ABSTRACT
In this new round of competition in Africa, China has become a noticeable player. Its initial focus on securing access to energy and natural resources quickly expanded to infrastructure construction, followed by activities in other areas: trade, agriculture, telecommunications, and financial and other services. Many of these activities are said to be conducted by state-owned enterprises (SOEs), backed by the government in Beijing in order to expand ‘its influence in Africa to secure supplies of natural resources, to counter Western political and economic influence’.2 SOEs are seen to be the agents in spreading ‘bad behaviour’ from China to Africa, whether corruption, human and/or labour rights violations, environmental pollution and even crimes,3 and more importantly, spreading to African countries the practices of ‘state capitalism’.4 The role of Chinese SOEs in Africa is puzzling. If, as some claim,5 SOEs are the
agents of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), pursuing the strategic goals set by the CCP, either by getting control of natural resources, inserting its power and influence, or undermining the values and practices of Western democracies, why and how are some of their activities undermining these objectives, as argued by some other scholars?6 It is difficult to see how SOEs can simultaneously help their owner (the government) and work against its interests too. This article suggests that Chinese SOEs’ engagement in Africa is not a simple either-or question. It is too easy to believe and then recycle as revealed truth the assumption that when Chinese SOEs operate in Africa, whether through investment, trade or foreign assistance, they are the handmaiden of the Party-state to ‘sustain the existing authoritarian political system’,7 and/or a ‘Trojan horse’ to help China compete with the US and other democratic countries for influence around the world.8 Indeed, there is a contrary argument that Chinese SOEs have become profit-driven
market privateers and powerful interest groups that can ‘set policy agenda’ in Beijing9 and pursue their own interests when going overseas. This argument raises another set of questions: why has the Party-state permitted them to become semiindependent privateers, whose activities do not always coincide with the interests of the Party-state? More importantly, since they are, after all, state-owned, what are the mechanisms and levers of control the state still has? Is it able to exert control over its SOEs, their activities and behaviour in Africa?
