon on their own terms do not have significant access to officials in Yaoundé and usually seek opportunities on their own without receiving any protection from their embassies. They use their own connections and resources (local contacts, equipment, and capital) rather than political or diplomatic connections to get returns on their investments. One of their local contacts (Mr. Pepe), whom we met and who lives in Douala, is familiar with the Chinese communities and the trading of different kinds of Chinese goods. He has been quite successful in getting many of them to become involved in the ASM sector and has facilitated their engagement with the relevant administrative formalities and contacts in the Lom and Djerem division. The other Chinese came directly from China in search of investment opportunities and they informed or called for other Chinese investors or workers to be involved in ASM. A fraction of these investors recently moved from Ghana in 2013. It is hard to connect such small mining investors with an overarching plan piloted from Beijing or Seoul to increase their presence in Cameroon. Nevertheless, these mining investments driven by opportunistic Asian businessmen can be indirectly linked to the service of these Asian countries, especially China. This finding corroborates the fact that the strong entrepreneurial culture of Chinese investors leads them to follow their own paths to Sub-Saharan Africa, motivated by market opportunities (Shen 2013; Hilson et al. 2014). Koreans are likely most respectful of the law and are therefore the most respected among mining operators and workers for their social and infrastructural investments (working conditions, roads, schools) in the mining

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

65

region and thus have an impressive effect on local dwellers. In contrast, Chinese are portrayed as rogue entrepreneurs by other ASM operators for engaging in unfair competition and unsustainable operations. At the ground level, effective Chinese dominance can be seen through cultural channels such as language, medicine, music, and cultural spaces. As far as language is concerned, many of the signposts in Bétaré-Oya are in French and Chinese and sometimes only in Chinese. These are arranged by Cameroonian businessmen seeking to engage with Chinese buyers, many of whom cannot read French. On Chinese mining sites, most employees can communicate in basic Chinese with their foremen, and larger companies often have interpreters to deal with administrative issues. The Chinese provide people in the region with free medical treatment and medicines. They also built a Chinese hostel and restaurants where Chinese people can meet, dine, celebrate, spend the night, or hire Chinese prostitutes. Only a few privileged Cameroonians can access these Chinese cultural places. Less restricted places are public discos, where traditional and modern oriental music is played, and venues that show Chinese movies, which are almost everywhere in Bétaré. None of the other investor groups have succeeded in setting up such a strong cultural presence in the region by promoting its own culture.

The Perceived of Impacts of These Actions ASM is a more lucrative business for operators than for rural dwellers. Drawing on findings from the output of the interviews (table 2.4), it is suggested that the popular perception of the impact of ASM are mixed with a clear positive outcome for the economic components, as shown in the following table. Table 2.4 Global Indicator According to Each Group of Variables

Mean Global indicator Environment Global indicator Society Global indicator Economy

Std. Error Mean t

-0,652±0,058a 0,029 -0,651±0,044a 0,022 0,163±0,044a 0,022

-22,389 -29,134 7,329

p-value 0 0 0

When p-value ≤ 0.05, the measurement of the variable is significant and the sign of the arithmetic mean indicates the direction of the significance (negative or positive).

66 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

Positive Economic Efffects: A Combination of the Hard Work of Operators and Government Facilities The aggregated economic indicators display a positive outcome while both investors and mining localities make the best of the mining windfalls. To ensure the profitability of their ventures, mining investors compete with each other but still make decisions based on the same determinants, i.e. market gains, production costs savings, access to resources, and foreseen risks, including those embedded in the investment environment (Shen 2013). Active ASM companies are relatively small in size and as such can run quick and flexible operations at the ground level on the one hand and on the other hand can afford to be adventurous, hardworking, and risky in their deployments. This helps them deal with the harsh conditions of the sector. In the operating phase, Chinese companies use two strategies that make a difference. First, they usually work in a grid pattern in order to distribute small teams and equipment across all possible operating fronts. Second, they group adjacent licenses and engage workers located at the two extremities of the area to move to the middle of the block of the mining panel, where they will eventually meet. This approach can be summarized as presence, intensity, and celerity and has the advantage of saving time and money and increasing the competitiveness of the ventures. The challenge of running a mining business on a tight operating budget is that it must adhere to severe restrictions in order to demonstrate its effectiveness to investors. Companies that do not survive this step are either forced to close down (Lokamat) or sell (C&K, AK Mining) to the highest bidder interested in taking over the business. Successful operations (Horse Shoe Mining, SCEM, SAREM) can therefore intensify the pace of mining whilst concerns related to image or corporate social responsibility (CSR) are not included in their philosophy of intervention. It is obvious that ASM stakeholders are making a profit out of their investments in the Cameroonian subsector – despite the fact that most of these companies are quite new to mining, especially the ones which arrived in the country only within the previous four or five years. Even though they are inexperienced in Cameroon – especially in regard to complying with local regulations, understanding and getting use to the political, social, and cultural dynamics, and setting up and managing mining production – it is possible for these companies to be successful. For the government, ASM plays a positive role in attracting FDI and the associated outcomes, such as economic opportunities (equipment, jobs, and taxes) and, eventually, the potential alternative political support to Cameroon (Spring and Jiao 2008). Regulation (République du Cameroun

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

67

2014) has constantly been revised to give legal grounds to ASM and therefore capture much from its spinoffs. Nevertheless, the cash flowing into ASM also serves to trigger oil connections and offer numerous facilities to operators wishing to freely operate. For some officials, it can be viewed as a means of increasing their private benefits, extra bonuses on their revenues, which rewards their association with the ASM license-awarding process. However, it remains constant for the government that ASM provides several benefits to the country and therefore is facilitated and integrated within the national and local economy. This result goes in line with previous findings showing that the effect of Chinese FDI in the African states studied by Rebol (2010) is positive. In fact, the greater the level of FDI, the greater the African support for Chinese involvement in the continent. Such investments break down the reluctance of states, and investors are welcomed into the country and into the sector. As Wang and Elliot (2014) postulated, there is a correlation between Chinese investments and their acceptance into ASM, on the one the hand, and the social status of local participants and their opposition to Asian investments, on the other hand. At the local level, stakeholders’ interests are divergent. The positive input of mining is perceived with ambivalence. On the one hand, for local communities, despite the fact that only 7% of profits made by mining companies are being paid to workers or invested in the mining area, ASM is still a good opportunity (direct jobs and new business development) as it provides an impetus to the local economy hitherto unknown in the region. It does not matter from which investors it comes. Investments are perceived as something to be seized by regular rural dwellers and their local mines in need of technological improvements. On the other hand, Cameroonian operators, while appreciating the opportunity brought by Asian operators, have less respect for them, especially for the Chinese, who are portrayed as ‘second-class foreigners’ and who are held to be ‘very opportunistic and hard to compete with’. The recent and rapid proliferation of Chinese investing in ASM has merely reinforced negative perceptions from local competitors as well as the perspectives of a few local hosts (Hilson et al. 2014). Socio-Environmental Consequences Negatively Affect Ordinary People’s Lives Global environmental and social indicators are weak, especially with regard to their direct effects as described in the results section. The development of ASM often generates unfair competition with traditional artisanal mining and agriculture detrimental to the life of ordinary communities viscerally

68 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

dependent on lands and traditional mining. The council of traditional rulers led by Aoudou Koueke denounced what was happening in the Ngoura subdivision, where lands have been given over to mining investors in large tranches. Once lands are targeted by local elites and/or foreigners for ASM, an application is submitted for prospecting licenses to reserve lands for future mining operations. In the same way, local elites increase the pressure on community lands to obtain mining authorizations that will then be resold to foreign investors. Given the contentious and convoluted legal framework of their investment (as well as the context of the Lom Pangar Project, which will soon expulse people and activities in both the buffer zone and the area of the project), operations engaged in extraction move as quickly as possible in order to reduce costs and increase yields. Other Practices Complicating the Positive Outcome of ASM As a consequence, the ‘itinerant’ nature of ASM is reinforced because of the geological discontinuity of the deposits and the rapidity of the extraction process (from three to ten weeks) for a stay in a single location. They must find land wherever it can be found, and so this practice does not bode well for riparian communities as far as social investments are concerned. In addition, five Cameroonian ASM operators who kindly agreed to participate in interviews complemented the appraisal of social and environmental impacts. They are mainly considered Chinese practices overlooking the other actors. It follows that Chinese-run operations are accused of overexploitation of rivers and forests, defacing vast tracts of village land, maintaining appalling working conditions, and engaging in corruption, unfair competition, and illegal mining. They confirmed the finding of Sautman and Hairong (2009) that those operators maintain separate cultural lives and have limited interactions with Africans, as well. Moreover, Cameroonian ASM investors suspect that an increasing number of Chinese investors have moved from Ghana. In fact, the secondhand equipment might indicate that some of these investors moved to Cameroon with their machinery during the 2013 Ghanaian crackdown on illegal gold miners. This has lowered production costs, easing competition with other operators, and contributed to the negative perception of other mining entrepreneurs. In typical cases, as suggested by Song (2011), equipment needed to start a Chinese business in Africa is imported new from China as it is the case of the majority of projects. Nevertheless, all of them acknowledged that nearly all ASM companies share these negative practices with the Chinese companies, corroborating the perspective that there are

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

69

‘multiple commonalities between the agendas and policies of developed western states and those of China’ (Mohan and Power 2008: 26). Informality and unlawful practices within the ASM subsector have deep roots in the economic history of Cameroon. It started during the pre-independence period with the takeover of some abandoned mining sites by some West African brokers without the agreement of either the government or the traditional rulers, a practice that continued even after the adoption of the 1964 law. The situation got worse during the crisis and adjustment programmes in the early 1980s, when Cameroon went through a series of economic reforms under the auspices of the IMF and the World Bank. ‘Intentionally constructed on the part of policy makers and donors’ (Hilson 2013a: 56), the policies deliberately marginalized local economic activities through the informal attitude of the government. On the ground, this was translated into a lack of deterrent actions, increasingly giving space to illegal operations. The quest for a stable macroeconomic performance favoured the spreading of an underground economy so that 90% of Cameroonian workers were active within the informal sector (INS 2008) on the eve of the ongoing economic programme. Although ASM was not an exception, it suffered much from the government’s hands-off attitude and privatization, which kept the subsector away from appropriate reforms (Hilson et al. 2014). Instead, requirements – focusing on governmental financial gains – were nearly impossible to fulfil by local illiterate and poor ASM operators. As an illustration, an application needed at least six documents (written commitment, statement of financial resources, topographical survey, etc.) to be handed over to the subdivisional office of the ministry in charge of mines, in Bertoua, about 250 km from most mining sites (Bétaré-Oya and Colomine). To complete the process, the applicant must spend roughly three to five working days in Bertoua and pay a procedural fee of about €150. In addition, overlooking the monitoring of the subsector, the implementing decree of the mining law did not provide any incentives to artisanal miners. As a result of these short-sighted policies, professionals in the sector paid little attention to the legal framework (ILO 1999) or the interests of rural dwellers in the formalization of their activities. On the ground it can be observed that limitations on granted plots were not respected (Awomo Atangana 2012; Bakia 2014; Chimete 2014) and the number of illegal operations increased. Associated with the recent increase of activity due to a gold rush and the intensification of mining operations, the governmental decision of 14 May 2014 suspended the issuance of new non-industrial mining authorizations (Investir au Cameroun 2014). In fact, the access to mineralized plots was getting more difficult, owing chiefly

70 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

to the field monitoring of daily developments of ASM for more visibility. The new implementing decree of 2014 is investor friendly and gives rather more space to foreign citizens and corporate bodies which can find a way to continue transactions with locals. Yet investors continued their operations to try to secure as much land as possible to guard against competition and the expected unfavourable upcoming regulation. As a result, CAPAM claimed to control only 5% to 10% of production, while the rest belonged to the informal sector (MINMIDT 2011).

Official Perception of ASM by the Cameroonian Government The topic of the Asian rush into Cameroon – especially that of the Chinese investors – is discussed at different levels in the Cameroonian government and is usually presented as a friendship issue. The president himself thinks that cooperation with China is comparable to the kind of cooperation Cameroon has with the other countries. He even said that ‘La Chine n’enlève rien à personne’ (China does not take anything to anyone). The government discourse is similar and as far as the mining sector is concerned, the sector is open; the government welcomes everyone without discriminating among investors. The director of mines said: We do not stigmatize nations because the legal framework shows what is allowed and what is not […] Despite the equality of opportunity, international actors still have the chance to prove their unequal talents (technical and financial capabilities). The difference between investors lies at that level and not on facilities provided by the government (Director of Mines 2015).

The volatility of price commodities is a challenge, but some mineral resources that are highly valued on the commodity market are just not coveted. He uses an image to convey this idea: ‘The mineral resources market can be compared to the ripe banana market’. This is because the value of these products depends on a time factor: prices for these minerals on the world commodities market is dynamic, and changes in technologies can also result in the dropping of a given mineral from the valuable commodities list. Therefore, the government must speedily decide which of its mineral deposits should be mined. Investors are therefore more than welcomed in the realm of mining resources and constitute an opportunity for the government.

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

71

The controversy over Chinese investors does not make sense [...]. Cameroon’s mining sector is comparable to a mature daughter aspiring to get married, but unfortunately nobody has been gentleman enough to solicit her. Finally, someone from another region shows an interest in her and is approved. Surprisingly, the relationship is being criticized by the young people of the village who have not been able to take advantage on time (Director of Mines 2015).

Asian Operators: An Option for Cameroon’s Mining Sector? The arrival of investors in Cameroon’s ASM and the arrangements made by the government to better capture those investments reveal their necessity. The mining sector is perceived as a source of revenue by different actors. Local communities, political and administrative elites, and investors (both local and international development partners) try to make the best of the situation. The new impetus brought by Asian involvement, especially by Chinese dynamism after 2010, has been an opportunity for the country. The feeble interest of Western companies in its mining sector has been supplanted by Asian interest. Several operating mining projects have keep the sector alive with its associated effects. This presence has increasingly embraced other sectors of the economy with infrastructural (port, roads, hospitals, stadia, potable water), agricultural, energy, and telecommunications projects. In 2014 the government introduced a bill in parliament to ratify a convention on the reciprocal protection of investments between China and Cameroon, showing that the country takes this option seriously.

Conclusion Through a general analysis of ASM and the mining regions in Cameroon (Bétaré-Oya, Colomine), three components of sustainability (ecological, social, and economic) were assessed. Findings indicate that ASM is basically focused on immediate financial profits and this is a situation that is detrimental to Cameroonian society and environment. Mining regulations have been modified to address the challenges of the sector, although little progress has been made. Throughout Cameroon’s mining history, local entrepreneurs failed to be accurately integrated into the ASM business even though it was widely opened up to Westerners and, more recently, to Asians under the facilitation

72 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

of CAPAM for early contracts. Another finding of this study is that not only the motives but also the basic behaviour of private Chinese entrepreneurs have been similar to those of other international investors. While mining operations have a negative impact on the environment and on local communities, they can have a positive impact on the economy. The pace of mining by the companies involved, however, did not facilitate social and environmental investment. The government should play a central role in regulating and monitoring operations in the ASM sector to stem the flow of mining operators that are exclusively focused on financial returns from their investments. Likewise, local communities should be increasingly involved as partners to ensure that social and ecological problems that can arise from ASM are handled appropriately.

Works Cited AfDB. 2002. ‘Cameroon: Structural Adjustment Programme II (SAP II) – Project Performance Evaluation Report (PPER)’. Abidjan: African Development Bank. Agence Ecofin. 2014. ‘Des Populations de l’Est Cameroun Dénoncent l’Accaparement de Leurs Terres par des Exploitants Miniers’ [Populations of Eastern Cameroon denounce the grabbing of their lands by mining operators]. Agence Ecofin website, 30 May. http://www.agenceecofin.com/droits-humains/3005-20392-despopulations-de-l-est-cameroun-denoncent-l-accaparement-de-leurs-terrespar-des-exploitants-miniers. Atangana, M., ed. 2009. French Investment in Colonial Cameroon: The FIDES Era (1946-1957). New York: Lang. AU. 2009. Africa Mining Vision. Addis Ababa: African Union. Awomo Atangana, J.M. 2012. ‘Gestion Durable de l’Exploitation Minière au Cameroun: Cas de la Mine Artisanale Mécanisée d’Or à Bétaré-Oya (Est du Cameroun)’ [Sustainable mining management in Cameroon: The case of mechanized artisanal gold mining in Betaré-Oya (East Cameroon)]. Ouagadougou: Fondation 2iE. Bakia, M. 2014. ‘East Cameroon’s Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Bonanza: How Long Will It Last?’. Futures 62, Part A: 40-50. Barthélémy, F. 2011. ‘Audit de l’Artisanat Minier du Cameroun. Rapport Provisoire. [Audit of Cameroon’s artisanal mining: Provisional report]. Orléans: Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières. Buxton, A. 2013. ‘Responding to the Challenge of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining: How Can Knowledge Networks Help?’. London, International Institute for Environment and Development.

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

73

CAPAM. 2013. ‘Estimation Financière des Quotes-parts de l’État et Parties Prenantes Locales du Contrat de Partage de la Production sur la Base de 60/40, Société de Mécanisation’ [Financial estimate of the state quota shares and local stakeholders in the production sharing contract based on 60/40 ratio, Société de Mécanisation]. Yaoundé: Cadre d’Appui et de Promotion de l’Artisanat Minier. CAPAM. 2014. ‘Liste des Sociétés de Mécanisation de l’Artisanat Minier en Activité’ [List of mechanization companies involved in the artisanal mining]. Mission de Contrôle du Respect de la Réglementation Minière Artisanale dans la Région de l’Est. Yaoundé: CAPAM. Childs, J. 2014. ‘A New Means of Governing Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining? Fairtrade Gold and Development in Tanzania’. Resources Policy 40: 128-136. Chimete, P. 2014 . ‘Cinq Entreprises Clandestines Démasquées à Bétaré-Oya’ [Five clandestine f irms unmasked to Bétaré-Oya]. Cameroon Tribune, 24  March. http://fr.africatime.com/cameroun/articles/ cinq-entreprises-clandestines-demasquees-betare-oya. Davidson, J. 1993. ‘The Transformation and Successful Development of Small-Scale Mining Enterprises in Developing Countries’. Natural Resources Forum 17.4: 315-326. Director of Mines. 2015. Interview with the director of mines, Ministry of Mines, Industry and Technological Development (MINMIDT), Cameroon, 28 April. Garrett, S., M. Lintzer, and E. Manyacka. 2010. ‘The Artisanal Diamond Mining Sector in Cameroon: Formalisation and Livelihoods’. In A Farmer’s Best Friend? Artisanal Diamond Mining and Rural Change in West and Central Africa, ed. S. Van Bockstael and K. Vlassenroot. Ghent: Academia Press, 69-84. Gauthier, B., and A. Zeufack. 2009. ‘Governance and Oil Revenues in Cameroon’. OxCarre Research Paper 38. OxCarre (Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies), Department of Economics, University of Oxford. http://www. oxcarre.ox.ac.uk/images/stories/papers/RevenueWatch/oxcarrerp201038.pdf. Gibb, H., and K.G. O’Leary. 2014. ‘Mercury Exposure and Health Impacts among Individuals in the Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining Community: A Comprehensive Review’. Environmental Health Perspectives 122.7: 667-672. Hentschel, T., F. Hruschka, and M. Priester. 2002. Global Report on Artisanal & Small-Scale Mining. No. 70. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), January. http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/G00723.pdf. Hilson, G. 2013a. ‘“Creating” Rural Informality: The Case of Artisanal Gold Mining in Sub-Saharan Africa’. SAIS Review of International Affairs 33.1: 51-64. Hilson, G. 2013b. ‘Picks and Ploughs: Revitalising Local Economic Development in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa’. In the proceedings of the ‘Mining, Agriculture and Development: Bread from Stones?’ conference, 26-27 August. Perth: Crawford Fund and the Africa Australia Research Forum.

74 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

Hilson, G., A. Hilson, and E. Adu-Darko. 2014. ‘Chinese Participation in Ghana’s Informal Gold Mining Economy: Drivers, Implications and Clarif ications’. Journal of Rural Studies 34: 292-303. Hilson, G., and J. McQuilken. 2014. ‘Four Decades of Support for Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Critical Review’. The Extractive Industries and Society 1.1: 104-118. Hilson, G., and L. Osei. 2014. ‘Tackling Youth Unemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Is There a Role for Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining?’. Futures 62, Part A: 83-94. Hilson, G., R. Amankwah, and G. Ofori-Sarpong. 2013. ‘Going for Gold: Transitional Livelihoods in Northern Ghana’. Journal of Modern African Studies 51: 109-137. Humphris, J.E. 2010. ‘An Archaeometallurgical Investigation of Iron Smelting Traditions in Southern Rwanda’. PhD thesis, University College London. http:// discovery.ucl.ac.uk/20461/1/20461.pdf. ILO. 1999. Social and Labour Issues in Small-Scale Mines. Geneva: International Labour Organization. ILO. 2003. Facts on Small-Scale Mining. Geneva: International Labour Organization, 2003. INS. 2008. Conditions de Vie des Populations en 2007 – Rapport Principal de l’ECAM III [Living conditions of the population in 2007 – Main report ECAM III]. Yaoundé: Institut National de la Statistique. Investir au Cameroun. 2014. ‘Le Cameroun Suspend la Délivrance des Autorisations d’Exploitation Minière Artisanale’ [Cameroon Suspends the Issuing of Artisanal Mining Authorisations]. Investir au Cameroun, 20 May. http:// www.investiraucameroun.com/mines/2005-5329-le-cameroun-suspend-ladelivrance-des-autorisations-d-exploitation-miniere-artisanale. Journal du Cameroun. 2014. ‘L’Exploitation Artisanale des Mines Suspendue au Cameroun’ [Artisanal and small-scale mining suspended in Cameroon]. Journal du Cameroun, 16  May. http://fr.africatime.com/cameroun/articles/ lexploitation-artisanale-des-mines-suspendue-au-cameroun. Labonne, B. 2014. ‘Who Is Afraid of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM)?’. The Extractive Industries and Society 1.2: 121-123. MacEachern, S. 1993. ‘Selling the Iron for Their Shackles: Wandala-Montagnard Interactions in Northern Cameroon’. Journal of African History 34.2: 247-270. Maha N. 2012. ‘L’étude de la Structure, de la Croissance et du Régime Alimentaire de la Population d’Hippopotames au Parc National de la Bénoué et sa Périphérie’ [Study of the structure, growth and the diet of the hippo population in the Benue National Park and its peripheral zone]. MA thesis, Université Polytechnique de Bobo-Dioulasso.

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

75

Mimbang Zouya, L. 2013. L’Est-Cameroun de 1905 à 1960: De la ‘Mise en Valeur’ à la Marginalisation [East Cameroon from 1905 to 1960: From ‘mise en valeur’ to marginalization]. Paris: L’Harmattan. MINMIDT. 2011. CAPAM: Evaluation et Ajustement Institutionnel [CAPAM: Assessment and institutional adjustment]. Yaoundé: Ministère de l’Industrie, des Mines et du Développement Technologique. Mohan, G., and M. Power. 2008. ‘New African Choices? The Politics of Chinese Engagement’. Review of African Political Economy 35.115: 23-42. Ndougsa, M.T. 2009. ‘Cameroon Geological Setting’. In the proceedings of the ‘Forum Minier National Yaoundé Cameroon’ workshop, 27-28 May, Yaoundé. Ngome, I. 2007. ‘Cameroonian Perceptions of the Chinese Invasion’. AfricaFiles, 1 September. http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=15986. Nguepjouo, D., and E. Manyacka. 2008. ‘Exploitation Minière Artisanale dans la Province de l’Est Cameroun: Cas du Département de la Boumba et Ngoko – Etats des Lieux: Constats, Analyses et Recommandations’ [Artisanal mining in the East Province of Cameroon: The case of Boumba and Ngoko Division – Overview of the situation: Findings, analysis, and recommendations]. Yaoundé: CED Cameroon, 2008. Nguepjouo, D., and J. Runge. 2014. ‘Geological Resources, Nature of Mining and Interest of Asian Companies to Invest in Cameroon and Central African Republic (CAR)’. Zentralblatt für Geologie und Paläontologie 1.1: 195-213. Nguiffo, S.A., and E. Nkenfack. 2011. ‘Législations sur les Activités Extractives, Foncières, Forestières et Environnementales au Cameroun: Mise en Perspective et Gestion des Conflits’ [Legislation on mining, land, forest and environment in Cameroon: Perspective and conflict management]. Yaoundé; WWF Cameroun. Noetstaller, R. 1987. ‘Small-Scale Mining: A Review of the Issues’. Washington, DC: World Bank. Perkins, G. 2012. ‘East versus West: Chinese and American Development Efforts and Perceptions in Cameroon’. Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection, No. 1392. http://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/1392. Rebol, M. 2010. ‘Public Perceptions and Reactions: Gauging African Views of China in Africa’. African Journal of Agricultural Research 5.25: 3524-3535. Republic of Cameroon. 2003. ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)’. IMF Country Report No. 03/249, Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, April. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2003/cr03249.pdf. Republic of Cameroon. 2009a. ‘Growth and Employment Strategy Paper (GESP): Reference Framework for Government Action over the Period 2010-2020.’ IMF Country Report No. 10/257. Washington, DC, International Monetary Fund, August. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2010/cr10257.pdf.

76 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

Republic of Cameroon. 2009b. ‘Cameroon Vision 2035’. Yaoundé: Ministry of Economy, Planning and Regional Development. Sautman, B., and Y. Hairong. 2009. ‘African Perspectives on China-Africa Links’. The China Quarterly 199: 728-759. SDC. 2011. ‘Experiences with Formalization and Responsible Environmental Practices in Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Latin America and Asia (Mongolia)’. Bern: Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Seccatore, J., M. Veiga, C. Origliasso, T. Marin, and G. De Tomi. 2014. ‘An Estimation of the Artisanal Small-Scale Production of Gold in the World’. Science of the Total Environment 496: 662-667. Shen, X. 2013. ‘Private Chinese Investment in Africa: Myths and Realities’. Policy Research Working Paper 6311. Washington, DC: World Bank, January. http:// elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/pdf/10.1596/1813-9450-6311. Short, R., and B. Radebe. 2008. Gold in South Africa 2007. AngloGold Ashanti Limited and Gold Fields Limited, February. http://www.goldinsouthafrica.com/images/ Gold_in_SA_2007.pdf. Song, H. 2011. ‘Chinese Private Direct Investment and Overseas Chinese Network in Africa’. China & World Economy 19.4: 109-126. Spiegel, S., and M.M. Veiga. 2010. ‘International Guidelines on Mercury Management in Small-Scale Gold Mining’. Journal of Cleaner Production 18.4: 375-385. Spring, A., and Y. Jiao. 2008. ‘China in Africa: African Views of Chinese Entrepreneurship’. In Global and Local Dynamics in African Business and Development, ed. S. Sigué. Proceedings of the 9th Annual International Conference Held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 20-24 May, 55-64. http:// s3.amazonaws.com/zanran_storage/www.iaabd.org/ContentPages/44184141. pdf. Tetsopgang S., C. Nzolang, and G. Kuepouo. 2007. Environmental and Socio-economic assessment of an Artisanal Gold Mine field: case of Bétaré-Oya, East-Cameroon. Yaoundé: Centre de Recherche et d’Éducation pour le Développement (CREPD). Tieguhong, J.C., V. Ingram, and J. Schure. 2009. ‘Impacts of Artisanal Gold and Diamond Mining on Livelihoods and the Environment in the Sangha Tri-National Park Landscape’. Bongo, CIFOR. http://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/ Books/BChupezi0901.pdf. UN. 1972. Small-Scale Mining in the Developing Countries. New York: United Nations. UNECA. 1992. Situation de l’Exploitation Minière à Petite Échelle en Afrique et Stratégie pour son Développement [Small-scale mining in Africa and a strategy for its development]. Addis Ababa: United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. UNECA. 1994. Assistance pour l’Amélioration des Exploitations Artisanales d’Or en Afrique Centrale [Assistance for the improvement of artisanal gold mining in Central Africa]. Addis Ababa: United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

The Perceptions of Local Stakeholders of the Preponder ance of Asians

77

UNECA. 1998. Rapport sur l’Industrie Minière de l’Afrique Centrale [Report on the mining industry in Central Africa]. Addis Ababa: United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. UNEP. 2012. Analysis of Formalization Approaches in the Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining Sector Based on Experiences in Ecuador, Mongolia, Peru, Tanzania and Uganda. Geneva: United Nations Environment Program. Veiga, M.M. 1997. Introducing New Technologies for Abatement of Global Mercury Pollution in Latin America. Rio de Janeiro: UNIDO/UBC/CETEM. Veltmeyer, H. 2013. ‘The Political Economy of Natural Resource Extraction: A New Model or Extractive Imperialism?’ Canadian Journal of Development Studies 34.1: 79-95. Wang, F.-L., and E.A. Elliot. 2014. ‘China in Africa: Presence, Perceptions and Prospects’. Journal of Contemporary China 23.90: 1012-1032. Warnier, J.P., and I. Fowler. 1979. ‘A Nineteenth-Century Ruhr in Central Africa’. Journal of the International African Institute 49.4: 329-351. World Bank. 1989. ‘Cameroon: Structural Adjustment Program’. Report No. P5079-CM. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. 1992. ‘A Strategy for African Mining’. Technical Paper No. 181. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. 2013. ‘Oil, Gas, Mining Unit: Small-Scale Mining, Communities and Small-Scale Mining (CASM) Initiative’. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Mining Regulations Decree No. 2002/648/PM of 26 March 2002, implementing Law No. 2001. Decree No. 74/411 of 24 April 1974, regulating artisanal gold mining. Decree No. 96/337 of 30 May 1996, regulating artisanal mining and precious stones. Law No. 2001/1 of 16 April 2001, establishing the Mining Code. Law No. 64-LF-3 of 6 April 1964, regarding mineral substances. National Assembly. 2010. Bill No 861/PJL/AN to amend and supplement certain provisions of Law No. 2001/1 of 16 April 2001: Mining Code, 8th legislative period No. 49/AN/8. Yaoundé: National Assembly. Regulation 006 MINMMEE/DMTNI/SRDM of 2 June 1997, implementing Decree 96/337 of 30 May 1996. République du Cameroun 2014, Décret No. 2014/2349/PM DU 01 Aout 2014 modifiant et complétant certaines dispositions du décret No. 2014/1882/PM du 04 juillet 2014, modifiant et complétant certaines dispositions du décret N°2002/648/PM du 26 Mars 2002 fixant les modalités d’application de la loi N°001 du 16 Avril 2001 modifiée et complétée par la loi No. 2010/011 du 29 Juillet 2010 portant code

78 Diderot Nguepjouo and Jürgen Runge

minier [Decree No. 2014/2349/PM OF 1 August 2014 amending and supplementing certain provisions of Decree No. 2014/1882/PM of 4 July 2014, amending and supplementing certain provisions of Decree No. 2002/648/PM of 26 March 2002 laying down the procedures for implementing Law No. 001 of 16 April 2001 as amended and supplemented by Law No. 2010/011 of 29 July 2010 related to the mining code]. Yaoundé.

Part II The ‘Chinese’ Factor

3

Does New Sino-African Cooperation Create New Dependencies? The Case of Higher Education Falk Hartig

Introduction It is a widely held view that new and contemporary African-Asian interactions on the economic, political, social, and cultural level are not only opening up new opportunities for Asian countries, but also for their African counterparts. This chapter aims to critically engage with this line of argument as it looks at probably the most prominent form of Sino-African cooperation on the social and cultural levels, which is the Confucius Institute project. Using Confucius Institutes (CIs) in South Africa as a case study, this chapter will argue that this new form of cooperation not only presents opportunities for the partners involved, but also creates new dependencies due to the unique organizational structure of these institutes as joint ventures between a Chinese and a local entity in the field of higher education. This chapter further argues that these dependencies may be more severe on the African continent due to the unique situation CIs are facing there in the sense that Africa has no tradition of academic engagement with China. After a brief outline of Sino-African relations the first part of this chapter proceeds with a conceptual outline as it first introduces the terms cooperation, dependency, and opportunity and second, links them with the notions of foreign aid, soft power and cultural diplomacy, all of which are of interest for students of Confucius Institutes in Africa. The second part then focuses on China’s foreign aid to Africa and the case of Confucius Institutes. The conclusion puts the pieces of the preceding parts together and links them to the overall argument that Confucius Institutes provide both opportunities for the partners involved, but at the same time also potentially create new dependencies on the part of the African stakeholders involved in this project.

82 Falk Hartig

China in Africa Nowadays it is a truism that China and the rest of the world are interconnected in almost every aspect of international affairs. The growing connections between China and other countries have made China and the rest of the world interdependent. In 1978 the Chinese leadership under Deng Xiaoping initiated the Reform and Opening-up policy and since then China and the world have become more and more interwoven, not only economically but also in political, social, and cultural terms. One crucial component of this new policy after the Cultural Revolution was the shift away from an inward-looking and closed China towards one which not only turned to the outside world again but also started to cooperate with foreign countries. This opening-up first and foremost related to economics as the leadership under Deng realized that China’s languishing economy could only recover with foreign expertise and especially foreign investment. As a result, from 1980 onwards the Chinese government began to encourage foreign businesses to invest in China, and it approved the establishment of so-called special economic zones. This opening-up led to the expansion of foreign trade and foreign investment into China and intensified China’s economic relations with the wider world. This interconnectivity was described by Deng Xiaoping, the pre-eminent figure of the second generation of the Chinese leadership in the early 1980s, when he stated that just as ‘China’s development is inseparable from the world, the development of the world is also inseparable from China’ (quoted in Zhou 2009: 27). This statement described the necessity for and the essential principles of better and faster development, and is still popular with Chinese leaders today, especially the second part, which highlights China’s importance for the world. With regards to contemporary Sino-African relations, the interconnectivity could not be more striking. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become by far Africa’s biggest trading partner, exchanging about $160 billion worth of goods annually and an estimated 1 million Chinese, most of them labourers and traders, have moved to the continent in the past decade which leads some observers to describe Africa as ‘China’s second continent’ (French 2014). The mutual adoration between governments continues, with ever more African roads and mines built by Chinese firms and Chinese politicians not getting tired of pointing out the ‘win-win’ dimension of Sino-African relations. In early 2015, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on a five-nation tour of Africa noted that: ‘Politically, we always speak up for African countries and uphold justice. Economically, we help African countries to enhance development to achieve prosperity’ (quoted in Smith 2015). Wang further noted that in ‘China’s exchanges and cooperation with Africa,

Does New Sino -African Cooper ation Create New Dependencies?

83

we want to see mutual benefit and win-win results’ and he emphasized that ‘China will never follow the track of western colonists and all cooperation with Africa will never come at the expense of the ecology, environment or long-term interests of Africa’ (quoted in Smith 2015). Those official statements seem to confirm that Sino-African interactions open up new opportunities for both China and its African counterparts. However, to avoid any false impression, official statements portraying SinoAfrican relations need to be taken with a pinch of salt. On the one hand, there is the often made argument that ‘China’s approach in Africa is a new form of economic colonialism’ (Tiffen 2014). This, interestingly enough, is not only a point made by worried Westerners but Africans themselves are increasingly suspicious of Chinese firms, worrying about unfair deals and environmental damage and even some African officials, who are normally believed to benefit from China’s no-strings-attached approach, are voicing criticism of China. Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria’s former central bank governor, said in The Economist that Africa is opening itself up to a ‘new form of imperialism’ in which China takes African primary goods and sells it manufactured ones, without transferring skills (The Economist 2015). On the other hand, the African boom is not only of interest to China. African trade with India, for example, is projected to reach $100 billion in and is growing at a faster rate than Chinese trade (The Economist 2015). And in the same breath, China is looking beyond the continent as well. In January 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised to invest $250 billion in Latin America over the next ten years as part of a drive to boost resource-hungry China’s influence in the region (Rajagopalan 2015). All this leads The Economist to conclude that the assumption that ‘China would dominate Africa’ was rather exaggerated and instead China ‘is likely to be just one more foreign investor jostling for advantage’ (The Economist 2015). Of course, only time can tell whether all this is true; nevertheless, the argument is of importance for the present chapter, which aims to critically engage with the line of argument which emphasizes the opportunities for both sides which, as a cynic might suggest, partially duplicates the official win-win rhetoric.

Conceptual Framework I: Cooperation, Opportunities, and Dependency In order to provide an empirically grounded case, it is first of all necessary to briefly discuss the terms that are used here. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a cooperation either as ‘a situation in which people work together to do

84 Falk Hartig

something’ or as ‘the actions of someone who is being helpful by doing what is wanted or asked for’. Those two facets to a certain degree point towards mixed motivations why actors cooperate. On the one hand, there are clear individual advantages ‘to be gained by cooperation’ (Tyler 2013: 20). On the other hand, however, actors ‘are often unable to maximize their pursuit of [individual] self-interest if they act in ways that simultaneously maximize the welfare’ of a broader group of actors and stakeholders (Tyler 2013: 20). This, to borrow from Tyler (2013), essentially means that actors to some extent are motivated to cooperate, and to some extent cooperate out of individual self-interest. Sociological definitions of cooperation apparently highlight the aspect of reciprocity in a cooperation which then is understood as an ‘activity shared for mutual benefit’, which in turn may highlight the aspects of opportunities resulting from cooperation. The Oxford English Dictionary defines an opportunity as ‘a time or set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something’. The first part of the sentence refers to external factors like time junctures, crises, or other conditions, and the second part – ‘to do something’ – refers to an end or purpose of doing something. This may endogenously emerge over time. A ‘local actor’s opportunity’, therefore, consists out of the ‘ideas, beliefs and actions that enable the creation [of something new]’ (Sarasvathy et al. 2003: 142).1 While I do not wish to neglect potential positive implications and results of any form of cooperation, I would like to focus on the second part of the definition of cooperation in which someone is helpful by doing something that is wanted or asked for as this, in my understanding, provides a more useful starting point for the present analysis. This conceptualization, in my understanding, points to the implicit or potentially adverse dimension of cooperation. This adverse dimension results from the very fact that a cooperation which comes into being because someone is asking someone else to do something puts the enquirer in a relationship of dependency to the actor who for whatever reason decides to help. Dependency then is, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, ‘the state of needing something or someone else for support [or] help’. While I will not engage with the vast literature on dependency in international relations,2 the notion of cooperation and dependency are partially 1 This section on opportunities is taken from an unpublished think piece by two AFRASO colleagues of mine: Cornelia Storz and Rajesh Ramachandran. 2 Put simply, one way to describe dependency theory is that on the one hand poor nations provide natural resources, cheap labour, a destination for obsolete technology, and markets for developed nations, without which the latter could not have the standard of living they enjoy. On the other hand, wealthy nations actively perpetuate a state of dependence by various means. This influence may be multifaceted, involving economics, media control, politics, banking and finance, education, culture, and sport (Deji 2012: 19-20.)

Does New Sino -African Cooper ation Create New Dependencies?

85

reflected in the context of foreign aid wherefore scholars use the term ‘aid dependence’ (Bräutigam 1999). The notion of foreign aid eventually brings us back to Sino-African relations and the case of Confucius Institutes, as the following section will illustrate.

Conceptual Framework II: Foreign Aid, Soft Power, and Cultural Diplomacy Carol Lancaster, a former US foreign aid official, defines foreign aid as ‘a voluntary transfer of public resources, from a government to another independent government, to an NGO, or to an international organization […] with at least a 25 percent grant element, one goal of which is to better the human condition in the country receiving the aid’ (Lancaster 2007: 9). According to Lancaster, humanitarianism and altruism are at least partly an objective for giving aid, but it may have other functions as well: as a gesture of diplomatic approval, to strengthen a military ally, to reward a government for behaviour desired by the donor, to extend the donor’s cultural influence, to provide infrastructure needed by the donor for resource extraction from the recipient country, or to gain other kinds of commercial access. The diplomatic dimension coupled with the aspect that aid can be applied to extend (cultural) influence are closely related to the concept of soft power. Soft power is ‘the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments’ (Nye 2004: x). The absence of a shared definition (Breslin 2011: 2; Hayden 2012: 172) leads to a certain conceptual ambiguity and critical engagement with Nye’s concept. Li Mingjiang, for example, argues that ‘the key to whether a certain power source becomes soft or hard is how a state (or any other actor) uses its power’ (2009a: 58; emphasis in original). Li therefore argues in favour of a ‘“soft use of power” approach’ (Li 2009b: 7). He rejects Nye’s resource-based definition and sees a behaviour-based definition as more suitable. Li argues that ‘soft power lies in the soft use of power to increase a state’s attraction, persuasiveness, and appeal’ (Li 2009b: 7). To people affected by the enormous tsunami in 2004, the foreign naval forces which came to their rescue were a source of soft, not hard, power. This discussion points to the question of soft power resources. According to Nye, soft power ‘arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideas, and policies’ (Nye 2004: x). It co-opts through persuasion and not payments and is why Nye, especially in his early assessment of soft power, excludes ‘elements like investment and trade and formal diplomacy and aid’ (Kurlantzick 2007: 6).

86 Falk Hartig

Although China has embraced the concept of soft power ‘with an enthusiasm rarely seen in other parts of the world’ (Rawnsely 2012: 126), it has adapted the concept and adjusted it to Chinese circumstances (Li 2009). In this regard Ingrid d’Hooghe notes that development aid, although limited, is one source of China’s soft power (D’Hooghe 2011: 26), while, according to Kurlantzick, China ‘enunciates a broader idea of soft power than did Nye. For the Chinese, soft power means anything outside of the military and security realm, including not only popular culture and public diplomacy but also more coercive economic and diplomatic levers like aid and investment’ (Kurlantzick 2007: 6). No matter how soft power is eventually understood, it is generally agreed upon that a state needs an instrument through which soft power can be activated or promoted and this instrument is public diplomacy (Nye 2008). Public diplomacy as the means to communicate and engage with foreign publics can be divided into five elements: listening, advocacy, cultural diplomacy, exchange, and international broadcasting (Cull 2008). Following Cull, Mark (2009), and others, I understand cultural diplomacy as a part of public diplomacy that is concerned with the use of both cultural artefacts and cultural activities. Cull describes cultural diplomacy as ‘an actor’s attempt to manage the international environment by making its cultural resources and achievements known overseas and/or facilitating cultural transmission abroad’ (Cull 2008: 33). One of the most prominent instruments states have at hand in this regard is the presence of cultural institutes abroad, such as the British Council, the Goethe Institute, and the Confucius Institutes.

China’s Foreign Aid to Africa With China’s rise, trade and political links between Africa and China have been escalating at an astonishing rate (Taylor 2006). Sino-African relations are an increasingly significant feature of world politics as China’s hunger for energy resources grows. Many African countries seek a partner that, unlike the West, does not worry about democracy and transparency, or impose political conditions on economic relations (Taylor 2006, 2010). China’s economic and political reach is redefining Africa’s traditional ties with the international community. One of the most pressing questions is whether China’s engagement in Africa will be as a development partner, economic competitor, or new hegemony (Alden 2007; Hirono and Suzuki 2014). In 2011, China released its first white paper on foreign aid, outlining why and how China supports other countries through aid programmes: ‘Through foreign aid, China has consolidated friendly relations and economic and trade

Does New Sino -African Cooper ation Create New Dependencies?

87

cooperation with other developing countries, promoted South-South cooperation, and contributed to the common development of mankind.’ One of the basic features of China’s foreign aid policy, of particular relevance to the study of Confucius Institutes, is that of helping ‘recipient countries build up their self-development capacity [and] laying a solid foundation for their economic and social development’ (Information Office of the State Council 2011). Chinese foreign aid is delivered in eight forms: complete projects, goods and materials, technical cooperation, human resource development cooperation, medical teams sent abroad, emergency humanitarian aid, volunteer programmes in foreign countries, and debt relief. Of particular interest here is the volunteer programme for which China ‘selects volunteers and sends them to other developing countries to serve the local people in education, medical and health care and some other social sectors. The volunteers China now sends mainly include young volunteers and Chinese-language teachers (Information Office of the State Council 2011). In 2003, China started to dispatch volunteer Chinese-language teachers. By the end of 2009, it had dispatched 7590 Chinese-language teachers to over 70 countries. As the focus on volunteer language teachers suggests, education plays an important role in China’s overall foreign aid strategy.3 Most aid for education is spent on building schools, providing teaching equipment and materials, dispatching teachers, training teachers and interns from other developing countries, and offering government scholarships to students from other developing countries to study in China. Education aid dates back to the 1950s and 1960s when China started to dispatch language teachers to other developing countries. In recent years, as the white paper notes, the People’s Republic of China has strengthened its aid for education in other developing countries by helping them build nearly 100 rural primary schools, increasing government scholarships and the number of teachers who come to receive training in China, dispatching more Chinese teachers abroad to help build up the weak academic disciplines, and enhancing cooperation with other developing countries in vocational, technical education and distance education. (Information Office of the State Council 2011)

By the end of 2009, China had helped other developing countries build more than 130 schools, and funded 70,627 students from 119 developing countries to study in China. In 2009 alone, it extended scholarships to 11,185 foreign students 3 For a comprehensive discussion on China’s aid and education in Africa, see King (2013) and Nordtveit (2010b).

88 Falk Hartig

to study in China. Furthermore, China has dispatched nearly 10,000 Chinese teachers to other developing countries, and trained more than 10,000 principals and teachers in those countries (Information Office of the State Council 2011). All of these efforts can be understood as part of China’s public diplomacy strategy. Some scholars even argue that ‘Africa is perhaps the most important testing ground for the promotion of Chinese soft power’ (He 2007: 28). 4 There cannot be any doubt that ‘China is now a powerful force in Africa, and the Chinese are not going away’ (Bräutigam 2009: 311). While Western observers are concerned with the question of whether China will create new modes of dependencies through its aid projects, Chinese scholars argue that China’s aid to Africa is based on the principles of sustainability and ‘mutual benefit rather than charity’ (He 2007: 34). In her study of China’s aid and economic cooperation with Africa, Deborah Bräutigam concludes that ‘China’s rise in Africa is cause for some concern, but it need not evoke the level of fear and alarm raised by some who have condemned China’s aid and engagement as destabilizing, bad for governance, and unlikely to help Africa to end poverty’ (Bräutigam 2009: 307). She argues that many of the fears about Chinese aid and engagement ‘are misinformed, the alarm out of proportion,’ especially because ‘China’s aid is not huge.’ In fact, the traditional donors give far more aid to Africa and China’s export credits are much larger than its aid, but not as large as commonly believed (Bräutigam 2009: 307; emphasis in original). According to a more recent study, China’s official aid to Africa reached $75 billion between 2000 and 2011, with the establishment of 1673 Chinese-backed or financed projects in 50 African countries (Strange et al. 2013). Observers conclude that China’s financial commitments ‘are significantly larger than previous estimates of the country’s development finance, though still less than the estimated $90 billion the United States committed over that period’ (Provost and Harris 2013). Another study on China’s Foreign Aid and Government-Sponsored Investment Activities (FAGIA) notes that between ‘2001 and 2011, 49 countries in Africa received approximately $175 billion dollars in pledged assistance, making it the second largest regional recipient of aid behind Latin America with $186 billion’ (Wolf et al. 2013: 29). The reason for the striking difference of US$100 billion is that both studies use different categories, because in general it is not clear what counts as Chinese aid (Wolf et al. 2013: 5-9; Strange et al. 2013: 12-18; see also Grimm et al. 2011). This lack of clarity is related to the fact that the Chinese government ‘releases very little information on its foreign aid activities, which remain state secrets’ (Provost and Harris 2013).

