[Fasces]

The call to industrialise has been a rallying cry of African countries ever since their attainment of political independence. During the twentieth century, the modal decade of the continent’s national liberation struggles was the 1960s. Many within the first generation of post-colonial African leaders, from Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana) to Julius Nyerere (Tanzania) to Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia), had a deep appreciation for the role that industrialisation would play in the total emancipation of the African continent. These leaders grasped that Africa’s economic dependence was borne out of the original sins of imperialism and colonialism that consigned the continent to the position of perpetually supplying inexpensive raw materials to wealthy countries in exchange for expensive manufactures. Disrupting this colonial and imperial logic – that is, cutting the yoke of dependence – would require a structural re-orientation of African economies away from raw material production to industrial production. Additionally, industrialisation was viewed as the vehicle that would deliver a high level of employment and decent wages to a great mass of the population whose lives had been upended by colonialism and imperialism.

he African continent as a whole has not industrialised in any meaningful way over the last 60 years or so. The industrial level of many countries on the continent remains where it was at the time of political independence in the 1960s. Many have, in fact, de-industrialised. That is, the share of industry in their economic output is lower today than it was at the time of independence.

This inability to industrialise has had wide-ranging implications for the economic life of the African continent and its people. For example, real wages, which are often buttressed by industrial production, have declined and are lower today than they were in the 1970s. Additionally, over the last three decades the number of people living in poverty has declined in every region of the world except for Africa, where the opposite has taken place. In 1990, close to 300 million people lived in poverty in Africa. By 2020, that number had grown to 400 million and is likely to grow further in the current decade. Finally, the African continent is today more dependent on the rest of the world, especially the West, as a market for its primary commodities than at independence. Given China’s success at industrialisation and Africa’s struggles with it, there has curiously been a paucity of comparative scholarly work that seeks to draw out China’s lessons for Africa’s industrialisation. Even less has been work that considers whether China can be an effective ally in Africa’s hitherto elusive quest to industrialise.

It is this gap that the current issue of Wenhua Zongheng (文化纵横) seeks to fill. The two essays in this issue are written by leading Chinese scholars of comparative economic development.

The two articles are quite good, and detail the way China sees itself on the continent. Good for those trying to understand Chinese motivations and goals for the continent.

https://thetricontinental.org/wenhua-zo ... ontribute/

https://thetricontinental.org/wenhua-zo ... alisation/

[Puffer Fish]

I can provide a summary: China wants Africa's resources. Africa wants Chinese capital and expertise to build development projects.

The problem is, Africa often gets in debt to China to build those infrastructure projects. And China is probably going to leverage that debt and start owning and exerting control over Africa.

In other words, China will replace Europe as the new "colonial power" exerting economic control over Africa.

[Negotiator]

The problem is, Africa often gets in debt to China to build those infrastructure projects.

Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

As opposed to the west, who only forces developing countries who need a loan to follow the wests economic ideology (neoliberalism: a poor social state, no tariffs, etc), so the west can maximize their extortion of these countries and keep them forever from industrialization.

Instead China makes a profit and the african country can make a profit, too, and may industrialize however they see fit as well, because China doesnt dictate whatever they do politically.

Sooo evil. Come back to us, developing countries. We are the good guys. China are the bad guys. How can you possibly see it otherwise. Hollywood teached you better !

[Wellsy]

In regards to industrialization, I am trying to keep an ear out for examples of African nations looking to develop domestically.

For example, Ghana is the world’s second largest producer of cocoa and it is processed in Europe and the massive profits reaped by the chocolate companies there. The President has since reacted to EU environmental regulations displaced onto them I believe, to cut/limit ties with the chocolate companies and refine cocoa in Ghana.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56687427.amp

There are significant obstacles there but if they can get it off the ground this would change Ghana significantly.
I also wonder if there is an interest in Pan-Africanism to support one another in alliances to resist the West.