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What about China in Africa?
Chinese leadership has shifted, and is still shifting, to the younger generation --- the young shall grow [Power Mike's Transport Company name of yore]
They are long-term planners and wait -- like a vulture waits for its prey to die -- patiently. They assimilate themselves to people, learn your trade, and become your partner, your boss or your competitor.
The Chinese leadership under Deng Xiaoping looked at the Western economics and decided to send their young ones abroad -- massively -- to go and understudy it and come back to implement some of it. In the meantime, they embarked upon using their traditional ways of savings and investments to raise capital and purchase some businesses in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan. They have now used those purchases as avenues to educate themselves on how to utilize Capitalism without giving up their Totalitarian System.
BTW, I hate it when people, especially Americans, call Chinese Communists for no country in this whole world is Communist. Communism is the perfection of socialism and no country has achieved that. Socialism is the means and Communism is the goal. What we have are socialist countries like Sweden, Portugal, Tanzania, and Angola [at some point] and totalitarian countries like China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Libya, etc.
Moving on...
Those young Chinese men and women came back and started to practice their new found crafts and skills trade with ready-made companies. Also, the Chinese studied the successes and failures of European colonization of Africa and decided to do it in a different way. They come in with trade promises that ensures them TOTAL CONTROL -- funds, labor [shipping Chinese labor abroad], technology [never shares it], management [always a Chinese in charge], transportation [own the ships, planes, etc.], and marketing. They don't have to take the raw materials away like the Europeans did [except for oil & gas] but refine it there and sell it with its low quality coupled with pollution of the highest order...go figure!
They are the banks to the West because of the old Chinese culture of thriftiness -- please go back and read their literature -- Art of War, Confucius, Taoism, etc.
What I admire most about the Chinese rise in world economy -- they have always had the power -- is the marriage of their cultures with Western economics to enhance their productivity and expansion.
As per African you will think that since Africans started going abroad at least en-masse for 3 generations, that we will try to find some collaborations between us -- teamed up, cooperate, and strategize for the long-term in order to make a difference in our lives in the Diaspora or at home. But the answer is NO for we are always trying to one-up each other and blame everyone else – African Leaders and the West – for our own myopic and selfishness.
All in all I believe that we cannot always change others, but we can do things differently by ourselves that would affect our lives. Collective success seems alien to us, Africans, except at family or ethnic levels. Even that is becoming obsolete with the current mantra of me, myself, and I….go figure!
I weep for Africa and Africans!
© uzoma onyemaechi 2011
The Chinese leadership under Deng Xiaoping looked at the Western economics and decided to send their young ones abroad -- massively -- to go and understudy it and come back to implement some of it. In the meantime, they embarked upon using their traditional ways of savings and investments to raise capital and purchase some businesses in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan. They have now used those purchases as avenues to educate themselves on how to utilize Capitalism without giving up their Totalitarian System.
BTW, I hate it when people, especially Americans, call Chinese Communists for no country in this whole world is Communist. Communism is the perfection of socialism and no country has achieved that. Socialism is the means and Communism is the goal. What we have are socialist countries like Sweden, Portugal, Tanzania, and Angola [at some point] and totalitarian countries like China, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Libya, etc.
Moving on...
Those young Chinese men and women came back and started to practice their new found crafts and skills trade with ready-made companies. Also, the Chinese studied the successes and failures of European colonization of Africa and decided to do it in a different way. They come in with trade promises that ensures them TOTAL CONTROL -- funds, labor [shipping Chinese labor abroad], technology [never shares it], management [always a Chinese in charge], transportation [own the ships, planes, etc.], and marketing. They don't have to take the raw materials away like the Europeans did [except for oil & gas] but refine it there and sell it with its low quality coupled with pollution of the highest order...go figure!
They are the banks to the West because of the old Chinese culture of thriftiness -- please go back and read their literature -- Art of War, Confucius, Taoism, etc.
What I admire most about the Chinese rise in world economy -- they have always had the power -- is the marriage of their cultures with Western economics to enhance their productivity and expansion.
As per African you will think that since Africans started going abroad at least en-masse for 3 generations, that we will try to find some collaborations between us -- teamed up, cooperate, and strategize for the long-term in order to make a difference in our lives in the Diaspora or at home. But the answer is NO for we are always trying to one-up each other and blame everyone else – African Leaders and the West – for our own myopic and selfishness.
All in all I believe that we cannot always change others, but we can do things differently by ourselves that would affect our lives. Collective success seems alien to us, Africans, except at family or ethnic levels. Even that is becoming obsolete with the current mantra of me, myself, and I….go figure!
I weep for Africa and Africans!
© uzoma onyemaechi 2011