4

On China’s soft power in Africa, see Fijakowski (2011).

Does New Sino -African Cooper ation Create New Dependencies?

89

Independently, while some observers argue that ‘the bottom line is China’s thirst for natural resources, others argue Beijing’s development projects on the continent – from infrastructure to debt relief to providing medical support – are also part of a public diplomacy strategy to build up goodwill and international support for the future’ (Provost and Harris 2013). In this regard, Strange et al. (2013: 60-61) note that from 2000 to 2011 there were 103 official development assistance projects in education for which China spent US$71 million. Chinese education and training programmes target students from across the continent. These projects ‘are all about diplomacy, about soft power […] like the Alliance Française and the British Council […] all about presenting China as an important global player. All the big countries do this’ (Bräutigam quoted in Provost and Harris 2013). Wolf et al. (2013: 52) directly mention Confucius Institutes in this context although they state that Confucius Institutes’ connections with FAGIA ‘are somewhat tenuous’. Wolf et al. (2013: 53) note that: CIs also assist China’s domestic efforts to finance and expand education of undergraduate students and graduate students from foreign countries. Although CI funding levels are not publicized, they are negligible compared to the scale of FAGIA. Nevertheless, they share with FAGIA the aim of enhancing China’s appeal, attractiveness, and influence in the global arena – hence, its ‘soft power’.

Confucius Institutes and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) is the official forum between the People’s Republic of China and states in Africa. Established in October 2000, it is the first multilateral, consultative mechanism between China and Africa and is a platform for dialogue as well as a mechanism for cooperation (Taylor 2011). According to Chinese scholars, unlike ‘the many “clubs” around the world that allegedly provide assistance for development in Africa, FOCAC does not attempt to exhibit its work like a showcase for acts of benevolence. Rather it is a low key, concrete, stable and yet very important platform to build relations between China and African countries’ (He 2007: 36). So far there have been five summits, with the most recent meeting held in July 2012 in Beijing. Previous summits were held in October 2000 in Beijing, December 2003 in Addis Ababa, November 2006 in Beijing, and November 2009 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The Confucius Institutes are

90 Falk Hartig

directly mentioned in at least three documents from the summits, reflecting their important position in China’s strategy. The latest document, entitled ‘The Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation – Beijing Action Plan (2013-2015),’ points out that the ‘two sides will continue to promote the establishment and development of the Confucius Institute and Confucius Classrooms in Africa. China will extend active support in terms of teaching staff, personnel training and teaching materials and equipment’ (FOCAC 2012). This direct reference is one of the very few cases where CIs are officially mentioned in a foreign policy context, and evidence that CIs are part of China’s broader foreign relations policy. Confucius Institutes are administered and partly funded by the Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban), an organization under the authority of the Chinese Ministry of Education, and are comparable with international counterparts in terms of their fundamental tasks and services, namely teaching their language, introducing their culture to people in other nations, and conducting cultural exchange. Next to these idealistic purposes I argue that Confucius Institutes as an instrument of China’s public diplomacy also contribute to more functional goals of China’s overall diplomacy as they should tell China’s story to the world and should communicate China’s benign intentions to the global audience (Hartig 2016). Confucius Institutes are currently the most prominent – and probably the most controversial – tool of China’s cultural diplomacy mainly because they are, via Hanban, partially funded by the Chinese government and are normally organized as joint ventures between a Chinese entity in the field of higher education and a local entity, normally also a higher education organization. Since its inception in 2004, the programme has grown rapidly around the world as it now has a network of over 1000 affiliates (some 440 institutes and 700 smaller classrooms) in more than 120 countries. Considering that, for example, Germany’s Goethe Institute has 158 institutes in 93 countries, these are impressive numbers which call for critical analysis of these new actors in cultural diplomacy. Currently about 40 Confucius Institutes and some 20 classrooms exist on the African continent. In December 2005 the University of Nairobi Confucius Institute (UONCI) was officially opened, the first on the continent of Africa (Wheeler 2014: 52). At the opening ceremony, Kenya’s assistant minister of higher education, Dr. Kilemi Mwiria, highlighted the importance of these institutes, saying: Our government believes very strongly that investment in education and training contributes significantly to economic growth and labor

Does New Sino -African Cooper ation Create New Dependencies?

91

productivity. […] It is in the light of this that we believe that the learning of the Chinese language and culture will be instrumental in strengthening a cordial relationship between our two countries. (Quoted in Wheeler 2014: 52)

While this statement links Confucius Institutes to the abovementioned win-win discourse characterized by mutual understanding, friendship, and solidarity, the vice-chancellor of Kenyatta University, Olive Mugenda, emphasized the practical value of the CI: ‘In the contemporary competitive global economy the need for multiple skills and knowledge cannot be overemphasized. The learning of the Chinese language therefore will be an added advantage to anyone who wishes to have the competitive edge in such an environment. The Chinese language will therefore be an advantage to graduates who are seeking for employment not only locally but also internationally’ (quoted in Wheeler 2014: 53). While this statement clearly illustrates the (assumed) individual dimension of opportunities that CIs can bring to Africans, it is also assumed that CIs in Africa may provide more opportunities on the institutional level, but at the same time may also create a more dependent constellation due to the fact these institutes face a completely different situation than CIs in other parts of the world, as Africa does not have a tradition of academic engagement with China. While numerous European and North American higher education institutions have a long history of studying Sinology, or in more contemporary terms ‘China Studies’, so far there is only one Mandarin programme5 with resident teachers with a national curriculum on the African continent at Stellenbosch University (Cissé 2012: 1). Furthermore, there is currently only one research centre focusing on contemporary China, the Centre for Chinese Studies, also at Stellenbosch University. The lack of either tradition or infrastructure to engage with China on an academic level in Africa suggests that Confucius Institutes could play a more prominent role on the African continent, and could provide more opportunities for the local partners cooperating with China, than in other parts of the world. To address these questions, the second part of the chapter takes a closer look at CIs’ activities in South Africa, currently the country with the most CIs, in four locations: Stellenbosch University, Rhodes University, the University of Cape Town, and the Durban University of Technology. 5 Based on information from the local Chinese Embassy in Egypt, Nordtveit (2010a) notes that before 2000 only one institution, Ain Shams University, offered Chinese instruction and currently there are four more universities in Egypt with Chinese language departments.

92 Falk Hartig

Confucius Institutes in South Africa The People’s Republic of China and the Republic of South Africa established diplomatic relations on 1 January 1998. Since then, bilateral relations between the two countries have continued to develop. Over the last decade, China has become South Africa’s biggest trading partner, with increasing amounts of foreign direct investments (Crul 2013). According to one study, South Africa was the tenth largest recipient of China’s aid between 2000 and 2011, receiving US$2.3 billion (Strange et al. 2013: 34). In celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Chinese ambassador to South Africa noted that ‘China and South Africa have been supporting each other in common development in the past fifteen years. We are good friends, good brothers, and good partners. Currently, the international landscape, as well as both our two countries, is undergoing profound changes. This brings major opportunities to the development of our bilateral relationship’ (Tian 2013). He also pointed out that emerging economies represented by the ‘BRICS’ are coordinating to address challenges together. By enhancing their solidarity, they remain the engine for global economic development. In this regard, the China-South Africa relationship has become one of the best examples of cooperation between developing countries (Tian 2013). Considering this along with the earlier statements by the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, as well as China’s rhetoric on foreign aid, the question emerges: What opportunities and dependencies may these institutes create? Activities of CIs in South Africa Overall, the South African CIs are doing what the Hanban mission statement notes, namely teaching Chinese language and introducing Chinese culture. Furthermore, they are engaging or are about to start other operations, such as developing local teaching materials or local teachers’ training tasks, which are also encouraged by Hanban. Furthermore, even CI directors themselves see one of the tasks of CIs as introducing another picture of China to the broader SA audience/public. The task of introducing another view, different from the picture presented in the mainstream media, points to the most heated debate with regards to Confucius Institutes, namely the accusation that these institutes spread communist propaganda and pose a threat to African universities and its students (Sishuwa 2015). People in charge of the three South African CIs I visited are very aware of the heated debates surrounding CIs: debates about improper influence,

Does New Sino -African Cooper ation Create New Dependencies?

93

propaganda accusations, and the like, and they clearly rejected the propaganda accusation. South Africans involved in CIs noted that they have flexibility in terms of what they can do, and said they bring in their own ideas without constraint. However, they also agreed that it is unlikely that certain topics would be addressed at a CI, such as a debate about Falun Gong. Throughout my research (which included information from CI people, internal documents, press reports, and conversations with scholars not affiliated with CIs), I did not come across topics or themes that would deserve the label ‘propaganda,’ if the word is understood in its most negative and sinister interpretation. The problem with the assumption that CIs disseminate propaganda for the Chinese party state is that it is, of course, possible to present a particular topic in very different ways. South African CI affiliates argue that they are independent enough and smart enough to recognize whether the Communist Party of China wants them to use propaganda. While I would agree with this argument, it is also the case that normally CIs tend to stay on the safe side by not engaging too much with ‘sensitive’ issues. This is echoed by Procopio (2015: 114), who also reports that South African CI representatives ‘are aware that certain topics are better avoided as sensitive’. According to Procopio, most CIs in South Africa ‘do not perceive the limitation on the content as a reason to not run the institute, but rather as an element of Chinese culture that does not necessarily have to clash with language teaching’ (2015: 114). Language Teaching The main activity of South African CIs is language teaching, which is not too surprising. What is interesting, however, is the fact that all three CIs offer for-credit courses at their partner universities and courses for schools in the surrounding areas.6 The Stellenbosch CI offers for-credit courses for degree students and undergraduates, and non-credit courses for college, secondary, and primary students, as well as courses for enthusiasts on campus and in the community, in ten satellite schools. According to the CI’s most recent work report, the number of registered learners was 395 in 2011, 659 in 2012, and 812 in 2013. In addition to promoting Chinese at high schools, in 2013 the CI at Cape Town University offered for-credit ‘Chinese I’ and ‘Chinese II’ courses 6 At the time of the interviews in late 2013, only three of the four CIs in South Africa were in operation.

94 Falk Hartig

through the School of Languages and Literatures. The total enrolment for 2013 was 127, which was described as a slight increase from 2012. At Rhodes University in Grahamstown, Chinese Studies is hosted by the CI and is one of the major subjects at the School of Languages. Chinese Studies has become an integral part of the university academic system. According to the latest work report and my conversations with directors, in 2013 the CI offered a module of Chinese Modern and Contemporary Fiction within the School’s existing ‘Modern Fiction’ course, with a focus on Mo Yan’s short stories.

Cultural Activities Like their CI counterparts in other areas of the world, the South African CIs conduct a number of cultural activities, including celebrations of Chinese holidays or traditional festival activities, introducing activities like tai chi or qigong, film screenings, calligraphy, paper cutting, and traditional Chinese medicine for interested audiences. They also organized photo exhibitions, Chinese song competitions, lectures, and seminars with academics and China experts. The Stellenbosch CI organized 70 cultural activities and academic conferences during 2013. One example was a lecture by Prof. Chen Xiaoguang, vice president of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, on ‘100 Years of Chinese Songs’ (Hanban 2013). The CIs at Cape Town and Rhodes University held a similar number of activities, with over 1000 participants in the latter’s activities. The CI also held the 2013 Annual Rhodes University China Week on the Chinese experience in South Africa and hosted the visiting Students Art Troupe from Zhejiang Normal University on their tour of Africa. Scholarships and In-China Programs One crucial issue Confucius Institutes in South Africa and other African countries are facing is a lack of qualified teachers and underdeveloped curricula. As a result, students focus on competing for scholarships to study in China because, as Wheeler explains with regards to the case of Kenya, ‘students who want to become proficient or even fluent in Mandarin must study in China’ (Wheeler 2014: 59). Scholarships are an increasingly important aspect of China’s engagement in the higher education sector. In order to support the development of Confucius Institutes, ‘facilitating international promotion of Chinese language and dissemination of Chinese

Does New Sino -African Cooper ation Create New Dependencies?

95

culture, as well as cultivating qualified Chinese-language teachers and excellent Chinese-language learners’, the Confucius Institute Headquarters launched a ‘Confucius Institute Scholarship’ programme to sponsor foreign students, scholars, and Chinese-language teachers to study Chinese in ‘relevant universities of China’ (Hanban n.d.). The scheme includes five different scholarships: scholarships for students pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree in teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages, scholarships for students who want to study for one academic year in China, for students who want to study one semester and scholarships for students who want to study for one month. In 2014, for example, 17 BA students from Addis Ababa University and 20 from Yaounde II in Cameroon received a scholarship for studying in China. In 2015, 29 students of Stellenbosch University received short-term scholarships for summer courses and a similar programme brought 20 students from Rhodes University to China. Chinese studies students at Rhodes can furthermore apply for the so called Haihang Scholarship, which funds different study programmes in China. This scholarship was established by the Confucius Institute Headquarters, Hainan Airlines Company Limited, and Hainan Liberation Commonweal Foundation for the CI at Cairo University in Egypt, the CI at University of Khartoum in Sudan, and the CI at Rhodes University in South Africa (Confucius Institute 2012). These scholarship schemes exemplify that Confucius Institutes, viewed from the individual perspective of students and other course participants, hold a variety of opportunities which, however, have to be put into perspective regarding the overall CI initiative.

Conclusion: Confucius Institutes, a New Cooperation with the Potential for New Dependencies Given that Confucius Institutes are directly linked to China’s broader foreign aid efforts in Africa, and that they provide African students rare access to Chinese studies, these institutes present a prime example of the conflict between opportunities and dependencies in the context of higher education cooperation. Recalling the first part of the definition of cooperation as ‘a situation in which people work together to do something’, there cannot be any doubt that Confucius Institutes are a prime example of Sino-African cooperation in higher education as both Chinese and local, in our case South African, stakeholders work together to provide Chinese-language teaching and to introduce Chinese culture to South African audiences. This aspect also

96 Falk Hartig

highlights the opportunities that come with the establishment of Confucius Institutes if opportunities are understood as ‘a time or set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something’. The clear and obvious opportunity provided by Confucius Institutes is the fact that these institutes make it possible for South African audiences to learn more about China. What else audiences learn is another question, but CIs clearly provide this opportunity. This becomes even more crucial because, on the one hand, China is of undeniable significance for the economic development of Africa and is much more present in everyday life in various parts of Africa compared to other regions in Europe, for example.7 On the other hand, the significance results from the described fundamentally different situation in the sense that Africa does not have a tradition of academic engagement with China. Against this background, the practical benefits of having a CI for many (South) African universities is essentially the implementation and realization of Chinese-language teaching and providing a first contact with China. The Chinese co-director of the CI at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, for example explains: ‘we promote academic related activities of teaching language and culture […] that will facilitate students’ understanding of the Chinese language and culture, so that they may understand China better and hopefully find a career that may utilize their knowledge acquired from us’ (quoted in King 2012: 184). This understanding, which sees Confucius Institutes as a career booster, is also shared by students learning at CIs across Africa. Wheeler (2014: 58) notes that students at the University of Nairobi Confucius Institute ‘study Mandarin for the primary purpose of gaining language skills that will help them in their careers’ and in the case of South Africa ‘China’s economic promises’ also are an important part why students study at Confucius Institutes (Procopio 2015: 112). In this regard the benefits of having a CI appears to differ considerably from university to university: at places where no Chinese courses were offered before (as it is the case with most universities in Africa), the Confucius Institute can be seen as a much more profound benefit, or opportunity, compared to universities with an established department of Chinese Studies/Sinology (as it is the case at various universities in Europe, for example).

7 This is not to say that there are no Chinese immigrants in Europe. In Italy, for example, tension between the Chinese and Italians is high, especially because of Chinese migrant workers’ dramatic impact on the labour market, particularly in the northern industrial Italian heartland.

Does New Sino -African Cooper ation Create New Dependencies?

97

While these aspects illustrate the individual dimension of opportunities for CI students, Confucius Institutes can also provide opportunities at the institutional level for the host universities. For the executive level of host universities in Africa and elsewhere, CIs are attractive because of the financial, textual, and human resource assistance from the Hanban to set up and run the institute (Hartig 2016; Procopio 2015). Procopio (2015: 115) reports that CIs in South Africa receive between 50% and 80% of the annual funds from Hanban, which, quite naturally, increases the attractiveness. Another aspect should be considered as well, namely the fact that ‘there’s a shared credibility for you as a SA institution to be hosting an institute when you go and speak to other Chinese partners’, as one South African CI manager explains (quoted in Procopio 2015: 115). Establishing a CI then is seen as a ‘cornerstone for mutual understanding and broadening connections on which a lot of other initiatives could be built’ (2015: 115). However, as pointed out in the conceptual section of this chapter, I hark strongly to the second part of the definition of cooperation as ‘the actions of someone who is being helpful by doing what is wanted or asked for’ and the resulting dependency which can be described as ‘the state of needing something or someone else for support or help’. One crucial aspect which, in my understanding, illustrates that CIs are a cooperation in the sense of this understanding, is the very fact that CIs ‘are in most cases the result of the “request mode” [as] they are a response to a request from a university level institution overseas to China for the establishment of an institute’ (King 2012: 173). Although recent research indicates that, especially in the early years of the CI project, institutes were not only organized after foreign universities approached Hanban, but also that China to a certain degree was beating the drum for the establishment (Hartig 2016), nevertheless, this reactive approach is strongly emphasized by China in order to avoid any impression of ‘cultural invasion’ or a new Chinese ‘cultural imperialism’. Leaving the discussion of invasion, cultural imperialism, or neo-colonialism aside (see, for example, Cissé 2012; Hartig 2014), it becomes obvious that for universities with no already existing China-related department CIs are a great opportunity but at the same time also create a clear relationship of dependency as those universities simply need Hanban and the Confucius Institutes to maintain their China-related activities. Kragelund (2014) in his discussion of the Confucius Institute at the University of Zambia argues in a similar way when he rejects the perception of CIs as ‘a genuine example of South-South development cooperation focusing on reciprocity and common development’ (Kragelund 2014: 15). He goes even one step further and describes the Confucius Institute as a partnership

98 Falk Hartig

‘dictated by the external partner exhibiting highly uneven power relations’, which therefore resemble other university partnerships the University of Zambia has partaken before (Kragelund 2014: 15). Critical voices may further suggest that precisely this dependency may have an influence on the content provided by CIs and may have an influence on how ‘China’ is presented in those institutes. It seems undeniable that Confucius Institutes normally tend to present a politically correct version of China and not so much introduce the ‘real’ China, as Chinese scholars describe the aim of China’s cultural diplomacy, but I also argue that it essentially depends on the people in charge of individual CIs to set the agenda for their respective institutes and some use a more progressive approach, while others are more conservative as they keep out of harm’s way (Hartig 2016). This, of course, is not only a critical question in relation to China because external funding may become an issue anywhere as it always may pose the question of to what extent academia would accept the call for money, given the potential criticism of ‘he who pays the piper, calls the tune’. For the sake of argument, it does not matter what the results of this dependency eventually are; the very fact that African universities, and other universities elsewhere, need Hanban and thus China to support their China-related activities, clearly marks Confucius Institutes as a prime example of a new cooperation in the context of higher education, which bears both opportunities as well as new dependencies. Those dependencies may become more serious in the future depending on how the whole CI endeavour will develop. Due to the still increasing number of institutes and the various practical problems (such as a lack of teachers, ill-f itting teaching approaches, or issues with teaching materials), it seems necessary that Hanban will have to find a way to consolidate the whole project in order to secure sustainable development. This, in my understanding, not only requires a suspension of establishing new institutes, but eventually a reducing of existing institutes sooner or later. This ‘shakeout’ process would then in turn lead to more competition amongst existing institutes, which again would intensify the ­dependencies of local stakeholders on China. In the case of Africa, this dependency would be even more severe due to the specific situation outlined above as the closing down of a Confucius Institute would eventually mean the disappearance of all China-related activities at most universities. What this, admittedly markedly pessimistic, scenario would mean for the engagement with China is anyone’s guess, the very fact that these new instances of cooperation create new dependencies – especially in Africa – seems also undeniable.

Does New Sino -African Cooper ation Create New Dependencies?

99

Works Cited Alden, C. 2007. China in Africa: Partner, Competitor or Hegemon? London: Zed Books. Bräutigam, D. 1999. Aid Dependence and Governance. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Bräutigam, D. 2009. The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Breslin, S. 2011. ‘The Soft Notion of China’s “Soft Power”’, Asia Programme Paper: ASP PP 2011/03. London, Chatham House, February. http://wrap.warwick. ac.uk/4342/1/WRAP_Breslin_18575_0211pp_breslin.pdf. Cissé, D. 2012. ‘What’s the Fuss about Africans Learning Chinese Language?’ CCS Commentary, 11 September. Centre for Chinese Studies, Stellenbosch University. http://www.ccs.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Daouda-Cisse-ConfuciusInstitutes-11-September.pdf. Confucius Institute. 2012. ‘Recruitment Procedures for Hainan Airlines Confucius Institute Scholarship’. Confucius Institute, Rhodes University. Crul, F. 2013. ‘China and South Africa on Their Way to Sustainable Trade Relations’. tralac Working Paper No. S13IP02/2013. tralac Trade Law Centre, Stellenbosch. https://www.tralac.org/images/docs/4196/s13ip022013-crul-china-and-sa-ontheir-way-to-sustainable-trade-relations-20130529-fin.pdf. Cull, N.J. 2008. ‘Public Diplomacy: Taxonomies and Histories’. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616.1: 31-54. Deji, O.F. 2012. Gender and Rural Development: Advanced Studies. Münster, LIT Verlag. D’Hooghe, I. 2011. ‘The Expansion of China’s Public Diplomacy System’. In Soft Power in China: Public Diplomacy through Communication, ed. W. Jian. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 19-36. The Economist. 2015. ‘China has Become Big in Africa: Now for the Backlash’. The Economist, 15 January. http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-andafrica/21639554-china-has-become-big-africa-now-backlash-one-among-many. Fijalkowski, L. 2011. ‘China’s “Soft Power” in Africa?’. Journal of Contemporary African Studies 29.2: 223-232. FOCAC. 2012. ‘The Fifth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation – Beijing Action Plan (2013-2015)’. Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, 23 July. http://www.focac.org/eng/zxxx/t954620.htm. French, H. 2014. China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa. New York: Vintage Books. Grimm, S., with R. Rank, M. McDonald, and E. Schickerling. 2011. ‘Transparency of Chinese Aid: An Analysis of the Published Information on Chinese External

100 Falk Hartig

Financial Flows’. Centre for Chinese Studies, Stellenbosch University, and Publish What You Fund, August. http://www.aidtransparency.net/wp-content/ uploads/2011/08/Transparency-of-Chinese-Aid_final.pdf. Hanban (2013): “Confucius Institute at Rhodes University”, in: Hanban (ed.): The 8th Confucius Institute Conference Reference Materials. Beijing, Hanban, 253-284. Hanban (n.d.): “Scholarships”; in: Hanban Online, online at: http://english.hanban. org/jxjen.htm Hartig, F. 2014. ‘The Globalization of Chinese Soft Power: Confucius Institutes in South Africa’. In CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy: Confucius Institutes and the Globalization of China’s Soft Power, ed. W. Jian. Los Angeles: Figueroa Press, 47-65. Hartig, F. 2016. Chinese Public Diplomacy: The Rise of the Confucius Institute. London: Routledge. Hayden, C. 2012. The Rhetoric of Soft Power: Public Diplomacy in Global Contexts. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. He, W. 2007. ‘The Balancing Act of China’s Africa Policy’. China Security 3.3: 23-40. Hirono, M., and S. Suzuki. 2014. ‘Why Do We Need “Myth-Busting” in the Study of Sino-African Relations?’. Journal of Contemporary China 23.87: 443-461. Information Office of the State Council. 2011. China’s Foreign Aid. Beijing: Information Office of the State Council, People’s Republic of China. King, K. 2012. China’s Aid and Soft Power in Africa: The Case of Education and Training. Suffolk: James Currey. King, K. 2013. ‘South-South Cooperation in the Internationalisation of African Higher Education: The Case of China’. Alternation Special Edition 9: 11-24. Kragelund, P. 2014. ‘Chinese Soft Power and Higher Education in Africa: The Confucius Institute at the University of Zambia’. Presented at ‘Responsible Development in a Polycentric World: Inequality, Citizenship and the Middle Classes’, 14th EADI General Conference, 23-26 June 2014, Bonn. http://eadi.org/ gc2014/index.php/gc2014-kragelund-249.pdf@page=downloadpaper&filename =gc2014-kragelund-249.pdf&form_id=249&form_index=2&form_version=final. Kurlantzick, J. 2007. Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lancaster, C. 2007. Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Li, M. 2009a. ‘Domestic Sources of China’s Soft Power Approach’. China Security 5.2: 55-70. Li, M. 2009b. ‘Introduction: Soft Power: Nurture Not Nature’. In Soft Power: China’s Emerging Strategy in International Politics, ed. M. Li. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1-18.

Does New Sino -African Cooper ation Create New Dependencies?

101

Mark, S. 2009. ‘A Greater Role for Cultural Diplomacy.’ Discussion Papers in Diplomacy, Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’, The Hague. https://www.clingendael.nl/sites/default/files/20090616_cdsp_discussion_paper_114_mark.pdf. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2015. ‘China Hopes to Deepen Friendship, Cooperation with Africa’. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China. Video. http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/sp/t1227421.shtml. Nordtveit, B.H. 2010a. ‘China and Egypt: The Continuation of a Long Friendship’. NORRAG News 44: 60-63. http://www.norrag.org/ar/publications/norrag-news/ online-version/a-brave-new-world-of-emerging-non-dac-donors-and-theirdifferences-from-traditional-donors/detail/china-and-egypt-the-continuationof-a-long-friendship.html. Nordtveit, B.H. 2010b. ‘An Emerging Donor in Education and Development: A Case Study of China in Cameroon’. International Journal of Educational Development 31.6: 99-108. Nye, J.S. 2004. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York, Public Affairs. Nye, J.S. 2008. ‘Public Diplomacy and Soft Power’. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616.1: 94-109. Procopio, M. 2015. ‘The Effectiveness of Confucius Institutes as a Tool of China’s Soft Power in South Africa’. African East Asian Affairs 2: 98-125. Provost, C., and R. Harris. 2013. ‘China Commits Billions in Aid to Africa as Part of Charm Offensive – Interactive’. The Guardian, 29  April. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/interactive/2013/apr/29/ china-commits-billions-aid-africa-interactive. Sarasvathy, S.D., N. Dew, S.R. Velamuri and S. Venkataraman (2003): “Three Views of Entrepreneurial Opportunity”, in: Z.J. Acs and D.B. Audretsch (eds.), Handbook of Entrepreneurship Research, 141-160. Kluwer Law International Sishuwa, S. 2015. ‘How China’s Confucius Centres Af fect African Culture’. New Af rican, 21  May. http://newafricanmagazine.com/ how-chinas-confucius-centres-affect-african-culture/. Smith, D. 2015. ‘China Denies Building Empire in Africa’. The Guardian, 12 January. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/12/ china-denies-building-empire-africa-colonialism. Strange, A., B. Parks, M.J. Tierney, A. Fuchs, A. Dreher, and V. Ramachandran. 2013. ‘China’s Development Finance to Africa: A Media-Based Approach to Data Collection’. Working Paper 323, Center for Global Development, April. https:// www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/chinese-development-finance-africa_0.pdf . Taylor, I. 2006. China and Africa: Engagement and Compromise. New York: Routledge.

102 Falk Hartig

Taylor, I. 2010. China’s New Role in Africa, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Taylor, I. 2011. The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). Oxford: Routledge. Tian, X. 2013. ‘China-South Africa Diplomatic Relations at 15 Years: Beijing’s View’. Speech at the Ambassadorial Forum, 22 September. Tiffen, A. 2014. ‘The New Neo-Colonialism in Africa’. Global Policy, 19 August. http:// www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/19/08/2014/new-neo-colonialism-africa. Tyler, T.R. 2010. Why People Cooperate: The Role of Social Motivations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wheeler, A. 2014. ‘Cultural Diplomacy, Language Planning, and the Case of the University of Nairobi Confucius Institute’. Journal of Asian and African Studies 49.1: 49-63. Wolf, C., X. Wang, and E. Warner. 2013. China’s Foreign Aid and Government-Sponsored Investment Activities: Scale, Content, Destinations, and Implications, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/ RR118.html. Zhou S. (2009): ‘Zhonggue de fazhan libukai shijie, shijie de fazhan ye libukai zhongguo’ [China’s development is inseparable from the world, the development of the word is also inseparable from China], in: Tansuo yu Zhengming 12/2009, 27-28.

4

Beyond the State in Sino-African Relations? Situating Civil Society Interactions Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

Introduction Chinese-African relations have attracted a lot of attention in recent times. Scholars and observers alike have rediscovered Africa’s political interaction with China in the new millennium; a relationship that was preceded by ­periods of intense cooperation during the Cold War. This current rise in interest is owed to the close ties between China and many African states that have notably increased after the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was installed in October 2000. Ever since, the interaction between China and Africa has taken on various shapes and different sets of actors have conducted them with varying degrees of visibility. In particular, Chinese economic and political engagement on the continent has received various responses ranging from acceptance to support and even contestation. Social unease at China’s renewed presence on the continent, for instance, came to the fore when COSATU, South Africa’s trade union federation, declared that a ‘Chinese Tsunami’ was sweeping across Africa, particularly hitting the textile industry (Radebe 2009). Several years prior to this, COSATU itself was internally berated for not sufficiently mobilizing to protect key industries from Chinese competition (Majova 2005). On both occasions the position of local workers, who felt threatened by imported Chinese products and labour, gained national media attention. This example reveals Africa-wide tremors and murmurs that have on occasion been picked up on by news outlets. Compared to such reporting, scholarship on civil society in ChineseAfrican relations has not been as quick to pick up on this new transnational dynamic. Inasmuch as non-state relations have come in second to state relations, normative and non-material characteristics have been less discussed than their physical and economic traits. In most instances, the literature sets itself apart from commentators who bemoan that civil society has been sidelined within the rapidly growing partnership between China and its African counterparts. Previous studies examine civil society within

104 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

African-Chinese interaction on a continental scale (Ong’ayo 2010, 2011). They highlight how Chinese civil society has come to terms with an international dimension as represented by Chinese-African encounters (Brenner 2012; Chunshan 2013). Some studies loosely contain the aspirations and possibilities of including civil society within Chinese-African engagement (Yuhua 2010); whereas others suggest how international and Chinese civil society might intervene in Chinese-African relations (Obiorah 2007; Askouri 2008). Up until now, however, empirically based studies have been scarce, most probably because tracing transnational interaction between Chinese and African organizations in this formative phase of these new relations is extremely difficult. An exception to the overall trend would be the analysis of the Zambian example (Larmer and Fraser 2007; Haglund 2009).1 Its discussion illustrates how an in-depth case study benefits understanding the dynamics involved within a particular country and places these in relation to wider global phenomena. It shows that the dealings on the ground are not as straightforward as they might appear at first sight. My study aims to complement these previous analyses by looking into how African organizations engage with the possibilities of Chinese-African interaction. It is based on empirical research conducted within the first year of a multiyear research project about African-Asian encounters. By comparing two different countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, namely Kenya and Ethiopia, I reflect on the conditions present and the actors involved in the transnational interaction. Against the backdrop of debates on state-civil society relations in Africa as well as the practice of state cooperation in Chinese-African engagement, I cautiously argue that civil society interaction is not as prevalent or widespread as might be suggested by existing economic and bilateral ties between China and Africa. I further argue that transnational ties are, however, structured by the rampant partnerships resulting in less audible and rather sporadic attempts at taking a position on ongoing collaboration. This chapter therefore provides a thick description of the setting and sites of African and Chinese civil society interaction to locate them within wider fields of cooperation. It draws on four dimensions in these two African countries that inform their domestic organizations’ dealing with China. On the official side, development cooperation as well as state and party relations frame how civil society interaction is made 1 In Zambia, in an already strained environment, competing political parties instrumentalized discourses of the new investors during national elections. Raising such issues appeared opportune within the political contest, because the country’s prime economic sector was negatively affected by Chinese investment.

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

105

possible. On the non-governmental side, local dynamics and wider transnational exchange with agents (or organizations) from these two countries shape the extent and degree to which such encounters appear practicable. Therefore, this chapter first sketches the broader context of Sino-African collaboration in terms of state and development relations between these two countries and China. They are the arenas in which cooperation has been most explicit and that set the stage for any activism around related topics. It then considers the position of civil society itself within these states. Finally, in questioning whether civil society actors may refashion African-Asian relations, I conclude with pointing out the prospects for further civil society cooperation and intervention in Chinese-African cooperation.

Chinese Engagement in Africa: Kenyan and Ethiopian Dimensions Admittedly, the most pronounced relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its African counterparts have primarily taken place among states. Political ties have existed at various levels: they have spanned bi- and multilateral, encompassed party-to-party, and also include people-topeople relations. With the formulation of ‘China’s African Policy’ (People’s Republic of China 2006) as well as the FOCAC institutions and mechanisms, new impetus has been lent to China-Africa relations.2 Previously modest Chinese financial support to African countries has visibly escalated. The new millennium has distinguished itself from previous periods in that the provision of aid, mostly in the form of debt cancellation and technical cooperation, has featured strongly in Sino-African relations. Cooperation between the two regions, which was cemented during the period of the Bandung Conference in the 1950s, has been rather constant in its normative framework. Juxtaposed to this, the means of pursuing these goals have varied over time. They build on the well-known principles of equal treatment, claim to be mutually beneficial by bringing about win-win arrangements, refer to ideals of South-South cooperation, aim at common development and adhere to the One-China policy. Among them, the respect for sovereignty and non-interference in domestic affairs as well as the goal of reciprocity and common prosperity were set next to the support and coordination among states within the Global South. Instead of being a one-way arrangement, economic and technical cooperation was to be an 2

For a detailed discussion of FOCAC, see Taylor (2011).

106 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

exercise of mutual learning. The One China Policy secures Beijing’s claim to representation over Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other disputed territories. It counts as the only non-negotiable principle in Chinese foreign policy, whilst the most discussed has been the non-intervention doctrine (People’s Republic of China 2006; Tan-Mullins and Mohan 2012: 278-279; Mawdsley 2012: 55). These principles apply mainly to state actors who subscribe to them.3 They do not have direct influence over private companies or entrepreneurs and migrants who are the main protagonists of Chinese economic activity. Chinese companies have been expanding and ‘going out’ into the world since reforms in the 1990s led to privatization within an erstwhile state-led economy. They have now grown immensely and reached African shores, thereby changing their economic landscape. According to Premier Li Keqiang (2014), the Chinese government aims to increase trade with Africa setting a target of US$400 billion and US$100 billion for foreign direct investment (FDI). In this respect, the African continent is one amongst several other regions, in which Chinese private and state-owned enterprises are active alongside government agencies. Such a diversity of affairs, departing from these governmental principles on the Chinese side, mirrors the spectrum of relations that exist in the political field both in Ethiopia and Kenya. Over the first ten years in this millennium, economic relations reflected development assistance in the field of governmental and non-governmental support. According to the online platform AidData, which has developed an interactive methodology to track Chinese financial flows into Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia received vastly different amounts of assistance from China. This holds true for funds from state and from unofficial sources. In both countries, official financial flows amount to half or more of total Chinese investments. Whilst non-governmental actors – even if mostly in the economic sector – are growing to be of ever-increasing relevance in both countries, African civil society receives insignificant material support from its Chinese counterparts, when weighed against the support provided to government or other sectors. Small-scale grants, for example, fall into a tradition of technical cooperation that the PRC provided to African countries during the Cold War when China was still a developing country with few resources of its own (Mawdsley 2012: 55). Moreover, China’s rising importance for these countries suggests that traditional development 3 Despite representing one state, even the government departments have diverging interests, which play out in Sino-African relations (Bräutigam 2009: 108-116).

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

107

partners, 4 who have been active in both countries for decades, are being displaced without necessarily being avoided. Chinese cooperation with Africa is different to that of traditional donors. In particular, like other non-DAC donors, China prioritizes other sectors and approaches questions of development differently than traditional donors would (Bräutigam 2009; Mawdsley 2012). As one sectoral area among many, Chinese and African partners undertake poverty eradication together (Chunshan 2013). The latter is predicated on the goal of common development that has been stipulated as a guiding principle of China’s African policy. Understanding the respective engagement pattern therefore holds the potential of appreciating the kinds of new relations that are currently being entered into. The sheer investment volume, whether in the form of aid or other financial flows, makes it difficult for any political actor (either Western or African) to ignore. Despite its strong increase and the Chinese assurance of reciprocity, its trade and investment also gives rise to criticism. It is not equal, as the glaring trade deficit with Africa attests. Because Africa imports more from China than China does from Africa, and because Africa still relies heavily on the export of products from its primary sector, commentators and scholars alike have castigated these newer relations for being neo-colonial (see Adem 2010). Balancing such relations requires a broad societal involvement in Chinese-African relations. It thus comes as no surprise that African civil society – and within this realm, women’s organizations – have agitated for inclusion in the current Sino-African relations (Mkunu 2012). Official relations between China and Kenya or respectively Ethiopia have evolved in the second half of the twentieth century. China is now Kenya’s second largest trading partner and FDI contributor. Spending between the two countries amounts to US$474 million in investments and US$2.84 billion in trade (Ng 2013). The wide array of Chinese companies active in Kenya reflect the extent to which these economic relations have grown. They numbered approximately 200 in 2010, ranging from small to large companies across all sectors (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 268). The extent to which Chinese investment and development funding has grown is corroborated by it displacing traditional donors and investors such as Germany, the 4 Most of them, including European states and the European Union, Australia, Canada, South Korea, and the United States, totalling 29 members to date, belong to the umbrella of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC). They have created a framework for aid coordination that also includes core values and the monitoring of development effectiveness.

108 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

United Kingdom, and the Netherlands in Kenya (Sigei 2011). Following Mwai Kibaki’s strategy of attracting Asian donors, known as the policy of ‘Looking East’, China’s development aid to Kenya grew so substantially that it jumped from under 1% to 13% of total aid in 2005 (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 268). Infrastructure development is the most palpable set of Chinese development project undertaken within Africa. In Kenya, the traffic congestion problem has been visibly soothed by the construction of new, improved roads such as Mombasa Road that leads from Jomo Kenyatta Airport into town. It represents a gateway to the capital city and by extension to the country as a whole. Thika Road, a highway leading out of Nairobi, extends towards the Ethiopian border and connects the two countries. On these national roads, flyovers and the technology used to build the bridges and tunnels belong to the most commonly mentioned innovations of Chinese construction. Compared to this, other development projects below US$100,000 each were far smaller in scale: medical and military aid have been provided or donations made between Kenyan and Chinese counterparts. Parliament was one Kenyan institution that received office equipment from its Chinese donor (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 269). These newer development projects have taken place against the backdrop of 50 years of diplomatic relations between Kenya and China. In this period, China has always been an alternative to Western development aid for the Kenyan government. Although they have spanned such a long period, relations between Kenya and China have enjoyed a rather chequered past. Contact between the two capitals was particularly limited during the decades-long rule of the Kenyan African National Union (KANU). Both Jomo Kenyatta (1964-1978) and Daniel Arap Moi (1978-2002) had adopted pro-Western foreign policies, whilst the Chinese government concurrently backed radical forces within the ruling party. In the later period of the Moi regime, however, the Kenyan government sought to diversify its development funding after which its interest in increasing cooperation with its Chinese counterpart rose again.5 Thereafter, the next regime under Mwai Kibaki (2002-2013), adopted a ‘Look East’ policy, in which the government emphasized its economic partnerships with Asian countries as an alternative to Western trade and development relations. Ongoing delegation and state visits have been a common feature since then (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 266-269; Chai 2013). The successor regime under Uhuru Kenyatta 5 This improvement in relations was evidenced through a prestigious gift in the tradition of such donations: When Kenya hosted the 1987 All-Africa Games, the Chinese government co-financed the Moi International Sports Centre (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 267).

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

109

deepened these relations to include the political domain. Today, correcting its mistake of partisan support during Kenya’s one-party rule and taking cognisance of the constantly shifting political landscape, Beijing maintains ties with all key political players in the various party constellations (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 267). When Western donors shunned Kenyatta and his allies for their part in the 2007 electoral dispute, they summoned them in front of the International Criminal Court. Since then Kenyatta’s government has looked even further eastwards: his first major international trip took him to Moscow and Beijing in August 2013. During this visit Kenyatta and President Xi Jinping announced the China-Kenya Comprehensive Cooperative Partnership as an agreement earmarking further collaboration. Premier Li Keqiang declared Kenya as a special partner, whom it would support in trade and investment for increasing future growth (Chai 2013). Instead of taking recourse to the half century of diplomatic relations, President Xi Jinping underlined the common development experience that China and Kenya shared (Ng 2013). Kenyatta, on the other hand, emphasized the strategic and economic nature of Kenyan-Chinese relations. He proclaimed that optimizing infrastructure networks would be conducive to business and ultimately to economic growth by cutting costs and attracting investors to Africa (CapitalNews 2013). The nature of his trip is widely regarded as his seeking an alternative to Western, and especially American, ties (Ng 2013). In particular, the Chinese principle of non-intervention became highly visible. Though Kenyatta’s ascent to power was still considered controversial in the rest of the world, the Chinese government and Communist Party of China (CPC) officials paid him the highest honours in Beijing as head of state and government. Here, Kenyatta, who had emphasized the economic dimensions, also underlined the political intent of his visit: he expressed the hope that the respective state legislatures would collaborate more with each other in future (Chai 2013). The actions taken, the statements made and the agreements reached during this visit have demonstrated the intertwined economic and political bilateral relations. In contrast to Kenya, development and political relations between Ethiopia and China have been far more consistent and more intense in the past years. Like on the rest of the continent, China is becoming one of Ethiopia’s most foremost development and investment partners. Its investment in Ethiopia is many times higher than in Kenya, totalling more than US$8 billion in the new millennium’s first decade. Unlike in Kenya though, unofficial and other financial sources play almost as important a part in the economic relations as official and state sources (AidData 2009). In

110 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

terms of FDI, Chinese investment has been rapidly growing in Ethiopia in the last couple of years: More than 250 companies of varying size have registered in Ethiopia. Chinese FDI to Ethiopia accounted for 7% of the total and reached US$1 billion in 2010, predominantly in the manufacturing sector (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 274). Not only does one find ‘typically’ Chinese development projects in the country such as infrastructure and symbolic donations, but the variety of Chinese development cooperation is on display too. Bole Road and the Ethio-China Friendship Avenue have become strategic routes flowing into Addis Ababa. One of the most prominent donations by the PRC’s leadership to African governments has been the African Union’s new Conference Centre, worth US$200 million (BBC 2012). This turnkey project located in Addis Ababa raises the Ethiopian capital’s significance as a continental and regional nucleus, where the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) Secretariat are located as well (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 275). Other kinds of development projects include the hydroelectric Millennium Dam project in Ethiopia, which is continuing with the help of the Chinese state-owned company Sinohydro.6 A Chinese-built Special Economic Zone has been erected in Dukem near Addis Ababa, where Chinese investors and Ethiopian companies are supported in manufacturing goods (Bräutigam and Xiaoyang 2011). One of the seventeen Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centres, a less prominent example of Chinese aid to Africa, lies in the Ethiopian town of Ginchi, where agricultural experts from China trained 50,000 Ethiopians in agricultural methods by 2008 (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 272). These form part of China’s trilateral partnership with the United Nations in terms of a South-South cooperation food security programme. Within a two-year time span, the centres aim at technical transfer supplanting the economic issues related to food security (Bräutigam and Xiaoyang 2009: 702). Similar to the Kenyan example, such dense development cooperation took place in a tradition of long bilateral relations. The Ethiopian government began interacting with the PRC under Emperor Haile Selassie, whose rule ended with a coup in 1974. Under the socialist Derg regime (1974-1991), which received Eastern European support during the Sino-Soviet split, relations between the two countries continued but were visibly strained. Only in the late 1980s, shortly before the regime fell to the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), were state-to-state visits taken 6 It has been rather controversial, because it potentially obstructs Egypt’s water supply from the Nile River (International Rivers 2014; Schwartzstein 2013).

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

111

up again. The current EPRDF government – f irst under Meles Zenawi and now under his successor Hailemariam Desalegn – embraced Beijing from the outset. Without close-knit party-to-party relations between the CPC and the EPRDF, such strong state ties would not have materialized. Members of the CPC have formed delegations to visit Ethiopia; they have also attended the EPRDF’s annual national congresses on more than one occasion (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 274). This stands in contrast to the Kenyan experience, where the CPC has hosted Kenyatta but, as mentioned above, has not engaged with his party exclusively. In line with what has happened in Kenya and the general rhetoric of Sino-African cooperation, common development challenges form the backbone of Sino-Ethiopian relations. On the state level, the pillars of Sino-Ethiopian relations differ slightly from the Kenyan ones. They rest on military, educational, and agricultural aid. Mutual attraction exists for both sides. Ethiopia’s interest in the relations with China lies in pursuing ‘ongoing rapid, sustainable and fair socio-economic and socio-political development successes’ (EPRDF 2013). China’s fruitful anti-poverty strategies at home have attracted the keen interest of the Ethiopian government (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 271-275). In turn, the Chinese government has expressed open support in implementing the Ethiopian development framework, the Growth and Transformation Plan (EPRDF 2013). How tight knit the relations between the two countries have now become is regularly displayed by means of high-level exchanges and interactions. In 2011, for example, 40 years of bilateral relations were celebrated with personal exchanges and correspondence between the presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers as well as party officials. Alone in 2013 President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn met at least thrice, with further exchanges by other high-ranking officials being entered into (International Department 2013). Beyond this, formal agreements of general collaboration have been reached between the Ethiopian and Chinese governments, such as the China-Ethiopia All-Round Cooperative Partnership.7 A member of the CPC’s Central Committee Political Bureau promised the EPRDF’s Executive Committee further collaboration and reiterated the core principles of Sino-African relations, namely ‘independence, complete equality, mutual respect, and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs’ (People’s Daily Online 2011; People’s Republic of China 2006). Ties as

7 It covers wide-ranging topics, including humanitarian relief, trade, education, security, and tourism (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2011).

