Bomb Africa (cap.2): to China everything is allowed ...

The entire African continent in 1950 had 200 million souls. In 2014, the population was estimated at one billion and 100 million. Considering that technology and globalization have meanwhile made the world smaller, it goes without saying that Africa and its critical issues are a frequent note on the agenda of many chancelleries. Whether we are talking about politics, economics or migration, it matters little: the Africa question is central and nobody knows it better than us.

The main ideas are echoed in the migratory phenomenon but in reality Africa is an unresolved continent beyond the bargains and underworld policies that make us get around.

This is how, while in Europe, we blame ourselves with a sense of guilt far beyond the historical responsibilities (as already written in the previous article) elsewhere, the problem does not even arise.

This is the case of China, a colossus that has not yet been baptized as a world geopolitical power but is now very present in all those sectors that allow it to become one.

China is bulimic of raw materials and Africa still remains the most supplied and accessible market. An open market, characterized at times by a total political vacuum.

It is easy to sum up: in a decade the growth rate of Africa-China trade has increased by almost 20% per annum. The trade has touched a volume of 200 billions of dollars just for the 2014 and direct investments have reached almost 3 billion dollars. From the 90 reforms onwards, Chinese penetration has involved practically all the countries of the continent. Investments in infrastructure in exchange for oil and natural resources.

How was it possible?

Let's start by saying that a draft Chinese landing in Africa was there in the 70 years when the bulk of the African states had already gained independence.

Once the colonialism of La mia Africa ended, the black continent adapted to the balance of the Cold War with different reflexes from state to state. The juxtaposition in blocks was in fact more rapid where the colonial inheritances were weaker due to a short stay (Italy remained in Ethiopia less than six years) or to the downgrading of the colonizing country, as in the case of Portugal.

Precisely the examples of Portugal and Italy are sufficient to cite three major areas of crisis to be framed in the EAST-WEST confrontation: the civil war in Angola where the USSR and Cuba helped the government against Savimbi's pro-Western UNITA; the civil war in Mozambique with the pro-Western guerrillas of RENAMO opposed to the Marxist government of FRELIMO; the Ogaden war between the Ethiopia of the Soviet Menghistu and the Somalia of the American Siad Barre.

In the first two cases, Beijing's involvement was not a mystery. From the practical point of view, the fact was not important, because in front of China there were three insurmountable obstacles:

The preponderance of the Soviet-Castro axis in the management of the Communist international; economy and society still structured on the Maoist model, far from state capitalism in force today; as a consequence of the second point, almost no geopolitical power (except for the permanent seat on the Security Council).

The first point is now history. With the end of the Soviet bloc, the conflicts generated by the Cold War were archived in Africa and a huge political vacuum allowed the birth of new standards. If in the former colonies Great Britain and France have prolonged the historical and political ties, in all unstable areas has opened a good space for the highest bidder (or less scrupulous than you might want).

Here is China, where the per capita income from the 70 to the 2000 has grown by 30 times and the rate of GDP growth in ten years has grown to an average of 8-9%, has not pulled back.

Boosted by aspirations to global power and energy urgencies, Beijing has not even had the ethical brake (including the faux-ethical third-worldist) that partly binds the hands to the West.

In short: if killing a gorilla in Tanzania can generate a general strike in Europe, illegal disposal of radioactive waste or deforestation of southern half of Africa by Chinese firms go unnoticed.

Thus, while the sterile debates of Western public opinion continue, China continues its low-hand penetration throughout Africa, arriving at the presence of permanent workers around the 800.000 units.

We Westerners close our eyes on the phenomenon also helped by paleozoic analysts ready to swear that China is anything but colonial.

To understand that the Chinese commercial and financial aggression is in fact a geopolitical factor, it is sufficient to look at the contractual constraints generated by the indebtedness of many African countries with Beijing: 70% of the mining companies in Angola, for example, are Chinese.

Who speaks of Africa, of boats, of European exploitation and continues to wave the shadow of colonialism, forget as much as it has been happening for years. The European imperialism buried by History, has been replaced by another, the Chinese one, which in terms of civil rights, the environment, trade union rights and simple respect for life is decades behind.

Europe is drifting, Africa is on fire and China is blowing on both. But to China we know, everything is allowed.

Giampiero Venturi