At least, in the 1970s and 1980s, there was mounting consternation among left-wing, anti-capitalist groups and other concerned citizens in the West at the structural adjustment programmes being imposed on the Third World (as it was known). These loans came with demands for social reforms and were (rightly) seen as authoritarian. Countries would have their payments revoked, for example, if they didn’t change certain domestic policies that the IMF and World Bank considered to be a hindrance to market liberalization. But a shift occurred at the turn of the twentieth century when intervention in the affairs of developing nations was re-posed in a more morally legitimate way. Now aid would be given in order to protect the environment, and “good governance” became the buzzword; it incorporated the notion of responsible or sustainable development. In this way, sustainability became a vehicle for western intervention in sovereign states in the guise of virtuous social justice. Millennium Development Goal 11, for example, insisted that “no effort must be spared to free all of humanity … from the threat of living on a planet irredeemably spoilt by human activities”.30 In order to restrict development, the World Bank indicates that Malawian businesses and landowners may be “eligible for compensation if operations are restricted for reasons of wildlife protection”.31 No wonder Malawi is torn between developmentalism and protectionism, between urbanism and anti-urbanism.
Nowadays, criticism of environmental interventions tend not to rebuke the intervenor for meddling in the affairs of another country, but to chastise the dominant party for not intervening sufficiently stringently. Instead of debt repayments, sustainable aid campaigners demand “transparency” and environmental accountability. As such, environmentalism provides incentives to interfere and to penalize non-compliant states. The New Economics Foundation calls these actions “sustainable adjustment programmes”, whereas free marketeer Paul K. Driessen describes it as “eco-imperialism” or “a virulent kind of neo-colonialism”. Same intervention, different language.
Meanwhile, China is now forging relationships with Africa, seen by some as an opportunity and by others as a contemporary version of colonial enslavement. There is some credibility to such criticisms, with China taking substantial amounts of raw materials out of Africa while providing loans for infrastructure projects. In Lilongwe alone, in return for political allegiance, trade relations, and exports to China of timber and minerals, China has built a series of presidential villas, the Bingu International Conference Centre, the New Parliament Building, a five-star hotel, and Bingu National Stadium, and is set to invest heavily across the country. In other areas there are new roads, hospitals, highways, and the Malawi University of Science and Technology. In 2016, a US$1.79 billion finance agreement was signed to construct a power plant and international airport.
China’s intention is to provide infrastructural spending as a way of emulating its own rise out of agrarianism. By creating more dynamic economies around the world, China wants to lift people out of poverty and coincidentally increase its share of international trade. Even though there is the threat of default and crippling debt from loans from any source, it is widely acknowledged that instead of a neoliberal economic shakedown of poor countries that was common under the World Bank and IMF interventions, China has implemented a more contractual business relationship and reiterates – somewhat ironically – that Beijing does not interfere in other countries’ internal affairs.32 However, as we have seen, both the structural adjustment policies and the interventionist environmental policies are direct political acts of interference in the sovereign rights of an independent nation state, so a straightforward transactional deal seems, on the surface, to be more appealing to the Malawians.
In her book The Dragon’s Gift,33 author Deborah Brautigam shows that China, in its early stages of development, recognized that it needed infrastructural investment in order to kick-start its own economic plans. With little or no foreign direct investment in the mid-1970s,34 China had to utilize a trade arrangement with Japan, which was granted rights freely to extract quantities of raw materials from China. But instead of having to pay hard cash, Japan was required to build roads, bridges, and other infrastructure within China to literally lay the foundations for its rapid rise towards development. China’s engagement in Africa follows a similar model. While clearly neocolonialist in some areas, it is also a facilitator for real, necessary development in others. In terms of China’s business model, there tends not to be any social, political, or environmental conditions attached to its loans, and this is important for Africans who are concerned about the re-emergence of an imperial intervention. Even though the gloss is wearing thin on Chinese carpetbaggers taking advantage of Malawian opportunities on the ground, the international deals still form a straightforward contractual relationship that seems to benefit both sides.
Admittedly, debts are amassed for services rendered (like Djibouti’s US$3.5 billion loan to build its International Free Trade Zone, or the US$100 million for Malawi to build its new coal-fired power station), but the past-President Mutharika says: “We have chosen to stop depending on aid. Much of the aid to Africa was spent on services and consumption, and not so much on production. As such we have chosen to move from aid to a trade. But you cannot trade if you don’t produce goods. Therefore, we have chosen to become a producing and exporting nation.”
Conclusion
The coda to this chapter examines a short documentary, “Buddha in Africa”. Made in 2020 by director Nicole Schafer, it tells the tale of a Chinese orphanage in the heart of Malawi where the children take lessons, learn Chinese, study Buddhism, and are trained in martial arts. Ordinary Malawians, too poor to look after their children or grandchildren, hand them over to the monks who tour the region in minibuses to take them away. The youngsters, some as young as five years old, fear that they are going to be eaten by the mysterious Chinese child-catchers, but they are whisked away with the opportunity to get an education. For years they engage in a strict martial arts regime, learn a range of subjects, and seldom get to visit their families. After a young lifetime at the school, the students are offered the chance to go to university in Taiwan, an opportunity unheard of for their relatives and friends. In this documentary, the main protagonist, Enock Alu, a Malawian teenager, is uncertain whether he wants to go or stay in order to retain his cultural roots. The head monk tells him: “The world is changing. The poverty of Africa now can’t be blamed on you because you are a victim. But in 20 years, if Africa still hasn’t developed, you are not a victim anymore, and should be blamed to a great extent.”35
Notes
1 1 Blog editor, 2013. African Nationalist or Imperial Agent – David #Livingstone analysed. 23 April 2013. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2013/04/23/african-nationalist-or-imperial-agent-david-livingstone-analysed.
2 2 Yang, L., 2013. China’s growth miracle: Past, present, and future. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva. https://www.unrisd.org/80256b3c005bd6ab%2f(httpauxpages)%2f2893f14f41998392c1257bc600385b21%2f$file%2fchina's%20growth%20miracle%200808.pdf.
3 3 Williams, A., 2018. China’s Urban Revolution: Understanding