112 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

close as these – based on an ideological affinity – spill over onto the state level. They also affect people-to-people relations. The examples of Kenyan and Ethiopian relations with China, highlighted by remarks from both sides, show that cooperation between each has grown much more intensive than in the second half of the twentieth century. The mutual relations have become extensive as well. One would assume that such intensive state and party relations, in an area deemed of shared importance to these governments and the people they are meant to represent, would also bring with it increased interaction on this overarching topic at the non-state level. After all, any possible civil society interaction takes place alongside state, economic, and cultural relations. Therefore, departing from the perspective that these relations do not stand in the way of increased collaboration, the conditions confronting civil society in both Kenya and Ethiopia speak to the issues facing non-state socio-political actors in Africa’s connection to China.

Overcoming Local Dynamics: Civil Society in Kenya and Ethiopia For African civil society to engage with its Chinese counterparts and extend its transnational ties, it needs to overcome specific local dynamics. All three countries have seen a decisive change in civil society organizations and their activities nationally over the past few decades. In each of these countries, the conditions that civil society now faces affects how it is organized and located. They are shaped by the respective country’s legal framework and its political history. These in turn influence the issues civil society itself prioritizes. To which extent the environment is conducive to civil society overall thus determines the range and scope for African non-state actors to interact with their Chinese colleagues. These domestic issues are briefly discussed in the section below. Debates on state-civil society relations in Sub-Saharan Africa have shown that the concept continues to be controversial. The existence of a domestic civil society in this region, though, is less under dispute than its conceptualization, which has strongly been influenced by Western theories of state-society relations (see Nzomo 2003; Nasong’o 2007; Wanyande 2010). In most African countries, civil society can be traced back to two distinct phases, surrounding the political processes accompanying their formal independence in the 1950s and 1960s as well as the ensuing political liberalization of the 1990s. Even though civil society is often equated with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the def inition goes far

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

113

beyond this. It extends to the media and think tanks as well, and also entails diverse organizational forms as cooperatives or networks. Agents from across social movements have found their way into civil society in post-independence Africa, including liberation movements, professional and workers’ representation, as well as religious and social organizations. They have represented their members’ interests along socio-political lines. And in reflecting this spectrum, they have come to display various political positions, from conservative to reform oriented and even more radical ones. By building alliances and negotiating positions among themselves as well as challenging their respective governments on these, civil society has become a set feature of African politics. Whether the different organizations have belonged to the newer social movements, to older or more traditional ones, they have had to navigate the political terrain. Having contributed to wider transformation processes and experienced political transitions, many organizations confront issues that hinder deepening these political gains into social transformation. As such, questions concerning governmental accountability, economic development, and social inequality find themselves in most organizations’ agendas. In sum, African civil society is often regarded as a proponent for social change; its organizations articulate core issues and strategies around them (see Rahmato 2002; Nasong’o 2007; Eberlei 2014). Civil society, here, widely connotes organized political life outside of the ambit of official politics or the state. The term demarcates the space between the state and society at large without placing fixed boundaries between state institutions and non-state organizations. This fluid conception is determined by realities on the ground on both sides of the Afro-Asian divide, where these divisions are not as distinct as might be suggested by literature on the same. This distinction is often drawn based on the expectation that social movements risk losing their potential for demanding accountability and building resistance if they are not sufficiently autonomous (see Eberlei 2014). Yet the history of civil society in postcolonial (African) states or civil society in the Global South more generally reflects that it has mostly existed in relation to the state. Its organizations and representatives have often moved between the state and the non-governmental arena (see Mageza-Barthel 2015). Hence, parastatal organizations, such as quasi NGOs or government-organized NGOs, also belong within the realm of civil society under discussion here. Although one of the most vibrant civil societies on the continent, Kenya has grappled with a stalling transition from decades of one-party rule to a fully fledged democracy. The country enjoys an extremely diverse CSO

114 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

landscape with interest-based advocacy benefitting from a long history of activism despite the clampdown during decades of one-party rule. Neither the Kenyatta nor the Moi regimes were particularly open to public opposition. Still, Kenyans have been highly vocal. Even when times under the Moi regime were tough. This history has seeped into the country’s political culture. Political stalwarts, such as the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Mathaai who founded the Green Belt Movement in the 1970s, cut their teeth in Kenyan politics as civil society leaders. They were persecuted over many years for taking an oppositional stance. Owing to their protracted experiences of a stalled democratization process, Kenyan scholars have sought to claim civil society in their own context and distinguish their understanding of civil society from Western perspectives (Oyugi, Wanyande, and Odhiambo-Mbai 2003; Murunga and Nasong’o 2007). An aspect they have highlighted lies in the roots of the most well-known organizations in associational life prior to and after independence. Another issue they stressed was the organizations’ support for democratic life. They have also exposed their relation to party politics and state institutions. The redefinition was consequently undertaken with a view to ascertaining Kenyan civil society’s potential to emerge out of an extended political stalemate (Nzomo 2003; Wanyande 2010). More recently, during 2013, civil society actors directed their actions at newly elected parliamentarians who allowed themselves a substantial pay rise shortly after the legislative period began. Protestors from different strides of life embarked on a campaign dubbed ‘Occupy Parliament’ to admonish this first act of parliamentary business. Although they took on prominent politicians and received wide media coverage, this protest cannot be taken to indicate that civil society’s influence on Kenyan politics has been as impressive as the pitch of their voices: ‘Occupy Parliament’ ended in controversy, because protesters likened the seemingly greedy parliamentarians to live pigs.8 The point I wish to make here is that although the protesters were regarded as rabble-rousers, they had sufficient freedom to pour scorn on their politicians. Another point to make is that the protest attracted attention to wider political issues. In spite of the regime change in 2002 and the political crisis following the violence-marred elections of 2007, Kenyan civil society, together with its international partners, has focused on ensuring constitutional change and comprehensive multiparty politics. 8 Many of the MPs, whose names adorned the pigs brought to parliament, were of the Muslim faith. This comparison sparked a massive outcry and brought forth an unusual debate on animal rights.

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

115

Transnational politics – as in the international links and networks formed by social movements – remains a mainstay of Kenya’s political landscape. Such vocal African civil society networks as Fahamu with its publishing outlet Pambazuka Press has a regional base in Nairobi. Western donors have also been highly active in Kenya. This applies to German institutions, among them the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and KfW Development Bank. All German political foundations are present in Kenya, either by hosting offices in Nairobi or carrying out projects in the country. In the case of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which regards the interaction with civil society as a core of its political mandate, the Kenyan office was promoted as the regional headquarters, when its presence in Ethiopia became untenable of late (Unmüßig et al. 2012).9 Moreover, the extent to which international organizations have been involved in the promotion of the non-governmental sector has led some commentators to note that they ‘built’ civil society organizations in the country.10 Unlike Uganda, which banished its residents of Indian origin under Idi Amin’s regime, Kenya has kept its Asian links alive and simultaneously been a strong ally of the West. Kenya has also maintained its status as a regional hub for its Chinese partners. This also pertains to civil society where the China Daily prints its Africa weekly paper in Nairobi and a Chinese radio outlet aimed at the region operates from there, too (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 267). Juxtaposed with this, Ethiopian civil society is far more limited and its transnational ties are far more restricted. Ethiopia lacks the history of triumphing over a colonial power during decolonization, which most African countries share. This implies that the only country not to have experienced colonialism on the continent11 departs from a different starting point than the rest of Africa. Ethiopian civil society finds its origins in various different sources: traditional forms of organizing, such as idir or equib, are among informal or social organizations tending to their members’ needs. Mass-based organizations, for example, include advocacy groups for women, teachers or workers, defined during the previous Derg regime. They have continued to exist and represent specific interests. On top of this, we f ind international organizations, which have increased their 9 This relates to the changed general conditions for CSO activity in Ethiopia after 2009, which is discussed later. 10 Apparently, NGOs in Kenya have received up to KES 160 billion by 2011 (Sigei 2011). This amounts to approximately €1.63 billion or US$1.74 billion. 11 Ethiopia was militarily occupied by Italy in the mid-1930s but never formally colonized by a Western power.

116 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

presence since the humanitarian crisis that swept the country in the mid1980s (Mengesha n.d.; Teshome 2014). The main qualitative difference in the civil society landscape today and during the Derg regime lies in the voluntary nature of organizing collectively that is now permitted (Hyden and Hailemariam 2003). Membership in their assigned mass organizations was mandatory for women, teachers, or workers without the guarantee that these organizations would be effective in representing their members’ interests (Berhane-Selassie 1997). Even though this has changed drastically during the current regime and civil society in Ethiopia has been able to unfold more freely, it faces decisive challenges. Over the last few years, state-society relations have grown extremely tense (Mengesha n.d; Teshome 2014). A law passed in 2009, commonly referred to as the CSO Law,12 has dramatically affected local organizations. Depending on their legal status as charities or societies, the law defines in which programmatic areas organizations may be active. The majority of civil society in Ethiopia, more than 80% of organizations which registered themselves as resident charities or societies, now focus on development and service delivery rather than on democracy and human rights questions (Yeshanew 2012: 375). The regulation was passed after international CSOs, which had begun working in the humanitarian field, continued to grow in importance and encroach on other, more sensitive areas. They were firmly able to establish themselves as donors, service delivery providers, and advocates of democratization (Teshome 2014: 7879). The dispute that followed on the national elections in 2005, when the ruling party’s firm grip on power was contested, served as a reminder of the potential strength of civil society to influence political outcomes. The CSO Law’s effects, of tying the hands of civil society and those citizens thought to be critical of its actions is also considered as a balancing act by government to simultaneously curtail international involvement in Ethiopia’s non-governmental political life (Teshome 2014: 86-89). Its restrictions on civil society organizations’ sources of funding are very high and its determination how an organization is classified are accordingly strict. At the same time, local and international organizations maintain their capacity to deliver services across the country (Yeshanew 2012: 377-380). This legal shift in Ethiopia has coincided with the increasing Chinese presence on the continent. In inhibiting international involvement in the affairs of civil society within its borders, the law’s provisions would also apply to Chinese organizations if they were to fund Ethiopian organizations 12 It is officially known as the Ethiopian Charities and Societies Proclamation (No. 621/2009).

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

117

directly. The likelihood of this happening, then again, depends on the civil society landscape in China where the non-governmental sector is still establishing itself as a credible actor. With its different political history the distinction drawn above on African civil society also applies to civil society in China. Its current development – as Jie Chen (2012: 382) asserts – relied strongly on the UN World Women’s Conference taking place in Beijing and Hairou, China, in 1995. It provided a momentous encounter between Chinese civil society and civil society from other parts of the world. For this reason, Chinese civil society is intricately tied to the transnational women’s movement, of which women’s organizations in Africa have been a critical part at the latest since the 1970s. Unlike their Chinese counterparts, which were until recently separated from international debates, African women’s organizations have vociferously engaged with this movement when the Women’s Decade was pronounced in this period. Among the organizations which have actively sought to engage their African partners, we find the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which also belong to the older massbased organizations. As parastatal organizations, they have to varying degrees vacillated between governmental authority and international influence. Which kinds of interactions they embark on with their African partners, in which sites and to which extent these relations hold is the subject of the next section.

Towards African and Chinese Civil Society Interaction? Most international actors, whether Western or Asian, trying to make a continental, a regional, or merely a national impact in Africa focus their efforts on Kenya. Chinese organizations are no exception to this rule. Overall, though, civil society interaction abroad is a new terrain for Chinese organizations and media outlets which have set their African bases in the country or made sure to at least visit it. Even with the strong transnational presence in Kenya, organized societal reactions to the Chinese presence in the country appears to be muted. This is particularly surprising, since Kenyan scholars belong to those African academics who have worked on Chinese-African encounters from its outset (see, for example, Kamau 2010; Onjala 2008; Ong’ayo 2010, 2011). After South Africa, Kenya hosts the most Confucius Institutes on the continent on

118 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

all of its larger university campuses.13 They have a worldwide presence and are experiencing a boom in Sub-Saharan Africa. Of relevance for prospective relations transcending the state, Confucius Institutes encourage people-to-people exchanges. As discussed by Kenneth King (2013) and Falk Hartig (2015), these form part of China’s ‘soft power’ strategy and public diplomacy in Africa, which is situated within wider South-South cooperation. Furthermore, Kenyan civil society is in a unique position to respond to this international phenomenon parallel to the ongoing state-led forms of people-to-people cooperation. Some of the first publications to appear about the contemporary wave of African and Chinese cooperation came from Kenyan civil society agents who brought scholars and practitioners from China and Africa to workshop these issues14; they sought to understand this new dynamic as well as bring African and Chinese perspectives on these new developments into the debate (Manji and Marks 2007; Harneit-Sievers, Marks, and Naidu 2010). Notwithstanding official foreign policy instruments, which are meant to familiarize and possibly endear African citizens to an influx of Chinese investors and actors, the practicalities of interacting with one another appear to be difficult. The China Africa Daily, mentioned above, appears weekly but is only available at a specif ic international newsstand in Nairobi on one day of the week. It cannot reach a wider audience, unless potential readers are approached by the publishers. Obtaining copies of the publication or accessing its archive is a particular challenge: they are not kept at the headquarters of the Daily Nation, the major Kenyan newspaper where it is produced. Instead, the edition is stocked at the paper’s printing site and thus even less accessible to the public. On the other hand, sufficient information seems to be visible or circulate among Kenyans for periodic protests against Chinese investors to take place. They have expressed their discontent with the implementation of concrete Sino-African development projects, too. Incidents include those of a Chinese restaurateur in Nairobi who discriminated against Kenyan patrons in the evenings (Tharoor 2015), or of local landowners who complained 13 Kenyatta University, the University of Nairobi, Egerton University, and, most recently, Moi University host the institutes, which facilitate the teaching of Mandarin at tertiary institutions specifically and promote China’s cultural politics more generally. President Kenyatta cited these cultural institutions, along with exchanges and ongoing people-to-people relations, on his state visit to China as a sign of the extent to which Kenyan-Chinese relations have deepened (Chai 2013). 14 FAHAMU’s ‘China-African Civil Society Dialogue’, held in 2008, was facilitated by the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Nairobi office (see Harneit-Sievers, Marks, and Naidu 2010).

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

119

about the low compensation they were offered to vacate their property for Kenyan-Chinese infrastructure projects (Akwiri 2015). They belong to some occurrences where development projects and economic interactions have produced an outcry. One would expect such local protests to be far more common and widespread, considering the numerous projects that are being undertaken in different areas of the country. As with the initiative dubbed Save Lamu, an umbrella body of community organizations based in the region where the gigantic Lamu Port Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET)15 is being constructed. The general civil society tenor in the region has cautiously questioned this development project. As a major new development, it promises to further modernize the Kenyan economy and among other things it could boost the accessibility of tourist destinations. In the face of its potentially detrimental social and economic impact though, objections by Save Lamu (2012) pertain mostly to the lack of consultation by the central Kenyan government with affected communities in the area. True to the Kenyan civil society tradition, the network, which includes a youth as well as a women’s organization, has threatened to take the matter to court. By holding their government accountable to its procedural obligations, their hope was that the legal route would enforce more community involvement in the process. If protests against Chinese-African cooperation have been rare, then collaboration as another form of interaction between Chinese and Kenyan civil society has been even less common. It appears that the government’s ‘Look East’ policy has not been replicated by civil society, which has in its place pursued a ‘Look Inward’ policy. For one, it has prioritized such internal issues as the transitional justice and constitutional amendment processes, which preclude Chinese intervention on principle. For another, those organizations collaborating with their counterparts have not made their cooperation demonstrably visible. Although the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU), for instance, met with the ACFTU in August 2013, reporting of this event did not centre on new partnership outcomes or approaches.16 The COTU secretary-general used the occasion to condemn a financial scandal surrounding the Kenyan National Social 15 The LAPSSET corridor is a ports, railway, and roads project connecting Kenya, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Uganda. 16 This was not the first exchange between Kenyan and Chinese trade unions, either. Prior to their 2013 meeting, the Kenyan trade union alliance received computers from ACFTU as an in-kind donation (Shinn and Eisenman 2012: 269).

120 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

Security Fund (NSSF), where workers’ funds seem to have been misappropriated. COTU, which represents workers’ and pensioners’ interests in this social security scheme, has been embroiled in protracted conflicts over corruption, leadership contests, and tender projects (Daily Nation 2014). The meeting between COTU and the Chinese union indicates, however, that when common interest groups exist, the chances for collaboration is increased. It also suggests that the economic ties between Africa and China call for common strategies regarding the maintenance of workers’ rights and labour regulations within the budding field of trade and investment. Cognisant of its transnational dimensions, ACFTU appears to be engaging in its own bilateral exchanges with trade unions from across Africa (see Procopio 2014a; Procopio 2014b). Ethiopian civil society has, similarly, hardly been in a position to react to newer Chinese projects in their country. The setting for civil society interaction has been difficult. It has led Ethiopian organizations to rearrange themselves to meet the CSO Law’s requirements or, put differently, to look inward as well.17 Ethiopia’s capacity for people-to-people exchange has not as yet reached the scale of the Kenyan Confucius Institutes. Since this is a rapidly developing sector within Ethiopia’s educational system, the opportunities for extending such collaboration appear imminent. Other organizations would have to look to being invited by their counterparts or the Chinese embassy in Addis Ababa to include them in existing interactions. Protests in an equally prominent project as LAPSSET, namely the Millennium Dam, are yet to be identified. The strategic nature of alleviating the water shortage in this drought-plagued region and its promise of driving modernization would, like the Kenyan project, lead people to condone it. Citizens – also those in the diaspora – have been actively lobbied to invest in the financing of the megaproject. Government bonds have been issued as ownership certificates for those individuals who have bought shares in the dam. This is, if one would regard it as such, a novel form of collaboration mixing state, economic, and people relations. Sourcing sufficient funding – also from ordinary people who have to contend with the economic pressures of rapidly increasing living expenses – is a major challenge. Carrying out the project in a manner that avoids conflict, both within Ethiopia and with its neighbours, will determine its further success. 17 Whether or not Ethiopian trade unions have interacted with their Chinese counterparts could not be ascertained during my first visit to the country. Though none of my interview partners mentioned their collaboration, it would stand to reason that encounters between them exist.

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

121

Exploring Multilateral Politics as a Site of Transnational Collaboration If the level of local politics and the sphere of bilateral relations have not proved conducive to civil society cooperation, then would multilateral politics amount to a further avenue of exploring potential collaboration? The most evident example to turn to here is the arena of transnational gender politics, where women’s organizations have interacted at the UN level for several decades. Contact between African and Chinese women’s organizations has interestingly not led to a great deal of collaboration, either. At the forefront of negotiating development approaches, women’s organizations from Africa and their fellow gender activists from the Global South have already addressed a field that numerous African governments and the Chinese government have pinpointed as the basis for their cooperation. The 1985 and 1995 World Women’s Conferences, held in Nairobi and Beijing respectively, were pivotal to transnational women’s movements and a site where ‘development’ was defined as a gender issue. Alternative approaches, such as ‘empowerment’ were prominently placed here by feminist and women’s groups from the South (Antrobus 2004: 67-77). Coincidentally, the Nairobi Conference was the conference at which the ACWF first translated the lessons it learnt from its transnational exchange into a springboard for its activism back home. It later went a step further to secure its hosting of the ensuing Beijing Conference (Zhang and Hsiung 2010). Still, an important element that was missing, as participants from and observers within Kenya commented, was an equal counterpart on the other side. They lamented the gap between Kenyan and Chinese women’s organizations, which were not equally democratically inclined or autonomous. This variance provides an important further insight for the rest of civil society’s interaction in this particular South-South relation: collaboration is in part determined by African civil society’s advantage in pushing for socio-political change. It then comes as little surprise that the first Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Women’s Forum18 as well as the first FOCAC civil society platform19 took place on African soil. Reminiscent of the trade union example, where I posited that it took a common interest group, 18 To date, the only FOCAC Women’s Forum was hosted in Egypt in 2009 to bring women’s organizations and gender machineries into contact with one another. The conference outcome entailed a declaration that firmly placed gender politics within the wider realm of governmental exchange and extended it to include women’s NGOs (Yuxia 2011). 19 FOCAC’s series of People’s Fora are discussed below.

122 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

it now seems that the subjective element of common mutual recognition is also a basis from which advanced collaboration might emanate. Another issue that this field brings to light is that current collaboration relies on the existence of previous relations. Relations between the official Kenyan and Chinese women’s delegation were not maintained. However, more stable relations were established between Kenyan and Chinese women’s organizations.20 The state and party relations between the CPC and KANU, Kenya’s erstwhile ruling party, have carried over into the current era. In the early 1990s, between the two world women’s conferences, an ACWF delegation visited Kenya and began interacting with the nationwide KANU-aligned organization Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organization (MYWO) (Aubrey 1997: 100-104). More than a decade later, MYWO is one of the few women’s organizations that has cooperated with the Chinese embassy. It has been able to realize a project of building two classrooms at a primary school in Nairobi through a donation presented by the China Communication Construction Company (Musundi 2008).21 To what extent such an alliance might be useful for furthering transnational gender relations remains to be seen, since MYWO has struggled to retain its clout as a political player after KANU’s electoral defeat. Ethiopia was also represented at the 1995 World Women’s Conference. Since then the Ethiopian women’s movement, located across state institutions and civil society, has regarded the conference outcomes as guiding principles for their work. Gender policies, governmental activities, and women’s activism all take the Beijing conference outcomes into account. Apart from discontinuous bilateral collaboration at the state level in the period following the conference more recently, non-governmental organizations seem not to have maintained or taken up further interaction with their Chinese counterparts. A second multilateral site where civil society collaboration has taken place is in the realm of multilateral Chinese-African cooperation. Julius Sigei, a journalist at the Kenyan Daily Nation newspaper, considers civil society as Africa’s last frontier that China is attempting to wrestle from the West. The timing of his observations coincided with a FOCAC meeting, the China-Africa People’s Forum, which aimed to bring civil society from China 20 The Green Belt Movement, mentioned above, or the pan-African organization FEMNET, which monitors progress on the Beijing conference’s implementation, each maintain their Western and regional ties. 21 Several years later, the company won the tender process to contribute the first elements in LAPSSET’s construction.

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

123

and Africa together (New Times 2012; Brenner 2012: 138). It has evolved into a series of meetings taking place almost annually, either in China or in Africa: at the first of its kind, approximately 200 delegates from China and 19 African countries attended the meeting in Nairobi in 2011. Of these, the bulk came from Kenya with Chinese organizations and the rest of African organizations being represented equally (Mo 2011; Xin 2011). During the 2012 meeting, which took place in Suzhou, the numbers of both Chinese and African participants grew. Over 300 people, from 35 African countries and China, came together (New Times 2012). At the third meeting, the momentum of the first two conferences could not be kept. It was held in 2014 in Khartoum, Sudan, where it only attracted 86 representatives from 27 African states and China (Sudanow Magazine 2014). Each of these meetings was attended by numerous Chinese and African organizations. Among them, the ACWF and the ACTFU. In each instance, it was co-hosted by the China NGO Network for International Exchanges (CNIE) and an African governmental coordinating mechanism (Mo 2011; New Times 2012; Sudanow Magazine 2014). The Kenyan CSO Board, for instance, coordinated the Forum alongside the CNIE (Chunshan 2013: 105). Officially, bilateral CSO exchanges began taking place when the CNIE was created on the Chinese side in 2005 and it started inviting African organizations to China in 2009 (Xin 2011). CNIE conducts exchanges with foreign NGOs as a component of China’s foreign policy. Accordingly, it directs the interaction between African and Chinese organizations. The practice of Chinese-African people-to-people exchange spans back to the visible support the CPC provided to liberation struggles (see Obiorah 2007).22 These FOCAC meetings, which set emphases on thematic cooperation and bring NGOs in line with official undertakings of African-Chinese collaboration, are relevant not only for their host countries but also for those invited organizations which chose to attend them. They are a space where current and former politicians interact with NGOs against the wider background of Chinese-African collaboration. Ethiopia’s former First Lady and sitting parliamentarian, Azeb Mesfin, attended the 2012 meeting where she declared that governments needed to cooperate with NGOs to cater to their people’s needs (Yang 2012). Her attendance of such a forum might come as a surprise to the keen observer of Ethiopian politics, since civil 22 The network’s stance has resulted in controversy: its partial position as a parastatal came to the fore at the 2007 World Social Forum, when CNIE representatives overtly defended Chinese investment strategies in Africa against African NGO representatives who were criticizing them (Brenner 2012: 140).

124 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

society’s international interaction is fashioned by the CSO Law and also because she would be consigned in the governmental sphere of politics. Two important issues need to be noted: For one, the former First Lady has been an activist and also presides over the Ethiopian Women’s Federation, which is an organization that collaborates with its Chinese counterpart the ACWF.23 For another, the CSO Law’s restriction on international involvement applies to all donors and international NGOs that are active in Ethiopia. However, its influence on Ethiopian-Chinese civil society is fairly limited, because the current environment provides the background against which this would be possible at all. The CSO Law’s effects echo those of the Chinese adherence to its non-interference policy in Africa. In the context of the 2005 elections and the CSO Law the Ethiopian government brought civil society into the vicinity of the political opposition (Teshome 2014: 87-89). Such overlaps stave off China’s official interest, because it interferes with this core principle. The kinds of Chinese CSOs engaged in Sino-African people-to-people exchange are those that deal with ‘low politics’. Moreover, from the Chinese side, organizations active in Sino-African CSO exchange ought to focus on welfare activities and refrain from advocacy work. In particular, this requirement contributes to a mismatch between some of the Chinese and African CSOs which stem from different political traditions, yet seem to be interested in facing common challenges (see Brenner 2012: 140 and 149). Then again, the Chinese guideline falls in line with Ethiopia’s current legal framework on civil society, as elaborated on previously.

Prospects for Civil Society Intervention in Chinese-African Relations This chapter has delved into the transnational interaction of Kenyan and respectively Ethiopian civil society with organizations from China. It has taken a detailed look at how bilateral and multilateral relations among civil society actors have contributed to these encounters. I have moreover sketched fields where such encounters might either be pinpointed or against which these non-governmental and parastatal relations should be read. Governmental relations and development cooperation have framed the possibilities of civil society encounters inasmuch as local dynamics and 23 The first FOCAC People’s Forum in 2011, which followed on the Women’s Forum two years earlier, was used by the ACWF vice president, Zhen Yan, to make a wider plea for considering women’s and gender issues as critical to achieving their common development goals (Yuxia 2011).

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

125

wider transnational opportunities have forged the prospects of civil society interaction between Chinese and African countries. To pursue my argument that the relations by civil society have not followed the lead implied by the intense development and bilateral ties, I have illustrated the obstacles that civil society faces in the individual countries to engaging partners from abroad. At all levels, from the local to the international, and in all spheres from bilateral to multilateral relations, Chinese-African civil society relations are still at a formative and equally decisive stage. Albeit sporadic and intermittent, these encounters have shown a great diversity of positions. Protests against China’s deepening relations with the continent have been just as identifiable as consent and collaboration towards this. The position of civil society on whether or not to support the increasing Sino-African relations could be condensed as ambivalent at present. Whereas critical voices have emerged and protested against Chinese ventures into Africa, many within civil society seem to be supportive of such ventures. They welcome renewed governmental initiatives at modernization and development, issues that the African and the Chinese states have earmarked as joint challenges. In sharing these governmental outlooks, civil society has also embraced the promise of win-win and mutual benefit (Sigei 2011; Amosu 2007). Their hope is that they may be less dependent on other sources, that they can learn from China’s experience and that their countries would be brought on a path of ‘self-development’ (Yang 2012). Interaction between African and Chinese non-governmental organizations should in all likelihood continue in the future. As the chapter illustrates with regard to African-Chinese transnational politics, ChineseAfrican relations are incrementally changing. Transnational interactions are the arena where this change is visible. Chinese companies have ‘gone out’ and become important pillars of African economies. They have, of late, been encouraged to engage in corporate social responsibility initiatives in those African countries where they are active (Chunshan 2013: 103). This is a striking opportunity, because the proponents of Chinese aid and investment which deliver tangible development projects will become more visible in the social arena. The side effect thereof would be that ‘visibility’ will give further rise to ‘audibility’, paving the way for civil society intervention in these affairs. Therefore, as the circle of the Chinese in Africa widens, the scope for civil society encounters extends beyond its current status. Admittedly, it would be remiss to expect a unified voice across the continent; civil society inclusion into Chinese-African relations has also only been partial at best. Thus far, African organizations have mainly been

126 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

acting in response to ongoing Sino-African relations in other fields. At times, they have taken the initiative on forming partnerships between African and Chinese civil society. If the hitherto state-led FOCAC process is to become even more inclusive than the efforts at including women and civil society organizations has managed to be, then it is incumbent upon African organizations to further deepen these transregional ties. They have regarded themselves as responsible for ensuring that the growing exchanges between African and Chinese economic and political partners do not persist in being lopsided. Specifically, they have endeavoured to translate the effects of Sino-African partnership into equal benefits for all of society. Hence, they have not only demanded civil society inclusion into FOCAC fora but insisted on greater accountability to people on the ground for whom development outcomes are a necessity. These are all issues that reveal the potential for civil society to intervene in the governmental and commercial relations underway across the continent. The ultimate challenge, as illustrated by discussing the examples of the two countries above, remains whether civil society in most African states has the inclination and the capacity to further mediate transnational relations between China and Africa. In many cases it is hampered by its own internal issues and contextual difficulties. The latter pose substantial hurdles to such intervention. Caught between their own structural conditions, civil society organizations face other actors in the political and economic arena that are far mightier than themselves. Under the discussed circumstances they risk being drawn in to signing off on business as usual instead of bringing in further alternatives to refashion Africa’s Asian encounters.

Works Cited Adem, S. 2010. ‘The Paradox of China’s Policy in Africa’. African and Asian Studies 9: 334-355. AidData. 2009. ‘Projects’. AidData. http://china.aiddata.org/projects. Akwiri, J. 2015. ‘Kenyans Angry at Low Compensation Attack Railway Constructors’. Reuters Africa, 12 June. http://af.reuters.com/article/kenyaNews/ idAFL5N0YY18820150612. Amosu, A. 2007. ‘China in Africa: It’s (Still) the Governance, Stupid’, Foreign Policy in Focus, 9 March. http://fpif.org/china_in_africa_its_still_the_governance_stupid/. Antrobus, P. 2004. The Global Women’s Movement: Origins, Issues and Strategies. London: Zed Books.

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

127

Askouri, A. 2008. ‘Civil Society Initiative in Africa’. In China’s New Role in Africa and the South: A Search for a New Perspective, ed. D.-G. Guerrero and F. Manji. Oxford: Fahamu, 151-156. Aubrey, L.M. 1997. The Politics of Development Cooperation: NGOs, Gender and Partnership in Kenya. London: Routledge. BBC. 2012. ‘African Union Opens Chinese-funded HQ in Ethiopia’ BBC, 28 January. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-16770932. Berhane-Selassie, T. 1997. ‘Ethiopian Rural Women and the State’. In African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. G. Mikell. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 182-205. Bräutigam, D. 2009. The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bräutigam, D., and T. Xiaoyang. 2009. ‘China’s Engagement in African Agriculture: “Down to the Countryside”’. China Quarterly 199: 686-706. Bräutigam, D., and T. Xiaoyang. 2011. ‘African Shenzhen: China’s Special Economic Zones in Africa’. Journal of Modern African Studies 49.01: 27-54. Brenner, D. 2012. ‘Are Chinese NGOs “Going Out”?: The Role of Chinese NGOs and GONGOs in Sino-African Relations’. Journal of Public & International Affairs 22: 131-151. CapitalNews. 2013. ‘President Kenyatta Arrives in China on First State Visit’. CapitalNews, 18  August. http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2013/08/ president-kenyatta-arrives-in-china-on-first-state-visit/. Chai, K. 2013. ‘China to President Kenyatta: Your Visit Deepens Cooperation’. Jamhuri Magazine, 20  August. http://jamhurimagazine.com/index.php/ world/4304-china-to-president-kenyatta-your-visit-deepens-cooperation.html. Chen, J. 2012. ‘China and the Transnational Social Movements’. In The Ashgate Research Companion to Chinese Foreign Policy, ed. E. Kavalski. Farnham: Ashgate, 381-390. Chunshan, A. 2013. ‘China-Africa Non-Governmental Cooperation in Poverty Reduction’. In China-Africa Relations: Review and Analysis, ed. L. Jianbo. Reading: Paths International, 99-113. Daily Nation. 2014. ‘Scandals That Have Rocked Jubilee Administration’. Daily Nation, 26 January. http://www.nation.co.ke/news/Scandals-that-have-rockedJubilee-administration/1056-2161590-ifxt8lz/index.html. Eberlei, W., ed. 2014. Zivilgesellschaft in Subsahara Afrika. Wiesbaden: Springer. EPRDF. 2013. ‘EPRDF and CPC Officials Exchanged Experience’. Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. http://www.eprdf.org.et/web/guest/news/-/ asset_publisher/c0F7/content/china-deligation-amh-news-04-nov-2013. Gebre-Hiwot, D. N.d. ‘EDPRF, CPC Agree to Strengthen Cooperation’. Ethiopian Press Agency. http://www.ethpress.gov.et.

128 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

Haglund, D. 2009. ‘In It for the Long Term? Governance and Learning among Chinese Investors in Zambia’s Copper Sector’. China Quarterly 199: 627-646. Harneit-Sievers, A., S. Marks, and S. Naidu, eds. 2010. Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa. Kampala: Fountain Publishers. Hartig, F. 2015. ‘Communicating China to the World: Confucius Institutes and China’s Strategic Narratives’. Politics 35.3-4: 245-258. Hyden, G., and M. Hailemariam. 2003. ‘Voluntarism and Civil Society: Ethiopia in Comparative Perspective’. Africa Spectrum 38.2: 215-234. International Department. 2013. ‘Zhao Hongzhu Visits Ethiopia’. International Department, Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. http://www. idcpc.org.cn/english/news/130917.htm. International Rivers. 2014. ‘The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Fact Sheet’. International Rivers website, 24 January. https://www.internationalrivers.org/ resources/the-grand-ethiopian-renaissance-dam-fact-sheet-8213. Kamau, P. 2010. ‘China’s Impact on Kenya’s Clothing Industry’. In Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa, ed. A. Harneit-Sievers, S. Marks, and S. Naidu. Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 108-127. King, K. 2013. China’s Aid and Soft Power in Africa: The Case of Education & Training. Woodbridge: James Currey. Larmer, M., and A. Fraser. 2007. ‘Of Cabbages and King Cobra: Populist Politics and Zambia’s 2006 Election’. African Affairs 106.425: 611-637. Li, K. 2014. ‘Full Text of Li Keqiang’s Speech at Africa Union’. China Daily, 6  May. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2014livisitafrica/2014-05/06/ content_17531846.htm. Mageza-Barthel, R. 2015. Mobilizing Transnational Gender Politics in Post-Genocide Rwanda. London/New York: Routledge. Majova, Z. 2005. ‘Cosatu Berated for “Made in China” T-Shirts’. IOL News, 5 December. http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/cosatu-berated-for-made-in​ -china-t-shirts-260546. Manji, F., and S. Marks. 2007. African Perspectives on China in Africa. Oxford: Fahamu. Mawdsley, E. 2012. From Recipients to Donors: Emerging Powers and the Changing Development Landscape. London: Zed Books. Mengesha, E. N.d. ‘The Dynamic of State-CSO Relations on Gender Work in Ethiopia’. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2011. ‘China and Ethiopia’. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China. http://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/wjb/zzjg/fzs/gjlb/2984/ t16506.htm# .

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

129

Mkunu, M. 2012. ‘China-Africa Cooperation without Meaningful Engagement with Women Will Fail’. In the proceedings of the China-Africa Think Tanks Forum, 12-13 October, Addis Ababa. Mo, H. 2011. ‘China, Africa Reinforce Nongovernmental Ties as 1 st NGO Forum Opens’. Xinhua, 29 August. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/201108/29/c_131082132.htm. Murunga, G., and S.W. Nasong’o, eds. 2007. Kenya: The Struggle for Democracy. London: Zed Books. Musundi, B. 2008. ‘Letter of Appreciation’. By Maendeleo Ya Wanawake Organization to the Ambassador to the Republic of Kenya. http://ke.china-embassy.org/ eng/xw/t451712.htm. Nasong’o, S.W. 2007. ‘Negotiating New Rules of the Game: Social Movements, Civil Society and the Kenyan Transition’. In Kenya: The Struggle for Democracy, ed. G. Murunga and S.W. Nasong’o. London: Zed Books, 19-57. New Times. 2012. ‘NGOs Advocate Balance in Sino-Africa Ties’. New Times, 24 July. http://allafrica.com/stories/201207250160.html. Ng, T. 2013. ‘Kenya Looks East to “Sincere Friend” in China: Beijing and Moscow, Not Washington, Are First Non-African Ports of Call for New President’. South China Morning Post, 19 August. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1297869/ facing-icc-trial-kenyan-president-uhuru-kenyatta-welcomed-china-visit. Nzomo, M. 2003. ‘Civil Society in the Kenyan Political Transition: 1992-2002’. In The Politics of Transition in Kenya: From KANU to NARC, ed. W.O. Oyugi, P. Wanyande, and C. Odhiambo-Mbai. Nairobi: Heinrich Böll Foundation, 180-211. Obiorah, N. 2007. ‘Who’s Afraid of China in Africa? Towards an African Civil Society Perspective on China-Africa Relations’. In African Perspectives on China in Africa, ed. F. Manji and S. Marks. Oxford: Fahamu, 35-55. Ong’ayo, A.O. 2010. ‘Sino-African Relations: Reflections on Civil Society Engagement’. In Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa, ed. A. Harneit-Sievers, S. Marks, and S. Naidu. Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 224-246. Ong’ayo, A.O. 2011. ‘China-Africa Relations: The Relevance of Strategic Engagement of African Civil Society Organisations with China’. In African Engagements: Africa Negotiating an Emerging Multipolar World, ed. T. Dietz, K. Havnevik, M. Kaag, and T. Oestigaard. Leiden: Brill, 252-279. Onjala, J. 2008. ‘A Scoping Study on China-Africa Economic Relations: The Case of Kenya’. African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Nairobi, 5 March. http://dspace.africaportal.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/32023/1/Kenya.pdf?1. Oyugi, W.O., P. Wanyande, and C. Odhiambo-Mbai, eds. 2003. The Politics of Transition in Kenya: From KANU to NARC. Nairobi: Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2003.

130 Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel

People’s Daily Online. 2011. ‘Senior CPC Off icial Vows to Boost Cooperation with Ethiopia’. People’s Daily Online, 1 July. http://en.people.cn/90001/90776/​ 90883/7426219.html. People’s Republic of China. 2006. ‘China’s African Policy.’ http://www.chinaembassy.org.zw/eng/zt/zgdwzc/t343970.htm. Procopio, M. 2014a. ‘China-Africa Trade Unions High-Level Seminar [Translation]’. The China Africa Project, 27 May. http://www.chinaafricaproject.com/ china-africa-trade-unions/. Procopio, M. 2014b. ‘Chinese Companies in Africa Turn to “Positive Energy” for China-Africa Development [Translation]’. The China Africa Project, 19 June. http://www.chinaafricaproject.com/china-africa-trade-unions-labour-rights/. Radebe, H. 2009. ‘Cosatu Lambasts “Chinese Tsunami”’. Business Day, 24 August. http://allafrica.com/stories/200908240059.html. Rahmato, D. 2002. ‘Civil Society Organizations in Ethiopia’. In Ethiopia: The Challenge of Democracy from Below, ed. B. Zewde and S. Pausewang. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitute and Forum for Social Studies, 103-119. Save Lamu. 2012. ‘Press Statement’. Save Lamu, 24 January. http://www.savelamu. org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Save-Lamu-Press-Statement-24.1.12.pdf. Schwartzstein, P. 2013. ‘Water Wars: Egyptians Condemn Ethiopia’s Nile Dam Project’. National Geographic, 28 September. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ news/2013/09/130927-grand-ethiopian-renaissance-dam-egypt-water-wars/. Shinn, D.H., and J. Eisenman. 2012. China and Africa: A Century of Engagement. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sigei, J. 2011. ‘China Targets Civil Society in Final Onslaught on West’. Daily Nation, 9 September. http://www.nation.co.ke/news/1056-1233468-15dbirwz/index. html. Sudanow Magazine. 2014. ‘The Third China-Africa People’s Forum Inaugurated in Khartoum’. Sudanow Magazine, 12  May. http://sudanow.info.sd/ third-china-africa-peoples-forum-inaugurated-khartoum/. Tan-Mullins, M., and G. Mohan. 2012. ‘China’s Relations with Africa’. In The Ashgate Research Companion to Chinese Foreign Policy, ed. E. Kavalski. Farnham: Ashgate, 275-285. Taylor, I. 2011. The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). Oxford: Routledge. Teshome, W. 2014. ‘Äthiopien – Zivilgesellschaftliche Politische Arbeit in Autoritärem Umfeld’. In Zivilgesellschaft in Subsahara Afrika, ed. W. Eberlei. Wiesbaden: Springer, 73-102. Tharoor, I. 2015. ‘This Chinese Restaurant in Kenya is Open for Dinner, as Long as You’re Not African’. Washington Post, 24 March. https://www.washingtonpost. com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/03/24/this-chinese-restaurant-in-kenya-isopen-for-dinner-as-long-as-youre-not-african/?utm_term=.9de2e85377a7.

Beyond the State in Sino -African Rel ations?

131

Unmüßig, B., S. Heizmann, K. Maas-Albert, and P. Berg. 2012. ‘Zur Schließung des Büros der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in Äthiopien’. Heinrich Böll Foundation, 7 November. https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/assets/boell.de/images/ download_de/stiftung/Ausfuehrlicher_Hintergrund_Aethiopien.pdf. Wanyande, P. 2010. ‘Characterizing the Kenyan Civil Society’. In Civil Society and Governance in Kenya since 2002: Between Transition and Crisis, ed. D. OkothOkombo. Nairobi: African Research and Resource Forum, 13-34. Xin, F. 2011. ‘China, Africa Plan 1st NGO Forum’. China Daily, 23 August. http://www. chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-08/23/content_13175228.htm. Yang, Z. 2012. ‘Fishing Lessons: China-Africa Non-governmental Exchange Embraces a New Direction’. China Report. http://www.chinafrica.cn/english/ china_report/txt/2012-08/02/content_472861.htm. Yeshanew, S.A. 2012. ‘CSO Law in Ethiopia: Considering Its Constraints and Consequences’. Journal of Civil Society 8.4: 369-384. Yuhua, X. 2010. ‘Chinese Perceptions of African CSOs: How Should African CSOs Engage in China?’. In Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa, ed. A. Harneit-Sievers, S. Marks, and S. Naidu. Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 214-223. Yuxia, W. 2011. ‘ACWF Leader Zhen Yan Visits Ethiopia and Kenya’, Women of China website, 2 September. http://www.womenofchina.cn/womenofchina/ html1/special/13/3246-1.htm. Zhang, N., and P.-C. Hsiung. 2010. ‘The Chinese Women’s Movement in the Context of Globalization’. In Women’s Movements in the Global Era: The Power of Local Feminisms, ed. A. Basu. New York: Westview Press, 157-192.

5

The Vietnamese-Chinese Migration Industry in Angola A Case Study 1 André Gröger and Rainer Klump

Introduction International migration has become a big global business, which has recently gained much attention in the scholarly discussion evolving around the concept of ‘Migration Industry’ (Hernández-León 2008; Sørensen and GammelhoftHansen 2013). While the underlying phenomenon and its academic investigation is certainly not new, the recent reconceptualization provides an enhanced framework to understanding the dynamics of international labour migration from an actor-centred perspective. The authors define the term Migration Industry as ‘the ensemble of entrepreneurs who, motivated by the pursuit of financial gain, provide a variety of services facilitating human mobility across international borders’ (Hernández-León 2008: 154). Previous studies have investigated these entrepreneurs, such as money lenders, recruiters, transportation providers, or ‘paper pushers’, in diverse but mainly bilateral settings spanning, for example, between Brazil and Japan (Surak 2013), Ethiopia to the Middle East (Fernandez 2013), or Mexico and the United States (HernándezLeón 2008). While in most of these corridors the Migration Industry plays a pivotal role in successfully organizing movements of workers across borders, substantial differences in the quality of regulatory frameworks which govern each labour migration corridor and the degree to which they are enforced still prevail in terms of regulations, enforcement, and legal protection. Using the abovementioned concept of the Migration Industry and data from our fieldwork in Vietnam and Angola, our objective in this chapter is to explore recent empirical interactions between different actors sustaining the labour migration corridor from Vietnam to Angola. Apart from historical relations between the two countries which have spurred small-scale initial migration to Africa, recent large-scale investment by the Chinese government in Angola appears to constitute a key facilitating factor 1 Financial support from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the ‘Freunde und Förderer der Goethe-Universität’ is acknowledged.

134 

André Gröger and Rainer Klump

driving further Vietnamese workers to Angola. The underlying mechanism is that, stimulated by these massive Chinese infrastructure investment projects in Angola, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have entered the construction sector in Angola and, thereby, have both increased the demand for skilled workers as well as facilitated entry of foreign workers through special visa programmes. Anecdotal evidence on both sides of the Vietnamese-Angolan migration corridor points to the existence of trilateral business networks, whereby Vietnamese entrepreneurs in Angola hire workers from Vietnam, who enter their destination through Chinese visa quotas and, partly, in order to work on Chinese construction projects in Angola. The historic emergence of a Vietnamese diaspora group in Angola including construction entrepreneurs acting as subcontractors for Chinese construction firms adds to that picture. These entrepreneurs recruit and employ Vietnamese migrant workers through a network of brokers and intermediaries based in Vietnam. The Vietnamese workers often migrate irregularly and tend to work under precarious conditions in Angola. Our study seeks to contribute to the general understanding of African-Asian interactions and the role of the Migration Industry in this trilateral case study. In our analysis, we follow Sørensen and Gammelhoft-Hansen (2013), who propose a framework with three distinct sets of questions which help to characterize the type of Migration Industry: The first is devoted to the types of actors involved in the Migration Industry. The second deals with the kind of roles that these actors play in regard to migrants, governments, and migration flows. The third set concerns the relationship between political, economic, and social structures and the Migration Industry. According to this framework, actors of the Migration Industry can vary substantially in their degree of organization and formalization, ranging from large transnational companies that are actively participating in the formation of local labour markets to informal brokers who draw on their experience and contacts to facilitate individual migration, often operating illegally. We will follow these three sets of questions in order to explain the dynamics of the Vietnamese-Chinese migration industry in Angola. The rest of the chapter is organized as follows: The second section provides the background of this study from the perspectives of Vietnam and China. Here, we describe the actors involved, the roles they play, and the political economy behind their actions. The third section describes the empirical approach chosen and provides details about the fieldwork and data collected, both in Angola and Vietnam. The fourth section presents our explorative findings and the fifth section concludes.

The Vietnamese- Chinese Migr ation Industry in Angol a

135

Background The Vietnamese System of Labour Export Following the successful example of other South East Asian nations2 (most notably the Philippines), labour export, i.e. labour migration through official government programmes,3 has been adopted as an important socioeconomic development strategy by the Vietnamese government. Thereby, it seeks to improve employment opportunities and skill formation for its labour force as well as to stimulate international remittances flows (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2012). Although the scale of international labour migration, both in terms of total numbers of migrants and remittance receipts, is still considerably lower in Vietnam compared to the Philippines or Nepal, the country has been quite successful in increasing the numbers of official Vietnamese workers being dispatched since the opening of the Vietnamese economy in the early 1990s (the so-called Doi Moi reforms). Government estimates indicate that there are currently around half a million registered Vietnamese nationals under contractbased employment working in more than 40 different countries and territories (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2012). On average, the gross annual outflow was around 80,000 workers between 2010 and 2013 with the number expected to rise to 90,000 in 2014 (Voice of Vietnam 2014). Major destinations for Vietnamese workers in Asia are Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia, while Angola can be regarded as the most important destination in Africa by far. Regular labour export from Vietnam is regulated by Vietnamese national law and involves different actors, both public and private. Figure 5.1 provides a graphical overview of the regular process of labour export. A detailed description of this process and the institutions involved can be found in Nguyen and Mont (2010). The main actors involved in this process are the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), which hosts its own overseas labour department and negotiates international labour export agreements with destination countries, drafts relevant legislation, and licenses as well

2 See Hugo and Stahl (2004) for an overview of migration policy strategies in the Asia-Pacific region. 3 Generally, Vietnamese workers are being sent abroad for work and training purposes through different channels, such as employment agencies or sending companies, public affairs organizations, contractors, and overseas investment enterprises, skills training programs, as well as on individual contract basis, with the first one being by far the most important mode of labour migration. For simplicity, in what follows, I concentrate on the conventional process of labour export through employment agencies.

136 

André Gröger and Rainer Klump

as supervises sending companies.4 The practical implementation of labour export in Vietnam is run by so-called sending companies, which are the main service agents and play a key role in the process of dispatching workers abroad. There are currently around 170 officially licensed sending companies operating in Vietnam. Although the total number of sending companies operating appears to be relatively high, market shares are quite concentrated among a few agents: In 2010 only 17 out of 167 companies sent more than 1000 workers or more, while 52 sent less than 100 (Ishizuka 2013: 5). Many of these sending companies are themselves owned by key personnel from different levels of the government administration involved in labour export (Wang and Bélanger 2011: 319f.). Their tasks are to recruit and train candidates, organize labour contracts, and arrange transportation. Sending companies must be officially licensed by the government in order to secure minimum requirements regarding their financial stability as well as training and management capacities. While the regular process of labour migration to the major destinations in Asia is mainly performed according to existing laws and regulations (with occasional fraud cases due to weak supervision and a lack of political accountability), which secures a base level of transparency and security for prospective labour migrants, the predominant mode of labour migration to Angola deviates from this practice in two key aspects: First and foremost, up until the year 2013, Vietnam and Angola did not have a bilateral agreement for labour export in place, one of the necessary preconditions to regulate and monitor a particular labour migration corridor efficiently and to secure lawful operations of sending companies (Viet Nam News 2013).5 Consequently, the government of Vietnam had not granted any sending company the authorization to bring workers to Angola officially due to safety concerns. This implies that the majority of Vietnamese migrants currently in Angola had entered the country through irregular channels. Like in many other migration systems (e.g. Mexico to the United States), informal actors of the Migration Industry often compensate for the lack of official services and channels of regular migration, offering their services where there is demand for it, even without legal authorization. Following Sørensen and Gammeltoft-Hansen, a common type of actor in this context 4 The provincial people’s committees (PPCs) and subordinate committees at the local level (local government) are in charge of managing the state’s responsibilities at the local level. They also recommend workers, coordinate with the sending companies’ recruitment staff, and monitor the activities on sending the workers abroad. 5 In 2014, Vietnam signed labour-export agreements at the ministerial level with Angola (VietnamPlus 2014) and granted licenses to four sending companies to export labour to Angola officially (Thanh Nien News 2014).

The Vietnamese- Chinese Migr ation Industry in Angol a

137

can be smaller enterprises, ‘set up by migrants themselves, who manage to commercialize their transnational knowledge and networks’ (2013: 9). This also includes subjects from the informal sector (herein: broker) and other intermediaries, who facilitate irregular migration through the by-passing of legal barriers in order to secure visas. A second type of actor can be formal sending companies operating anonymously and drawing on their experience and resources from the official labour export business. There exist reports from the Vietnamese context that officially licensed sending companies are also involved in irregular labour migration to non-licenced destinations (Wang and Bélanger 2011). We have gathered anecdotal evidence that this also applies to the Vietnamese-Angolan labour migration corridor, although it remains unclear to which extent this is the case. The History of Vietnamese-Angolan Relations and the Labour Migration Corridor Official relations between Angola and Vietnam were established in 1971 when Agostinho Neto, later to become Angola’s first president, visited Vietnam. After Angola’s declaration of independence from Portugal on 11 November 1974, Vietnam was one of the first countries to formally recognize the People’s Republic of Angola and establish its first diplomatic mission in Angola in 1976.6 During the Angolan Civil War from 1975 to 2002, Vietnam sent around 3000 troops to fight alongside the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the Cuban military forces in Angola (International Business Publication 2013). Cooperation soon began to extend into other fields as well. Following early agreements on trade (1978) and economic, cultural, scientific, and technological cooperation (1979), Vietnam began sending technical experts in education and health to Angola beginning in the mid-1980s (Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Angola 2007). This mission of technical support between Angola and Vietnam is officially still ongoing – a form of South-South development assistance. Since these early days of technical expert assignment to Angola, the current reality of Vietnamese-Angolan migration appears to have shifted quite dramatically: While, officially, there are still only around 300 Vietnamese health and education experts in Angola, the total number of Vietnamese citizens residing in Angola is currently estimated to be around 45,000 (DTiNews 2014). Due to the irregular character of Vietnamese migration 6 The embassy was closed in 2000, moved to South Africa temporarily, and later re-established in Luanda after the end of the civil war in 2002.

138 

André Gröger and Rainer Klump

to Angola and the lack of reliable administrative data on migration flows on both sides of the corridor it is difficult to reconstruct the evolution of this phenomenon accurately over time. What seems to be clear, however, is that at some point during the last decades, effective migration rates must have lifted off, far beyond their historical level of expert cooperation. Combining different sources of evidence it seems most likely that this has happened relatively recently, approximately between 2005 and 2009,7 in the aftermath of the Angolan Civil War when Angola started large-scale reconstruction efforts. In contrast to the earlier technical cooperation, the majority of the new Vietnamese migrants that started to immigrate to Angola during this recent episode were no longer highly skilled experts, but rather low-skilled workers originating from poor rural areas of Vietnam such as Ha Tinh or Nghe An province8 and migrating through irregular channels. They predominantly work in Angola’s construction sector, where they are attracted by the high earning potential of between US$800 to US$1,200 per month as a newcomer depending on their skills and experience (Vietnamnet 2013). This implies big financial gains from migration considering that the average gross national income (GNI) per capita is around US$4009 per month at home and often even less than that in Vietnam’s deprived rural areas. Looking at the actors that operate in and maintain this particular labour migration corridor between Vietnam and Angola, we find important differences compared to the patterns that prevail in regulated corridors as described in the previous chapter: Due to a lack of government authorization to organize migration to Angola officially, most actors operate informally and without written statements. Evidence derived from our fieldwork suggests that activities are performed by a network of several brokers at the local level, based in urban centres of poor rural provinces, close to where prospective migrants are located, a broker in Hanoi (and/or Beijing), where the Vietnamese government institutions and the Angolan embassies are located, and abroad in Angola where Vietnamese diaspora entrepreneurs are ultimately employing newcomer migrants informally. Figure 5.2 provides 7 A representative of the Vietnamese embassy in Angola mentioned the year 2005 specifically, when Vietnamese civil construction workers started to work in Angola. Selected Vietnamese newspapers articles tend to mention the year 2009 (e.g. DTiNews 2014). 8 Data obtained from the Ha Tinh provincial government puts the total number of absent workers from that province in Angola as of July 2012 at 3,200 individuals. Due to the irregular character of this migration system, this figure should be considered as a lower-bound estimate. The same number was estimated to be 10,000 for Nghe An province in 2013 (Vietnamnet 2013). 9 Gross national income (GNI) per capita in purchasing power parity (PPP) at current international dollars in 2013, source: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.PP.CD.

The Vietnamese- Chinese Migr ation Industry in Angol a

139

a graphical overview of the actors involved in this irregular process. The process itself can be outlined as follows: At the local level, brokers often cooperate with government officials in the target communes to identify interested individuals and gain access to their respective households. Anecdotal reports point out that in some communes even local government officials themselves act as unofficial recruitment intermediaries for the brokering network and thereby obtain commissions, either from the prospective migrants or the brokers. Our data from Vietnam shows that once an agreement between the prospective migrants and the local broker is concluded and a deposit has been paid,10 the passport and health documents are sent to Hanoi or Beijing, where a working visa is issued by the Angolan embassy, often without the existence of a formal labour contract (or the existence of a fake labour contract), which is officially required in the regular process of obtaining a work visa to Angola from the embassy. We have also found evidence that some Vietnamese labour migrants to Angola actually received working visas issued by the Angolan embassy in Beijing.11 Once the visa is issued and flight arrangements secured, migrants fly out to Angola, mostly with little less than a verbal promise that their future Vietnamese boss will pick them up at the airport in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Chinese Investment in Angola During the last couple of years, China has attracted the attention of policymakers and academics through its growing economic assistance to Africa. These activities began in the year 2000, when the first Forum on ChinaAfrica Cooperation (FOCAC) was held in Beijing, officially celebrated as the beginning of China’s new development assistance to Africa.12 The meeting of 10 The average total payment for irregular migration services to Angola which is usually paid to the local broker network in Vietnam is US$6000. It is often charged in two or three instalments, with a first deposit due immediately at conclusion. The money is ultimately divided between the different actors at the local level, the brokers in Hanoi, and the Angolan embassy staff for visa issuing, brokers and employers at the destination, and is also used to cover the migrant’s airfare. Because of the informal nature of the process, frauds are reported frequently, e.g. fake brokers charging fees without delivering the service (e.g. Tuoi Tre News 2013). 11 Before the opening of the Angolan embassy in Vietnam in 2012 it seems that visa processing was performed predominantly through the Angolan embassy in Beijing, which was the responsible institution for covering demands from Vietnam. We have some evidence that this practice also continued after the establishment of the Angolan embassy in Hanoi, to a certain extent. 12 For a detailed description of China’s economic history with Africa, see Bräutigam (2009). The FOCAC meetings have subsequently been institutionalized as triennial meetings taking place in China and Africa on a rotating basis.

140 

André Gröger and Rainer Klump

ministers between China and 44 African countries led to the ‘Beijing Declaration’ and the adoption of the ‘Program of Cooperation on Economic and Social Development’, which laid out the agenda for increased economic exchange in terms of trade and investment. The agreement also manifested a major change in China’s policy on overseas development assistance, away from the practice of zero-interest lending towards a more market-based approach emphasizing its own economic interests in aid projects (Bräutigam 2009). Against the background of China’s immense economic growth from the early 1990s and growing need for natural resources, this new strategy first introduced the concept of resource-backed lending,13 also called ‘resourcesfor-infrastructure’ or ‘Angola-Mode’ (Foster et al. 2012: 17). The mechanism behind this concept is that repayment of loans for infrastructure development is made in terms of natural resources. In the African context it is applied to countries rich in natural resources such as oil (e.g. Angola and Nigeria) or copper and cobalt (e.g. Democratic Republic of Congo) that cannot afford adequate financial guarantees to collateralize the loans. Figure 5.3 depicts this operational mode: Under these agreements, concessional loans are usually provided by the Exim Bank of China for a pre-defined objective in infrastructure development.14 However, the loans are not granted to the beneficiary government directly, but instead to Chinese infrastructure enterprises which act as contractors for the particular project. Simultaneously, a Chinese petroleum company (or mining company in the case of minerals) is awarded rights to begin extraction of the respective natural resource, which is later used to repay the infrastructure loan to the Chinese government. The introduction of resource-backed lending by China in Africa in the aftermath of the Beijing Declaration led to a surge in financial assistance in the following years. About fifteen African countries have benefited from this type of lending thus far, including Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Nigeria. Figure 5.4 provides an overview of Chinese investments to selected Sub-Saharan recipient countries between 2000 and 2012. The graph shows aggregated gross bilateral lending from China in million USD 15 per year including all types of loans (though the vast 13 The approach is by no means new and has a long track record in the oil industry. For example, the same model had been applied by Japan to spur its own development decades earlier (Bräutigam 2009). 14 Furthermore, the agreements usually require that no less than 50% of the equipment, materials, services, or technology needed to implement the project should be secured from China. 15 The data used is provided by the AidData.org project, which provides the first publicly available database on Chinese development finance transactions worldwide (Strange et al. 2015).

The Vietnamese- Chinese Migr ation Industry in Angol a

141

majority are concessional loans) and to all sectors (with infrastructure being by far the most important). The figure clearly shows an impressive increase from relatively low levels in 2000 to multi-billion-dollar loan disbursements, especially from 2009 onwards. It can also be seen that Chinese finance commitments are clearly concentrated in certain countries, among those selected: Angola, Nigeria, and Ethiopia (in decreasing order of importance). Looking at the Angolan case specifically, figure 5.4 also shows that China’s commitment to infrastructure finance began in 2001 with a series of relatively small projects (among them the construction of Luanda’s central hospital, the rehabilitation of power transmission networks, and the upgrade of the road network infrastructure). After the end of the Angolan Civil War in 2002, China scaled up its involvement in Angola significantly: A first peak was recorded in 2004. Table 5.1 provides details about the top five oil-backed loan commitments from China to Angola since the year 2000. The overall size of the 2004 credits was US$2 billion, which was disbursed in two equal instalments (see National Rehabilitation Projects Phase 1 and 2 in table 5.1). Although only about half of the total amount went into infrastructure directly, these commitments constituted a major push to Angola’s war-torn economy.16 After the 2004 infrastructure package, which was implemented in the following years, new infrastructure mega projects were also concluded in subsequent years, intensifying construction activities all over Angola. As outlined, resource-backed loans are typically implemented by Chinese construction firms. For example, the Kilamba social housing development project (see table 5.1), which is the biggest infrastructure project financed by Chinese lending to date, is being implemented by different Chinese companies, including the China International Trust and Investment Corporation (Strange et al. 2015). There is evidence that the Chinese contract companies involved in the implementation of infrastructure projects in Africa tend to hire Chinese workers predominantly in order to realize their constructions services. Depending on local labour laws and the supply of skilled workers, the shares of local employees among the Chinese labour force within these projects can vary substantially across different countries in Africa and the rest of the world.17 In Angola, for example, emerging from decades of civil 16 As a reference, this accounted for approximately 10% of the Angolan gross domestic product (GDP) in 2004, source: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD. 17 See, for example, Deborah Bräutigam’s blog, where she provides a list of references: http:// www.chinaafricarealstory.com/p/chinese-workers-in-africa-anecdotes.html.

142 

André Gröger and Rainer Klump

war, skilled and literate workers are scarce and expensive, which provides an incentive to the Chinese contract enterprise to import workers from China or elsewhere. Chinese reports from the Kilamba project state that the project employs around 10,000 Chinese and 5000 Angolan workers to build up the new satellite town close to the capital city of Luanda (Wang 2011). This information is, however, contested by some Angolan sources, which characterize the figure as a ‘handful of Angolans’ (Marques de Morais 2011). Chinese economic commitment to Africa in general and Angola in particular has increased significantly since the first FOCAC meeting in 2000. Chinese resource-backed loans are benefitting countries that possess natural resources by giving them access to preferential lending in order to finance much-needed infrastructure projects that, in turn, are mainly implemented by Chinese infrastructure companies. This phenomenon has led to a construction boom in Angola and has increased the demand for construction workers substantially. At the same time, Angola also became China’s largest supplier of crude oil since 2010, overtaking Saudi Arabia. New bilateral commitments indicate that this trend can be expected to continue.

Empirical Approach Fieldwork and Data The data underlying the empirical analysis in this chapter has been collected in the framework of the AFRASO fieldwork in Vietnam (2013) and Angola (2014). During the fieldwork in Vietnam, we successfully identified two Vietnamese provinces with high incidence of migration to Angola: Bac Ninh in the north, close to Hanoi, and Nghe An on the north-central coast of the country. We collected in-depth information from 30 Vietnamese households with migrants in Angola, either having a members absent18 in or returned from Angola. The migrant data is both quantitative (i.e. generated from a household and individual questionnaire) as well as qualitative (i.e. generated through a semi-structured interview with the returned migrants in Vietnam).19 Furthermore, we conducted several interviews, with researchers, brokers, sending companies, and local government officials. In addition, 18 In this case, we collected proxy information about the migrant through the interview respondent, usually the head of the household. 19 Note that the data we have collected on Vietnamese migrants to Angola both in Vietnam and Angola is not representative of the total Vietnamese migrant population to Angola.

The Vietnamese- Chinese Migr ation Industry in Angol a

143

we also collected administrative documents, literature, and newspaper articles, both in English and Vietnamese, to complement our evidence from the households. In Angola, we conducted an exploratory field mission thus far and collected qualitative information from Vietnamese officials as well as different entrepreneurs and construction workers in the capital Luanda. Together, the information collected provides a unique source of data, which allows us to investigate this particular migration system to an unprecedented extent. Looking at our survey data about the sample of Vietnamese migrants to Angola, descriptive statistics show that all individuals recorded are male.20 At the time of the survey in 2013, absent migrants were, on average, 33 years old while returned ones were around 35.5 years. The first individual who moved to Angola in our sample left in 2004, while two-thirds went between 2011 and 2012. Among those who had already returned to Vietnam, the average duration of their stay in Angola was 1.8 years. Almost 75% of the migrants reported their occupation in Angola to be low-skilled construction worker, while 15% considered their job as skilled manual workers, with the rest predominantly involved in retail sales. All but one individual reported to work for a Vietnamese company in Angola, with the one exception being a Chinese firm. On average, these migrants reported to have paid around US$6000 in fees to the Vietnamese broker network before going abroad. Independent sources confirm this amount to be the standard recruitment fee for Angola charged by the broker network in Vietnam. While the household survey data we obtained helps to assess the demographic and work characteristics of the sample under investigation,21 it proved to be difficult to collect survey-based information about the migration process and the actors involved. Here, we rely mainly on our qualitative data, obtained through interviews and the analysis of documents. By virtue of the informal and illegal nature of migration to Angola, identifying structures and processes of migration broker networks across continents is challenging and necessarily incomplete. The findings presented here are explorative. To the best of our knowledge, we have tried to put existing

20 This is mostly likely due to a selection bias among our sample households in Vietnam. Preliminary evidence from Angola shows that most of the migrants are indeed male. However, we could also locate several female migrants from Vietnam, especially among the entrepreneurs. 21 It should, however, be noted that we cannot draw any generalized conclusions and causal interpretations from this data due the small number of observations and the likely selection bias among our observations. Findings from the household data should instead be understood as complementary information to our qualitative data.

144 

André Gröger and Rainer Klump

pieces of evidence together in order to construct a conclusive and robust answer to our hypothesis.

Findings Based on the structures of the Vietnamese-Angolan labour migration corridor elaborated above and the data collected, we can identify at least two linkages between Chinese economic assistance in Angola and labour migration from Vietnam to Angola. The first link concerns the visa issuing which is an integral part of the services provided by the brokers that facilitate irregular labour export: In accordance with reports from several migrants, some brokers in Vietnam appear to cooperate with Chinese companies that sell labour migration quotas granted to them by the Angolan government in order to fulfil their construction contract with Chinese staff (Radio Free Asia 2013). A returned migrant interviewee in Vietnam reported that in his visa application for immigration to Angola, he was registered as an employee of a Chinese construction firm, although he never had a labour contract with that company: ‘On [the] visa […] it’s a Chinese company […] but they said, […] once you reach the airport [in Angola], there will be some people [to] pick you up to work for a Vietnamese [company]’ (Vietnamese returned migrant in Nghe An province). When he arrived in Angola he started working informally for a Vietnamese construction company. This is a clear indication of the existence of Chinese-Vietnamese business connections within the Vietnamese-Angolan Migration Industry. In these cases, Vietnamese migrants’ passports were sent to Beijing, China, and processed there under the name of that particular company as if they were hired by them to work in Angola. While it cannot be ruled out that some Chinese companies do actually hire Vietnamese workers directly in Vietnam, none of the cases we observed had reported the existence of a valid labour contract between the migrant and a Chinese company. The practice of using a work visa without a legal work contract with an Angolan firm leads to the situation in which migrants will be granted entry into Angola but do not possess a legal residence permit. This is because work visas in Angola are company-specific and have to be registered officially when changing jobs. This, in turn, is practically impossible as the majority of Vietnamese migrants work informally, without a contract. In practice this can be circumvented by bribing the Angolan officials to obtain a new visa or even a residence permit. Several interview partners, both in Angola as in Vietnam, confirmed that being caught by

The Vietnamese- Chinese Migr ation Industry in Angol a

145

the Angolan police with an illegal status usually results in imprisonment and/or repatriation to Vietnam. The second link that we find between actors of the Chinese and Vietnamese Migration Industry concerns the work that Vietnamese migrants perform in Angola. While most of the migrant workers in Vietnam reported being informally employed by smaller Vietnamese construction firms,22 selected individuals also stated that the Vietnamese companies they worked for frequently did subcontract work for Chinese infrastructure projects: ‘Chinese people have large projects and the Vietnamese boss […] received some subprojects for Vietnamese people to do’ (Vietnamese returned migrant in Nghe An province). While our data from Angola is insufficient to quantify the extent to which Vietnamese firms and workers are directly or indirectly working for Chinese firms in Angola, we do find a positive correlation between the rate of Vietnamese labour migration to Angola as elaborated in the reconstruction of Vietnamese migration history to Angola above and the level of Chinese infrastructure investment in Angola (figure 5.4). Although our data on migration flows is incomplete, the fact that none of the migrants we interviewed in Vietnam nor in Angola reported having been in Angola before the year 2004, makes a strong case that the scale of this migration corridor has increased particularly during the last ten years only. This is reconfirmed by statements of Vietnamese officials, both in Vietnam and Angola. Looking at the level of Chinese investment we find disbursements of multi-billion dollar infrastructure loans taking place in Angola, especially from 2004 onwards. The respective projects were implemented in the following years and have both spurred economic growth and construction activities in Angola which, in turn, have most likely boosted demand for construction labour as well.23 During the same period, the rate of Vietnamese migration, particularly of construction workers, started to soar. 22 One interviewee migrant reported having worked directly for a Chinese firm in Angola most of the time. However, this outlier answer might be due to a reporting bias, which resulted in the migrant stating the name of the company he actually worked for, not the one he was officially registered with. 23 Although, as stated above, Chinese infrastructure projects are predominantly implemented by Chinese firms employing Chinese workers, these projects do also employ local construction workers to a certain degree. We believe that, in the presence of a lack of local qualified construction workers, these interventions have increased demand for labour in construction, both directly in the particular projects as well as indirectly through a replacement effect, where the existing Angolan labour force was partly absorbed by new Chinese projects, giving opportunities to Vietnamese labour in other construction projects.

146 

André Gröger and Rainer Klump

Conclusion Putting the existing pieces of evidence together, one possible explanation for the significant increase of Vietnamese labour migration to Angola is that post-2000 Chinese investment in Angolan infrastructure increased economic growth and demand for construction workers subsequently. We have found evidence which supports this hypothesis. In our fieldwork we were able to identify at least two linkages between Chinese and Vietnamese agents of the Migration Industry, one direct and one indirect. The direct link is constituted by the cooperation of Vietnamese migration broker networks with Chinese construction companies in order to facilitate Vietnamese migration via the issuing of work visas. Here, Chinese companies that are operating in Angola and have been granted migration quotas by the Angolan government to bring in their workers sell unused quotas to the Vietnamese brokers who, in turn, use them in order to facilitate irregular labour migration for Vietnamese workers. The second channel through which Chinese investment is likely spurring Vietnamese migration to Angola is indirect, through a general increase in demand for construction labour at the destination. A combination of aggregate investment data on Chinese loan disbursements and historical migration data from our household surveys provides support to this hypothesis. With this being said, we would like to add some words of caution to the explorative analysis and interpretation above. First, given the evidence presented, we are unable to reliably rule out a reverse causation situation between an increase in Chinese investment and Angolan economic growth in general and infrastructure construction activities in particular which triggered a subsequent rise in demand for construction labour. Several other factors exist that spurred development in Angola, such as the end of the civil war, increased political stability, a boom in the extraction of natural resources such as crude oil and other natural resources, or foreign investment inflow from other third countries. In other words, we cannot rule out that the increase of Chinese infrastructure investment was caused by these other factors, which, in turn, also determined the increase in Vietnamese labour migration. A likely scenario is that these and further factors were mutually reinforcing Angolan growth and construction activities, and that Chinese investment is one determinant of our hypothesis, although not the only one. We also want to re-emphasize the historical presence of Vietnamese migrant groups and the emergence of a diaspora that constituted migration networks which have been identified as crucial factors for mass migration in social science research, such as the Mexico-United States corridor.

147

The Vietnamese- Chinese Migr ation Industry in Angol a

Second, due to the complexities of this trilateral research question that includes intra-Asian (China vs Vietnam) as well as Asian-African network interactions (China and Vietnam vs Angola) data collection is challenging, especially given the irregular character of this phenomenon. In future fieldwork, we plan to extend our data collection both in Angola and China to shed light on further aspects related to this topic in order to deliver a more complete picture regarding the actors involved. Appendix Table 5.1 Major Chinese Oil-Backed Loans to Angola since 2000 Year Project Description

Amount

2011 Kilamba social housing development: Minister for Urbanism and Construction Fernando Fonseca reported that 5000 new houses will be built in under three years in a new neighbourhood of the city of Kilamba via a partnership between the government and the China International Fund Limited (CIF). 2005 USD Loan for Post-Conflict Infrastructure Projects: An initial amount of US$2.9 billion was allocated for post-conflict construction projects in Angola (taking US$2 billion of that money). These projects included reconstructing the Luanda airport and the construction of a second airport (US$450 million), expansion and repairs to railway lines such as the Benguela railway line (US$300 million), cleaning Luanda Bay, a new sewage system for the capital, and the construction of public housing. 2009 US$1.2 billion loan for agricultural development: Intended use for agricultural sector development. The China Development Bank is funding the loan. The project aims to guarantee the supply of goods like coffee, sisal, sugar cane, and cotton while creating jobs in rural and poor areas. 2004 National Rehabilitation Projects Phase 1: The funds were to be used in the repair of damaged infrastructure, mainly railway tracks, bombed in the country’s civil war. The money will also build roads, electrify slums surrounding the capital and fund rehabilitation of the water supply systems. 2004 National Rehabilitation Projects Phase 2: Intended use for national rehabilitation projects to improve telecommunications, fisheries, health, infrastructure, education, and public works.

US$3,530,000,000

US$2,000,000,000

US$1,200,000,000

US$1,020,000,000

US$1,000,000,000

Notes: Column 1 is year of commitment. Column 3 is the total amount of loans committed to each project in nominal terms. Source: Strange et al. (2015)

148 

André Gröger and Rainer Klump

Figure 5.1 Regular Recruitment Process

Source: Adapted from Nguyen and Mont (2010)

Figure 5.2 Irregular Recruitment Process to Angola

Source: Nguyen and Mont (2010)

The Vietnamese- Chinese Migr ation Industry in Angol a

Figure 5.3 Structure of ‘Angola-Mode’ Arrangement

Source: Foster et al. (2012)

Figure 5.4 Total Bilateral Gross Loan Commitment from China to Selected SubSaharan Recipient Countries (2000-2012)

Note: Monetary values in nominal terms Source: Strange et al. (2015)

149

150 

André Gröger and Rainer Klump

Works Cited Bräutigam, Deborah. 2009. The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa. Oxford: University Press. Dang, N.A., T.B. Tran, N.Q. Nguyen, and T.S. Dao. 2010. ‘Development on the Move: Measuring and Optimising Migration’s Economic and Social Impacts in Vietnam’. Global Development Network and Institute for Public Policy Research, March. http://www.gdn.int/html/GDN_funded_papers. php?mode=download&file=Vietnam-final%20report_0b2.pdf. DTiNews. 2014. ‘Labour Ministry Turns Back on Workers in Angola’. DTiNews, 17 May. http://dtinews.vn/en/news/024/29158/labour-ministry-turns-back-onworkers-in-angola.html. Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Angola. 2007. ‘Vietnam-Angola Relations’. Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Angola website, July. http://www.vietnamembassy-angola.org/en/nr070521165956/ns070920094601. Fernandez, Bina. 2013. ‘Traffickers, Brokers, Employment Agents and Social Networks: The Regulation of Intermediaries in the Migration of Ethiopian Domestic Workers to the Middle East.’ International Migration Review 47.4: 814-843. Foster, Vivien, William Butterfield, Chuan Chen, and Nataliya Pushak. 2012. Building Bridges: China’s Growing Role as Infrastructure Financier for Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, DC: World Bank. Hernández-León, Rúben. 2008. Metropolitan Migrants: The Migration of Urban Mexicans to the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hugo, Graeme, and Charles Stahl. 2004. ‘Labor Export Strategies in Asia’. In International Migration: Prospects and Policies in a Global Market, ed. D. Massey and J. E. Taylor. Oxford: Oxford University Press. International Business Publications. 2013. Angola: Country Study Guide. Washington, DC: International Business Publications. Ishizuka, Futaba. 2013. ‘International Labor Migration in Vietnam and the Impact of Receiving Countries’ Policies’. IDE Discussion Paper No. 414, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization (IDE-JETRO), March. http://www.ide.go.jp/English/Publish/Download/Dp/pdf/414.pdf. Marques de Morais, Rafael. 2011. ‘The New Imperialism: China in Angola’, World Affairs, March/April. http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/ new-imperialism-china-angola. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2012. ‘Review of Vietnamese Migration Abroad’. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, May. http://eeas.europa.eu/archives/ delegations/vietnam/documents/eu_vietnam/vn_migration_abroad_en.pdf. Nguyen, Huyen Le, and Daniel Mont. 2010. ‘Vietnam’s Regulatory, Institutional and Governance Structure for Cross-Border Labor Migration’. Working Paper.

The Vietnamese- Chinese Migr ation Industry in Angol a

151

Radio Free Asia. 2013. ‘Cuộc sống người Việt ở Angola’ [Vietnamese life in Angola]. Radio Free Asia, 6 January. http://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/vietnam/xa-hoi/ vietnamese-living-in-angola-vh-06012013083527.html. Sørensen, N.N., and T. Gammelhoft-Hansen. 2013. ‘Introduction’. In The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration, ed. Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Ninna Nyberg Sørensen. London: Routledge, 1-23. Strange, Austin M., Axel Dreher, Andreas Fuchs, Bradley Parks, and Michael J. Tierney. 2015. “Tracking Underreported Financial Flows: China’s Development Finance and the Aid-Conflict Nexus Revisited”. Journal of Conflict Resolution. Surak, Kristin. 2013. ‘The Migration Industry and Developmental States in East Asia’. In The Migration Industry and the Commercialization of International Migration, ed. Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Ninna Nyberg Sørensen. London: Routledge, 87-107. Thanh Nien News. 2014. ‘Vietnam Firms Win Permit to Export Labor to Angola’. Thanh Nien News, 12 April. http://www.thanhniennews.com/business/vietnamfirms-win-permit-to-export-labor-to-angola-25263.html. Tuoi Tre News. 2013. ‘Man Arrested in Bogus Labor Export Scam’. Tuoi Tre News, 11  December. http://tuoitrenews.vn/society/15045/man-arrested-in-bogus​ -labor-export-scam. Vietnamnet. 2013. ‘Illegal Labor Export and Horrible Obsession’. Vietnamnet, 16 April. http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/special-reports/73764/illegal-laborexport-and-horrible-obsession.html. Viet Nam News. 2013. ‘Firms Warned: Don’t Send Staff to Angola’. Viet Nam News, 2 April. http://vietnamnews.vn/society/237615/firms-warned-dont-send-staffto-angola.html. VietnamPlus. 2014. ‘Vietnamese Guest Workers in High Demand’. VietnamPlus, 4 September. http://en.vietnamplus.vn/Home/Vietnamese-guest-workers-inhigh-demand/20149/54852.vnplus. Voice of Vietnam. 2014. ‘Vietnam to Increase Labour Export Quota in 2014’. Voice of Vietnam, 2 April. http://english.vov.vn/Society/Vietnam-to-increase-labourexport-quota-in-2014/270508.vov. Wang, Bingfei. 2011. ‘Interview: China Plays Active, Responsible Role in Angola’s Post War Reconstruction’. Xinhua, 19 August. http://news.xinhuanet.com/ english2010/world/2011-08/19/c_131062120.htm. Wang, Hong-zen, and Danielle Bélanger. 2011. ‘Exploitative Recruitment Processes and Working Conditions of Vietnamese Migrant Workers in Taiwan’. In Labor in Vietnam, ed. Anita Chan. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 309-334.

Part III Africa’s other Asian Options

6

South-South Cooperation Strategies in Indonesia Domestic and International Drivers Susan Engel

Indonesia has been a central player in South-South cooperation (SSC) since it hosted the Asian-African or Bandung Conference in 1955. This conference produced the Declaration on Promotion of World Peace and Cooperation, which laid the foundations for SSC. Over the years SSC has become increasingly institutionalized in mainstream development cooperation channels. In 1978, it became part of the UN programme after the General Assembly established the UNDP Special Unit for South-South Cooperation. In 2008, after the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Accra, Ghana, SSC became part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) agenda with the establishment of a Task Team on South-South Cooperation, of which Indonesia is the co-chair. There are still a range of questions around SSC, including the drivers for participating countries, its transformative capacity, directions, and likely impact of SSC. This chapter explores the historical evolution of Indonesia’s SSC efforts in order to examine why SSC has re-emerged as a relatively prominent theme in Indonesian foreign policy and, in particular, whether this re-emergence has been driven by external forces, as it was in the Suharto years, or internal politics or some combination of these. Second, it considers what Indonesia’s independent and active foreign policy means in the light of SSC activities. In recent years, Indonesian foreign policy has mostly been interrogated in terms of Indonesia’s leadership ambitions; this chapter combines foreign policy and global development analysis to examine domestic, regional, and international drivers in politics and policy formation. Third, the chapter reflects upon whether, and to what extent, Indonesia’s current efforts are challenging development orthodoxies and Northern domination of aid systems and practices. Specifically, the chapter looks at whether the drivers, policies, and practices of Indonesia’s SSC programme are overall more of a support, or challenge to, the contemporary North-South aid architecture. This is particularly interesting in the Indonesian case, as it was an early and prominent supporter of anti-colonialism and non-alignment. Back in 1955, then President Sukarno sought, if not to shake up the global order of his time at least,

156 Susan Engel

as he said at Bandung, to ‘inject the voice of reason in world affairs’ (cited in Gde Agung 1973: 226; Palat 2008: 271). More recently, Indonesia was placed as part of the second generation of emerging powers called CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa), the first generation of course being the BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Nils-Sjard Schulz (2010: 5) has argued the second generation of emerging powers offers ‘a welcome middle way between the traditional DAC donors and the BRIC push for global power stakes’, whereas Emma Mawdsley (2012) sees them as more of a challenge to the existing donor system.1 However, Ravi Palat (2008: 721) argued that even the first generation emerging powers have been timid in their challenges to ‘the Euro-North American domination of world affairs’. This chapter adds to this debate by a detailed study of Indonesia’s emerging approach to SSC. The term SSC is used in the literature to cover both the general economic cooperation among developing countries (ECDC), that is the trade, financial, and related affairs between developing countries, and technical cooperation among developing countries (TCDC), where the focus is planned programmes of cooperation designed to promote development. The focus in this chapter is more on TCDC though ECDC provides vital context for understanding it and is thus discussed in relation to Indonesian foreign policy and is a direction for the next phase of this research. The focus also extends to triangular cooperation, a somewhat more recent phenomenon than SSC, which sees three (or more) countries collaborating, with one of these often being a traditional donor country (or organization) that contributes both finance and expertise. Finance is an important issue because although SSC is increasing, financing remains very limited apart from China’s and India’s programmes (United Nations General Assembly 2009: 7). In terms of methodology, the chapter uses use three main approaches: 1) critical engagement with extant historical sources on Indonesian foreign policy and SSC programmes; 2) critical analysis of policy documents from the Indonesian government, Northern donor states, and multilateral organizations; and 3) gathering of local perspective on issues of SSC through conducting interviews with nine Indonesian officials and scholars in Jakarta in January 2014. Michelle Morias de Sa e Silva (2010) has shown that there have, so far, been three distinct phases of SSC. The first phase was in response to the post-war creation of the development project as developing countries recognized that, despite their heterogeneity, they shared many common interests and that cooperation could be vital in securing these interests. This phase saw the 1 The CIVETS grouping was coined in 2009 by Robert Ward of the Intelligence Unit of The Economist.

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

157

establishment of the institutional framework for SSC through the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), established in 1961, and the Group of 77 (G77), established in 1964, and the framework for technical cooperation, which dates from the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (1978). The second phase was one of reduced cooperation due to the economic turbulence of the 1970s and the debt crisis; specifically, the focus on structural adjustment saw many developing countries turn inward. The third, more active and current phase of SSC is linked to the growing interest in multilateralism after the end of the Cold War. Morias de Sa e Silva (2010) notes that though this phase was initially dominated by the North, the growing economic and political importance of the emerging economies in the 2000s has been at the core of the re-emergence of SSC. Indonesia’s patterns of SSC have broadly aligned with these global ones, though domestic politics saw an earlier turn away from SSC and a later return to it as this chapter demonstrates through an analysis of SSC cooperation in three periods which broadly align to Morias de Sa e Silva’s periods: from independence to the end of the Sukarno era (1945-1966); during the New Order (1967-1998); and since its fall (1999- ).

South-South Cooperation from Independence to Sukarno As noted above, globally the first phase of SSC was motivated by the desire of newly independent states for development and the concurrent recognition of common interests in a world increasingly dominated by the superpowers and their conflicts. Indonesia was a leader and driver of SSC during this period, yet it had a slow start, as its early post-independence foreign policy was quiet and had a ‘distinct inclination towards the west’, including receiving Dutch and US military and other aid (Legge 1980: 161). Yet, independence leader and Indonesia’s first prime minister, Mohammad Hatta, outlined that the country should have an independent and active foreign policy (politik-bebas-aktif) as a way to address both the dangers and tensions that the Cold War confrontation seemed to pose to Indonesia’s security and the conflict domestically between Indonesia’s secular nationalists, socialists, and Islamists by taking a centrist approach (Wicaksana 2016). This became the enduring formal approach to foreign policy, which in addition, was to be conducted in line with the ideology of Pancasila, protect national interests, be independent, and be pragmatic in its implementation (Sukma 1995: 308).2 This approach also sat well with the public and, when early cabinets were 2 Pancasilia is Indonesia’s state ideology formulated by Sukarno and included in the 1945 constitution. Its five principles are: belief in one God; a just and civilized humanity; the unity

158 Susan Engel

seen to accept too much dependence on the West, they faced strong criticism. Indeed, the Sukiman cabinet collapsed after it was seen to make too large a concession to the United States in return for aid (Grant 1972; Weinstein 1976). The first cabinet of Ali Sastroamidjojo formed in July 1953 shifted the country to a more activist foreign policy and engagement with the communist countries. M.C. Ricklefs (1993: 247) argued that ‘Ali wished Indonesia to be an active leader of an Afro-Asian bloc of nations, an aim [which was] warmly endorsed by Sukarno’. He floated the idea of an Asia-Africa alliance in parliament in August 1953 but did not progress it until the first meeting of the so-called Colombo Powers (India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, and Indonesia) in April-May 1954 provided a window of opportunity (Gde Agung 1973: 204). The main focus of the meeting was to bring a peaceful end to the Indo-China War but Ali also proposed a large conference of Afro-Asian states. The other leaders were initially sceptical but endorsed the idea in the final communiqué. The idea gained momentum and the 1954 Bogor meeting of the Colombo Powers did the planning and scheduled the conference for April 1955 (Gde Agung 1973: 207-213; Grant 1972; Ricklefs 1993). Twenty-nine states from Asia, Africa, and the Arab World attended the conference and many major leaders were present, drawn by the chance to promote the interests of the newly aligned nations (Grant 1972). Bandung was marked by a deep split between the non-aligned nations and those that had joined the Western bloc. The Final Communiqué was only concluded thanks to some skilful last-minute diplomacy from Zhou Enlai, but the key point for this chapter is the emphasis given to SSC. The opening paragraphs called for greater economic cooperation between participants, as well as with other countries, and for the provision of technical assistance to one another ‘to the maximum extent practicable, in the form of: experts, exchange of know-how and establishment of national, and where possible, regional training and research institutes’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1955).3 Each country was to appoint liaison officers to facilitate cooperation. Further, point nine of the Ten Principles of Bandung or the Declaration on Promotion of World Peace and Cooperation called for ‘[p]romotion of mutual interests and cooperation’ (cited in Gde Agung 1973: 238). Sukarno and Ali of Indonesia; democracy guided by the wisdom of deliberation and representation; and social justice for all the people of Indonesia. 3 They also called for the creation of a special World Bank fund focused on Asian and African countries; for action to stabilize the prices of commodities, especially primary commodities; for further processing of raw materials in Asia and Africa; and for a focus on shipping, banking, insurance, oil and the peaceful use of nuclear energy as well as promotion of cultural cooperation.

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

159

Sastroamidjojo gained a great deal of domestic standing from their role at Bandung and, importantly for them, the Final Communiqué endorsed Indonesia’s claim to Irian Jaya (West Papua). The conference in many ways solidified the Indonesian elite’s view that it could and should play a leadership role amongst newly independent countries and in Asia. 4 Moreover, it developed the commitment to an independent and active foreign policy as a force for promoting global order so long as it was ‘rooted in prudence and compliance with common rules’ and based on common interests (Wicaksana 2016: 12). Indonesia’s activist foreign policy continued with the second Sastroamidjojo cabinet (March 1956-April 1957) and during Sukarno’s Guided Democracy, formally introduced in 1959. From 1956, there were efforts to initiate a second Asian-African Conference (Bunnell 1966). From early 1958: Indonesia began to take the initiative in a wide-ranging campaign for treaties of various kinds – scientific, educational and cultural co-operation with Czechoslovakia, trade with Bulgaria, an agreement with India on naval co-operation, a treaty of friendship with Malaya, and a cultural treaty with the Philippines. Tito and Ho Chi Minh paid state visits. (Grant 1972: 182)5

In 1960 Sukarno introduced a new a framework for Indonesia’s foreign policy, which viewed global politics as a contest between new emerging forces (NEFOS) and old established forces (OLDEFOS) and he promised a new approach to cooperation that would ‘startle mankind with its freshness’ (cited in Grant 1996: 199). This policy expressed itself in a more ‘aggressive attitude on foreign affairs, especially “confrontation” of the new state on its border, Malaysia’ (cited in Grant 1996: 200; see also Bunnell 1966;). Despite the focus on SSC, the new policy actually alienated many non-aligned Afro-Asian countries. However, Sukarno’s foreign policy was again strongly influenced by domestic policy considerations and the focus on independence and anti-colonialism played well with domestic audiences, helping him to balance the power of the army against the Communist Party. For the populace, it has been argued that Sukarno’s foreign policy gave them ‘a sense of revolutionary progress without the social and political conflict that a thoroughgoing social revolution would entail’ (Weinstein 1976: 309).

4 On the idea that Indonesia should play a leadership role as an ongoing idea in elite view, see Weinstein (1976). 5 For further details of agreement and loans from Soviet bloc countries, see Hindley (1963).

160 Susan Engel

Indonesia’s promotion of SSC continued through the first half of the 1960s. It was a founding member of both the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), established in 1961, and the Group of 77 (G77), established in 1964, both of which have been key promoters of ECDC and TCDC (particularly in the late 1970s, which is discussed in the following section). The key point about the Sukarno era and SSC is that, while there was a significant level of growth in political cooperation, there was relatively little progress in concrete programmes. A number of treaties were signed, but there were few actual programmes – the only examples I found were an agreement with Guinea in September 1960 for an exchange of experts (Hindley 1963) and, in the sporting arena, the Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO), which were held in Jakarta in November 1963. Indonesia was also the recipient of relatively substantial concessional loans and aid projects from both the Soviet bloc and from Western nations. Overall, in the early post-independence years, Indonesia did have an important and indeed unique role in establishing SSC. Its role was more than just reflective of the broader politics of the time. While a number of newly independent countries sought to forge a path between the two superpowers or, at minimum, recognize the common challenges they faced, Indonesia played a driving role in developing formal, rules-based mechanisms for cooperation. The belief in the approach was reinforced by the statist development consensus of the era, in particular, the influential ideas of dependency theory held SSC as a key path to development. However, Indonesia pursued SSC equally because of its domestic political reverberations – SSC was central to the active and independent foreign policy that worked both as a compromise between divergent political forces and appealed to domestic audiences.

South-South Cooperation under the New Order The rise to power of the Suharto regime was bloody and violent, yet despite – or, perhaps because of – this, the language used in foreign policy suggested continuity with Sukarno. In practice, though, concepts were given new interpretations, allowing more flexibility and ‘realism’. As Franklin Weinstein (1976: 170) notes, in this the New Order were seeking ‘to demonstrate continuity with the past, while making clear the need to correct the Old Order’s ‘deviations’ from Indonesia’s traditional policy’. Notably, the Provisional People’s Consultative Congress (MPRS) meetings in June/July 1966 ‘strongly reaffirmed its vigorous opposition to imperialism and colonialism and pressed for continued efforts to foster Asian-African solidarity’ (Weinstein 1976: 171). Yet in reality, New Order policy was focused on national

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

161

interest and there was a clear return to the Western camp, which led to aid and investment. Jonathan Agensky and Joshua Barker (2012: 112) argued that Suharto’s approach ‘allowed the state to maintain its Non-Aligned bona fides […] while also deriving [Western] military support and concessions for its illiberal domestic politics and state-society relations’. This may have been the aim but, in practice, Indonesia’s non-aligned status was questioned. Sukarno’s project for a Conference of the New Emerging Forces (CONEFO) was dropped and Indonesia re-joined the United Nations in September 1966. The regime really focused on domestic development for most of its life span and only in the early 1990s did it return to a somewhat more activist foreign policy (or at least the public perception of a more activist policy), engagement with the UN system, contributions to peacekeeping missions, and some interest in non-alignment and SSC. The inward turn, which happened in 1967, could be seen as specific to Indonesian circumstances but, in many ways, it was just an early starter in the turn away from SSC frameworks that became a rush after the early 1980s when the debt crisis took its toll on cooperation programmes ‘and made them very inward looking. That was a period of demobilization in the history of South-South cooperation and it lasted for another 20 years’ (Morais de Sa e Silva 2010: 3).6 From this time, when much of the developing world became focused on structural adjustment, Indonesia was an early starter in this adjustment process thanks to the disruptive nature of its post-independence rule and the coming to power of a Western, capitalist-oriented regime with Suharto. Suharto’s move away from SSC was widest in the early 1970s when Indonesia’s status as a non-aligned nation came into question. This was clearest after the Indonesian delegation walked out of the 1972 Conference of Non-aligned Foreign Ministers and Suharto failed to lead the Indonesia delegation to the Non-aligned Summit Conference in Algiers in September 1973 (Weinstein 1976). The limited promotion of SSC during the New Order was of a variety that supported, not challenged, Western powers. A key event was Indonesia’s founding membership of the Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) on 8 August 1967. I Gede Wahyu Wicaksana (2016) has argued that Indonesia’s role in the formation and leadership of ASEAN indicates that foreign policy under Suharto continued to be a longer-term concern with international society given a regional focus. This is a generous interpretation as ASEAN was not only a small, even reluctant grouping; it was a fundamentally pro-Western one, albeit Indonesia did have an agenda to keep major powers out of the region – even Western allies. Not all ASEAN 6 Another factor in the turn away from SSC was that by the mid-1960s the Soviet Union was taking a more cautious and pragmatic approach to economic assistance (Mawdsley 2012: 52-53).

162 Susan Engel

members did or do share this agenda. For Indonesia, it was also about shoring up domestic sovereignty – ensuring the other South East Asian states respected the country’s borders and sovereignty. This was the core of the 1976 ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC). Thus it is not surprising that after the TAC was agreed, ASEAN became one of Indonesia’s top foreign policy priorities and remains so to this day. A further indication that, contra Wicaksana, the New Order was not concerned with international society was that there were no other initiatives promoting SSC until the creation of the TCDC programme in 1981 and then again little action until the early 1990s, after which there was some tendency towards a more activist foreign policy. The creation of the technical cooperation programme in 1981 was driven more by international rather than local factors – in the late 1970s there was an attempt to revive the SSC agenda by the NAM, together with the G77, which formulated a call for TCDC. This was adopted by the United Nations in 1978 in the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (BAPA), which was supported by the UNestablished Special Unit for South-South Cooperation. BAPA was part of the agenda for a New International Economic Order and TCDC was regarded as vital to achieving development in an era of growing interdependence (United Nations Special Unit TCDC 1978: 5-6). BAPA called on developing countries to establish mechanisms for cooperation among developing countries, with the support of developed countries and international organizations. A range of countries set up programmes, including Malaysia, which established the Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme in 1980.7 Malaysia had joined NAM in 1970 (along with Singapore) and was developing a less pro-British/ West foreign policy and indeed under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who came to power in 1981, they became much more active in South organizations (Hamid 2005). In 1981, Indonesia established the Indonesian Technical Cooperation Programs (ITCP or Kerjasama Teknik Antar Negara Berkembang). Thus, it seems that Indonesia’s policy was largely driven by leadership competition with Malaysia and a desire to remain part of NAM. The ITCP is coordinated by the Bureau for Technical Cooperation in the State Secretariat and is a South-South training and exchange programme. It was established to develop knowledge and expertise and to address common needs and problems in development. Its main activities were and remain training programmes, study visits to Indonesia to learn from Indonesia’s experiences and by Indonesian officials to other developing countries, apprenticeships for farmers, and expert group meetings. By the end of 2013, ITCP had more than 4000 participants from over 90 countries in Asia, the Pacific, 7

On Malaysia’s programme, see Hamid (2005: 55).

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

163

Africa, and Latin America. Key sectors of activity over this period have been agriculture, education (this includes scholarships), and national population and family planning (Indonesia South-South Technical Cooperation 2010). From its early stages, ITCP has received some donor support, starting in 1982 with UNDP funding, while in the 1990s the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) became the major funder (CEACoS 2010).8 Like in the rest of the developing world, focus on SSC in Indonesia was nominal throughout the 1980s, though there were signs of a somewhat more activist foreign policy in the 1990s as Suharto become confident that Indonesia was moving inexorably to economic development and he thus wanted to highlight the country’s skills and expertise. Equally, regional competition drove activism: Thailand established an ASEAN leadership role during the Cambodia crisis (Emmers 2014) and in Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad’s foreign policy activism saw it take on some leadership role amongst developing countries. The renewed diplomacy was also motivated by a desire to bolster support for, and the reputation of, the New Order regime and to reduce the likelihood of other states supporting independence groups in Indonesia, in particular those in East Timor and West Papua. There were domestic motivators of the new activism, too; Suharto attempted to accommodate the increasingly assertive Muslim groups in Indonesia partly through improving relations with other Muslim nations. As well as serving domestic interests, this action improved relations with Arab-Islamic states (Agensky and Barker 2012: 114). Pertinent examples of new activism in SSC were the high profile commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Bandung Conference in April 1985 and the renewed interest in NAM, which saw Indonesia successfully propose the establishment of the Group of 15 developing countries (G15) and gain the NAM chair in 1992-1995 (Sukma 1995).9 Whilst chair, Indonesia promoted practical SSC activities, centred on the idea of development with social justice. It is safe to say that in this they were focusing on an uncontroversial topic, which Indonesia had done little to progress internally and which presented no challenge to the West or to the often strained relations between countries of the South. 8 Other donors supporting activities include Germany, the World Health Organization, the UN Population Fund, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and the Colombo Plan. Interestingly Australia has not supported Indonesia’s SSC activities. 9 Indonesia was also a founding member of the Group of 15 (G15) established after the NAM meeting in Belgrade in 1989. The G15 is a lobby body on major developments in the world economy and international economic relations but it also aims to ‘identify and implement new and concrete schemes for South-South cooperation and mobilize wider support for them’ (Group of Fifteen n.d.).

164 Susan Engel

In the lead up to the Eleventh NAM Summit in 1995 Indonesia, supported by Brunei Darussalam, proposed the establishment of a NAM Centre for South-South Technical Cooperation (NAM-CSSTC) (Non-Aligned Movement Centre for South-South Technical Cooperation n.d.). It was built in Jakarta and still operates today. There was also some progress in the ASEAN arena, when in late 1997, ASEAN agreed to establish the ASEAN Foundation to promote awareness of ASEAN and improved livelihoods and well-being for people in South East Asia and there are now other ASEAN cooperation programmes that also have developmental components. But of course, this was during the death throes of the Suharto regime, and this process overshadowed issues of foreign policy and SSC for quite some time, as we shall see. During the New Order, there were concerns about the passivity of Indonesian foreign policy (Weinstein 1976). This in part arose from the widespread belief amongst Indonesia’s foreign policy elite that it should be a leader, at the very minimum, in the South East Asian region, and should play a role globally. By the 1990s, Indonesia could no longer ignore regional leadership challenges from Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. Thus, late in the New Order Suharto started to develop a more activist foreign policy and promote SSC, a move that was also aimed at mollifying domestic audiences and shoring up support for his increasingly fragile regime, though this was a secondary concern. Equally, these efforts were focused on building international support for the regime and limiting support for separatist groups. Suharto’s approach to SSC reflected his generally pragmatic approach, focusing as much on concrete programmes such as ITCP and the NAM-CSSTC as on diplomacy and conferences. While small, these programmes remain one basis for the current SSC push, though new elements have emerged.

The Post-Suharto Regime and the Re-emergence of South-South Cooperation The re-emergence of SSC occurred globally from the mid-1990s but really gained momentum from around 2003 as highlighted by the progress of international conferences discussing development cooperation and promoting SSC and triangular cooperation (SSTC) as a key pathway for progress (Morais de Sa e Silva 2010).10 The decline in aid after the end of the Cold War was a motiva10 Key conferences with a specific focus on SSC include the 1995 meeting of the G77 calling for a study on mechanisms for TCDC (producing the New Directions Initiative); the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (2001); the International Conference of

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

165

tor of cooperation in the late 1990s but from the mid-2000s, it was as much the economic growth and social vitality in many emerging economies that provided the momentum for renewed SSC, in particular the increased trade between countries of the Global South.11 Morias de Sa e Silva (2010: 4) argued that this third phase of SSC cooperation has retained some of the traditional focus on politics but added new dimensions such as ‘new energy, new actors and new practices’. Equally, what has changed in this third phase of SSC is the growing interest of developed countries. Some of this was due to the possibilities opened up by the idea of triangular cooperation promoted through a G77-initiated, UN Development Program report in 1995 recommending ‘new directions’ in order to meet the myriad of challenges arising from globalization (United Nations General Assembly 2009). Before this, there was very little support from traditional donors for SSC. Japan was the first traditional donor ‘to offer substantial and sustained support for South-South cooperation’ and it has been a major supporter of Indonesia’s SSC efforts (United Nations General Assembly 2009: 12). According to a UN report, developing countries have attributed their increased interest in triangular arrangements as due to the level of ‘developing country “ownership” of’ SSC projects (United Nations General Assembly 2009: 12), yet it is telling that its support only grew with the idea of SSTC, which gives traditional donors a more explicit role and, indeed, control. In Indonesia, the inward focus of the Suharto era continued under the Jusuf Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid, and Megawati Sukarnoputri presidencies. However, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) returned to Indonesia’s founding (constitutional) discourse of participation in global peace and social justice efforts (Agensky and Barker 2012: 116) and, under his presidency, activism and interest in SSC has taken on an importance not seen since the Bandung era. This trend has remained under Joko Widodo and indeed, his discourse on SSC has taken a somewhat more political tone than SBY. These recent developments are discussed in the conclusion to the chapter. For Yudhoyono, politik-bebas-aktif remains as the guiding framework, though early in his first term, SBY (2005) introduced the metaphor of ‘navigating a turbulent ocean’ to describe the current international environment and hence Financing for Development (2002 and 2008); the World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002); the 2003 meeting of the G77 in Morocco which produced the Marrakesh Declaration on South-South Cooperation; the UN General Assembly declaration of 19 December 2003 as the UN Day for South-South Cooperation; the UN Conference on South-South Cooperation in Nairobi (2009); and the High Level Event on South-South Cooperation and Capacity Development (2010), which produced the Bogota Statement. 11 Trade between countries in the South increased from $577 billion in 1995 to over $2 trillion in 2006 (United Nations General Assembly 2009: 5).

166 Susan Engel

Indonesia needed an ‘all direction foreign policy’ (Yudhoyono 2008). In addition to the usual concerns of economic development and security (usually understood as ensuring Indonesia’s territorial integrity), there has been a stronger emphasis on engagement in the United Nations and especially peacekeeping and on promoting democratic values and human rights externally (though not for independence-oriented groups within Indonesia). Engagement with ASEAN remains a strong theme, as the region is seen as key, not just to security, but to future economic prosperity.12 Despite the renewed activism, analysts see that it remains quite a conservative actor (Anwar 2010; Sukma 2011). This is a reasonable assessment, though seen in the South East Asian context it looks a little less conservative as democracy is not flourishing in the mid-2010s. Thailand is again in the hands of a military regime. The Barisan Nasional coalition, which has ruled since independence in Malaysia, has been faced with issues pertaining to the misuse of the legal system to persecute the political opposition and growing concerns around corruption. And in Singapore, the People’s Action Party rules supreme with a degree of legitimacy but also thanks to gerrymandering and various surveillance and control mechanisms. The return to a more activist foreign policy had broad backing from all sectors of politics. Given the longevity of leadership as a goal in Indonesian foreign policy, it seemed likely that Yudhoyono’s desire to return Indonesia to a position of ‘prestige’ and ‘dignity’ and to gain ‘global recognition and enhanced status in the international arena’ would have played well with domestic audiences (Bandoro 2006). However, during his first term as president, cynicism was expressed regarding both the purpose and impact of his international endeavours (Bandoro 2006). Leadership in SSC and related arenas does not seem to speak to domestic audiences, as it did during the early years of the Republic. The first sign of Indonesia’s resurgent SSC agenda occurred shortly after SBY’s election with the prominence placed on the 50th anniversary of the Bandung Conference. The April 2005 meeting of 89 Asian and African countries in Jakarta adopted the Declaration on the New Asia-Africa Strategic Partnership (NAASP), which committed to ‘practical and sustainable cooperation based on comparative advantage, equal partnership, common ownership and vision, as well as a firm and shared conviction to address common challenges’ (AsiaAfrica Summit 2005: 4).13 Despite the Asia-Africa focus of SSC declarations, in 12 Indonesia positions itself as an emerging middle power with a distinct ‘international identity’ as the fourth most populous nation in the world, the largest Muslim population and the world’s third largest democracy (Anwar 2010: 131-132). The Islamic influence is clear in that promoting interfaith dialogue is a strong plank in Indonesia’s foreign policy. 13 The similarities to the ideas and language in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, which had taken place just two months prior, are striking.

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

167

practice Indonesia’s SSC has not had a strong focus on the continent because its strategic priorities are geographically based and this focus is reinforced by its commercial interests, where, as a natural resource exporter, it has little interest in developing ties with Africa (in contrast to China). In 2006, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) restructure saw the establishment of a Directorate on Technical Cooperation in order to further Indonesia’s cooperation with developing countries (CEACoS 2010: 67). This directorate is part of the Directorate General of Information and Public Diplomacy, which perhaps indicates the government’s views of the role of SSC. However, MoFA is not the only Ministry responsible for progressing SSC, the Coordination Team on SSC established in 2010 also includes the State Secretariat (SEKNEG), the Ministry of Finance, and the National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS), as the chair. A further signs of a resurgence of SSC was that in 2008, Indonesia became co-chair of the Task Team on South-South Cooperation, a southern-led platform hosted by the OECD DAC Working Party on Aid Effectiveness and that aims to contribute to the knowledge base about SSC. Since 2010, its focus has been on scaling up and best practices – knowledge sharing has been a key emphasis in Indonesia’s SSC approach. In 2009, SSC was included in the ‘Jakarta Commitment: Aid For Development Effectiveness Indonesia’s Road Map to 2014’. Indonesia’s role as an aid donor is a key rationale for the Jakarta Commitment’s aim to re-tune Indonesia’s relationship with traditional donors by creating greater equality between Indonesia and them. The Jakarta Commitment also pledges signatories to supporting Indonesia’s SSC efforts (Government of Indonesia and Its Development Partners 2009). In 2010, SSC was included in the Medium-Term National Development Plan (Rencana Pembangunan Jangka Menengha Nasional or MTNDP) 2010-2014. The Plan claims that Indonesia ‘has become an important proponent’ of SSC and that it is an alternative form of development cooperation, which was the reason it was included in the Jakarta Commitment (CEACoS 2010: ii-iii). Since 2010, the Coordination Team on SSC has been drafting plans for Indonesia’s SSC, the work has had significant support from Japan, consultants had been funded for a ‘Basic Study’ and the ‘Draft Grand Design and Blue Print’ of Indonesia’s SSC (CEACoS 2010; Japan International Cooperation Agency and PT Indokoei International 2011).14 Interviews with BAPPENAS, MoFA, SEKNEG, and scholars working in the area revealed that there is some competition amongst the key ministries involved about control and directions of the 14 A version of the Draft Grand Design in available from the JICA website, though a BAPPENAS staff member interviewed was not aware of this.

168 Susan Engel

programme and insufficient political leadership to overcome these divisions. Thus the final design was delayed to after the July 2014 presidential election. What this suggests about Indonesian foreign policy is examined later in this chapter; however, first the key aspects of Indonesia’s current SSC activities are briefly explained in order to give a sense of what has been occurring. The Indonesian government has at least five elements to SSC, the first is the general (political) promotion of SSC, and here Indonesia has been very active with conferences and events.15 Second is the technical cooperation programme based around the ITCP, the NAM-CSSTC, and quite a number of small programmes conducted by a range of ministries. The bulk of the funds for these activities have come from traditional donors.16 Third, Indonesia has made efforts in terms of global emergency and humanitarian relief efforts provided mostly though the Coordinating Ministry for People’s Welfare, which is the ministry responsible for this area internally. Here we see ad hoc donations of cash and services in response to crises. These emergency relief efforts are not part of the agenda for improving coordination in Indonesia’s SSC. Fourth, some ASEAN programmes can be seen as SSC, in particular, those of the ASEAN Foundation, which is headquartered in Jakarta, and Indonesia along with Brunei Darussalam have been the largest ASEAN contributors (ASEAN Foundation 2009: 50; ASEAN Foundation 2010: 47).17 Finally, in the multilateral sphere, Indonesia has committed a small amount of funding to projects with SSC components, for example the World Bank’s South-South Exchange Facility. In terms of the geographical focus of Indonesia’s activities, the priority has been ASEAN’s new member states – the CLMV countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam). The next three priority countries are Afghanistan, 15 For example, the 2005 Bali Strategic Plan for Technology Support and Capacity Building (developed under the UN Environment Program); the 2008 Bali Democracy Forum; and the 2011 ‘Triangular Cooperation: Towards Horizontal Partnerships, But How?’ meeting organized with the Asian Development Bank and German government support. In 2012, Indonesia decided to build a Knowledge Hub for South-South and Triangular Cooperation in Jakarta. This initiative originates from Indonesia’s membership of the G20 and its key role in the Working Group on Development and the Knowledge Sharing Pillar, which includes South-South cooperation. Also of note is that President Yudhoyono co-chaired the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda and the BAPPENAS minister has been co-chair of the Post-Busan Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation committee. 16 See also Coordination Team of South-South and Triangular Cooperation (n.d.). The estimated value of activities between 2000 and 2013 was around $49.8 million – though presumably most of this was funded from donors (Mauludiah 2013). 17 The Foundation’s focus on development was heightened by the Hanoi Plan of Action (19982004), adopted at the ASEAN Summit in December 1998, which encourages using the ‘Foundation to support activities and social development programmes aimed at addressing issues of unequal economic development, poverty and socio-economic disparities’ (cited in ASEAN Foundation n.d.).

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

169

Palestine, and East Timor. Indonesia has long supported Palestinian independence from Israel and activities increased in recent years with Japanese funding. Indonesia has engaged with East Timor since 2010, again through a triangular cooperation project with Japan (Krismasari et al. 2012: 10; Shimoda and Nakazawa 2012: 162). Regarding Afghanistan, this flows back to a commitment from then foreign minister at the London Conference in 2006 that Indonesia would provide capacity-building programmes and technical cooperation in a range of fields (Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses 2006). In Africa, Gambia and Tanzania have been the main foci and mostly in the agricultural sector. Finally, engagement with Pacific Island countries is discussed in key reports as a further priority. Given the limited domestic impact of Indonesia’s SSC strategy, it is best understood, first, as a way for Indonesia to re-establish itself as a global middle power after the turbulent years of the Asian Financial Crisis and the transition to democracy. Second, it shows the jockeying for power, influence, and prestige within Asia. At the broad regional level, there is a concern about China and India’s growing influence in the region; Indonesia has long wanted South East Asia to be free of big power rivalry and seen itself as a balancing force between these two powers (Emmers 2014; Kondoh et al. 2010).18 In terms of the South East Asian region, there is a second level of jockeying between middle powers – in particular, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand (though the recent instability there has likely reduced Thailand’s capacity for regional leadership). Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand have developed significant SSC programmes and Singapore has led on a number of regional economic initiatives (Emmers 2014). The Thai and Singapore programmes have focused on transport linkages but Malaysia’s programmes targets similar areas to Indonesia – not surprisingly since they share a number of areas of expertise, for example, tropical agriculture, farming, veterinary programmes, and natural disaster management (CEACoS 2010).19 The competition with Malaysia is strongest and reinforced by the general perception that Malaysian diplomacy has been more effective than Indonesian for the past couple of decades. The aims of Singapore and Malaysia’s SSC programmes are quite neo-liberal, focusing on promoting private sector investment, privatization, 18 During the 1980s and 1990s, the focus was more on being a counter to Japanese influence (Weinstein 1976). On the role of regional competition and factors in SSC by Asian countries, see Kondoh et al. (2010). 19 Malaysia’s programme has been running since 1980 under one specialized agency, the Malaysian Technical Cooperation Program, and its budget has grown significantly in recent years: it was an estimated US$164 million in 2010 (United Nations ESCAP 2011: 3). On Malaysia’s programme, see CEACoS (2010: 30-32) and on Thailand’s (33-38).

170 Susan Engel

and openness to the region, while Thailand’s programme has a strong focus on concessional lending – a traditional donor approach often regarded critically by the aid sector. So, on the one hand, the format of regional programmes offers little incentive to Indonesia to move beyond a traditional donor model, while, on the other hand, it offers Indonesia a chance to differentiate itself from the mainstream. This is even more pertinent, given that, as discussed above, most of South East Asia is showing no signs of a democratic turn and Indonesia under Yudhoyono has sought to differentiate itself with a strong focus on human rights. For example, it was a driving force behind the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights established in 2009, the Human Rights Declaration in 2012, and the Bali Democracy Forums. The various ministries involved in Indonesia’s SSC efforts have differing views about the reasons for engaging in it and its future directions. In interviews, BAPPENAS emphasized the partnership aspects of Indonesia’s programme, stating that it made Indonesia’s programme different from that of Malaysia or Thailand. MoFA emphasized Indonesia’s economic interests, while SEKNEG also emphasized national interest though not as strongly as MoFA. This highlights both the competing bureaucratic interests at play in SSC and the lack of a clear political vision for SSC. Other motivations for Indonesia’s participation in SSC were identified in ‘Policy Direction on Indonesia’s South-South Cooperation’, a long report issued by the Centre for East Asian Cooperation Studies (CEACoS). In the political realm, motivations identified include boosting the country’s image globally, boosting cooperation in multilateral fora, and, interestingly, it still highlighted minimizing support for separatist movements. In economic and sociocultural spheres, interests included promoting trade and investment; cooperation with Indonesia’s small and medium enterprises; and promoting education and tourism (CEACoS 2010: iv). While there are a range of motivations for Indonesia’s SSC, the performative aspect of the Yudhoyono Administration’s SSC is important – through the diplomacy of high-level meetings and events it seeks to actively constitute Indonesia as a state that respects the sovereignty and dignity of fellow countries from the South and as a leader.20 This approach obscures the thornier dimensions of Indonesia’s relations with some countries, at the same time as building its relations with the United States, in particular through the emphasis on Indonesia’s democratic credentials (Laksmana 2011). SSC announcements provide one leg of the discursive frame around Yudhoyono’s plans for ‘a thousand friends and zero enemies’ (Yudhoyono 2008). The constitutive discourse about why Indonesia is involved in SSC is another leg of this discourse. It is part of 20 On how this operates in other nontraditional donors, see Mawdsley (2012: 157).

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

171

various government documents and was recounted to me in a very similar form at interviews with the three key ministries involved in SSC. The origin story of Indonesia’s SSC programme is that the 1945 Constitution commits Indonesia to promoting world peace and social justice and that the country has been active in promoting SSC. A list of initiatives is provided, most of which were pre-New Order: Bandung, NAM, and the G77 with only the creation of ITCP from the New Order making the list.21 In the post-New Order era, the discourse focuses on the responsibilities that attaining (lower) middle income country status (2008) and G20 membership confers, often supplemented by noting that Indonesia (generally listed along with China and India) did not go into recession during the Global Financial Crisis as most developed countries did (CEACoS 2010: 151). This discourse indicates that Indonesia has a long unbroken engagement in SSC based on ideas of global solidarity. While this depiction is undoubtedly problematic, it is reflective of a broader trend in South-South relations about producing ‘discourses and performance of mutual development cooperation’ that actually serve to ‘reveal the extent to which some Southern donors and recipients seek to reject the humiliations and impositions of Western aid’ (Mawdsley 2012: 163). For Indonesia, this relates specifically to the humiliation produced by International Monetary Fund conditions in the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis.

The Influence of Traditional Donors on Indonesia’s SSC Strategy Indonesia’s technical cooperation projects have been largely funded by traditional donors. Japan is Indonesia’s major supporter followed by UN agencies and USAID. JICA has SSC in its list of thematic priorities; it is seen as a complement to North-South cooperation and as a way for developing countries to increase their capacity. Japan’s programmes, as with other donors, mostly works through so-called pivotal countries like Indonesia.22 Schulz (2010: 3) argues that Northern donors have shown a preference for cooperating with ‘second wave’ emerging economies rather than the BRICS, as they are ‘[l] ess aggressive […] in their struggle for a share in global power, […] focus on joint solutions […] and they are more flexible when engaging in development partnerships’. Further, he argues they ‘generate few contradictions in policy and practices’ for DAC donors. This provides part of the explanation for 21 See, for example, the Draft Grand Design (Japan International Cooperation Agency and PT Indokoei International 2011: 1-3). An academic expression of this is Laksmana (2011). 22 It is also is thought that Indonesia could play a larger role in SSC (CEACoS 2010: 28 and 116).

172 Susan Engel

why Japan and other donors are not just funding triangular cooperation projects but are also heavily involved in developing the management and administration arrangements for SSTC programmes. These activities also give donors some influence over the direction and form of the programmes and activities of those new donors. This section explores whether Indonesia’s SSTC programme supports or challenges the existing aid architecture. JICA has been supporting the design of Indonesia’s programme for a few years and in 2013 renewed this support through a Capacity Development Project (Krismasari et al. 2013). As well as the Basic Study and Draft Grand Design already discussed, in early 2014 they funded a study by CSIS to make further recommendations on administrative structures. They are also supporting the development of a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) strategy for Indonesia’s SSTC, which showcased a German Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) M&E and project management system (Shimoda and Nakazawa 2012: 160-161). In the Draft Grand Design, the key things to be accomplished by M&E were first demonstrating SSTC’s value to the national interest and only second showing the advantages of cooperation for other developing countries (Japan International Cooperation Agency and PT Indokoei International 2011). USAID has offered assistance in the preparation of project appraisal documents and in February 2014 they signed a memorandum of understanding with Indonesia on SSTC and the two countries are jointly designing projects (Matts 2014). The strategy also recognized the country’s role as a regional leader demonstrating Schulz’s argument that Northern donors are promoting ‘second wave’ emerging economies. Further evidence that traditional donor support works to mould SSTC to the existing international aid architecture is that a triangular cooperation project in the roads sector between Indonesia, East Timor, and Japan led to the provision of the country’s first ODA loan from Japan (Krismasari et al. 2013: 22-23; Shimoda and Nakazawa 2012: 162-163). While it could be seen that traditional donors are merely sharing their expertise with emerging donors, these practices have an important underlying logic. There is a broad concern amongst ‘traditional donors’ about the activities of ‘new donors’ and there have been a range of attempts to bring them into the existing aid architecture. This concern is often presented as being about the efficiency and effectiveness of their activities; however, concern about competition to the dominant aid paradigm as well as to the influence of traditional donors also plays a major role.23 Specifically, the OECD DAC has been working to 23 Concerns about transparency and efficiency have been expressed in UN reports (United Nations General Assembly 2011: 2) and in academic studies (Davis 2010; Manning 2006). For a very cynical take on the programs of emerging donors, see Naím (2007).

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

173

create ‘a common standard of aid effectiveness for both Northern and Southern providers of development assistance’ (United Nations General Assembly 2013: 4). Southern donors are rightly expressing scepticism about the benefits of this programme, arguing that it would likely produce an ‘unfair scorecard’ (United Nations General Assembly 2013: 4). Given the very limited progress from Northern donors in implementing the aid effectiveness commitments, this scepticism seems well founded (OECD 2009). Hence, SSTC developments are examined critically in terms of the ways they may shape Indonesia’s programme to fit the traditional, and not very progressive, international aid architecture. The process used to support Indonesia’s development of SSTC also reinforces the dominance of Western systems and processes and makes its programmes structurally open to Western governments. The programme’s development has been, and is being, heavily informed by donor-engaged consultants and it follows many of the archetypal patterns identified by Natasha Hamilton-Hart (2006) in her study of the use of consultants in Indonesia. One interesting difference from Hamilton-Hart’s study is that, in this case, most of the consultancy inputs have been done by Indonesian organizations, not foreign consultants. However, the studies were undertaken in English and the ‘professional background and career incentives’ of the consultants doing the work do not, in my assessment, challenge Hamilton-Hart’s argument that consultants tend to promote liberalizing economic policies and minimalist though regulatory states. The continual engagement of consultants in the light of the current minimalist political vision for the SSC programme and the level of bureaucratic wrangling about ownership, suggests that the consultancies are unlikely to promote major progress in policy development, which has been the case to date. This supports Hamilton-Hart’s (2006) argument that, while there is a long paper trail justifying the engagement of consultants in Indonesia, there are no processes for reviewing the results of the consultants themselves. This context suggests too that SSTC activities are as much donor-driven as Indonesian government-driven and, of course, donor-driven projects frequently fail to achieve their goals. Even with limited success, the reports, policies, procedures, and systems produced by consultants still influence ideas, thinking, and future directions for SSC, thus their impact should not be discounted. For the consultants themselves, if the aim is re-employment, the ‘safest option’ is to produce reports, etc., filled ‘with whatever ideas are currently circulating as best practice’ (Hamilton-Hart 2006: 266) and these will be amenable to the existing mainstream global aid architecture. Of course, DAC donors are not monolithic; there are divergences amongst them – at times quite significant ones. Japan has challenged components of the mainstream discourse, especially in the 1980s when the role of the state

174 Susan Engel

went out of fashion in development with the dominance of neo-liberalism (Wade 1996). The predominant focus of SSTC on state-led processes may be part of its appeal to Japan, though equally Japanese aid has long had a strong focus on promoting its commercial and political interests in South East Asia, which sits well with the strong focus of many new donors on growth (Mawdsley 2012). Japan is also aware that the triangular cooperation projects with Indonesia ‘could be an effective way to increase pro-Japan perception in Asia and developing countries as a whole’ (CEACoS 2010: 114-115). Given that the grant component of Japanese aid is relatively low, this increases the appeal of influence and goodwill through SSC. Equally, though, the focus of most of the re-emerging donors on economic growth sits well with Japan’s ideas about aid. Notably, political changes in the West have also seen a renewed focus on growth not aid (or rights) and thus Japan seems more in line with global trends on thinking about development at the present than in earlier times. To conclude this section, it is important to highlight how the existing policy documents drive the logic of SSTC as based on the benefits to Indonesia’s economy – there is no analysis of what Indonesia’s ‘partner countries’ may need or want. In fact, the Draft Grand Design contains a tension between the desire to help fellow developing countries and the potential for competition with them in Indonesia’s areas of comparative advantage, and this potential competition is seen as even greater within South East Asia. This tension was also clear in my interviews and, as noted earlier, the majority felt that directions would be set in favour of Indonesian national interests. In the Draft Grand Design, the tension is resolved in favour of national interest with the first point of the proposed SSC mission being ‘[i]mprovement of Indonesia’s role in the framework of South-South cooperation to achieve the national interests’ (Japan International Cooperation Agency and PT Indokoei International 2011: S-2). The needs of cooperation partners do get a brief mention in a 2014 report (Sofjan et al. 2014). If Indonesia was to keep national interest as the key focus of its programme, this would suggest a continuation of the traditional donor model prioritizing donor interests over recipients. This does not sit well with the underlying political objectives of the Jakarta Commitment and Indonesia’s other SSC statements.24 24 The Draft Grand Design mentions the possibility that Indonesia will provide loans as well as grants, which is a further continuity with the traditional ‘aid’ paradigm but equally with the ‘Chinese model’. According to my interviews, loans were suggested by the Ministry of Finance at a meeting in 2009. During the interviews, the various ministries expressed different views about both the desirability and likelihood of the loans. In practice, even if a new government were to support the idea, it would be many years before the administrative structures would be in place to allow loans. SEKNEG also noted that loans were unlikely to be popular with the

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

175

Conclusions This chapter aimed to shed light on what has been driving Indonesia’s renewed interest in SSC. During the Sukarno era, Indonesia sought to play an agenda-setting role in SSC and non-alignment, yet domestic forces were a major influence on activism as SSC played well with domestic audiences and Sukarno sought to use the support to bolster his precarious position between the military and the Communist Party. In the Suharto years, SSC was marginal and its mild re-emergence in the latter years of the regime was about regional jockeying and regaining the country’s status as a non-aligned state. Since Yudhoyono, Indonesia’s increased involvement in SSC reflects the jockeying for power between emerging or middle powers for not just regional but also global influence.25 This supports José Antonio Sanahuja’s (2010: 18) argument that SSC ‘is often framed in more assertive foreign policies, whether for power or prestige, ideology or internal legitimacy, to support regional stability or to comply with international commitments’. At the regional level, competition with Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand motivated increased SSC efforts. Indonesia may be the largest economy, but it is not well integrated into the regional production chains that have emerged or even the well-developed efforts in building regional transportation infrastructure. This is partly due to its geography – the transportation networks are focused on the mainland and on rail and road infrastructure. Nevertheless, Indonesia risks further exclusion from regional integration successes without concerted efforts. Even where Indonesia is more deeply involved in regional leadership (for example, the ASEAN Economic Community starting in 2015), its agenda does not challenge the rules of the current political-economic order. Thus, ASEAN’s Economic Community conforms to the system more than the regional cooperation promoted by other countries, such as Venezuela or Bolivia. The focus on knowledge sharing and training in Indonesia’s SSC programmes is a common one for smaller emerging donors but equally it is a low-risk strategy, which also minimizes the likelihood that its efforts could enable any nations to compete against it. There is not much evidence then that the key SSC principle of solidarity is driving Indonesian thinking, though

public. This ministry is responsible for promoting SSC to the Indonesian public and it noted the general low level of awareness and interest in the topic. 25 On global jockeying and the strategies of India, Brazil, and South Africa, see Flemes (2010). On Latin America and the Caribbean, see Sanahuja (2010).

176 Susan Engel

commitment to the traditional SSC principles of ‘non-conditionality, mutual benefit and non-interference’ is clearer (CEACoS 2010: 155).26 SSTC has become a clear plank in Indonesian claims of having an independent and active foreign policy. It provides a constitutive discourse that frames its identity as a leader of peaceful cooperation between emerging economies based on a set of long-held principles – in particular, dignity and sovereignty. This discourse, emphasizing mutual benefits and hiding the many differences among developing countries, was a key leg in Yudhoyono’s claim of a foreign policy that creates ‘a thousand friends and zero enemies’. As outlined above, this is a problematic representation of Indonesia’s SSC, yet it does seem to have had some impact as the country has retained a degree of legitimacy as a regional/global SSC leader (United Nations General Assembly 2009: 8). The other issue explored in this chapter was whether Indonesia’s current efforts are a challenge to the traditional aid industry and to the current global order. The emergence of mid-sized developing countries (like the CIVETS) as donors is an important phenomenon; it suggests that these countries ‘want to become more than just spectators in the global game’ (Schulz 2010: 4). But the equally important question is whether they want to direct the ‘global game’ in ways that will promote social justice and equality or whether they just want more recognition and power within a profoundly unequal order. Most proponents of SSC/SSTC argue that it will challenge both ‘traditional’ donors and the aid architecture. Yet, despite the growth in development cooperation activities (now the preferred term) of a range of countries (especially China), emerging powers continue to be hesitant ‘to challenge the Euro-North American domination’ of both the international aid architecture and of ‘world affairs’, as Palat (2008: 721) has argued. Indonesia is no different; it is largely focused on promoting its own national interests within the existing order and these system-conforming tendencies are being entrenched by the reliance on triangular cooperation and traditional donor support in building Indonesia’s programme. In this sense, the country’s SSC could be argued to conform to the Global North’s hub-and-spokes strategy, which is the idea that by playing on the desires for leadership of the middle powers in the Global South and supporting their regional leadership roles, Northern countries are seeking to embed components of the current global order through their leadership (Palat 2008). The fact that some of the biggest emerging states have 26 It has also been noted that it is the more advanced developing countries that play the key roles in SSC and this may further marginalize the least developed countries. On the dominance of emerging powers in SSC, see United Nations General Assembly (2009: 25). On the potential negative consequences to the least developed countries, see Ladd (2010).

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

177

been cautious about engaging in triangular cooperation projects, precisely because they are concerned that triangular cooperation backs the existing unequal donor system (Mawdsley 2012: 202), supports this contention. In Widodo’s election campaign in 2014, the official policy platform released with running mate Jusuf Kalla suggested significant continuity with the foreign policy platform of SBY. The focus was on advancing the country’s role as a middle power and SSC was included as one of his Nine Development Priorities Agenda (Parameswaran 2014; Tahalele 2015). Like SBY, shortly after his election, Widodo led an anniversary of the Bandung Conference, this time the 60th.27 Widodo’s opening speech employed some fairly strong language reminiscent of the early years of SSC. He said that the world ‘today is still fraught with global injustice, inequality and violence’ and linked this to the rich nation’s consumption of 70% of the globe’s resources and the structure of global financial management through the key international financial institutions (Widodo 2015). These organizations, he said, cling to ‘obsolete’ ideas and it is ‘imperative that we build a new international economic order that is open to new emerging economic powers’ (cited in Danubrata and Greenfield 2015).28 This language suggests a more active challenge to the international order than under SBY. However, as Parameswaran (2014) has highlighted, Widodo faces a range of foreign policy challenges, a number of which are very relevant to progressing the SSC agenda. A key one is ensuring ‘that Indonesia’s rising nationalism does not undermine its internationalist outlook’ (Parameswaran 2014: 158). As this chapter has highlighted, since it re-emergence under Yudhoyono, SSC has been driven more by a regional and internationalist agenda than domestic interests and lack of domestic support could well see the agenda weaken. Widodo has flamed some nationalist sentiments and seems to have a limited interest in foreign policy matters. Second, there is a ‘gap between Indonesia’s commitments and the limited resources it has to implement them’ (Parameswaran 2014: 157), which is becoming more intense. Triangular cooperation provides one avenue to help overcome this constraint, which is likely a key reason the Indonesian government is actively pursuing these avenues, despite the ways that it attempts to lock Southern countries into the Northern aid architecture. Indonesia’s SSC path is still evolving but, to date evidence for progressive tendencies is at best partial. 27 In 2005, leaders of 89 countries attended but in 2015, only 21 leaders attended. 28 Other indications of the continuing commitment are that the work on programme development is proceeding and at the political level, Vice President Kalla attended the High-Level Round Table on South-South Cooperation held on the sidelines of the UN Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015.

178 Susan Engel

Works Cited Agensky, J., and J. Barker 2012. ‘Indonesia and the Liberal Peace: Recovering Southern Agency in Global Governance’. Globalizations 9.1: 107-124. Anwar, D.F. 2010. ‘The Impact of Domestic and Asian Regional Changes on Indonesia Foreign Policy’. Southeast Asian Affairs 2010.1: 126-141. ASEAN Foundation. 2009. Annual Report 2009: Developing Partnerships, Promoting ASEAN Awareness. Jakarta: ASEAN Foundation. ASEAN Foundation. 2010. Annual Report 2010: Working Towards Building the ASEAN Community. Jakarta: ASEAN Foundation. ASEAN Foundation. N.d. ‘ASEAN Foundation Plan of Action’. ASEAN Foundation. http://www.aseanfoundation.org/files/libraries/plan-of-action-rev.doc. Asia-Africa Summit (2005), ‘Declaration on the New Asia-Africa Strategic Partnership (NAASP)’, http://kemlu.go.id/Documents/NAASP/Hyperlink%201.pdf. Bandoro, B. 2006. ‘Yudhoyono’s Foreign Policy Is All about Image’. Jakarta Post, 19 October. Bunnell, F.P. 1966. ‘Guided Democracy Foreign Policy: 1960-1965: President Sukarno Moves from Non-Alignment to Confrontation’. Indonesia 2: 37-76. CEACoS. 2010. ‘Policy Direction on Indonesia’s South-South Cooperation: Main Report and Policy Paper’. Centre for East Asian Cooperation Studies, Aid for Development Effectiveness Secretariat and Japan International Cooperation Agency, August. http://open_jicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/12025896.pdf. Coordination Team of South-South and Triangular Cooperation. N.d. ‘Indonesia’s Capacities on Technical Cooperation’. Directorate General of Information and Public Diplomacy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of Indonesia. Danubrata, E., and C. Greenf ield. 2015. ‘Asian, African Nations Challenge “Obsolete” World Order’. Reuters, 22 April. http://www.reuters.com/article/ us-asia-africa-idUSKBN0ND09820150422. Davis, P. 2010. ‘South-South Cooperation: Moving Towards a New Aid Dynamic’. Poverty in Focus 20: 11-13. http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus20. pdf. Emmers, R. 2014. ‘Indonesia’s Role in ASEAN: A Case of Incomplete and Sectoral Leadership’. The Pacific Review 27.4: 543-562. Flemes, D. 2010. ‘IBSA: South-South Cooperation or Trilateral Diplomacy in World Affairs?’. Poverty in Focus 20: 15-17. http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus20.pdf. Gde Agung, I.A.A. 1973. Twenty Years Indonesian Foreign Policy 1945-1965. The Hague: Mouton & Co.. Government of Indonesia and Its Development Partners. 2009. ‘Jakarta Commitment: Aid for Development Effectiveness: Indonesia’s Road Map to 2012’.

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

179

Grant, B. 1972. Indonesia. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Grant, B. 1996. Indonesia. 3rd ed. Carlton South: Melbourne University Press. Group of Fifteen. N.d. ‘Aims and Objectives’. Group of Fifteen: Summit Level Group of Developing Countries website. http://g15.org/member-countries-2/ aims-and-objectives/. Hamid, A.F.A. 2005. Malaysia and South-South Cooperation during Mahathir’s Era. Subang: Pelanduk Publications. Hamilton-Hart, N. 2006. ‘Consultants in the Indonesian State: Modes of Influence and Institutional Implications’. New Political Economy 11.2: 251-270. Hindley, D. 1963. ‘Foreign Aid to Indonesia and Its Political Implications’. Pacific Affairs 36.2: 107-119. Indonesia South-South Technical Cooperation. 2010. ‘Indonesia Technical Cooperation Programs’. http://web.archive.org/web/20150418120937/http://isstc.setneg. go.id/index.php/about-us. Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. 2006. ‘Communiqué of ‘Afghanistan: The London Conference’: Afghan Leadership, Regional Cooperation, International Partnership’. http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/TheLondonConferenceItistimeforIndiatoreassessitsAfghanPolicy_agupta_010210_annexure. Japan International Cooperation Agency and PT Indokoei International. 2011. ‘Republic of Indonesia: Report of Basic Study for South-South Cooperation (Draft Grand Design and Blue Print)’. National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS), Aid for Development Effectiveness Secretariat (A4DES), Republic of Indonesia. Kondoh, H., T. Kobayashi, H. Shiga, and J. Sato. 2010. ‘Diversity and Transformation of Aid Patterns in Asia’s “Emerging Donors”’. Working Paper No. 21. JICA Research Institute, Tokyo, 2010. http://repository.ri.jica.go.jp/dspace/ bitstream/10685/76/1/JICA-RI_WP_No.21_2010.pdf. Krismasari, D., N. Shigeki, and L. Kartika. 2013. ‘Indonesia-Japan: Fostering Global Development through South-South and Triangular Cooperation’. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Jakarta. https://www.jica.go.jp/indonesia/ english/office/others/c8h0vm00008m7xt9-att/Development.pdf. Krismasari, D., N. Shigeki, N. Saragih, and L. Kartika. 2012. ‘Indonesia-Japan: Dynamic Development for Prosperity: Practices of South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC)’. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Jakarta. https://www.jica.go.jp/indonesia/english/office/others/pdf/brochure_01.pdf. Ladd, P. 2010. ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place: LDCs in a G-20 World’. Poverty in Focus 20: 5-6. http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/IPCPovertyInFocus20.pdf. Laksmana, E.A. 2011. ‘Indonesia’s Rising Regional and Global Profile: Does Size Really Matter?’. Contemporary Southeast Asia 33.2: 157-182. Legge, J.D. 1980. Indonesia. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Prentice-Hall.

180 Susan Engel

Manning, R. 2006. ‘Will “Emerging” Donors Change the Face of International Cooperation?’. Development Policy Review 24.4: 371-383. Matts, M. 2014. ‘USAID/Indonesia Breaks the Development Mold through SouthSouth and Triangular Cooperation’. USAID Learning Lab, 23 April. https:// usaidlearninglab.org/lab-notes/usaidindonesia-breaks-development-moldthrough-south-south-and-triangular-cooperation. Mauludiah, S.N. 2013. ‘Indonesia’s South-South and Triangular Cooperation: Our Stories, Experience and … on Moving Forward’. In Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation. Washington, DC: Asian Foundation, 1-19. Mawdsley, E. 2012. From Recipients to Donors: Emerging Powers and the Changing Development Landscape. London, Zed Books. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 1955. ‘Final Communiqué of the Asia-African Conference of Bandung (24 April 1955)’. In Asia-Africa Speak from Bandung. Jakarta: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia, 161-169. http://franke.uchicago.edu/Final_Communique_Bandung_1955.pdf. Morais de Sa e Silva, M. 2010. ‘How Did We Get Here? The Pathways of SouthSouth Cooperation’. Poverty in Focus 20: 3-4. http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/ IPCPovertyInFocus20.pdf. Naím, M. 2007. ‘Rogue Aid: What’s Wrong with the Foreign Aid Programs of China, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia? They are Enormously Generous and They Are Toxic’. Foreign Affairs 159.96: 95-96 Non-Aligned Movement Centre for South-South Technical Cooperation. N.d. ‘Historical Background’. http://www.csstc.org/v_ket1.asp?info=21&mn=2. OECD. 2009. Aid Effectiveness 2005-10: Progress in Implementing the Paris Declaration. Paris: OECD Publishing. Palat, R. 2008. ‘A New Bandung? Economic Growth vs. Distributive Justice among Emerging Powers’. Futures 40: 721-734. Parameswaran, P. 2014. ‘Between Aspiration and Reality: Indonesian Foreign Policy After the 2014 Elections’. Washington Quarterly 37.3: 153-165. Ricklefs, M.C. 1993. A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1300. 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Sanahuja, J.A. 2010. ‘Post-Liberal Regionalism: S-S Cooperation in Latin America and the Caribbean’. Poverty in Focus 20: 17-19. http://www.ipc-undp.org/pub/ IPCPovertyInFocus20.pdf. Schulz, N.-S. 2010. ‘The Third Wave of Development Players’. Policy Brief No. 60. FRIDE, November. http://fride.org/download/pb60_third_wave_eng_nov10.pdf Shimoda, Y., and S. Nakazawa. 2012. ‘Flexible Cooperation for Indonesia’s Multidimensional Challenges for South-South Cooperation under a Shared Vision’. In Scaling Up South-South and Triangular Cooperation Tokyo: JICA Research Institute, 149-171.

South-South Cooper ation Str ategies in Indonesia

181

Sofjan, D., C. Kenngott, and T. Beloe 2014. ‘South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) Stocktaking and Strategic Review’. Ministry of National Development Planning/BAPPENAS, United Nations Development Programme. Sukma, R. 1995. ‘The Evolution of Indonesia’s Foreign Policy: An Indonesia View’. Asian Survey 35.3: 304-315. Sukma, R. 2011. ‘Indonesia Finds a New Voice’. Journal of Democracy 22.4: 110-123. Tahalele, M. 2015. ‘Indonesia South-South Cooperation: Renewing the Old Message’. Devpolicy Blog (Development Policy Centre), 10 September. http://devpolicy. org/indonesia-south-south-cooperation-renewing-the-old-message-20150910/. United Nations ESCAP. 2011. ‘South-South Cooperation in Asia-Pacific: Emerging Trends and Potential’ MDPP Policy Briefs 9, May. http://www.unescap.org/sites/ default/files/pb9.pdf. United Nations General Assembly. 2009. ‘Promotion of South-South Cooperation for Development: A Thirty Year Perspective. Report of the Secretary General’. A/64/504, 27 October. New York: United Nations. http://ssc.undp.org/content/ dam/ssc/documents/SG%20Reports/SG%20Report%20on%20SSC%202009. pdf. United Nations General Assembly. 2011. ‘The State of South-South Cooperation. Report of the Secretary General’. A/66/229, 3 August. New York: United Nations. http://ssc.undp.org/content/dam/ssc/documents/SG%20Reports/SG%20 Report%20on%20SSC%202011.pdf. United Nations General Assembly. 2013. ‘The State of South-South Cooperation. Report of the Secretary General’. A/68/212, 29 July. New York: United Nations. http://ssc.undp.org/content/dam/ssc/documents/SG%20Reports/SGs%20 Report%20on%20SSC_2013.pdf. United Nations Special Unit TCDC. 1978. ‘Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC)’. Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, New York. http://ssc.undp.org/content/dam/ssc/documents/Key%20Policy%20 Documents/Buenos%20Aires%20Plan%20of%20Action.pdf. Wade, R. 1996. ‘Japan, the World Bank, and the Art of Paradigm Maintenance: The East Asian Miracle in Political Perspective’. New Left Review 217: 3-36. Weinstein, F.B. 1976. Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma of Dependence: From Sukarno to Soeharto. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wicaksana, I.G.W. 2016. ‘International Society: The Social Dimensions of Indonesia’s Foreign Policy’. The Pacific Review 29.5: 1-19. Widodo, J. 2015. ‘Opening Statement H.E. Joko Widodo President of the Republic of Indonesia at the Asian-African Summit 2015’. http://setkab.go.id/openingstatement-joko-widodo-president-of-the-republic-of-indonesia-at-the-asianafrican-summit-2015-jakarta-22-april-2015/.

182 Susan Engel

Yudhoyono, S.B. 2005. ‘Speech by H.E. Dr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of the Republic of Indonesia before the Indonesian Council on World Affairs (ICWA)’. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia, 20 May. http://www. kemlu.go.id/en/pidato/presiden/Pages/Speech-by-H.E.-Dr.-Susilo-BambangYudhoyono-President-of-the-Republic-of-Indonesia-before-the-Indone.aspx. Yudhoyono, S.B. 2008. ‘Indonesia and America: A 21st Century Partnership’. Speech delivered at a USINDO luncheon, Washington DC, 14 November. http://usindo. org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/SBY-Speech-at-USINDO-Nov-20081.pdf.

7

South Korean Civic Actors in Rwanda Promoting Rural Development and an Emerging Civil Society in Contexts Controlled by the State Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee My dream is to see the second Korea emerge in Africa. Korea will accompany Rwanda on its journey. – South Korean ambassador, April 2013 There are things I admire, for example, about South Korea or Singapore. I admire their history, their development and how intensively they have invested in their people and in technology. It was not so long ago that they were at the same level of development as we are. Today, they are far ahead of us. – Paul Kagame in Der Spiegel, 2010 There is no Korean way. The best Korean way is to find a Rwandan way. – South Korean NGO representative, May 2013

Introduction As an ‘emerging power’, South Korea1 has designated Rwanda – eager to implement an ‘East Asian model’ of economic and social development – as one of its partnership countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. A relative newcomer in providing official development assistance (ODA) to Africa, Korea aims to share its experience in rural development, ICT and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) with Rwanda. Regarding the first, Korea is piloting its Saemaul Undong (New Village Movement) programme, originally designed to modernize Korean rural areas in the 1970s, based upon the three slogans, ‘diligence’, ‘self-help’, and ‘cooperation’.2 These seem to resonate particularly well with the development ambitions and programmes of the Rwandan government, like umuganda – the monthly community service that all Rwandans are required to participate in – and the Agaciro Development Fund – a solidarity fund to promote the financial independence of Rwanda. 1 2

The Republic of Korea; in the remaining part of the chapter we use the term ‘Korea’. The political dimension of Saemaul Undong is discussed in more detail below.

184 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

Saemaul Undong is implemented in Rwanda involving a large number of Korean development actors like the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), World Friends Korea (WFK), the Korea Saemaul Undong Centre, and Korean civic organizations like Good Neighbours International (GNI) and Global Civic Sharing (GCS). Especially for these Korean civil society actors, promoting rural development and an emerging civil society in rural Rwandan contexts is challenging as their activities are strongly shaped and controlled by Rwandan and Korean state actors. While this frequently means walking a tightrope, at the same time, there are signs that spaces are opening up to promote dialogue and participation since, among other things, Korea is not associated with colonialism. This chapter focuses on the opportunities and challenges faced by Korean civic actors in Rwanda. We analyse the ways in which Korean rural development experiences, associated with Saemaul Undong, are introduced in the Rwandan context, and try to answer why the principles of Saemaul Undong resonate so well with the development ambitions and programmes of Rwanda. Is it at all possible for Korean civic actors to genuinely promote forms of participation in contexts controlled by the state? During field research in Rwanda in May 2013 Korean development actors and their Rwandan counterparts were visited and interviewed.3 The chapter first describes the evolution of Korea as a development actor with an emphasis on its recent advances in Africa. What follows is a discussion of the Rwandan development context with a focus on rural development and why Rwanda is ‘looking East’. Third, we reflect theoretically on the state and an ‘emerging civil society’ in Rwanda. As the Rwandan state is dominant we use Foucault’s classical article ‘The Subject and Power’ and his concept of ‘pastoral power’ (1982) to consider the consequences of an omnipresence of the state for an emerging civil society. Fourth, we describe and analyse Saemaul Undong and the way in which it is piloted in Rwanda. We end with a discussion of the paradoxes of development and a conclusion in which we try to reflect on the question of whether Korean actors are positively contributing to an ‘emerging civil society’ in Rwanda.

3 This also included forms of participant observation, such as attending meetings and participating in Umuganda.

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

185

Korea as an Emerging Donor in Africa In the beginning of the twenty-first century Africa is (re-)attracting attention from major development actors like China, spurring heated debates. Other countries like the established donor Japan – pledging substantial increases in public and private commitments to the continent during TICAD V4 – and an ‘emerging’ country like Brazil – opening 20 new embassies in Africa over the last decade and writing off $1 billion in debt owed by African countries (Stolte 2012;) – are also cementing their relationship with the continent. In this ‘new scramble for Africa’ (Wooldridge 2009) Korea is positioning itself as an important new donor since 2006, when President Roh Moo-hyun launched ‘Korea’s Initiative for Africa’s Development’ during a historic visit to Nigeria, Egypt, and Algeria (MOFA 2014). From Recipient to Emerging Donor Although we use the term ‘emerging donor’ here as Korea is a relatively new player in Africa, we agree with Mawdsley (2012: 5-7) who has argued that terms like ‘new’, ‘emerging’ and ‘nontraditional’ are potentially de-historicizing. A label that the Korean government usually employs is ‘a recipient-turneddonor country’, whereby its former status legitimizes Korean aid: Just in the span of one generation after the Korean War, Korea achieved industrialization and democratization, and now aspires to become a global Korea. Our success is the fruit of our people’s commitment to development and hard work. Nevertheless, we should not overlook the contribution of total US$12.7 billion in foreign aid since our liberation from Japan. Our country should now start to pay back the international community for the assistance we received in the past. Further, as a mature and responsible middle power, our country should take interest in and strongly contribute to resolving poverty and underdevelopment issues of developing countries. (MOFA 2013b)

After suffering Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945) and the Korean War (19501953), the country faced destroyed infrastructure, severe poverty, a lack of food, and the problem of war orphans. Humanitarian and reconstruction aid from the United States, the United Nations, and other donors provided the food, resources, and materials necessary for basic human needs during 4 Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). The fifth conference took place in Yokohama, 1-3 June 2013.

186 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

the 1940s and 1950s. From the 1960s, however, the Korean government proactively utilized foreign grants and concessional loans to finance the First FiveYear Economic Plan (1962-1966) that included government-led investments in infrastructure, education, as well as heavy industry. Particularly during the authoritarian anti-communist regime of President Chung-hee Park, characterized by his Janus-face of ‘military dictator’ and ‘development hero’, the Korean state played a central role in reconstructing the economy. The combined aid from the United States and Japan, accounting for 90% of total aid received by Korea, resulted in a heavy dependence on these countries in terms of politics, economy, technology, institutions, and culture. At the time of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, the Korean government began to orient itself to play a more active role in the international community and becoming ‘an advanced country’ by establishing the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) in 1987 and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in 1991, modelled after the Japanese Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Korea officially graduated from ‘recipient country’ status by entering the OECD in 1996 and becoming a member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in 2010. Subsequently, experts from the DAC secretariat praised ‘Korea’s sound aid volumes, strategies, policies and institutional frameworks, as well the country’s reliable system for monitoring and evaluating performance’ (OECD 2010). This reinforced its unique role and status as a rising donor bridging the Global North and Global South. In this capacity the Korea hosted the G20 Seoul Summit that resulted in the ‘G20 Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth’ in 2010, with the: overarching objective of helping LICs improve and maintain the levels and quality of growth, thereby reducing poverty, improving human rights and creating decent jobs, [which] requires strengthening the relationships among high, middle and low income countries. (G20 Information Centre 2010: 1)

In the following year Busan hosted the 4th OECD High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, where more than 180 countries, international organizations, and civil society organizations agreed to form a Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation.5 In this series of global development fora, the government of Korea became a proponent of the development

5 See: http://effectivecooperation.org/ and the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-Operation document (OECD 2011).

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

187

effectiveness agenda focusing on aid and beyond, including trade, investment, migration, environment, and governance. In 2012 Korea’s aid policy and practices were reviewed by the first Peer Review Process from the OECD DAC. The report describes Korea’s recent aid performance: Several years of steady growth saw Korea’s ODA reach USD 1,325 million in 2011, equivalent to 0.12% of its gross national income (GNI), compared to USD 455 million and 0.05% of its GNI in 2006. Korea’s ODA disbursements in 2011 were 6% greater, in volume terms, than 2010, when Korea’s aid surpassed USD 1 billion for the first time. However, Korea’s ODA/GNI ratio in 2011 was unchanged from 2010 and below its 0.13% target for the year. Korea has committed to scale up its aid to achieve an ODA/GNI ratio of 0.25% by 2015. The country’s ODA volume was the 17th largest within the DAC in 2011, up one place from 2010. (OECD 2012: 15)

According to the DAC, Korea is working hard and building a strong reputation in development cooperation, while also reforming its aid modalities and establishing strong foundations. It recommends Korea to ensure that all its aid delivery channels support a common vision, while also strengthening its programme in terms of communication and transparency. In terms of Korea’s aid effectiveness, the DAC states: Korea has made progress in aligning its support with partner country priorities, providing its aid through common arrangements and carrying out joint analytical work. Korea is lagging behind in implementing the aid effectiveness principles, particularly those on aid predictability and use of partner country systems. Part of the reason is that the principles are not sufficiently embedded in Korea’s procedures and strategies. (OECD 2012: 19)

The above shows that Korea is increasing its aid volume and is developing and adapting its aid policies by taking into account DAC guidelines and incorporating recent recommendations. However, in our view, there is a lack of knowledge about the role of Korean actors and the implementation of Korean policies on the ground. Consequently, in-depth empirical studies are needed to discover what makes the Korean approach unique and how it impacts people’s livelihoods, the structures of the emerging civil society, and the socioeconomic and political development of partner countries.

188 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

Korean ODA to Africa and Rwanda In the context of Cold War diplomacy, Korea established diplomatic relations with African countries as early as the 1960s. These relationships did not yet involve development cooperation as Korean assistance was initially primarily focused on Asian counties. As mentioned above, the relationship between Korea and Africa fundamentally changed when President Roh Moo-hyun visited Africa in 2006. Besides launching ‘Korea’s Initiative for Africa’s Development’ and announcing the tripling of ODA to Africa by 2008, Korea organized the First Korea-Africa Forum in Seoul in November 2006. Subsequently, Korea actively began to formulate its ODA policies for Africa. During the Second Korea-Africa Forum in 2009, it adopted the ‘Seoul Declaration of the Second Korea-Africa Forum’ and the ‘Basic Framework for Korea-Africa Development Cooperation 2009-2012’ in which it pledged to double its ODA volume to Africa to US$200 million up to 2012 while expanding the number of trainees from Africa to 5,000 as well as sending 1,000 World Friend Korea volunteers – ‘A better world through sharing and learning’6 – to Africa. This was followed by the Third Korea-Africa Forum held in 2012 and the ‘Seoul Declaration of the Third Korea-Africa Forum 2012’ reaffirming its increasing role in Africa: The dramatic increase of our Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Africa demonstrates Korea’s political commitment to play an active role within the international community in the fight against poverty and pandemics in the Continent. At the same time, Korea understands that we are in a unique position to assist Africa based on Korea’s past experience in dealing with post-war poverty and economic development. We also hope to uphold our reputation as a ‘reference nation’ by many developing African states. (MOFA 2013)

From 2010 Korea gradually began to transform its ‘traditional’, ‘old-fashioned’ project-type assistance into a more programme-based approach involving country partnership strategy (CPS) papers to upgrade its aid effectiveness. It selected 26 countries as ODA partnership countries, including eight African countries: Ethiopia, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Senegal, Mozambique, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. However, the criteria of selection are still relatively vague and lack transparency. According to several critics from civil society and academia, the choice of partnership countries in Africa seems to indicate the importance of special historical 6 World Friends Korea: http://www.worldfriendskorea.or.kr/view/eng.intro.vision.do.

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

189

ties – Ethiopian soldiers who fought in the Korean War (Kim 2011: 807) – national interests, and resource-seeking diplomacy (Kim 2013). In several African partner countries, including Rwanda and Ethiopia, Korea is piloting the transfer of its Saemaul Undong (New Village Movement) model of rural development. Rwanda attracted special attention from Korea and other development actors after the 1994 genocide, because of its efforts to promote good governance, anti-corruption, strong ownership, and efficient aid-management policies. Especially after President Paul Kagame’s visit to Korea in 2008, the relationship became much closer and the two countries agreed to establish respective embassies in Seoul and Kigali.7 KOICA began to send volunteers to Rwanda from 2006 and established its country office in Kigali in 2011. Moreover, Korea’s annual aid volume rapidly increased from around US$300,000 to US$8 million.

The Rwandan Development Context The 1994 genocide heavily crippled Rwanda economically, socially, and culturally and severely compromised its faith in the international community.8 Yet, in 2000 its new leaders presented Vision 2020 (GoR 2000), an ambitious document which outlined how to ‘raise the people of Rwanda out of poverty and transform the country into a middle-income economy’. This was deemed feasible as ‘the development experience of the East Asian “Tigers” proves that this dream could be a reality’ (GoR 2000: 25). However, with 64% of the people living below the poverty line of 1 $/day in 2000, low life expectancy of 49 years, GDP per capita of US$220, low literacy levels, and poor health indicators – HIV/AIDS prevalence of 13%, high malaria incidence, and high infant mortality (GoR 2000) – Vision 2020 seemed but a pipe dream.9 The document outlined seven major challenges: declining agricultural productivity and high population pressure; Rwanda being landlocked; a limited economic base with a focus on coffee and tea; weak

7 Korea had an embassy in Rwanda in the 1970s and 1980s, but it was subsequently closed. The embassy was reopened in May 2011 (MOFA 2013b). 8 See, for example, the account of Canadian Roméo Dallaire, commander of the UN Rwanda peacekeeping force, who describes his desperation at not getting the required resources, manpower, and institutional support from the United Nations, the United States, and Europe as he was confronted with the large-scale organized killing by the Interahamwe (Kinzer 2008). 9 According to the World Bank, 74.56% of the Rwandan population in 2000 lived below the poverty line of $1.25 a day (PPP) (World Bank 2013).

190 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

governance; a poorly educated and trained population; a huge public debt; and lastly, the social and economic legacy of the genocide (GoR 2000: 7-8). To deal with these problems three major objectives were formulated. For the short term a ‘promotion of macroeconomic stability and wealth creation to reduce aid dependency’. For the medium term ‘transforming from an agrarian to a knowledge-based economy’. And for the long term ‘creating a productive middle class and fostering entrepreneurship’ (GoR 2000: 9-11). To achieve these objectives six pillars and three crosscutting areas were identified: Pillars of Vision 2020 1 Good governance and a capable state 2 Human resource development and a knowledge-based economy 3 A private sector-led economy 4 Infrastructure development 5 Productive and market-oriented agriculture 6 Regional and international economic integration Crosscutting areas of Vision 2020 1 Gender equality 2 Protection of environment and sustainable natural resource management 3 Science and technology, including ICT

To facilitate implementation a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) was presented in 2002 (GoR 2002), followed by the Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) documents I and II in 2008 and 2013 (MINECOFIN 2008 and 2013). Although in the early years there was scepticism about these development ambitions and even today the challenges are vast, proponents of the Kagame regime have acknowledged its major positive achievements since the publication of Vision 2020 (Farmer et al. 2013; Horton 2013). Even those more critical of the regime, like Ansoms and Rostagno, contend that ‘Rwanda has […] received wide praise for its effective technocratic governance’ (2012: 428). Another example of the leading role of the Rwandan government is the ‘Donor Division of Labour in Rwanda’ document that it presented after realizing in 2008 that donors were ‘not equitably distributed across EDPRS sectors’ and areas of need. It aims to better align and coordinate foreign aid (MINECOFIN 2010: 1-4) by allowing donors to only be lead agents in three sectors (education, energy, and agriculture) while becoming so-called ‘silent partners’ if they want to contribute to other sectors (9).

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

191

Rwanda indeed saw significant socioeconomic progress, according to World Bank president Jim Yong Kim: [W]e in the economic development world of course have all watched, over the years, as you have posted robust economic growth, substantially cut poverty and at the same time reduced inequality. It is what we might call the triple crown of economic development and you have done that in an extraordinary fashion […] The way out of conflict is development […], providing people health and education, social protection and a job. (Quoted in Kagame 2013)

According to World Bank statistics, life expectancy has risen from 47 years in 2000 to 55 years in 2011; GDP has increased from $4.7 billion in 2000 to $14 billion in 201110 and economic growth figures have been around 7-11% for the past decade (World Bank 2013). In terms of Human Development the UNDP reports that the HDI has improved from 0.314 in 2000 to 0.434 in 2012 (UNDP 2013). Moreover, Rwanda ranked 50 in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2012, the lowest in Africa after Botswana, which ranked 30 (Transparency International 2012). When considering its recent history, its geographic position in one of the world’s hotspots, its socioeconomic progress in the last decade, its relatively well-functioning state, and its low corruption figures and comparing these with surrounding countries, the term ‘Rwandan Miracle’ (Alipo 2010) seems appropriate. However, several scholars have shown that this miracle came at a price of serious issues associated with authoritarian rule. Reyntjens, for example, argues that, ‘the international community fell prey to the RPF’s spin, by allowing itself to be manipulated and by preferring to see Rwanda’s decent technocratic governance while ignoring its deeply flawed political governance’ (2011: 3). In our view this paradox makes the Rwandan case particularly relevant for development scholars and demands a nuanced assessment of the positive and negative contributions of the regime. In terms of human rights two things become clear. In a more narrow interpretation, with a focus on civil and political rights, Rwanda still faces major challenges. According to Human Rights Watch the legal system leaves open possibilities ‘for inappropriate prosecutions for “genocide ideology”. More­ over, freedom of expression and political space are still severely restricted. Members of opposition parties, journalists, and other perceived critics of the government were arrested, detained, and tried, some solely for expressing 10 GDP PPP (current international $) 4702099039 in 2000 and 14038049337 in 2011 (World Bank 2013).

192 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

their views’ (2012: 1). Furthermore, Amnesty International, while recognizing improvements regarding prisons, is very critical about ‘unlawful detention, torture and other forms of ill-treatment and enforced disappearances’ of people by Rwandan Military intelligence (2012: 7). President Kagame even acknowledged some of these issues in interviews (Der Spiegel 2010). In our view, however, many of the discussions of Rwanda’s track record in Human Rights take place in a highly polarized context where former enemies, frequently tracing back to the genocide era, accuse each other of misdeeds. In some sense, as the government has also attacked international NGOs and critical academics at home and abroad, this polarization is also present in academia. It is our aim, while not shutting our eyes to these serious problems that compromise Rwanda’s democratic system, to present a slightly more nuanced position by also taking into account the improved social and economic rights of the Rwandan population, particularly in terms of health, education, economic opportunities, and even security (Farmer et al. 2013; UNDP 2013; World Bank 2013; Transparency International 2012). However, notwithstanding these achievements major challenges remain. The population grew by more than two million in ten years – from 8.1 million in 2002 to 10.5 million in 2012 so that its population density is among the highest in Africa, with 416 people/km 2 (GoR 2012). As a result, the aim to enhance agricultural production remains high on the development agenda. And it is especially in this realm that authors like Ansoms (2009) and Reyntjens (2011) argue that the rural poor are suffering under policies designed by an RPF urban-based English-speaking governmental elite. According to Reyntjens, the regime shows too little concern for ‘the fate of the vast majority of its population made up of ever poorer peasants, and little awareness of the structural violence its ambitious engineering project engenders’ (2011: 2). As such, Ansoms accuses the Rwandan elite of a ‘lack of political will’ to actually deal with the issues faced by the rural poor (2009: 309).

In this chapter it is our aim to analyse these rural transformations where the Rwandan state and foreign donors, in this case the Koreans, play an important role. Why is it attractive for Rwanda to look East and what do the Koreans bring to the table? Looking East The value of Korean development knowledge and experience is recognized by many political leaders and government officials in Africa, like Ugandan finance minister Maria Kiwanuka: Korea has been where we are coming through […] Korea is about the only country that has graduated from being a major aid recipient to being a

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

193

major assistance giver over the last 50 or 60 years […] we feel that they can understand the problems that countries like ours face. (Sulaiman and Herskovitz 2012)

When African leaders look to the East, critics frequently argue that they do so because the Asians are not as critical about human rights abuses and more pragmatic in terms of providing assistance in exchange for resources. Particularly when considering the relationship between Korea and Rwanda, this type of argumentation is much too simplistic as our research will show. As an emerging donor Korea has recently begun to develop more concrete policies to share its development experience – rapid industrialization as well as democratization – with developing countries. In 2010 the Korean government approved the Strategic Plan for International Development Cooperation (Strategic Plan), while also announcing the Mid-term ODA Policy for 2011-2015. Based on this Mid-term ODA Policy, Annual Implementation Plans were devised to systematically translate Korea’s successes into useful development cooperation policies and practices. In this regard the Knowledge Sharing Program (KSP) is one of its flagship programmes (GoK 2012).11 Although Rwanda does not officially fall under the KSP, Korea’s recently released Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for the Republic of Rwanda 2013-2015 employs the same development discourse as Korea aims to assist Rwanda in ‘achieving sustainable growth and eradicating poverty through human resources development, promotion of ICT, and rural and agriculture development’ (GoK 2013: 5). For years President Kagame has been inspired by East Asian examples. In his 2011 speech at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan he, for example, stated that Korea ‘in the last half a century has moved from an aid recipient country to an industrial nation that is now supporting others to develop’. On the same occasion he explained that ‘the countries that have recently achieved prosperity understand well what it takes to get out of poverty and have relevant lessons for developing countries and donors alike regarding what works best’ and he called for a ‘strengthening [of] South-South Cooperation’ to bring ‘it from the margins to the centre of international development frameworks’ (Kagame 2011). In fact, President Paul Kagame’s visit to Korea in 2008 is seen by insiders as the start of a new era of cooperation. This was partly due to the good personal connection between UN chief Ban Ki-moon with Paul Kagame and Korean president Lee Myung-bak, as a highly placed KOICA official explained to us. This created a bond of trust that also became apparent in 11 Also see Korea’s Knowledge Sharing Program at http://www.ksp.go.kr/.

194 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

informal conversations with Korean ICT experts who described how Kagame put a lot of trust in the Koreans by contracting Korea Telecom to roll out an optical fibre system throughout the whole of Rwanda and by working closely with the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA) and asking them to share its expertise to set up a similar organization and infrastructure in Rwanda.12 But also in the field of rural development Rwanda is keen to learn from Korea, in particular Saemaul Undong to promote rural development, which we will focus on below.

Theorizing the State and Civil Society in the Context of Rwandan Development When theorizing civil society in a postcolonial country like Rwanda, characterized by a strong state, a dominant party (like the RPF), and a leader who many describe as having authoritarian tendencies, it is important to think through what the concept means in such a context. What complicates matters is the way in which Rwandan state actors and local groups and Korean development actors outline their development strategies by referring to ‘civil society’ in their own discourses of development. First, it is crucial to acknowledge that structures in society that scholars refer to as ‘civil society’ have emerged in a different historical and sociopolitical context than similar structures that have emerged in Western or Eastern Europe. We therefore agree with Mbembe, who is critical about the use of the concept in the context of the post-colony (2001). The fact that there are associations in postcolonial contexts does not mean that ‘a civil society exists’ (Mbembe 2001: 39). Thus, he warns against forms of unsophisticated transplantation of the term. In order to get a grip on these complex realities involving a powerful state, it makes sense to reflect on issues of power with the help of Foucault, who, albeit more than three decades ago, wrote an influential article in 1982, titled ‘The Subject and Power’. He urges us to understand ‘the state’ as ‘a new political form of power [that] has been continuously developing’ since the sixteenth century (Foucault 1982: 782). Foucault, who defines power as ‘a set of actions upon other actions’ (789), contends that many scholars only focus on the way the power of the state is mainly geared at ‘the interests of the totality’ (782). Indeed, in the case of Rwanda, with its strong leadership and a commanding development agenda like Vision 2020 (GoR 2000), it is attractive to overly focus on this aspect of state power. According to Foucault, 12 Also see Kanyesigye (2012).

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

195

however, the state should not only be recognized as ‘totalizing form of power’ but also as ‘an individualizing’ form of power (Foucault 1982: 782). In fact, in his lectures in the 1970s Foucault came up with the term ‘governmentality’, which is still influential and which captures both the governing dimension – ‘to arrange things in such a way that, through a certain number of means, such and such ends may be achieved’ (Foucault 1991: 95) – and the dimension of shaping the ‘mentality’ of the members of the population. In our view it is indeed useful to consider both dimensions of state power when studying emerging structures of civil society in the Rwandan context. To help us understand the contemporary influence and impact of the state in individual and collective lives, Foucault contends that ‘an old power technique which originated in Christian institutions’ has been integrated in the modern state (1982: 782). This technique he calls ‘pastoral power’ (782). In Rwanda the concept of pastoral power helps us to see how ordinary people and emerging structures of civil society are under state control. An obvious example illustrating this ‘pastoral’ reach of the central state is umuganda, a mandatory form of monthly community service for all Rwandans. In addition, the central state reaches down to the local level through the notorious imihigo (yearly performance contracts for government staff) to the local government level. Other examples, primarily aimed at improving people’s ‘mentality’, are the Nyakatsi eradication scheme – the campaign against thatched roofs – and similar campaigns against littering and street hawkers. These examples seem to confirm what Foucault has argued about the way in which ‘modern’ power relations ‘have been progressively governmentalized, that is to say, elaborated, rationalized, and centralized in the form of, or under the auspices of, state institutions’ (793). Let us look in more detail why Foucault came up with the concept of pastoral power. In the context of the church, he describes it, first, as a form of power intended ‘to assure individual salvation in the next world’. Second, besides a commanding form of power, it was also ‘prepared to sacrifice itself for the life and salvation of the flock’. Third, it was a form of power that did ‘not look after just the whole community but each individual in particular, during his entire life’. Finally, pastoral power could not ‘be exercised without knowing the inside of people’s minds’. It entailed ‘a knowledge of the conscience and an ability to direct it’ (Foucault 1982: 783). In its ‘modern state’ version, however, Foucault, argues that this kind of power is no longer directed at ensuring ‘salvation’ in the afterlife, but ‘rather ensuring it in this world’ as the state is concerned with health, education, security, etc. Simultaneously, according to Foucault, ‘the officials of pastoral power increased’ be it public servants but also ‘private ventures, welfare societies,

196 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

benefactors, and generally by philanthropists’ as well as ‘ancient institutions’ like the family. Finally, ‘the multiplication of the aims and agents of pastoral power focused the development of knowledge of man around two roles’ concerning the ‘population’ and concerning ‘the individual’ (784). According to Foucault this type of power is so influential that we have to contemplate how to deal with this ‘political “double bind”, which is the simultaneous individualization and totalization of modern power structures’ (785). In the context of this chapter we have to contemplate what this ‘double bind’ means for emerging structures of civil society. What will be the impact of forms of pastoral power that aim to shape the population as a whole but also people’s mentality? This is particularly relevant as Foucault also contends that ‘without the possibility of recalcitrance, power would be equivalent to a physical determination’ (1982: 790). It is exactly in this term ‘recalcitrance’ that we may discover and identify forms of action and counteraction that we have come to refer to as ‘civil society’ or at least emerging civil society. To be more precise, Foucault argues that ‘without the possibility of recalcitrance, power would be equivalent to a physical determination’ (790). Power – actions upon actions – exerted by state actors is targeted at and met by actions of individuals and groups. Authors like Purdeková (2011) are not very optimistic as she suggests that ‘the mere existence of NGOs and other formal or informal groupings [potentially hides] how government fundamentally moulds these, by attacking them for perceived dissention, or urging them to cooperate in the work of the state’. She contends that ‘the increasing permeation of the state into all aspects of life reflects the preoccupation with assuring alignment’ (Purdeková 2011: 493). In the context of this chapter we aim to discover how the Rwandan state and Korean development actors allow for the emancipation of local people and the creation of spaces for an emerging civil society through processes of individualization and totalization. Besides making use of Foucault, we will also use Edwards, who focuses on three dimensions when assessing whether we can speak of a ‘true civil society’ (2009: 124): good society, associational life, and the public sphere. ‘Theories of the good society’ help us to recognize how people search for ‘freedom and human progress’, ‘theories of associational life’ help us to understand how groups of people, non-state actors, organize themselves to achieve certain goals and ‘theories of the public sphere’ help us comprehend where and how negotiations take place and arguments are exchanged (124). In addition it is crucial to incorporate critical work on global civil society by authors like Kaldor (2003) and Chandhoke (2002), who remind us that Western-dominated international NGOs are frequently destroying and dominating indigenous forms of organization. In this regard it is interesting

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

197

to see whether Korean international organizations exhibit similar problems. Yet, interestingly, also in the light of the processes of globalization, the postcolonial Rwandan state is clearly recapturing, or at least strongly reaffirming, its primacy to define the rules of engagement in the country by, for example, governing the ‘mentality’ of donors active in development.

Saemaul Undong As one drives along the asphalt road in rural Rwanda, a big sign, reading Saemaul Undong and Mu Mudugudu Wa Taba (Taba Village13), displays three painted flags (the Rwandan flag, the Korean flag, and a yellow flag with a green plant – the Saemaul Undong flag) and points towards a shiny new community centre. The sturdy centre, constructed of yellow/brown brick and topped with a blue roof, is flanked by three tall flagpoles with the same three flags as on the sign. It comprises several offices, meeting halls/classrooms, an outside meeting area, and a children’s nursery. But what is this Saemaul Undong, exactly? ‘Saemaul Undong’, which translates into ‘New village movement’, was launched in Korea as a state-led campaign by the autocratic leader and ‘development hero’ President Chung-hee Park. Officially the campaign meant to modernize rural areas and to narrow the gap of living standards between urban and rural areas in the 1970s, based upon the three slogans or principles: ‘diligence’, ‘self-help’, and ‘cooperation’. Through thousands of community development projects Saemaul Undong mobilized and educated the majority of rural people.14 It is said to have positively impacted the rural areas in the late 1970s by accomplishing the goals of modernization, including improved roads, housing, water supply, and agricultural productivity as well as a changed mentality (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2003; Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2004; Park 2009). But according to critics, Saemaul Undong should also be understood as a typical state-run political campaign and mass mobilization project which served to rationalize the constitutional change for dictatorship and helped to legitimize emergency measures to suppress the democratic movement in the 1970s (Han 2004: 74; Park 2009: 131; Douglass 2013: 26). According to the Korea Saemaul Undong Center (2004), the Korean government at the time did not have the financial means to invest heavily in the rural areas, but instead distributed 355 sacks of cement to each of 13 This is a pseudonym. 14 At a later stage a factory Saemaul Undong focusing on the urban population was also introduced.

198 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

one of 35,000 villages. Village councils were responsible to mobilize additional village funds and particularly voluntary labour by the population to put the resources to good use. ‘Thatched roofs and mud fences were replaced with modern tiles and cemented walls. Roadsides were expanded, riverbanks were repaired, and bridges were built in rural villages’ (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2004: 2). During the following years villages were divided in three categories, depending on their progress, where especially the successful villages received extra resources. Besides a focus on physical infrastructure, agricultural improvement was put on the agenda whereby improved rice production was one of the goals. However, on a critical note, Park (2009) argues that the effect of these Saemaul Undong measures were limited in terms of alleviating poverty and raising rural incomes. He contends that ‘the increase in rural household income in the 1970s was mostly due to the heavy subsidization of rice prices by the Government and a steady increase in off-farm employment opportunities, neither of which were directly linked to Saemaul Undong’ (Park 2009: 117). Besides this important focus on infrastructure and agriculture ‘Saemaul Undong [was] […] not only an action based project, but also a mental reform based on the conviction that anything can be done and the will that we can do it’ (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2004: 5). Therefore, Saemaul Undong focused on three interrelated aspects: mental, behavioural, and environmental initiatives. The mental campaign focused on better relationships with neighbours and a stronger sense of community. In the behavioural campaign proper public conduct in the streets was emphasized with a focus on preventing public drunkenness. Lastly, the environmental campaign focused on cleanliness around people’s homes and businesses and promoting a cleaner village environment and developing greener cities and streams (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2004: 4-5). What is interesting here is the combination of a kind of mental ‘propriety’ linked to an ordered, clean, ‘modern’ physical environment. The role of the Korean state reveals aspects of Foucault’s ‘pastoral power’ that includes a totalizing as well as an individualizing dimension (1982: 782). In terms of the position of women Saemaul Undong is said to have had a positive influence on the situation and the roles of women in rural society. Simply by also involving women in solving the developmental challenges faced by the rural community ‘during a time where female involvement was limited, […] brought radical changes’ (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2004: 7-8). Especially the formation of women’s associations was said to have a positive impact on the role and recognition of the contribution of women in society (Das Gupta et al. 2000: 16). However, although Park (2009)

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

199

acknowledges these positive changes in conservative attitudes, he argues that the impact in terms of women’s rights and structural institutional changes was limited. This seems to be confirmed by the type of advice in the Saemaul Undong Handbook (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2003) guiding developing countries in the twenty-first century in implementing Saemaul Undong. It addresses the people directly by saying that when a woman considers a leadership position, among other things: you should ‘get consents and cooperation of your family (it’s especially important if you are a woman)’ (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2003: 24-25). This type of advice seems to confirm that although Saemaul Undong included women, it does not seem to pursue what one could call a feminist agenda. Since Korea propagates the spread of the New Village Movement, like for example in the recent ‘Saemaul Globalization Forum with African Ambassadors to South Korea’ (Tak 2013: 1), there is a danger that the problematic aspects of Saemaul Undong are not recognized or discussed. Some of these aspects, also mentioned by critical scholars, are even highlighted in the Saemaul publications. The Saemaul Undong handbook, for example, discusses one of the more problematic issues in the early phases, namely, the dominance of the government, in particular ‘standardized government planning based on the merit system’ (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2004: 8). The handbook also claims that there is too much attention on material wealth without enough attention being paid to the ‘environmental destruction along with the loss of tradition and culture’ that happens (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2004: 8). Finally, the handbook even warns that it is ‘based on the exclusive experiences in Korea and things are different in each country. So, there will be difficulties to apply them to your case exactly’ (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2004: 1). When considering the main elements of Saemaul Undong, one notices that the Rwandan government has pursued similar campaigns and programmes, focusing on infrastructure improvement, but also aiming at improving people’s ‘mentality’, like the Nyakatsi eradication scheme, the campaign against thatched roofs, and the campaigns against littering and street hawkers. Moreover, the principles of Saemaul Undong – diligence, selfhelp, and cooperation – resonate well with the development ambitions and programmes of the Rwandan government, like the Agaciro Development Fund, a solidarity fund to promote financial independence of Rwanda and umuganda, the monthly community service that all Rwandans are supposed to participate in. Therefore, Rwanda has recently actively embraced Korean Saemaul Undong pilot projects in several districts. In the following section the role and experiences of the Koreans in the field are discussed.

200 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

Koreans in the Field in Rwanda These young Korean volunteers, frequently recent university graduates, have diverse educational backgrounds, ranging from child welfare to geography to environmental engineering. in our interactions with them and with community members and local government officials several recurring issues emerged. Firstly, it was evident that the volunteers were highly motivated and showed a genuine interest for the Rwandan population and ‘way of life’ (frequently accompanied by the abovementioned critique of the pressures in Korean society). Secondly, it emerged that many faced language issues and there was a clear dominance of Korean culture in the projects. Thirdly, it became clear that hierarchical relations in the Saemaul team were an issue. Lastly, it appeared that many volunteers struggled with a lack of expertise. The Saemaul volunteers, who live in the local villages or neighbouring small towns, have become part of the community. As a local community leader told us: ‘we felt very happy that the Koreans arrived. Not often that Musungus have visited us. Now we are friends and we share everything with them’15 (Taba Focus Group Interview, 20 May 2013). In our research we also witnessed very warm relations between the volunteers and local people. Many seemed indeed to be able to live a slightly more ‘relaxed’ life with more time for the ‘human’ dimension. Asked what a volunteer had learned she said: ‘I enjoy life with the village people. To share, whether dealing with a problem or happiness. The feeling, the emotion’ (Taba, meeting with Saemaul staff, 20 May 2013). Although Korean volunteers seemed relatively rooted in the villages and open to Rwandan society, many experienced language problems. Out of roughly 50 Koreans and other Korean professionals active in Korean ODA in Rwanda that we met and engaged with, not more than 20% were fluent in English and only a few spoke Kinyarwanda or French16 at a very basic level. In particular, the older generation of retired Korean experts seemed to struggle with English. In fact, many felt embarrassed about their limited communication skills, as some could not even conduct a basic conversation in English. In our view this really seems problematic, as being engaged with local people in development requires excellent language skills. In the case of the Saemaul project in Taba village this problem was somewhat countered by hiring an outstanding local Rwandan interpreter who could translate from Kinyarwanda to English and 15 The Taba Focus Group Interview, 20 May 2013, was conducted with the help of an interpreter. ‘Musungu’ means ‘white person’ or ‘foreigner’ in the local language. 16 Rwanda switched from French speaking to English speaking in 2009 (McGreal 2009). As a result, the older generation is mainly proficient in French.

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

201

vice versa. However, this interpreter did not speak Korean. In addition, some of the communication materials seemed substandard; for example, a poster on the wall illustrating the three principles of Saemaul – diligence, self-help, and cooperation – described diligence as: ‘the big rich is from God and the small rich is from diligence’. This type of broken English is reminiscent of the language in the official Saemaul handbook in English: ‘“Diligence, Self-help, and Cooperation” is the spirit of invincible which made a myth of success in poor Korea’ (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2003: 9).17 Whether related to these language issues or not, in our view, it was remarkable that many of the Rwandan children, in several projects with a nursery component, greeted us in Korean and started singing Korean songs when we visited the various project sites around the country. It seemed striking that the Korean volunteers taught the Rwandan children Korean songs instead of Kinyarwandan or English songs. In addition, as we were received in many offices of Korean organizations and institutions in Rwanda, it was surprising that the local Rwandan staff immediately stood up and subsequently bowed to the guests, as our delegation entered the office. Lastly, it was interesting to witness that the KOICA staff in Kigali was served a Korean lunch every day. The above seems to indicate a certain ‘dominance’ of Korean language and culture in the Korean projects, organizations, and institutions. Another ‘cultural’ issue that especially young Korean volunteers struggled with was the hierarchy in most of the Korean Saemaul Undong teams, consisting of an elderly expert and several young volunteers, as described above. When discussing the functioning of these teams with the volunteers, several acknowledged that decision-making and communication was rather hierarchical, whereby the elderly expert generally had a dominant say. This ‘clash of generations’ was not always easy for the volunteers and one may ask whether this is conducive to the necessary flexibility and openness required in locally based development projects. The last issue that deserves attention concerns the fact that many volunteers lack the experience in the tasks and responsibilities they have in the Saemaul Undong projects. In Runda18 village the volunteer in charge of beekeeping studied geography at university, while the volunteer in charge of the pineapple farm studied environmental engineering. In Taba village the volunteer in charge of the livestock project had a degree in civil engineering, while the volunteer in 17 Another example from the Saemaul handbook is the last sentence of the preface that is meant to inspire the user: ‘We sincerely hope this book will come in pretty handy in your seeking for happiness and well being, in a humble measure’ (Korea Saemaul Undong Center 2003: 2). 18 This is a pseudonym.

202 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

charge of the women’s project has a degree in accounting, while the volunteer in charge of organizing the Kinyarwanda classes has a degree in management information systems. Concerning this lack of experience of young Korean volunteers, a Rwandan local government official19, close to one of the projects, told us: ‘my daughters are kind: I love them, but they can’t convince the population with skills they don’t have’ (). In our view, it is significant that this official refers to these young volunteers as ‘daughters’ as if speaking about children. Moreover, it becomes clear that the Rwandans are also concerned about the levels of expertise of young Korean volunteers. However, even the elderly team leaders often lack particular expertise, which is worrisome especially in case of the more high-profile projects like the Rice Model Farm that slots in with the Rwandan development priorities – productive and market-oriented agriculture (GoR 2000) – and clearly contributes to the national agenda. Moreover, for the Koreans, in the light of the Korean Saemaul Undong experience, partly based on improving rice production in the 1970s, a focus on rice also suited their development paradigm and agenda very well. In both Runda and Taba commercial rice farming was introduced in the marshland valleys and involved the establishment of a rice farming cooperative.20 In the two villages the rice projects were initially established by the Koreans on a trial-and-error basis as no real expertise was available. However, the Taba project soon sought advice from an established and successful Rwandan rice growers’ cooperative that already had relevant experience in growing rice and could provide the Saemaul Undong team with knowledge and advice on crop production, like suitable varieties, and advice on the establishment and running of an agricultural cooperative. In our analysis we focus on two interrelated goals. First, to increase income through commercial crop production and, second, to ‘empower […] the capability of farmers’ (KOICA 2012). To start with the most positive: the Rwandan farmers involved in the two rice projects are very enthusiastic and participation and commitment levels – hundreds of villagers have been very active in rehabilitating the land, constructing rice paddies, digging canals, and planting and harvesting and using umuganda to build a good access road – seem very high. In Taba, for example, a cooperative was formed that consists of 90 members. In Runda 300 people have now become involved in the rice project after a first year where only 50 people participated. In both villages the first yields were promising and sold on the local market while 10% of the yield was distributed to the households for consumption to 19 Interview with Local Government Official on 19/05/2013 in Kigali. 20 Other Saemaul Undong projects in these villages included beekeeping, sewing sanitary pads, introducing improved cooking stoves, literacy classes, etc.

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

203

the households. The proceeds were channelled in both villages towards the community fund into a sector-level savings and credit cooperative (SACCO). These SACCOs play a crucial role in the commercialization and professionalization of agriculture in Rwanda: ‘SACCOs at Umurenge level can play a significant role in savings mobilization, promotion of investment, economic growth and poverty alleviation’ (MINECOFIN 2009: 21).21 For the first few years, when the Koreans are still providing assistance, no funds are set aside, reserved, and used for inputs out of the rice sale proceeds. The idea is that by the time the Koreans leave, the community fund will serve as start-up capital for the rice cooperative. In terms of future yield projections, the project staff assumes that a yield of 5 tons/ha per cropping cycle is feasible, which seems realistic in the light of the National Rice Development Strategy (Period 2011-2018) (MINAGRI 2011: 20) that projects irrigated rice yields for Rwanda. However, these production figures assume levels of expertise and infrastructure of the highest standards. At face value these ambitious projections are wonderful, particularly in the eyes of the participating local farmers. On the positive side these two cooperatives are now organized in such a manner that the Ministry of Agriculture has also assigned relevant extension officers to the projects. However, what must not be underestimated, in our view, is the vast knowledge, local capacity, experience, management, and commercial skills that are needed to run a successful profitable agricultural enterprise, fully integrated in and dependent on the market for rice. In order to achieve the projected yields a near complete commodification of the rice growing cycle is required, including high-yielding hybrid rice seeds, an advanced technological package of mineral fertilizers and pesticides. This is not easy in a country characterized by limited storage capacity, an inadequate network for inputs, high post-harvest losses, limited farmer access to credit, relatively small mills, and competition from imported rice (MINAGRI 2011: 16-17). Regarding these hurdles it is also worthwhile to remember that the success of Saemaul Undong ‘commercial rice production’ in Korea, during the 1970s, heavily depended on government subsidies, guaranteeing high market prices for rice (Park 2009: 117). A last issue to critically consider in terms of commercial viability is whether agricultural cooperatives are the most suitable production entities. The ujamaa experience in Tanzania in the 1960s and 1970s, with classic problems around collective ownership, may also serve as an example to caution against too much optimism. An indication of the type of problems one can expect in Rwandan cooperatives is illustrated by the difficulties of the Nyiramageni 21 In 2008 the government decided that at least one SACCO would be established at the level of each administrative sector (umurenge) (MINECOFIN 2009: 4).

204 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

Cooperative, where farmers were disgruntled with the low prices they received for their unprocessed rice: ‘Wholesalers take advantage of us and pay low prices to buy our rice and later sell it at inflated prices’ (Umuhinzi 2012). As the Saemaul Undong rice projects in Rwanda are still in the establishment phase, it is too early to evaluate their long-term success. Only in the years after the Koreans leave will it become clear whether commercial rice production through cooperatives proves to be economically sustainable in Taba and Runda. One clear weakness at this stage seems the decision to let the Koreans pay for inputs. In our view it would be good for the members of the cooperative to start gaining experience by reserving funds for inputs and maintenance at an early stage. Another possible drawback of the rice projects is that the villagers are no longer able to practise subsistence agriculture in the marshland valleys, where they used to have their vegetable, cassava, and bean plots. As a consequence, new subsistence plots have to be cultivated on steeper slopes that are not as productive as the valleys. Furthermore, in terms of labour needed for these subsistence activities – as most labour is now used to cultivate rice – shortages may result, particularly in peak periods. Both factors may impact negatively on the self-sufficiency of the community in terms of daily food production. In our conversations with the Korean volunteers, experts, and community members the risks involved in becoming more integrated in ‘the market’ – at the same time less self-sufficient in terms of daily food production – did not seem to be critically discussed and considered by all concerned as the mirage of ‘development success’ paired with the potential of a higher cash income seemed to dominate the discourse. According to Shackleton et al., ‘the social dimension’ of subsistence farming in terms of its ‘safety net function’ is frequently ignored in Sub-Saharan Africa (2000: 2; also see De Janvry and Sadoulet 2011). This indeed seems to be the case in the two rice projects where the emphasis is on expanding cash income without taking into account the benefits of subsistence plots when it comes to protection against natural, economic, and political hazards. In terms of community and organizational/institutional development the Saemaul projects seem to have a positive impact. In the next section we critically look at this impact and whether it contributes to an emerging civil society in Rwanda.

Paradoxes of Development In this section we deal with the inherent paradoxes of development, a civil society in Rwanda that that may only be labelled as an emerging civil society

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

205

and the paradoxes in Saemaul Undong as a model for rural development in Africa. In development most actors have adopted a pro-‘civil society’ discourse. However, as critical scholars have shown, the IFIs, many TNCs and other powerful development actors frequently define civil society narrowly as ‘NGOs’ which in fact are frequently Western-dominated international NGOs. Rwanda has also embraced the discourse as is illustrated by the EDPRS 2 (MINECOFIN 2013). Among the several ‘[p]re-requisites for Accountable Governance to happen’ one of the key factors mentioned is ‘[e]nabling operating space for civil society and citizen participation’ (MINECOFIN 2013: 72). Although this operating space in Rwanda is rather limited due to a dominant government apparatus, displaying characteristics of ‘pastoral power’ with a totalizing and an individualizing dimension as described by Foucault (1982), it is not completely absent. What is clear, however, when employing the three dimensions – good society, associational life, and the public sphere – Edwards has proposed to assess the ‘maturity’ of a civil society (2009: 124), that Rwanda lacks most of the basic requirements. Rwandans cannot freely organize themselves outside the state, there is very little diversity in efforts to search for freedom and human progress and the public sphere is largely state-controlled. Korea exhibits a commitment to civil society as well since KOICA intends ‘to expand the capacity building programme for civil society organization (CSO) personnel, with an aim to create an enabling environment for enhancing the development effectiveness of partner countries and their civil societies’ (KOICA 2014). During our visits to Runda and Taba we conducted several interviews and engaged in participant observation in order to assess the contribution the Koreans are making in terms of supporting an emerging civil society. The daily struggles of the Korean volunteers are discussed in the next section. Supporting an Emerging Civil Society In our interviews with Korean NGO staff in Rwanda, the struggle with the dominance of the Rwandan state and the relatively limited room for local emerging civil society structures featured prominently. In order to obtain permission to start working Korean NGOs, like other NGOs, have to fill out a project proposal form that is submitted to the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC). MINALOC then decides where in Rwanda these NGOs can be active and with which designated local government entity they should work. As a Korean development actor told us: ‘Local government is very important we better respect them’. Although the Koreans at the same time praise the Rwandan state for its effectiveness, this dominance

206 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

and the relative absence of an ‘independent’ ‘civic’ sector, complicates the work of Korean NGOs, which is usually geared towards true promotion of participation and support to an emerging civil society. In one interview in particular, with the Korean coordinator of a project, this actually led to a sense of embarrassment. As this progressive Korean NGO brands itself in terms of being primarily engaged in community development and encouraging local people to participate in development – ‘for the development of civil society’ – we asked who was being trained in their capacitybuilding workshops – ‘To empower civil leaders’ capacity for improving local community’22? The answer – ‘We train teachers and local government officials’ – surprised us but also seemed to startle and embarrass the project coordinator, who admitted that this was quite problematic for an organization that does not brand itself as an NGO which trains government personnel but has, in fact, the opposite goal, namely to strengthen civil society. In another project, the Korean volunteer also acknowledged that the situation was complex. Yet, he also explained that there is room for manoeuvre and opportunities to stimulate ‘community’ organization and participation: ‘So when we do the project in a community, the first thing we do is organize a committee to discuss and to make a plan together, to share information about our project. It is called CDC, short for community development committee’. Although he admitted that local leaders, with strong ties to local government, do take part in and influence these processes, he explained that it does involve democratic processes: They are selected by community people last year by election, but it was open voting. So there is a candidate they can stand with some words, then at the singing of those words, the community people can stand behind the candidate, then everyone can see who has the most people.

Indeed, from a critical point of view one may emphasize the flawed nature of these elections in a public setting – with involvement and under the scrutiny of local government officials – which probably sways the voting behaviour of the local people involved. As a result the sector-level local government officials do seem to influence the CDC makeup and decisionmaking. However, the people involved are generally positive about the experience. For example, in a focus group interview with Rwandan villagers, it was stressed by a community member that ownership is stimulated by the Korean experts and, as a result, meetings were already held and decisions 22 The quotes are derived from a PPT shown by the NGO.

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

207

taken without the Koreans present. Another community member explained that the gender balance of the local leadership was positively influenced by the Saemaul Undong team: ‘Before, women had no right to speak out and be part of the leadership’ (Taba Focus Group Interview, 20 May 2013). It is especially the more small-scale development activities that allow for local structures to be set up and decision-making processes – an emerging civil society? – to evolve, as is explained by a Korean volunteer: It is a kind of capacity enhancement in the whole of the community […] So every time we implement some of the facilities like water or land terracing and others, we organize the field-level user committee from the beneficiaries, then if they are involved in many activities then they can have more ownership to this project by knowing something about this, right? […] Then, […] during the talking maybe they can find some problem regarding their living environment, so that next time they will start to talk how we can solve these issues, right? […] And, finally, if they make a success from the small agenda or issue in their community maybe after some time they will have the confidence for their success or achievement so that next time they will increase the scope or the size of their activities and then they will try again.

In fact, in this instance, the Koreans were able to resist the wish of the village development committee to also be involved in every user committee, like for example the water supply committee. As they believed it would centralize the governance structure and give too much power to the local leaders, they refused. As a result, more local villagers are now involved in these structures. This does seem to indicate that there is some room for what Foucault described as ‘recalcitrance’ (1982: 790). It is exactly this room for manoeuvre, this ‘intangible’ dimension of development, that the Korean volunteer deems the most important. The building of infrastructure, the provision of assets, is easy: ‘It is a matter of following the steps, the timeline, according to the plan’. Stimulating the creation of local structures that facilitate participation is much more trying, but as the volunteer indicated, very important and maybe even the most central: ‘The focus by [our organization] during this project is to train those committees to give them more chance to be involved in more activities. As many as possible during this project period.’ But reporting on these intangible results is much harder: The donors, they want to see the progress of their budget, right? It means it is related to the tangible activities. Normally when we do activities like capacity enhancement, normally it doesn’t cost really, just we can report the

208 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

number of meetings we have, that is all we can report […] Also, when I see the imihigo, the government’s contract over district level in [the] sector, they don’t have an interest in those intangible items, only for the tangible items. Even for the capacity enhancement, only how many trained we have, that is all, regardless of content or actual activities of those meetings or trainings.

And maybe here there is a blessing in disguise in terms of stimulating an emerging civil society in Rwanda. Besides the number of meetings and the number of people attending meetings and training workshops, the intangible character of the activities, involving work which is so central to how these Korean NGOs define themselves – promoting participation and the strengthening of civil society – makes them hard to report on. Thus there seems to be room for manoeuvre. Having attended several community meetings, for example during umuganda, it is, however, very clear that state influence through local government officials at sector, district, and village level is real and concrete. Particularly as every development activity is subsumed under national development plans and these officials have to report on their progress and the progress of the villages concerned through the imihigo. In fact, during umuganda the sector will send a message in advance indicating which activity is deemed most suitable for that Saturday – repairing the road, cleaning the village. However, in case there is a local emergency – say, someone’s house has collapsed – alternative plans can be put forward by the village. Furthermore, in the meeting after the umuganda activity is finished and those persons who were absent on that day are discussed – Should they be fined? – lively discussions take place about mitigating circumstances. Again, an albeit limited form of ‘recalcitrance’, as Foucault (1982) termed it, is illustrated here. In conclusion one can say that the government in Rwanda strongly guides where and how Korean NGOs do their work. However, our research also indicates that the Koreans are successful in stimulating local people to become more active participants in the development projects. And although the ‘pastoral power’ of the state is felt everywhere in Rwanda – in a totalizing and an individualizing sense as described by Foucault (1982: 782) – through local government officials, imihigo and umuganda, there is some room for manoeuvre for Korean NGO actors to stimulate local participation and organization, partly because the Koreans are not tainted by a colonial past in Africa. Nevertheless, one should be careful not to label these activities and forms of local participation unproblematically as ‘civil society’. Civil society as we know it in Korea or Europe does not exist. Yet.

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

209

The Paradox of Saemaul and the Paradox of Development Rwandan governance institutions and culture seem to resonate with what Korean organizations and volunteers are used to in Korea, since diligence, discipline, planning, and determination are stimulated by the Rwandan leadership. At the same time, post-WW II Korean history, with its tradition of authoritarian leadership, a top-down governance structure, and an emphasis on education seems to resonate well with the Rwandan government. In fact, this seems to partly explain the success of Saemaul Undong, which is promoted by Korea as a mythical development ‘story’ in Rwanda. In it General Chung-hee Park features as an autocratic but generally benevolent leader – compare Paul Kagame – who sides with the poor rural population and initiated Korean rural development, said to have been one of the drivers of the Korean ‘development miracle’. The more critical interpretations that stress the darker political dimension of Saemaul Undong – cynically formulated as buying rural votes – and relativize its development contribution are rarely heard in the campaigns to promote it as a model for development in Africa. According to one critical Korean scholar and former volunteer in Rwanda, this is highly problematic: ‘We need to study our past. If we continue to export our model of development we will do wrong.’ In fact, in our view, Korean history has so much more to offer. What about the struggle for democracy? The protest movements that fought for workers’ rights? The Gwangju Uprising? What about the blossoming of civil society and the way its development became intertwined with ICT and democracy (Nauta 2012)? Maybe, ultimately, it is these lessons, rather than such a sanitized version of Korean development history, that may prove to be most relevant to the future of Rwanda. Furthermore, it is interesting how the Korean development projects, meant to contribute to the ‘modernization’ of Rwanda, lead to contemplation among some of the volunteers. Several are critical about hyperconsumption, cut-throat competition, and alienation in Korea and value exactly the opposite aspects of Rwandan society – living close to nature, room for family and friendships, not yet being corrupted by capitalism – that may disappear as a consequence of development: I came here to support their development. Still, I am wondering [about] the real meaning of development, right? Because also I have a concept. Personally, I like the life close to nature with less consumption or materials. So when I see the people, they already know [how] to live under their living conditions. Because people are very adaptive to their circumstances and environment

210 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

and I like those manners, even though they don’t have enough material, or technology, but they are doing their best with their current condition.

Yet he does acknowledge his romantic view about living close to nature and is aware of the challenges and the negative side, such as: The level of medicine or the basic knowledge for food, or for their [problems in] life like hygiene. So some people are suffering from the bad diseases […] My basic concept of nature has been changed a little bit. Actually I like the life close to nature without anything like Thoreau, but I like it in Korea. But when I stay here in Africa, actually, you need at least something from our industrialization, like electricity and clean water by a public water pipeline. But the problem is much consumption like in Las Vegas in America, overconsumption. Because people have a right to live in a good way with clean water and a good educational system, so I think there is a minimum essential point for our life and rights as a human being. So I think if there is some level of those things in these kind of countries then I think we can support, or try to support those things, or try to encourage the local government to do those things for the community people. The reason I came here, again, if possible from my experience or by staying with them and talking and looking at those issues or things together I want to make them to use or to find the possibility from their environment. Just make them to start. Not change. That is difficult.

And this is exactly how most of the volunteers would explain that they are doing good. Stimulating rural development and supporting emerging structures of civil society.

Conclusion Although Korea has a long-lasting relationship with Africa, it has intensified its bonds with eight ODA partnership countries on the continent. In Rwanda, amongst other things like TVET and ICT, Korea is piloting Saemaul Undong, its home-grown rural development programme aimed to support the rural population by boosting agricultural production and stimulating local participation and organization. Saemaul Undong, characterized by diligence, self-help, and cooperation, resonates well with the development agenda – umuganda, the monthly community service all Rwandans participate in; the Agaciro Development Fund; imihigo contracts – of an ambitious and somewhat authoritarian

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

211

Rwandan government. It helps to explain the success of the almost mythical ‘development story’ that Korea is exporting to Rwanda, in which General Chung-hee Park features as an autocratic but generally benevolent leader – compare Paul Kagame – who initiated Korean rural development, said to have contributed to the Korean ‘development miracle’. But this chapter also shows the dangers of using a sanitized version of Korean development history, particularly in a context where the Rwandan state is so dominant. This chapter has shown that the work of Foucault (1982) has aided us to recognize the aspects of ‘pastoral power’ of modern Rwanda, characterized by the totalizing and individualizing dimension of this form of power. Moreover, when employing the three dimensions – good society, associational life, and the public sphere – that Edwards has put forward to assess the ‘maturity’ of a civil society (2009: 124), Rwanda lacks most of the basic requirements. Nevertheless, as our research has shown, Korean NGO staff and volunteers, although struggling and making mistakes in their efforts to support the Rwandan rural poor, do find ways to stimulate local organization and participation and, thus, stimulate forms of ‘recalcitrance’ that may ultimately prove to be the seeds for an emerging civil society.

Works Cited Alipo, J. 2010. ‘Kagame Recognised for Rwandan Miracle’. Mail & Guardian, 1 November. http://mg.co.za/article/2010-11-01-kagame-recognised-for-rwandanmiracle. Amnesty International. 2012. ‘Rwanda: shrouded in secrecy illegal detention and torture by military intelligence’. Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty. org/en/documents/AFR47/004/2012/en/ Ansoms, A. 2009. ‘Re-Engineering Rural Society: The Visions and Ambitions of the Rwandan Elite’. African Affairs 108.431: 289-309. Ansoms, A. and Rostagno, D. 2012. “Rwanda’s Vision 2020 halfway through: what the eye does not see”. Review of African Political Economy, 39-133, 427-450. Chandhoke, N. 2002. ‘The Limits of Global Civil Society’. In Global Civil Society 2002, ed. M. Glasius, M. Kaldor, and H. Anheier. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Das Gupta, M., et al. 2000. ‘State Policies and Women’s Autonomy in China, India, and the Republic of Korea, 1950-2000: Lessons from Contrasting Experiences’. Policy Research Working Paper No. 2497. World Bank Development Research Group, November. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/248321468771064560/ pdf/multi-page.pdf.

212 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

De Janvry, A., and E. Sadoulet. 2011. ‘Subsistence Farming as a Safety Net for Foodprice Shocks’. Development in Practice 21.4-5: 472-480. Der Spiegel. 2010. “Interview with Paul Kagame”. Der Spiegel, 6 July. http://www. spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-rwandan-president-paulkagame-we-are-far-from-exhausting-our-potential-a-704894.html Douglass, M. 2013. ‘The Saemaul Undong: South Korea’s Rural Development Miracle in Historical Perspective’. Working Paper Series No. 197, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, February. http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/wps/ wps13_197.pdf. Edwards, M. 2009. Civil Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Farmer, P., et al. 2013. ‘Reduced Premature Mortality in Rwanda: Lessons from Success’. British Medical Journal 346.f65: 1-7. Foucault, M. 1982. ‘The Subject and Power’. Critical Inquiry 8.4: 777-795. Foucault, M. 1991. ‘Governmentality’. In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, ed. G. Burchell, C. Gordon, and P. Miller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. G20 Information Centre. 2010. ‘Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth’. G20 Seoul Summit 2010, University of Toronto. http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/ summits/2010seoul.html. GoK. 2012. ‘Memorandum for the DAC Peer Review Republic of KOREA’. Seoul, Government of the Republic of Korea. GoR. 2000. ‘Rwanda Vision 2020’. Kigali, Government of Rwanda. GoR. 2002. ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper’. Kigali, Government of Rwanda. GoR. 2012. ‘2012 Population and Housing Census, Provisional Results’. National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, Government of Rwanda. GoR. 2013. ‘Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for the Republic of Rwanda 20132015’. Kigali, Government of Rwanda. Han, S.M. 2004. ‘The New Community Movement: Park Chung Hee and the Making of State Populism in Korea’. Pacific Affairs 77.1: 69-93. Horton, R. 2013. ‘The Rwandan Miracle’. The Lancet 382.9889: 294. Human Rights Watch. 2012. ‘World Report 2012’. Human Rights Watch, https://www. hrw.org/sites/default/files/world_report_download/wr2012.pdf Kagame, P. 2011. ‘Speech by H.E Paul Kagame, at High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness’. In the proceedings of ‘High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness’, Busan, 30 November. http://www.paulkagame.com/index.php/speeches/524speech-by-he-paul-kagame-president-of-the-republic-of-rwanda-at-high-levelforum-on-aid-effectiveness. Kagame, P. 2013. ‘President Kagame Receives UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President, Dr. Jim Yong Kim’. YouTube. http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=nfiYwwhA0OU. Video.

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

213

Kaldor, M. 2003. ‘The Idea of Global Civil Society’. International Affairs 79.3: 583-593. Kim, S. 2011. ‘Bridging Troubled Worlds? An Analysis of the Ethical Case for South Korean Aid’. Journal of International Development 23.6: 802-822. Kim, S. 2013. ‘Korea in Africa: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle?’. In Emerging Powers in Africa, ed. N. Kitchen. LSE IDEAS Special Report. London: London School of Economics, 51-66. Kinzer, S. 2008. A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It. Hoboken: Wiley. KOICA. 2012. ‘Saemaul Undong in Gihogwe’. PowerPoint presentation. Gihogwe, Korea International Cooperation Agency, Saemaul Undong Volunteers. KOICA. 2014. ‘Civil Society Cooperation’. Seongnam, Civil Society Cooperation Office, Korea International Cooperation Agency. Korea Saemaul Undong Center. 2003. How to Develop Our Village and Country: Handbook for Saemaul Undong Movement. Seoul: The National Council of Saemaul Undong Movement in Korea. Korea Saemaul Undong Center. 2004. Saemaul Undong – English 2004. Seoul: The National Council of Saemaul Undong Movement in Korea. Mawdsley, E. 2012. From Recipients to Donors: Emerging Powers and the Changing Development Landscape. London: Zed Books. Mbembe, A. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press. MINAGRI. 2011. ‘National Rice Development Strategy (Period 2011-2018)’. Kigali, Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Government of Rwanda. MINECOFIN. 2008. ‘Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy 20082012: (EDPRS)’. Kigali, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Government of Rwanda. MINECOFIN. 2009. ‘Umurenge SACCOS Strategy’. Financial Sector Development Secretariat, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Government of Rwanda. MINECOFIN. 2010. ‘Donor Division of Labour in Rwanda’. Kigali, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Government of Rwanda. http://www. devpartners.gov.rw/f ileadmin/templates/docs/Events/Development_Partners_Meeting__DPM_/2010_DPM/Background%20Documents/Division%20 of%20Labour%20(2010).pdf. MINECOFIN. 2013. ‘Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy 20132018: Shaping Our Development (EDPRS 2)’. Kigali, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Government of Rwanda. MOFA. 2013a. ‘Korea’s Initiative for Africa’s Development’. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Korea.

214 

Wiebe Nauta and Tae-Joo Lee

MOFA. 2013b. ‘Ministry News’. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Korea. www.mofa.go.kr/ENG/ministry/achievements/contributions/index. jsp?tabmenu=t_3. MOFA. 2014. ‘The ROK-Africa Relations’. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Korea. Nauta, W.W. 2012. ‘Democratic Deepening in South Korea and South Africa in an Age of Global Rebalancing: The Potential Role of Civil Society in the Era of Internet’. In Globalization and Development in East Asia, ed. J. Nederveen Pieterse and J. Kim. New York: Routledge, 182-206. OECD. 2010. ‘OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Welcomes Korean Membership’. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. http://www.oecd.org/dac/oecddevelopmentassistancecommitteedacwelcomeskoreanmembership.htm. OECD. 2011. ‘Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-Operation’. In the proceedings of the ‘Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, Busan, Republic of Korea, 29 November-1 December 2011’. OECD. 2012. ‘Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Peer Review Korea 2012’. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. https://www.oecd. org/dac/peer-reviews/Korea%20CRC%20-%20FINAL%2021%20JAN.pdf Park, S. 2009. Analysis of Saemaul Undong: a Korean rural development programme in the 1970s. Asia-Pacific Development Journal, 16(2): 113-140. Purdeková, A. 2011. ‘Even if I am not here, there are so many eyes’: surveillance and state reach in Rwanda. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 49(03): 475-497. Reyntjens, F. 2011. Constructing the truth, dealing with dissent, domesticating the world: Governance in post-genocide Rwanda. African Affairs, 110(438): 1-34. Shackleton, S., C. Shackleton, and B. Cousins. 2000. ‘Re-Valuing the Communal Lands of Southern Africa: New Understandings of Rural Livelihoods’. ODI Natural Resource Perspectives 62, November. https://www.odi.org/sites/odi. org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/2833.pdf. Stolte, C., 2012. ‘Brazil in Africa: Just another BRICS country seeking resources?’. Chatham House Briefing Paper, 1, p.9. Chatham House. https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/public/Research/Africa/1112bp_brazilafrica.pdf Sulaiman, T., and J. Herskovitz. 2012. ‘Africa Money: Africa Studies “Made in Korea” Model to Push Growth’. Reuters, 19 October. http://www.reuters.com/article/ korea-africa-idUSL5E8LH88E20121019. Tak, S.-H. 2013. ‘Gyeongsangbuk-do, Saemaul Movement “Let’s Go to Africa”’. Embassy of the Republic of Rwanda, Seoul. http://rwanda-embassy.or.kr/dboard/ dboard.php?PHPSESSID=4d4a77d798c51f9a0e31ced7b2fcf6b6&id=e

South Korean Civic Ac tors in Rwanda

215

ng_news¬ice_id=&s=&tot=&search=&search_cond=&no=78&print_no=76 &exec=view&npop=&sort=hit&desc=desc&search_cat_no=. Transparency International. 2012. Corruption Perceptions Index 2012. Transparency International. http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012. Umuhinzi. 2012. ‘Gisagara: Rice Farmers Denounce Rip-off from the Factory’. Umuhinzi, 20  January. http://www.umuhinzi.com/business/728/ gisagara-rice-farmers-denounce-rip-off-from-the-factory/. UNDP. 2013. ‘Rwanda’. Human Development Report 2013. United Nations Development Programme. http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/f iles/Country-Prof iles/ RWA.pdf. Wooldridge, M. 2009. ‘The New Scramble for Africa’, BBC Radio 4, 7 April. http:// www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jhxmk. Audio. World Bank. 2013. ‘Rwanda Country Data’. World Bank Group. http://data.worldbank.org/country/rwanda

8

Enhancing Asia-Africa Relations through Further Discourse on the Mobility of Africans to Peripheral Asian Countries The Outcome of Exploratory Studies from the Philippines Satwinder S. Rehal

Introduction Since the end of bipolarity in the early 1990s, the rise of new political and economic realignment has been challenging the monopolistic nature of the control of the international political economy mostly through trade, financial movements, and technological input by Western European powers, including the United States (Lumumba-Kasongo 2013: 120). Various types of political forces within this broad movement in most parts of the world are demanding the articulation of some forms of a multipolar world in political management of the world’s resources. It is the contention of Lumumba-Kasongo (2013) that this multipolar scenario opens up new options for economic development, political solidarity, and the emergence of a transnational civil society. Within this multipolar world, the transregional arena has for its part witnessed a strong growth of African-Asian interactions which may well have a decisive impact on the twenty-first century. Relations between Asia and Africa are rooted in the 1 st Asian Relations Conference, an ‘unofficial’ meeting of 28 Asian states that was held in New Delhi in 1947 and had but one African delegate, Egypt (Von der Mehden 1965: 344). The meeting dealt almost entirely with Asian issues, although these had wider significance. A later conference held in 1949 in Indonesia was again dominated by representatives from Asia while Africa had only two delegations, namely from Egypt and Ethiopia. At the 1st Asian Socialist Conference held in Rangoon in 1953, Egypt was the only official delegation from Africa with observers sent from organizations in Algeria, Tunisia, Kenya and Uganda, against eight Asian delegations including three from South East Asia (Von der Mehden 1965). The most cited conference bringing representatives from Asia and Africa together was that held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955. Attending the conference were 29 countries of which five

218 Sat winder S. Rehal

were from Africa, namely Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Libya, and Ghana (then called the Gold Coast) (Von der Mehden 1965). Apart from Egypt’s Nasser playing a role, albeit not as large as hoped, the rest of the African delegation was so ineffective that not one of its members was on the subcommittee on colonialism (Von der Mehden 1965). The final communiqué of the conference took up issues on apartheid South Africa and French North Africa, but it was largely silent on other questions relating to Africa (Von der Mehden 1965). On the other hand, several South East Asian states were very active. Indonesia, Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines all actively participated in discussions and special meetings, although there was disagreement among the South East Asian representatives on major issues before the conference, mostly on issues related to communists in general and China in particular (Von der Mehden 1965). All in all, the Bandung Conference of 1955 highlighted the shared colonial and historical experiences among nations from both regions during the ideological struggle of the Cold War. Lumumba-Kasongo (2013) states that the core principles of Asia-Africa relations espoused in 1955 were less ideological in nature, but rather, humanistic, with calls made for regional integration largely rooted in ideals of freedom, justice, and peace. It rejected a history of oppressive foreign intervention, and attempted to dismantle colonial legacies throughout both regions by uniting the diverse nations of Africa and Asia in order to operate outside the sphere of Western influence (Mulyana 2011). Leaders of African and Asian nations therefore envisioned to build a new Asia and a new Africa that would merge in harmony based on these principles (Mulyana 2011). As such, the source of cooperation stemming from the 1955 conference was less about economic or trade relations and more sociopolitical in nature. Optimism surrounding Asia-Africa relations rooted in the 1955 Bandung spirit slowly faded, however. Despite imperialism coming to an end in the 1960s, many newly independent African and Asian countries faced a new power dispensation that limited their total freedom with imperial colonialism being replaced with other forms of control that were equally oppressively structured within processes that Mulyana (2011) observes as extended economic control, intellectual dominance, and cultural imperialism. It became apparent that a significant majority of African and Asian nations became subjected to exploitation through the practices of global capitalism, rendering such nations especially susceptible to further control from the West. Accordingly, Asian and African governments have come to acknowledge that the ‘prevailing conditions in Asia and Africa necessitate the need to actively pursue a common view and collective action to ensure

Enhancing Asia-Africa Rel ations through Further Discourse

219

the equitable sharing of the benefits of globalisation’ (Mulyana 2011). In an effort to reinvigorate the Bandung spirit of 1955 and enhance new forms of cooperation between African and Asian nations, the city of Bandung once again hosted the first Asian-African Sub-Regional Organisations Conference (AASROC) in 2003, with the second hosted by Durban, South Africa, in 2004. Unlike that of Bandung 1955, these latest conferences outlined the first concrete steps to the adoption of the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership (NAASP) (Mulyana 2011) since both Asian and African countries had yet to attain commensurate progress in the social and economic spheres. While Bandung 2005 did not result in any formal, structured political or economic union or declaration, it highlighted significant areas of concern both regions face in the era of twenty-first-century shared challenges such as poverty. The meeting ultimately laid the groundwork for greater economic and political cohesion in the future (Mulyana 2011). Indeed, the emergence of new trade partnerships between Africa and Asia has come to challenge the status of classical international cooperation with trade increasing between the two regions from 14% in 2000 to 27% in 2008 (Lumumba-Kasongo 2013). China’s partnership, for instance, with its pragmatic socialism, that is socialism with a market economy, is covering new investment schemes in the construction-, agricultural-, health-, education-, mining-, and petroleum-related areas in Africa, which are in turn promoted through summits and frequent visits of the Chinese and African authorities. With regards to India, trade between the subcontinent and Africa has a long and distinguished history that dates back thousands of years to the days when Indian traders, using the seasonal monsoon winds, sailed to the east coast of Africa in search of mangrove poles, elephant tusks, and gold and gemstones that made their way up from what is now Zimbabwe. This intensified with the establishment of the Omani suzerainty in the seventeenth century over Zanzibar and its hinterland (Jacobs 2015). This was followed by phases of large immigration of Indian labour during the colonial period, brought over to work on the railways in East Africa, and on sugar and other plantations in Mauritius, Madagascar, and Southern Africa. Many descendants form the bulk of the Indian diaspora in Africa today. As the population of the diaspora grew, so did trade between their original homeland and their new-found habitat. Indians became critical links in the export of African commodities such as tea, coffee, and cotton and the import of manufactured goods and grains such as rice, pulses, and textiles (Jacobs 2015). Unlike with China, Africa enjoys a positive trade balance with the Indian subcontinent. India’s im­ports from Africa reached US$18.8 billion in 2009 while exports from India to Africa were US$13.2 billion in the same year.

220 Sat winder S. Rehal

Exports from Africa are typically raw ma­terials, including oil and minerals, while exports from India tend to be manufactured and finished goods, including transport equipment, industrial machinery, and pharmaceuticals. Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania are the most important destinations for Indian products in Sub-Saharan Africa (Jacobs 2015). The top six African exporters to India are Nigeria, South Africa, Angola, Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco that account for 89% of total African exports by value to India thanks mainly to exports of oil and gas, ores and gold (WTO/CII 2013: 16). In 2011, the top six had a trade surplus of over US$24.5 billion. Africa is an important source for India of precious metals and gemstones, especially gold and diamonds. India is the world’s major jewellery maker. In 2008/09, the gems and jewellery sector consti­tuted 13% of India’s total exports. Furthermore, India is the world’s leading processor of diamonds, accounting for 85% in terms of volume on the total world market. Gold in particular defines In­d ia’s economic relations with South Africa, the latter being the world’s leading supplier of gold (Jacobs 2015). The trend of Indian investment in Af­r ica is also positive. In South Africa, for example, cumulative investment between January 1994 and January 2011 was around US$212 million, and 102 Indian firms are now in operation in the country. Overall, In­dian investment in Africa is currently believed to be around US$33 billion (Jacobs 2015). These Asia economic interactions with Africa attest to what Lumumba-Kasongo (2013: 118) poignantly notes – that the twenty-first century will largely be controlled by Asia in a world that has become characterized by ‘uni-culturalism’ and the ‘free’ market economy. As such, growing concern (both outside and inside Africa) has been brought to the fore about an emerging new forms of dependency and exploitation, or even a form of ‘new colonialism’ generated especially by China’s and to an extent India’s recent intensified engagement in Africa (Lumumba-Kasongo 2011). Gravely missing from gains in economic exchanges between Asia and Africa is that of peripheral countries from South East Asia. This has been a trend in history as articulated by Von der Mehden (1965). Trade in the midtwentieth century was mostly with the then white-dominated governments of southern Africa, with Thailand and the Philippines in particular having honorary consuls in the Union of South Africa. Despite such minimal diplomatic relations, there was no particular correlation between diplomatic relations and trade activities (Von der Mehden 1965). Historically, there had been in no specific area of significant international relationship growth between Africa and South East Asia. Neither had there been extensive efforts thereafter to intensify relations, with the exception of Indonesia

Enhancing Asia-Africa Rel ations through Further Discourse

221

(Von der Mehden 1965). The only forum for continuing policy exchanges was at the United Nations, but, as Von der Mehden (1965) notes, the very size of the Afro-Asian caucus made some types of contact difficult. As such, diplomatic ties between Africa and South East Asia have historically been sporadic and erratic. The only country in South East Asia that in the first decades after its independence maintained a relatively close tie to some African countries was Indonesia, because of political and ideological reasons (Rubiolo 2014). Unlike in the past as outlined by Von der Mehden (1965), trade has today gained momentum between the two regions with South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria as the largest trading partners of ASEAN in Africa (Rubiolo 2014). In the decades after the Bandung Conference of 1955, relations between Africa and South East Asia halted. It was not until recent years that the trade and investment interests increased on both sides and generated a growing will for a rapprochement (Rubiolo 2014). In line with Lechini (2009), the failure of the neo-liberal precepts of the Washington Consensus and its pernicious effects have favoured the search of alternatives to achieve development different from those proposed by international financial organizations and central powers. Rubiolo (2014) notes that South East Asian economies, specially the most economically stable ones such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia, have deepened their search for partners in the developing world since the 1990s onwards. The 1997 crisis made it clear for these economies that depending on few Western developed countries would only exacerbate their vulnerability to external changes, highlighting the need for political and economic diversification (Rubiolo 2014). In addition, the world economic crisis that started in 2008 came to deepen this search for the diversification of links, given the profound impact the crisis had on developed countries. The international financial crisis highlighted, once again, the vulnerability that dependency on few Western partners generates in a scenario of instability. It also showed that South-South trade can be more resilient than other trade flows during global financial crises (Mikic 2014), making the search for diversification of partners an even more desirable goal. A renewed interest in interregional relations led to the 2nd Asian-African summit that was held in Jakarta in 2005. This event, meant to reinvigorate the Bandung spirit of 1955, brought together more than a hundred Asian and African countries (Balaburamanian 2005). This increasing trade relation has been accompanied by some political diplomatic initiatives, such as the AASROC (Asian-African Sub-Regional Organizations Conference), the NAASP (New Asian-African Strategic Partnership), and the interregional approach between ASEAN and the African Union. In addition, in the cases

222 Sat winder S. Rehal

of Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, there has also been a slight development in bilateral relations (Rubiolo 2014). From the South East Asia region, the two main state actors involved in interregional cooperation with Africa are Indonesia and Malaysia. Rubiolo (2014) notes that Indonesia is playing a central role in multilateral initiatives while Malaysia has played a more active role in the bilateral relations with selected African partners. Some initiatives from the Malaysian government towards African countries are the Langkawi International Dialogue (LID) and the Southern Africa International Dialogue (SAID). Both initiatives were launched in 1995 and aim to develop and strengthen relationships between Malaysia and the African countries. LID is an initiative that aims to promote ideas and experiences on development and economic growth to developing countries in Africa (and the Caribbean). Malaysia acts as a host for the dialogue and invites representatives from different sectors – both public and private – to discuss issues related to socioeconomic development. SAID is a follow-up and counterpart to LID, advising on the potential of the southern African area for Malaysian entrepreneurs (Rafeeat 2011). The Philippines, for its part, has joined the fray in enhancing its trade relations with South Africa, in particular. Formal diplomatic relations between the two countries were established on 1 November 1993, and high-level visits between the two countries were highlighted by the exchange of visits between former Philippine president Corazon C. Aquino and South African president Nelson Mandela in 1996 and 1997, respectively (Reyes 2012). Since 1994 the Philippines has had a resident embassy in South Africa. South Africa is the Philippines’ largest trading partner in the African region, with a total estimated trade volume of US$218 million in 2011 (Reyes 2012). As such, the two countries have held two high-level bilateral consultations, the first on 30 January 2013 and the second on 21 February 2014 (DFA 2014). Contemporary African interaction with Asia has been in large part characterized by trade and commerce with immigrants, being mostly merchants and entrepreneurs and the token diplomats and diplomatic staff who represent African missions in Asia. According to Haugen (2012), the rise in African migration to China took place in the context of strengthening relations between China and Africa. Migrants play a crucial role in SinoAfrican trade. In China, for instance, Zhu (2014) notes that Guangzhou has the largest African community in Asia, with at least an estimated 100,000 African immigrants, the result of a large number of African businessmen and traders, mostly from West Africa, moving to the city in the late 1990s. Most of these immigrants were involved with international trade, buying products in China, and selling them back to their home countries. Since

Enhancing Asia-Africa Rel ations through Further Discourse

223

then, increasing numbers of African businessmen from other parts of the continent have migrated to Guangzhou due to its status as an international trading centre as well as being one of China’s biggest manufacturing hubs. There were about 530,000 entries and exits of Africans at Guangzhou Customs (Yan, Niu, and Guo 2015). Crude estimates by local academics range from ‘more than 100,000’ (Bodomo 2010) to the more conservative 64,000 (Li and Du 2012). A number of local media reports estimated 200,000 (Yan, Niu, and Guo 2015). The African traders in Guangzhou represent a diversity of cultural and geographical backgrounds from Africa. Many are from West Africa but quite a few are from Central and North Africa (Li et al. 2008). In Xiaobei, the majority speak French, and others speak English, Arabic, and Portuguese, etc., while in Sanyuanli, the main language is English as most Africans in this area are Nigerian Igbo and Ghanaians (Li et al. 2008). Either way, the African community is very visible in Guangzhou, earning the area they concentrate in the title ‘Chocolate City’ by the locals (Yan, Niu, and Guo 2015). According to Haugen (2012: 66), the migration from Nigeria to China has come to epitomize the general trends in international migration. Of late, an emerging cadre of immigrants from Africa to Asia is that of African students and, to an extent, professional athletes. Sharma (2014) notes that the increasing demand for higher education, coupled with the financial power of a growing middle class in Asia, has fuelled the trend for students to pursue an overseas university education. Until the mid-1990s, the destinations of choice were English-speaking countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, but, by the beginning of the current decade, China, Singapore, and Malaysia were actively competing to become education destinations of choice for foreign students (Sharma 2014). Singapore, Malaysia, and South Korea are seen as ‘emerging contenders’ in attracting international students, primarily from other Asian countries, the report says. Meanwhile, China is planning to host 300,000 international students by 2020 and a number of other Asian countries are also setting ambitious targets. More surprisingly, the number of foreign students in the Philippines is rising, with the top consumers being South Koreans, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indonesians, Americans, and Iranians, as well as increasing numbers from developing countries in Asia and Africa (Sharma 2014). As with the cadre of students from Africa, estimates indicate that 380,376 African students were on the move in 2010, representing about a tenth of all international students worldwide and 6% of all African students. In 2013, some 50,000 Africans students were estimated to be studying in 500 public and private universities across India, with around 15,000 of them on Indian

224 Sat winder S. Rehal

and Commonwealth scholarships. Waruru (2013) notes that cooperation in the field of education has ballooned since the 2008 conference, with India setting up institutes and supporting programmes and welcoming thousands of African students who have enrolled at Indian universities, a situation last seen in the 1980s when African countries still had only a handful of public institutions and few or no private universities. The India-Africa Forum held in Delhi in 2008 envisaged closer economic and cultural ties in a ‘soft power’ move seen by analysts as an effort by the emerging South Asian giant to make its mark alongside China (Waruru 2013). India’s approach to relations with Africa is focused on the areas of knowledge transfer and bilateral trade. With an envisaged increased cooperation under the aegis of the India-Africa Summit, the number of African students travelling to the subcontinent is expected to grow in the future, notably through Indian government scholarships. India, for instance, accommodated 1500 Africans studying on Indian government-funded programmes in 2011 and this figure is bound to increase (Ferdjani 2012: 13). China has, for its part, witnessed an increase of 20% every year since 2003 in the number of African students coming to study in the country (Ferdjani 2012). In 2005, Chinese universities hosted 2757 African students and in 2006, this number reached 3737, which represents an increase rate of 40%. In 2009, The Ministry of Education reported that there were 12,436 African students in the country (Ferdjani 2012: 10). While African students have been migrating to China since the establishment of diplomatic relations with African countries following the 1955 Bandung Conference, Ferdjani (2012: 11) notes that a clear boost was given to the phenomenon by various incentive policies notable of which are government scholarships instigated by the Chinese government from the 1st Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC I) held in Beijing in 2000. A follow-up to FOCAC I was FOCAC II on the Beijing Action Plan’s commitments in education, one of which China’s promise to support an increase in the number of Chinese government scholarships for Africans students. FOCAC III set the trend, and China extended its scholarship policy since then. In 2006 alone, 21.9% of the total of Chinese government scholarships was allocated to Africa (Ferdjani 2012). As such, the Chinese scholarship incentive is of key importance in accounting for the growth of the African student population in China. Although there is limited reliable data, it is estimated that an additional 16,500 African scholars went to China between 2009 and 2011. That would thus count for an estimated total of 28,500 African students in China by 2012 (excluding those who are privately funded) (Bodomo 2009). As China has emerged as an economic world leader, it has also become an attractive country for a mix of Africans migrants,

Enhancing Asia-Africa Rel ations through Further Discourse

225

notably traders, students, and tourists. Of the latter category, approximately 1.9 million travellers from Africa visited Asia-Pacific destinations in 2010, up 8% from 2009. This increase was, however, still short of the two million mark seen in the pre-economic recession period of 2007. The continued rise of African carriers in the past decade has been crucial in driving the increase in travel between Africa and the Asia-Pacific region by providing more direct links between the continents (NYU Africa House 2011). Poli (2010) notes that while the global presence of professional African footballers remains limited in the Americas and Oceania, they are very numerous in Asia. For example, Poli highlights the transfer networks which exist between different African countries and India. In 2005, twelve footballers from six African countries (South Africa, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, Benin, and Zimbabwe) played in Indian clubs. One can also find several dozen African players in many other countries of Asia such as China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia (Poli 2010). A few African footballers reportedly commute each year between different Asian countries. A dozen players, for example, take part in the Bangladeshi championship, where the season lasts only from July to September. The rest of the year most of them also play in the Hong Kong championship (Poli 2010). Akindes’ (2013) research on African football migration to South Asia and South East Asia attempts to examine the particularities and the impact that the Asian paths of migration have had on the emergence of the semi-peripheral football economy located in the sub-region. Over fifteen African nations are represented in various leagues in South and South East Asia by prospective players seeking a football career (Akindes 2013). The migration of African footballers towards South and South East Asia since the mid-1990s is a significant and invisible effect of the overall migration of African football labour globally, especially to the lucrative league of Europe. Akindes (2013) notes that there are a noteworthy number of African players in Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh, and Vietnam, with Nigerians making up the largest proportion, followed by Cameroonians and Ghanaians. The historical evolution of football in the geographical areas of Europe and Africa did not foretell the development of the peripheral regions of Asia becoming one of the main destinations of African footballers at the end of the twentieth century (Akindes 2013). Beyond football is the phenomenon of African-born track-and-field athletes representing Asian countries. Rutherford (2014) reports that at the Guangzhou Games in 2010, all six medallists from the men’s 5000-metre and 10,000-metre races were born in Africa. However, most if not all of these athletes are citizens of oil-rich Gulf States, including Bahrain, Qatar, and the United

226 Sat winder S. Rehal

Arab Emirates. There are also African athletes training in and competing for other Asian countries, Japan being a notable case (Finn 2015). Like their football counterparts who commute each year between different Asian countries, there are a number of African marathon runners making a living throughout South East Asia by competing in local races (Donald 2008; Dewi 2013; Nair 2014; Rosal 2014). It thus comes to the fore that athletes are an added cadre of migrants to the traders, entrepreneurs, students, and tourists forming the African-Asian cultural mosaic.

Background The Philippines and Africa Lim (2014) notes that compared to its ASEAN counterparts, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia, the Philippines lags behind in terms of influence and exposure in African countries. Lim (2014) categorically notes that there has been no significant Philippine foreign policy vis-à-vis the continent, aside from the protection of overseas foreign workers (OFWs) mostly in North Africa (Lim 2014). Currently, the country has only five permanent embassies in a continent of 54 states. The Commercial/Trade Office that was established in Johannesburg, South Africa, closed down in 2002, transferring all forms of trade relations with the whole continent under the directorship of the commercial attaché in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (Lim 2014). Lim (2014) attributes three fundamental reasons for the low level of relations between the Philippines and Africa in general; first, that the sheer geographic distance between Africa and the Philippines means that their strategic and core interests rarely intersect. Philippine foreign policy realities recognize ASEAN, China, Japan, the United States, and the EU as key actors in the Asia-Pacific region, underscoring the lack of attention to other regions. Second and on an economic front, poorly developed infrastructure and transportation links, as well as lack of economic contacts, suggest that the costs of economic relations outweigh the benefits. And third, there are far fewer Filipinos living in Sub-Saharan Africa compared to other regions. According to 2007 estimates, there were only 4500 and 2200 Filipinos, respectively, living in Nigeria and South Africa, the two largest African economies (Lim 2014). On the other hand, Sykes (2014) opines that a 2010 census indicated an estimated 2573 people from African countries who were residing in the Philippine and where this figure may rise to 3,000 by 2015. As such, there is an emerging scholarship

Enhancing Asia-Africa Rel ations through Further Discourse

227

on African mobility in Asia, particularly in China, India, and even Japan (Agyeman 2013). However, the same cannot be in reference to peripheral Asian countries such as the Philippines. Given such limited scholarly research on this trans-regional relation, there is need to explore discourses on African mobility to peripheral Asian countries that have limited historical relations with Africa in general in order to show cause for more dialogue on intercontinental collaboration. It is therefore the contention of scholars such as Lim (2014) that more comprehensive research needs to be done regarding Sub-Saharan Africa and the region’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges in relation to Philippine interests, especially at a time when the international community is increasingly preparing for a new ‘scramble’ for Africa. This chapter therefore narrows in scope by contextualizing the discussion to two emerging processes of African mobility to the Philippines, specifically that of African student mobility in higher education and in sports (soccer). This chapter is informed by three exploratory case studies from the Philippines carried out by Rehal, Paruginog, and Bartillo (2012), Rehal (2013a), and Rehal (2014). These are foundational qualitative studies as no prior researches have been done in the context of the Philippines regarding the migration of Africans in general to the country. Methodologically, these studies were based on qualitative semi-structured interviews and literature reviews. This chapter is in line with the aims of the 1st AADUNAFRASO Conference that seeks a more systematic overview of the empirical dimensions and analytical implications of multifaceted and conflicting processes in Asian-African relations. Therefore, the analytical discussions are done in answering the following core questions: What is new about Asian-African interactions in the context of peripheral Asian countries like the Philippines? Do they follow specific patterns? How can they be characterized and analysed? Do they give rise to mutually beneficial modes of cooperation, or do they produce new asymmetries? African Student Mobility in the Philippines The Philippines has its share of African students (Sharma 2014; Rehal, Paruginog, and Bartillo 2012). For the period 2004-2011, there were an estimated 1,295 African students in the country. The top three African countries sending students were Sudan (345 students, or 26% of the total), Nigeria (246 students, or 19%), and Kenya (179 students, or 14%). The remaining six countries sending students were Eritrea (83 students, or 6%), Ghana (63 students, or 5%), Ethiopia (60 students, or 5%), Somalia (43 students,

228 Sat winder S. Rehal

or 3%), Rwanda (37 students, or 3%), and Tanzania (36 students, or 3%) (Rehal, Paruginog, and Bartillo 2012). The students are mostly found in Manila, Cebu, Davao, and Baguio. Other African students in the country worth mentioning include those from Angola, Cameroon, Zambia, Egypt, Congo DRC, and Uganda (Rehal, Paruginog, and Bartillo 2012). This result to some extent contradicts the belief that African students tend to migrate to countries that were formerly their colonial masters, largely because of derived cultural capital, language facility, and a somewhat shared history, as postulated by Mulumba, Obaje, Kobedi and Kishun (2008), and Maringe and Carter (2007). Mobility to the Philippines among African students does not therefore follow nor does it necessarily reproduce patterns of colonization. This pattern is synonymous with that portrayed by Sugimura (2008), which shows student mobility around the world as no longer as linear a process as it was in the early years of the twentieth century, but one that is more multidimensional and where, as a consequence, there are a variety of mobility routes. While the linear framework may still be active, the new actors (Middle Eastern and African nations) have started to send students to Asian countries as well as to traditional destinations in the West (Sugimura 2008). The exploratory case study done in the Philippines (Rehal, Paruginog, and Bartillo 2012) shows that the country has certain advantages in terms of attracting African students as a result of the market-driven internationalization of higher education. Of particular advantage is the American standard of education that is found in the Philippines, the quality of in-demand courses (such as electronics and communications), its flexible and friendly immigration requirements, the perceived relative absence of racism or ethno-racial stereotyping (in contrast to China and India), and the general aesthetics of living in the country compared to other destinations (such as the Middle East). The Philippines has few formal educational promotion programmes in Africa, so informal referrals are the main medium of promoting study there (Rehal, Paruginog, and Bartillo 2012). The exploratory study raises initial awareness of key government agencies and accrediting bodies regarding the presence and needs of African students in the country away from the traditional student target sources, such as South Korea, China, and India. This attention is deemed not only beneficial to education-related agencies but to the country as a whole by improving the educational system to meet set international standards and therefore make the Philippines competitive with the rest of the world in attracting diverse international students.

Enhancing Asia-Africa Rel ations through Further Discourse

229

African Soccer Player Mobility in the Philippines Sport, in particular football, constitutes one of the most dynamic, sociologically illuminating domains of globalization. Football has been the world’s most popular sport, at least since the late nineteenth century, aided in large by international diffusion by the British colonial legacy where at present, the ‘global game’ spans culturally diverse societies in all continents. The Philippines has not been spared the ‘contagious effect’ of the ‘global game’, especially coming after a series of successes of the men’s national soccer team, the Azkals, in a number of high profile regional matches since 2010 (Rehal 2013b). Support for soccer in the Philippines is, however, best seen in the country’s premier semi-professional domestic club soccer competition, the United Football League (UFL). Henson (2009) reports that the elevation of the quality of play in the country’s premier football domestic league was significantly attributed to the influx of foreign players, a move seen as a positive step towards the development of a competitive domestic league and national team. There is a lack of reliable data on the actual number of African soccer players plying their trade in the Philippines. However, one can extend Akindes’ (2013) study to the context of the Philippines in noting that African soccer players in the Philippines can be distinguished between the following cadres: ‘ambitionist’, ‘nomadic cosmopolitans’, ‘settlers’, ‘mercenaries’, and even ‘victims’ (of human trafficking) (Rehal 2014). The supply channel to the Philippines of African football players is in agreement with what Akindes (2013) observes is the spontaneous footballer migration often generated by unscrupulous agents and unemployed football migrants, a common pattern in the African-European migration scene. A similar pattern is now evident in Asia, which has comparable social and legal characteristics, including evidence of ‘freelance players’ who commute from one league to another due to induced unemployment or underemployment. The ‘Other’ Cadre of Africans in the Philippines There is a mixture of ‘other’ African typologies in the Philippines from the ones classified above. These include diplomatic personnel, expatriates working with international agencies, and private consultants. There is need for disaggregated data from the Bureau of Immigration on the actual number of such migrants to come up with distinct numbers. On the negative end of the spectrum, a number of Africans in the Philippines belong to the criminal category. The Western African Drug Syndicate (WADS) is a well-financed international operation active mostly in South

230 Sat winder S. Rehal

East Asia, which made inroads into the country years ago (Torres-Tupas 2015). Authorities have noted that this syndicate is composed of different nationalities, but most of the arrested members or reported recruiters are predominantly Nigerians (Torres-Tupas 2015). Data from the national security organs can complement that from the Bureau of Immigration to come up with a comprehensive estimate on the number and cadre of Africans in the Philippines. A similar narrative is emerging in countries as Malaysia (Abdullahi 2013) and in the wider region (Janssens 2012). It is reported that there has been a surge in methamphetamine smuggling between Africa and South East Asia since 2008. In Malaysia, the number of arrested drug couriers from West Africa almost doubled in 2010 while in the Philippines 23 people associated with African drug traff icking organizations were arrested from January 2010 to June 2011 (Janssens 2012). Such an unfortunate scenario of transnational crime comes with the related risk of stereotyping Africans as drug traffickers among other negative labels. Recent cases indicate that Iranian drug kingpins have made serious moves into the region with 116 Iranians out of 557 suspected foreign traffickers being arrested in Kuala Lumpur in 2010 alone (Janssens 2012). The trend goes with an increase in globalization and South East Asia has become entrenched into the wider transnational organized crime system (Degenhardt 2012), which of course does not necessarily implicate any particular ethnic or racial group.

Discussion This discussion is focused on answering the following thematic issues: What is new about Asian-African interactions in the context of peripheral Asian countries such as the Philippines? Do they follow specific patterns? How can they be characterized and analysed? Do they give rise to mutually beneficial modes of cooperation, or do they produce new asymmetries? New Trends in Asian-African Interactions in Peripheral Asian Countries From the case described in this chapter, it is evident that emerging trends indicate that Asian-African interactions are including peripheral Asian countries in the equation. The Philippines, a country that historically does not have strong socioeconomic and political ties with Africa, is attracting a sizeable number of Africans, specifically in the higher education sector, and the newly emerging area of sports. Mobility of African students in the

Enhancing Asia-Africa Rel ations through Further Discourse

231

Philippines does not follow nor does it necessarily reproduce patterns of colonization. According to Maringe and Carter (2007), African students tended to migrate to countries formerly included as colonies of the same European power as their own, largely because of derived cultural capital, language facility, and a somewhat shared history. Thus, postcolonial associations are a significant influence on international student mobility. The current pattern is disrupting such colonially linked patterns. Sugimura (2008) shows that student mobility around the world is no longer a linear process as it was in the early years of the twentieth century but one that is more multidimensional. As a consequence, there are a variety of mobility routes. While the linear framework is still active, the new actors of Middle East and African countries have started to send students to Asian countries as well as to Western countries (Sugimura 2008). The most striking features of the globalization of higher education have therefore been the rapid growth in the number of students studying abroad. In this educational landscape, peripheral Asian countries are drawn into the market as they observe the rising numbers of foreign students going to the Philippines, a group that includes, among others, consumers from Africa (Sharma 2014). Likewise, the trend of African football players in the Philippines, and South East Asia in general, counters the theory that African football players are captured by existing migratory patterns determined by history and culture (Scherrens 2006-2007). The link between Europe and Africa indeed is one strongly rooted in colonial legacies (hence migration to Europe based on former colonial relations) whereas to Asia, this colonial legacy does not apply as mobility to the latter region is a characteristics of the fluid nature of contemporary globalization. In discussing the recruitment and trajectories of African players in Asia, De Latour (2010) argues that the trajectories are more independent and self-driven. The recruitment paths in Asia and in its peripheral sub-regions are therefore different to those of Europe in that recruitment to Asia is highly characterized by an ‘unofficial’ and ‘illegal’ path (Akindes 2013). From the historical evolution of football in the geographical areas of Europe and Africa, no prediction would have seen the peripheral regions of Asia becoming one of the main destinations of African footballers at the end of the twentieth century (Akindes 2013). The analysis of soccer migration to peripheral Asia economies such as the Philippines in effect illustrates that the emergence of semi-peripheral economies in the modern world system is indeed reshaping the ‘modern football world system’ which is usually shrouded in a Eurocentric system of references (Darby 2002).

232 Sat winder S. Rehal

Cooperation or Asymmetric Relations The internationalization of higher education institutions in the Philippines as well as trends in the sporting sphere is a consequence of the continued globalization of economies. With regard to student mobility, Angeles (2009) argues that the staggering number of foreign students crossing borders is the result of processes of globalization which has in effect demanded the improvement in the quality of education, increases in the quantity of graduates, efficiencies in the way institutions are managed and producing graduates and professionals ready to be hired by internationalized economies. The country has indeed come to recognize international higher education’s role in augmenting its national capacity for development as it relates to other countries. In this regard, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) in 2014 acknowledged partnership between the Philippines and foreign institutions as important towards improving the quality of education in a globalized world (Alcober 2014). Within the internationalization of the education sector, the importance of linkages and collaborative arrangements with foreign countries at various levels is needed so as to enhance training for a globalized world, particularly on the need for new skills, notably the ability to understand and communicate across multiple cultures beginning with the knowledge of one’s own culture (Alcober 2014). The Philippines has already forged bilateral agreements related to education with various countries across various continents (Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Poland, Spain, and Turkey). Negotiations are underway for the renewal of agreements with Armenia, Germany, Hungary, Norway, United Kingdom and Turkey (Alcober 2014). It is clear that Africa is left out of this partnership picture within the context of the Philippines and an area that needs further deliberation. As such, adoption of frameworks such as that in Europe under the Lisbon Recognition Convention adopted in 2005 to facilitate the recognition of joint degree qualifications (EUA 2004) can be mooted under a South-South agreement. Such collaborative initiatives between Asian and African institutions may aid in stemming brain drain-related mobility as well as balance any unfavourable relative advantage Asian institutions have over their African counterparts in the flow of international students from their respective regions. Such an effort should include the development of indicators for analysis of African and Asian international student mobility. This approach can be coupled further by adopting measures proposed, for instance, in the International Student Mobility Charter, which calls for institutions, regions, and governments to facilitate mobility and guarantee that international students are protected when studying abroad (EAIE 2014).

Enhancing Asia-Africa Rel ations through Further Discourse

233

In the football sphere, Ben-Porat and Ben-Porat (2004) argue that the impact of globalization focuses on three central flows: capital, labour, and culture. The general assumptions are that the impact of globalization may be uneven and certain flows may be more dominant than others. This assumption leads to arguments that pertain to the Philippines, notably that despite its peripheral status, soccer is steadily growing, especially at the club level, where aggressive club recruitment has continued from both foreign and local talents with clubs presently possessing a mosaic of players from diverse ethnicities and nationalities, including Africans. The link between Europe and Africa is one rooted in colonial legacies (hence migration to Europe based on former colonial relations) and modern-day neo-liberal exploitation, the latter illustrated by European clubs increasingly setting up local training centres in Africa, which at first sight seems to be a grassroots impetus for a structural development in terms of infrastructure and youth training (Scherrens 2006-2007). For Asia, and the Philippines in particular, this colonial legacy does not apply, whereas mobility to the region is a characteristic of the fluid nature of contemporary forces of globalization. The emerging trend of African players in the Philippines, and South East Asia in general, counters the theory that African football players are captured by existing migratory patterns determined by history and culture (Scherrens 2006-2007). The Philippines is the new ‘turf’ which allows for further research on the topic as the country embarks on its pursuit to becoming a regional soccer hub (Rehal 2013b).

Conclusion Asia and South East Asia, in particular, have of late witnessed an emerging trend in the mobility of Africans, specifically in the higher education sector and to an extent in sports. These patterns allude to shifts in the theoretical orientation from the traditional linear flow determined by regional identities and shared histories towards a more transnational one determined by economic market demands. Trends in African student mobility, for instance, are showing an increasing shift towards Asia from traditional host countries in Europe and the Americas where higher education in general has become the focus of intense policy and geopolitical interest in its role as an engine of economic growth and innovation. Such successful economies are deemed to be those which can develop and exploit new knowledge for competitive advantage and performance through investment in the knowledge base, intellectual assets, research and development, software development, new

234 Sat winder S. Rehal

process innovations, and human and organizational capital. For their part, migration of African athletic talent has also diversified from simply Africato-Europe routes and now includes intra-African paths, as well as outward movement to both North American and, most recently, Asian routes. With Ethiopian Airlines becoming the first African airline with a direct link to the Philippines (Mercene 2015) and the Philippines hosting five fully fledged African embassies (Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa) (DFA 2015b) and 22 African consulates represented by honorary consuls (DFA 2015a), interregional exchanges are expected to be greatly enhanced. The relatively recent patterns of transnational mobility of Africans to peripheral Asia countries like the Philippines provides a unique and promising point of entry into a broader discussion of trans-regional migrations between Africa and Asia. This chapter therefore shows cause for more dialogue and intercontinental collaboration between Africa and peripheral Asian countries in furthering the discourse on Asian-African relations. However, doing this requires, for a start, concerted efforts to support comprehensive research regarding Africa in relation to the interests of peripheral Asian countries, such as the Philippines. All of this comes at a time when the international community is increasingly preparing for a new ‘scramble’ for Africa.

Works Cited Abdullahi, N. 2013. ‘African Migrants Aspire to a Better Life in Asia’. Deutsche Welle News, 15  August. http://www.dw.com/en/african-migrants-aspire​ -to-a-better-life-in-asia/a-17014189. Agyeman, E.A. 2013. ‘African Migrants in Japan: Social Capital and Economic Integration’. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 24.4: 463-486. Akindes, G.A. 2013. ‘South Asia and South East Asia: New Paths of African Footballer Migration’. Soccer & Society 14.5: 684-701. Alcober, N.A. 2014. ‘CHED Cites Need for Global Partnership in Education’. Manila Times, 14 February. http://www.manilatimes.net/ched-cites-need-for​ -global-partnership-in-education/75777/. Angeles, E.Y. 2009. ‘Student Mobility in the Philippines’, in the proceedings of the 17 th SEAMEO RIHED Governing Board Meeting and Back-to-Back Regional Seminar on Student Mobility in Southeast Asia, 17-18 August, Kuala Lumpur. Ben-Porat, G., and A. Ben-Porat. 2004. ‘(Un)Bounded Soccer: Globalization and Localization of the Game in Israel’. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 3.9: 421-436.

Enhancing Asia-Africa Rel ations through Further Discourse

235

Bodomo, A. 2009. ‘Fresh Faces for Future Africa-China Relations: A Note on the Experiences of Newly Arrived African Students in China on FOCAC Funds’. In the proceedings of the ‘Symposium on Reviews and Perspectives of Afro-Chinese Relations’, Institute of African and West Asian Studies/Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing. Bodomo, A. 2010. ‘The African Trading Community in Guangzhou: An Emerging Bridge for Africa-China Relations, China Quarterly 203: 693-707. Darby, P. 2002. Africa, Football and FIFA: Politics, Colonialism and Resistance. London: Frank Cass Publishers. Degenhardt, L.G. 2012. ‘Overview of Drug Trends in East and Southeast Asia’. Presentation, Sydney, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. De Latour, E. 2010. ‘Joueurs Mondiaux, Clubs Locaux. Le Football d’Afrique En Asie’. Politique Africaine 118: 63-84. Dewi, S.W. 2013. ‘Kenyans Dominate Jakarta Marathon’. Jakarta Post, 28 October. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/10/28/kenyans-dominate-jakartamarathon.html. DFA. 2014. ‘Philippines Hosts 2nd Philippines-South Africa Bilateral Consultative Forum’. Department of Foreign Affairs, Philippines. DFA. 2015a. ‘Foreign Consulates’. Department of Foreign Affairs, Philippines. DFA. 2015b. ‘Foreign Embassies’. Department of Foreign Affairs, Philippines. Donald, B. 2008. ‘Kenyans in SE Asia: Margaret Njuguna’. The Kenyan Finish Line, 18 October. http://kenyanfinishline.blogspot.com/2008/10/racing-in-se-asiamargaret-njuguna.html. EAIE. 2014. ‘The International Student Mobility Charter’. European Association for International Education. http://www.eaie.org/community/projects-advocacy/ international-student-mobility-charter.html. EUA. 2004. ‘The European Higher Education Area and the Bologna Process’. European University Association. http://www.ehea.info/. Ferdjani, H. 2012. ‘African Students in China: An Exploration of Increasing Numbers and Their Motivations in Beijing’. Stellenbosch University, Centre for Chinese Studies, 2012, August. Centre for Chinese Studies, Stellenbosch University. http:// www.ccs.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Hannane-Research-Report_October-2012_FINAL.pdf. Finn, A. 2015. ‘Why Japan’s Incredible Long-Distance Runners Will Never Win the London Marathon’. Independent, 18 April. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ world/asia/why-japans-incredible-long-distance-runners-will-never-win-thelondon-marathon-10182050.html. Haugen, H.Ø. 2012. ‘Nigerians in China: A Second State of Immobility’. International Migration 50.2: 66-80.

236 Sat winder S. Rehal

Henson, J. 2009. ‘Boost for Football’. The Philippine Star, 24 September. http://www. philstar.com/sports/507819/boost-football. Jacobs, S. 2015. ‘India-Africa Trade: A Unique Relationship’. Global: The International Briefing, October. http://www.global-brief ing.org/2012/10/ india-africa-trade-a-unique-relationship/. Janssens, F. 2012. ‘Drug Smuggling in Southeast Asia is on the Rise’. Southeast Asia Globe, 16 October. http://sea-globe.com/the-bitterest-pill/. Lechini, G. 2009. ‘La cooperación Sur-Sur y la búsqueda de autonomía en América Latina: ¿Mito o realidad?’. en Relaciones Internacionales, GERI-UAM 12. 1: 55-81. Lim, R.A.B. 2014. ‘Finding the Philippines’ Place in the New Scramble for Africa’. CIRSS Commentaries 2.3, 11  November. http://www.fsi.gov.ph/f inding-thephilippines-place-in-the-new-scramble-for-africa-by-redmond-alejandro-blim-issue-11-november-2014/. Li Z. and F. Du. 2012. ‘Production of China’s new social space in city under “transnational entrepreneurialism” A case study on African economic zone in Guangzhou’. Urban Space Studies 36. 8: 25-31. Li, Z., D. Xue, M. Lyons, and A. Brown. 2008. ‘The Social Space Analysis of Guangzhou Xiaobei African Enclave’. Acta Geographica Sinica 63.2: 207-218. Lumumba-Kasongo, T. 2013. ‘Africa-Asia Relations since the End of “Unipolar” Globalization: Focus on Education and Research’. African and Asian Studies 12: 118-139. Maringe, F., and S. Carter. 2007. ‘International Students’ Motivations for Studying in the UK HE: Insights into the Choice and Decision Making of African Students’. International Journal of Educational Management 21.6: 459-475. Mercene, R. 2015. ‘Ethiopian Airlines Provides Philippines with First Direct Link to Africa’. Business Mirror, 18 July. http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/ ethiopian-airlines-provides-philippines-with-first-direct-link-to-africa/. Mikic, M. 2014. ‘Asia Pacific and Latin America: Strengthening Bi-regional Trade and Cooperation’. In Las Relaciones Comerciales entre América Latina y Asia Pacífico: Desafíos y Oportunidades, ed. I. Bartesachi. Montevideo: Observatorio América Latina Asia Pacífico, 37-44 Mulumba, M. B., A. Obaje, K. Kobedi, and R. Kishun. 2008. ‘International student mobility in and out of Africa: challenges and opportuities’. In Higher Education in Africa: the international dimension, ed. D. Teferra and J. Knight. Accra: Association of African Universities/Chestnut Hill, MA: Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, 490-514. Mulyana, Y.G.H. 2011. ‘The 1955 Bandung Conference and its Present Significance’. Jakarta Post, 29 April. Nair, S. 2014. ‘Athletics: Kenyans Favourites to Sweep Top Titles at StanChart Marathon Singapore’. Straits Times, 5 December. http://www.straitstimes.com/

Enhancing Asia-Africa Rel ations through Further Discourse

237

sport/athletics-kenyans-favourites-to-sweep-top-titles-at-stanchart-marathonsingapore. NYU Africa House. 2011. The State of Tourism in Africa 2.1, September. http://www. traveltalkmedia.com/ATA_stateoftourism_AFRICA_11.pdf. Poli, R. 2010. ‘African Migrants in Asian and European Football: Hopes and Realities’. Sport in Society 13.6: 1001-1011. Rafeeat A. 2014. ‘Bridging Africa and Malaysia: The Langkawi International Dialogue’. Consultancy Africa Intelligence. http://www.consultancyafrica.com. Balasubramanian, J. 2005. ‘Asian-African summit opens in Indonesia’. Rediff India Abroad, 22 April. http://uswww.rediff.com/news/2005/apr/22meet.htm. Rehal, S.S. 2013a. ‘African Student Mobility in the Philippines: Trends in Opportunities Towards Global Excellence in Higher Education’. In the proceedings of the International Research Conference in Higher Education 2013, 3-4 October, Manila. Rehal, S.S. 2013b. ‘The Azkals Fever Phenomenon: Redefining the Historiography and Setting a Research Agenda for the Role of Soccer in Philippine Society’. Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science 2.2: 77-86. Rehal, S.S. 2014. ‘Caught between a Rock and a Hard Place: Realities of African Soccer Players in the Philippines’. In the proceedings of the 2014 International Sociology of Sports Conference (ISSA) World Congress of Sociology of Sport, 9-13 July, Beijing. Rehal, S.S., B. Paruginog, and J.B. Bartillo. 2012. ‘African Student Mobility in the Philippines: An Exploratory Study in Metro Manila and Cavite’. OSSREA Bulletin 9.2, Addis Ababa, Organization of Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA). Reyes, F. 2012. ‘PH, South Africa Set to Sign Agreement for Better ‘Structured’ Ties’. Inquirer, 25  September. http://globalnation.inquirer.net/51228/ ph-south-africa-set-to-sign-agreement-for-better-structured-ties. Rosal, D.G. 2014. ‘Kenyans Continue Dominance in Cebu Marathon’. Philippine Daily Inquirer, 13  January. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/563105/ kenyans-continue-dominance-in-cebu-marathon. Rubiolo, M.F. 2014. ‘South East Asia in Africa: Between Trade and Politics’. In the Proceedings of the FLACSO-ISA Joint International Conference Panel on Africa and the Emergent Countries, Buenos Aires, 23-25 July. Rutherford, P. 2014. ‘African’ athletes in Asia a double-edged sword’. Reuters News, 29 September. http://in.reuters.com/article/games-asian-athletics-africa​ -idINKCN0HO0BP20140929. Scherrens, J. 2006-2007. ‘The Muscle Drain of African Football Players to Europe: Trade of Trafficking?’. MA thesis, Karl-Franzen University of Graz.

238 Sat winder S. Rehal

Sharma, Y. 2014. ‘Internationally Mobile Students Head for Asia’. University World News, 31  January. http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story​ =20140131102318847. Sugimura, M. 2008. ‘International Student Mobility and Asian Higher Education: Framework for Global Network’. In the proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Subregional Preparatory Conference For the 2009 World Conference on Higher Education 24-26 September. Macau, People’s Republic of China. Sykes, T. 2014. ‘Why Africans Are Falling in Love with the Philippines’. New African Magazine, 26  November. http://newafricanmagazine.com/ africans-falling-love-philippines/. Torres-Tupas, T. 2015. ‘PNP Targets West African Drug Syndicate in PH’. Philippine Daily Inquirer, 6  May. http://globalnation.inquirer.net/122490/ pnp-targets-west-african-drug-syndicate-in-ph. Von der Mehden, F.R. 1965. ‘Southeast Asian Relations with Africa’. Asian Survey 15.7: 341-349. Waruru, M. 2013. ‘India’s Soft Power Moves in African Higher Education’. University World News, 21  July. http://www.universityworldnews.com/article. php?story=20130720102552638. WTO/CII. 2013. ‘India-Africa: Trade and Investment for Development’. World Trade Organization/The Confederation of Indian Industry. Yan, Z.Y., D. Niu, and Z. Guo 2015. ‘Africa’s Call: Impact of African Traders in China on the China-Africa Cellphone Trade’. Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa 17.1: 1-19. Zhu, S. 2014. ‘China’s African Immigrants: Trapped by Status’. Prospect, 25 April. https:// prospectjournal.org/2014/04/25/chinas-african-immigrants-trapped-by-status/.

Contributors Susan Engel is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at the University of Wollongong. Her research interests include: the political economy of aid and development, South-South cooperation, South East Asian politics, and sanitation. Engel has published articles in top-ranked journals and is the author of The World Bank and the Post-Washington Consensus in Vietnam and Indonesia: Inheritance of Loss (Routledge, 2010). She is on the management committee of the ‘indigo foundation’, a small NGO that funds education and community development projects. Prior to becoming an academic, Engel worked in a range of professional roles in government, community, and business. Arndt Graf is Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt. Since 2013 he is also Speaker (with Prof. Dr. Frank Schulze-Engler) of the research project AFRASO (Africa’s Asian Options) funded by the German Ministry of Higher Education and Research. AFRASO involves 40 colleagues from a broad variety of disciplines. André Gröger is an economist and political scientist. He obtained his master’s degrees from Goethe University Frankfurt in 2010. Gröger is currently working as a research associate at Goethe’s Department of Applied Econometrics and International Economic Policy. His interests include a broad variety of topics related to the nexus between socioeconomic development and migration. He has conducted field research in Angola and Vietnam, including household survey data collection. His current projects focus on the causes and consequences of internal and international migration from an applied microeconomic perspective. Falk Hartig is a postdoctoral researcher at the AFRASO programme at Goethe University Frankfurt. His current research focuses on Sino-African relations, China’s public and cultural diplomacy, China’s global image, and the internationalization of Chinese media. He is the author of Chinese Public Diplomacy: The Rise of the Confucius Institute (Routledge, 2016). Azirah Hashim is Professor of English Linguistics and Dean of the Humanities Research Cluster at the University of Malaya. She has been coordinator of the Africa-Asia Development University Network based at the University of Malaya since 2012.

240 

African-Asian Encounters

Born in 1958, Rainer Klump studied economics at the Universities of Mainz, Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne), and Erlangen-Nuremberg. In 1986 he received his PhD in economics and was awarded the Heinz Maier-Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation. After habilitation in 1991 he held professorships at the University of Würzburg (1992-1997) and the University of Ulm (1997-2000). Between 2000 and 2014 he was Professor of Economics, Economic Development and Integration at Goethe University Frankfurt. Since 2015 he has been the president of the University of Luxembourg. Professor Tae-Joo Lee has worked extensively on development and civil society in Korea as well as Asia, the South Pacific Islands, and Africa. As a cultural anthropologist at the Hansung University in Seoul he has published many books and articles as a development anthropologist and policy advisor. He is the president of the Re-shaping Development Institute (ReDI) and an executive director of the Korea Association of International Development and Cooperation (KAIDEC). His major research areas are development studies, civil anthropology, postcolonialism, and multiculturalism in a changing global context. Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel is a post-doctoral research fellow at AFRASO and a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt. Her research focuses on political relations in the Global South; it particularly addresses the international relations of gender politics with an emphasis on transnational and postcolonial perspectives. She is the author of Mobilizing Transnational Gender Politics in Post-Genocide Rwanda (Routledge, 2015) and co-editor of Negotiating Normativity: Postcolonial Appropriations, Contestations and Transformations (Springer, 2016) with Nikita Dhawan, Elisabeth Fink and Johanna Leinius. Wiebe Nauta is a sociologist of development at Maastricht University. His area of expertise includes extensive field experience in Africa and research focusing on the role of emerging countries, such as South Korea and Brazil, on the African continent; the role of South Korean aid actors – government, civil society, and private – in implementing an ‘East Asian’ development model in Rwanda; transnational activist links between civil society organizations on different continents; and the role of NGOs in South Africa in the field of HIV/AIDS. Generally his research concerns the relationship between poverty, democratization, and the interplay between civil society organizations, states, and multilateral actors.

Contributors

241

Diderot Nguepjouo is a geographer interested in issues of natural resources valorization correlated with the welfare of human beings. He has researched using the natural potentialities for tourism in Cameroon as a resource for local development and today focuses on the challenges sparked by the sustainable extractive industries in Africa. Central Africa is his area of interest. Satwinder Rehal is a part-time lecturer in the HZB School of International Relations and Diplomacy at the Philippine Women’s University (PWU) Manila, and also Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Management and Development Studies at the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU). His research interests include thematic topics in transnational migration and intercultural relations, international health, and the sociology of sports. His academic background is in health sociology and social planning and development. Ute Röschenthaler is Professor of Anthropology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, and a research fellow in the AFRASO project Africa’s Asian Options and the Cluster of Excellence ‘The Formation of Normative Orders’ at Goethe University Frankfurt. She works on cultural mobility, the emerging markets in Africa, and trade networks within the global South, entrepreneurship, media, and the intellectual property rights. Her recent publications include Copyright Africa: How Intellectual Property, Media and Markets Transform Immaterial Cultural Goods (ed. with Mamadou Diawara, Sean Kingston Publishing, 2016) and Cultural Entrepreneurship in Africa (ed. with Dorothea Schulz, Routledge, 2016). Jürgen Runge is a physical geographer and geoecologist with a chair at the Department of Physical Geography at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is doing research on former and recent landscape dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa and is involved in applied topics such as good governance, transparency, stakeholder dialogues, and the impact of infrastructure and mining on tropical environments.

Index African Union 72, 110, 127, 221 agriculture 49-50, 52-53, 58-59, 67, 71, 73, 75, 110-111, 127, 147, 163, 169, 189, 190, 192-193, 197-198, 202-204, 210, 213, 219 Algeria 185, 217, 220 America 10, 13, 17, 21, 23, 26, 30-31, 34, 45, 75-77, 83, 88, 91, 99, 101, 109, 156, 163, 175-176, 180, 182, 210, 223, 225, 228, 233-234 anglophone 19, 21, 26-27, 42 Angola 11-12, 133-151, 220, 228 Angolan Civil War 137-138, 141-142, 146-147, 151, 156 anti-colonialism 155, 159 ASEAN 44, 161-164, 166, 168, 170, 175, 178, 221, 226 Australia 27, 30-31, 73, 107, 163, 223 authoritarian 43, 186, 191, 194, 209-210 Bandung 12, 105, 155-156, 158-159, 163, 165-166, 171, 177, 180, 217-219, 221, 224 Bangladesh 225 Beijing 64, 89-90, 99-100, 102, 106, 109, 111, 117, 121-122, 129, 138-140, 144, 224 Benin 32, 225 bilateral 27, 54, 92, 104, 109-111, 120-125, 133, 136, 140, 142, 149, 222, 224, 232 bilateral collaboration 122 bilateral exchanges 120 bilateral relations 27, 92, 109-111, 121, 222 bilateral ties 104, 125 Brazil 133, 156, 175, 185, 214 broker 19-20, 22-25, 28, 31-33, 38, 40, 42, 53, 69, 134, 137-139, 142-144, 146, 150 Bulgaria 159 Burkina Faso 48 Burma 158, 218 bushfalling 10, 21-23, 42 business 11-12, 18-20, 23-24, 26-28, 31-34, 36-42, 45, 47, 51, 53, 62-68, 71, 76, 82, 109, 114, 126, 130, 133-134, 137, 144, 150-151, 198, 215, 222-223 Cambodia 163, 168, 218, 225 Cameroon 10-11, 18-21, 23-25, 27, 31, 34, 39, 42-45, 47-57, 63-77, 95, 101, 188, 225, 228 Canada 19, 22, 30, 77, 107, 189 Ceylon 158 China 9-13, 17, 19, 22, 27, 38, 42-44, 50-51, 64, 68-71, 75-77, 81-83, 86-112, 115, 117-118, 120-131, 134, 139-142, 144-147, 149-151, 156, 158, 167, 169, 171, 176, 180, 185, 211, 218-220, 222-228 Chinese 9, 11-12, 35, 38, 51, 63-68, 70-72, 74-76, 79, 81-83, 86-101, 103-112, 115-131, 133-135, 137, 139-147, 149, 151, 174, 219, 223-224 Christian 195 Chung-hee Park 186, 197, 209, 211

civic 183-185, 187, 189, 191, 193, 195, 197, 199, 201, 203, 205-207, 209, 211, 213, 215 Civil Society 11-12, 42, 103-107, 112-122, 124-131, 183-184, 186-188, 194-196, 204-214, 217 Cold War 103, 106, 157, 164, 188, 218 colonialism 83, 101, 115, 160, 184, 218 Community Development Committee (CDC) 206 Confucius Institutes 11, 81, 85-87, 89-92, 94-102, 117-118, 120, 128 corruption 62, 68, 120, 166, 189, 191, 215 CSO Law 116, 120, 124, 131 Cultural Diplomacy 81, 85-86, 90, 98, 101-102 Czechoslovakia 159 debt 37, 53, 87, 89, 105, 157, 161, 185, 190 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 140, 188, 228 Deng Xiaoping 82 dependence 62, 84-85, 99, 158, 181, 186 dependency 7, 9, 11, 13, 81, 83-84, 88, 92, 95, 97-98, 160, 190, 220-221 development approaches 121 development challenges 111 development cooperation 87, 97, 104, 110, 124, 127, 155, 164, 167-168, 171, 176, 180, 186-188, 193 development finance 101, 151 development partners, development partnership 71, 86, 167, 171, 178, 213 development projects 89, 108, 110, 118-119, 125, 141, 156, 172, 197, 201, 208-209 development relations 105, 108 development strategies 135, 194, 203, 213 diplomacy 64, 81, 85-86, 88-90, 98-102, 118, 158, 163-164, 167, 169-170, 178, 188-189 drugs 26, 32, 34, 36-37, 50, 61, 229-230 East Timor 163, 169, 172 Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS) 190, 205, 213 education 7, 10, 12-13, 17, 26, 29, 33, 44-45, 60-61, 76, 81, 84, 87, 89-91, 94-95, 98, 100-101, 111, 120, 128, 133, 137, 147, 159, 163, 170, 183, 186, 190-192, 195, 200, 209-210, 219, 223-224, 227-228, 230-234 Egypt 89, 91, 95, 101, 110, 121, 130, 156, 185, 217-218, 220-221, 228, 234 energy 53, 71, 86, 130, 158, 190 entertainment 39 environment 48, 50, 52, 57-60, 65, 67-68, 71-73, 75-77, 83, 86, 91, 104, 112, 124, 165, 168, 187, 190, 198-201, 205, 207, 209-210 Eritrea 227 Estonia 232

244  Ethiopia 27, 104-112, 115-116, 119-120, 122-124, 127-128, 130-131, 133, 140-141, 150, 188-189, 217-218, 227, 234 European Union 107 exploitation 30, 32, 42, 68, 72, 74-76, 151, 218, 220, 233 extraction 68, 77, 85, 140, 146 FDI 51, 66-67, 106-107, 110 food 20, 25, 38, 53, 62, 110, 163, 185, 204, 210, 212 football 225, 228-229, 231, 233-234 foreign aid 81, 85-88, 92, 95, 100, 102, 179-180, 185, 190 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) 89-90, 99, 102-103, 105, 121-124, 126, 130, 139, 142, 224 Foucault 184, 194-196, 198, 205, 207-208, 211 France 51-52 francophone 26 friendship 70, 91, 101, 110, 159, 209 G15 163, 179 G20 168, 171, 186, 212 Gambia 169 gender 57, 99, 121-122, 124, 127-128, 190, 207 Germany 7, 19, 21, 51, 90, 107, 115, 133, 163, 168, 172, 232 Ghana 27, 47, 50, 64, 68, 74, 155, 188, 218, 223, 225, 227 Global South 105, 113, 121, 165, 176, 186 globalization 13, 26, 43-45, 100, 131, 165, 178, 197, 199, 214, 229-234 Gold Coast 218 Greece 232 health 50, 60-61, 73, 87, 137, 139, 147, 163, 189, 191-192, 195, 219 Higher Education 10, 13, 17, 26, 44-45, 81, 90-91, 94-95, 98, 100, 223, 227-228, 230-233 Hong Kong 27, 106, 225 human rights 51, 116, 166, 170, 186, 191-193, 212 humanitarian aid 87 hustling 17, 31-34, 37-38, 42-43 IMF 69, 75 imperialism 77, 83, 97, 150, 160, 218 independence 12, 49, 69, 111-114, 137, 157, 159-161, 163, 166, 169, 183, 199, 221 India 9, 25, 34-35, 38, 83, 115, 156, 158-159, 169, 171, 175, 179, 211, 219-220, 223-225, 227-228 Indians 25, 35, 38, 219 Indo-China War 158 Indonesia 12, 33, 43, 155-182, 217-218, 220-223, 225-226 industry 11-12, 47, 73, 77, 103, 128, 133-137, 140, 144-146, 151, 176, 186 informal sector 53, 55, 69-70, 137

African-Asian Encounters

infrastructure 10, 17, 38, 40-42, 51, 60-61, 85, 89, 91, 108-110, 119, 134, 140-142, 145-147, 150, 175, 185-186, 190, 194, 198-199, 203, 207, 226, 233 initiation ritual 21, 40-41 interdependence 142 Iran 223, 230 Islam 26, 45, 157, 163, 166 Israel 169, 234 Jakarta 156, 160, 164, 166-168, 174, 178-181, 221 Jim Yong Kim 191, 212 Kenya 27, 90, 94, 104-115, 117-124, 126-131, 217, 220, 227, 234 Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) 184, 186, 189, 193, 201-202, 205, 213 Korean War 185, 188-189 Kuala Lumpur 7, 18-19, 23, 25-26, 35, 42, 230, 234 land grabbing 61 Langkawi International Dialogue (LID) 222 Laos 12, 168, 225 Libya 218, 234 lusophone 12 Malawi 27 Malaya 44, 159 Malays 35 Malaysia 9-10, 12-13, 17-45, 135, 159, 162-164, 166, 169-170, 175, 179, 221-223, 225-226, 230 Mali 19, 47-48, 55, 59 Manila 228, 234 Mauritius 27, 219 media 11, 84, 92, 101, 103, 113-114, 117, 223 Mexico 133, 136, 146, 150 migrant 11, 18, 22-23, 27, 32, 35, 39-44, 61, 96, 99, 106, 134-139, 142-146, 150-151, 222-224, 226, 229, 234 migration 11, 17, 21-24, 27-29, 31, 33, 35-37, 40-45, 50, 63, 133-151, 187, 219, 222-223, 225, 227, 229, 231, 233-234 military 85, 86, 108, 111, 137, 157, 161, 166, 175, 186, 192, 211 mining 10-11, 47-78, 140, 219 Mongolia 12, 76-77 Morocco 165, 220 Mozambique 188 Muslim 26, 114, 163, 166 Myanmar 12, 168 Namibia 27, 115 National Rice Development Strategy 203, 213 nationalism 43, 177 neo-colonialism 9, 97, 102, 220 Nepal 12, 135 New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) 110 NGOs 112-113, 115, 121, 123-124, 127, 129, 192, 196, 205-206, 208

245

Index

Nigeria 10, 18-21, 23-27, 29, 32-35, 38-39, 42-45, 83, 140-141, 185, 188, 220-221, 223, 225-227, 230, 234 Nyakatsi eradication scheme 195, 199 OECD 155, 167, 172-173, 180, 186-187, 214 Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban) 90, 92, 94-95, 97-98, 100 Official Development Assistance (ODA) 172, 183, 187-188, 190, 193, 200, 210 Pakistan 158 Palestine 169 pastoral power 184, 195-196, 198, 205, 208, 211 People’s Forum 122, 124, 130 Philippines 13, 33, 135, 159, 217-234 philosophy 31, 66 Poland 232 pollution 50, 58-59, 77 postcolonial 43, 113, 194, 197, 231 prestige 21-22, 37, 166, 169, 175 privatization 10, 17, 26, 34, 69, 106, 169 propaganda 92-93 Public Diplomacy 86, 88-90, 99-101, 118, 167, 178 racism 17, 35, 41, 228 railways 119, 126, 147, 219 religion 113 resource-backed loans 141-142 Roh Moo-hyun 185, 188 Russia 21, 43, 156 Rwanda 12, 74, 128, 183-215, 228 Saemaul Undong 183-184, 189, 194, 197-199, 201-205, 207, 209-210, 212-214 Saudi Arabia 142, 180 Sector level Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) 203, 213 Senegal 21, 23, 26-27, 44, 48, 188 Seoul 64, 186, 188-189, 212-214 Singapore 12, 26-27, 43, 162, 164, 166, 169, 175, 183, 221, 223, 225 Soft Power 11, 81, 85-86, 88-89, 99-101, 118, 128, 224 solidarity 91-92, 160, 171, 175, 183, 199, 217 Somalia 227 South Africa 19, 23, 27, 47, 61, 64, 76, 81, 91-103, 117, 137, 156, 175, 214, 218-222, 225-226, 234 South East Asia 10, 12, 17, 135, 161-162, 164, 166, 169-170, 174, 217-218, 220-222, 225-226, 230-231, 233-234 South Korea 9-10, 12, 31, 107, 135, 183-215, 223, 228 South-South cooperation 12, 87, 100, 105, 110, 118, 155-181, 193 Soviet Union 161

Spain 232 sport 84, 108, 160, 227, 229-230, 232-234 students 10, 13, 17, 19-20, 23-41, 43-45, 57, 81, 87, 89, 92-97, 223-228, 230-234 Sudan 26-27, 95, 119, 123, 218, 227 summits 89-90, 161, 164-166, 168, 177-179, 181, 186, 212, 219, 221, 224 Taiwan 106, 135, 151, 223 Tanzania 27, 47, 73, 77, 169, 203, 220, 228 technical cooperation 87, 105-106, 138, 156-157, 162-164, 167-169, 171, 178-181 telecommunication 71, 147 Thailand 31, 163-164, 166, 169-170, 175, 218, 220-222, 225 Third Korea-Africa Forum 188 Togo 225 Tokyo 185 tourism 111, 170 trade 10, 19, 27, 32, 42, 52-53, 57, 73, 82-83, 85-86, 99, 103, 106-109, 111, 117, 119-121, 130, 137, 140, 150, 156, 159, 165, 170, 187, 217-226, 229 transnational 18, 43-45, 103-105, 112, 115, 117, 120-122, 124-128, 134, 137, 217, 230, 233-234 transregional 126, 217 triangular cooperation 156, 164-165, 168-169, 172, 174, 176-181 Tunisia 217 Turkey 156, 232 Uganda 27, 33, 77, 115, 119, 192, 217, 228 Umuganda 183, 195, 199, 202, 208, 210 United Arab Emirates 19, 226 United Kingdom (UK) 19, 24, 26-27, 30, 108, 223, 232 United Nations 53, 110, 156, 161-162, 164-166, 169, 172-173, 176, 187, 189, 221 United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) 48, 52-53, 76, 108, 223, 232 United States 24, 51, 88, 107, 158, 170, 185-186, 189, 217, 223, 226 Vietnam 11-12, 134-151, 156, 168, 225 Vision 2020 (Rwanda) 189-190, 194, 211-212 World Bank 49, 53-54, 69, 75-77, 150, 158, 168, 181, 189, 191-192, 211-212, 215 World Friend Korea volunteers 188 World Women’s Conference 117, 121-122 Xi Jinping 83, 109, 112 Zambia 97-98, 100, 104, 128, 228 Zimbabwe 219, 225

Publications / Global Asia

Matthias Maass (ed.): Foreign Policies and Diplomacies in Asia. Changes in Practice, Concepts, and Thinking in a Rising Region 2014, isbn 978 90 8964 540 1 Volker Gottowik (ed.): Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia. Magic and Modernity 2014, isbn 978 90 8964 424 4 Frédéric Bourdier, Maxime Boutry, Jacques Ivanoff and Olivier Ferrari: From Padi States to Commercial States. Reflections on Identity and the Social Construction of Space in the Borderlands of Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar 2015, isbn 978 90 8964 659 0 Michiel Baas (ed.): Transnational Migration and Asia. The Question of Return 2015, isbn 978 90 8964 658 3 Kees van Dijk: Pacific Strife. The Great Powers and Their Political and ­Economic Rivalries in Asia and the Western Pacific 1870-1914 2015, isbn 978 90 8964 420 6 Juliet Pietsch and Marshall Clark (eds): Migration and Integration in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia. A Comparative Perspective 2015, isbn 978 90 8964 538 8