时代周刊：中国在非洲的“出奇制胜”

chrisxsy

　　如果你想了解非洲的问题，那就去刚果民主共和国看看。刚果是非洲的旋涡中心，大小与西欧相近。这里几乎没有任何铺设的道路。独立后的刚果领导人蒙博托·塞塞·塞科举世周知。蒙博托执政32年来民不聊生，自己却乘坐包机周游世界。1997年蒙博托去世后，刚果内战爆发，540万人丧生，并发生成千上万起强奸案，至今艾滋病和疟疾仍然肆虐。所以说，在刚果你一般不会碰到那些神采飞扬的年轻白领。
　　我去年在刚果就见到这样一个白领。他叫马西斯·徐（Mathis Xu），26岁，是中国一家国有建筑公司的管理人员。作为曾在北京学习外语的学生，徐与众不同地选择了法语 - 这个选择给他带来与众不同的机会。2008年4月，徐被选为刚果政府与中国铁路工程集团有限公司（CREC）一项90多亿美元交易谈判的翻译。中国铁建及其他建筑公司将在刚果建设道路、铁路、32家医院、145个保健中心以及两所大学。这是一项刚果急需的价值60亿美元基础设施投资。作为部分支付方式，刚果允许中国开采价值达30亿美元的对其新兴产业意义重大的铜矿和钴矿。协议达成当月，徐成了中国铁建公司与刚果政府间的联络人。“我们将改变这个城市，”看到重型建筑机械正把刚果河旁金沙萨市的一个小山包夷为平地，徐激动地说。“真了不起！”
　　300多个政治人物，商界领袖和社会组织的精英参加了《时代周刊》、《财富周刊》及美国有线电视新闻网（CN*）组织的在开普敦举行的全球论坛（6月25至28日）。中国在非洲的崛起是论坛讨论的重要内容。尽管面临全球性经济萧条，许多观察家仍然认为非洲经济正整装待发。大量商品刺激了非洲大陆的生产，其产出2007年和08年分别增长了5％至7％，即使是2009年也增长了2％。中国并不是唯一发现非洲机会的国家，却是最认真对待非洲机会的国家。中国在非洲的经济运作不仅可能改变该地区经济格局，甚至也可能改变其政治格局。

　　中国在非洲的野心、速度和规模都是非凡的。据《中国在非洲》作者克里斯·奥尔登提供的数字，中非贸易额在2000年为10亿美元，到2006年上升到550亿美元，2009年创900亿美元，取代美国成为非洲的最大贸易伙伴（美国在2009年与非洲的贸易额仅为860亿美元）。 如今中国在苏丹和安哥拉开采石油，从利比里亚和加蓬获取木材，在赞比亚和加纳从事开矿，在肯尼亚和津巴布韦搞农业生产。中国的建筑承包商在赤道几内亚和埃塞俄比亚修建道路，在刚果河与尼罗河流域修建水坝，在整个非洲大陆修建医院、学校、体育馆和总统府。他们也大规模收购，包括向南非标准银行购买 55亿美元的股份，为索马里移动电话公司投资1400万美元。
　　北京坚称它是非洲发展的伙伴，在提供投资的同时也为自己建立新产品市场以及资源获取渠道。而西方企业则认为中国在进行资源掠夺。他们担心中国会通过支付低工资、忽视安全、环境及人权标准或者采用其他难以想象的、甚至是不合法的方式将贸易、援助和外交混合一起来进行不公平竞争。事实是介乎二者之间。从某种程度而言，中国在拿非洲做实验 - 看看自己的想法究竟是否可行 - 它的非洲冒险值得仔细研究。那么我们必须先回答两个问题：中国在怎样改变非洲？同时，非洲在怎样改变中国？
　　让我们回到金沙萨。刚果有很多问题。西方帮助刚果的方式是提供援助-多边、双边或自筹资金的各种宗教团体和非政府组织。为了制止东部冲突，刚果拥有21，000人的世界上最强大的联合国维和部队-联刚特派团。这些努力成效不一。战争并未结束，国际机构的贷款只是在刺激腐败，很少能够帮助解决刚果的基础设施的落后，协调众多团体和国家的援助仍然十分困难。
　　再看中国。北京不送礼物，只做生意。在刚果，中国以援助基础设施建设换取矿藏开采权的激怒了国际货币基金组织（IMF）。该组织认为，刚果承诺中国在矿产方面获得30亿美元的开采权实际上是用国家资产打的借据，是一笔新的债务。这种做法违反了债务勾销条件，因其要求债务人不接受新的贷款。“如果刚果与中国的交易达成，” 一名熟悉该2009年中刚之间谈判的西方官员说，“他们不会得到任何更多的[西方]支持。” 之后双方展开了对峙。中国2007年与安哥拉达成的一笔交易也激怒了国际货币基金组织。国际货币基金组织已经与安哥拉进行了多年关于一笔新贷款的谈判。为阻止腐败和减轻贫困，国际货币基金组织仔细拟定了各项条件。但中国通过向罗安达支付50亿美元以换取石油开采权及基础设施合同，使国际货币基金组织的努力成为多余。非洲外交官常说非洲大陆为所有人都提供了空间。但发生在安哥拉和刚果的事件是对非洲的新的一轮争夺。作为翻译的徐确信自己参与了一场激烈的竞争。“很显然，不是每个人都非常高兴看到我们在这里。但我们不会输。”
　　尽管心存不满，国际货币基金组织的官员还是承认中国模式对非洲的发展有一定的优势。首先，它非常迅速。与多边机构的贷款谈判需几年时间，而中国在安哥拉只谈了几个星期。“在西方，什么事都要研究和分析，还有官僚主义的繁文缛节，”这位西方官员说。“而中国只是看当地政府想要什么，他们不提问题，不谈看法，不做判断，只是行动。”中国人做事与谈事一样迅捷。开车到任何一个非洲国家，你都会发现在路边有袖子卷起的中国工程师在督促工人干活。而成群的国际货币基金组织官员身着西装坐在空调房间里不可能有同样的速度。“我们做的始终看不见效果，”一个在非洲工作的国际货币基金组织职员抱怨说。“宏观经济稳定 - 这到底是什么呢？用相机照不出来。”
　　除了援助，亚洲发展模式越来越具吸引力。在过去两年中，非洲各国政府领略了西方经济的不稳定，也在亚洲的高速经济增长中找到了更好的模式。促使中国经济二十年增长的引擎--经济特区-正如如雨后春笋般出现在整个非洲大陆。中国企业家与其西方竞争对手之间真正的不同在于他们敢于在非洲冒险。不到一个月前，中国发布了一项在世界上最不稳定的国家之一进行的10亿美元的投资公告。5月，中国又令人吃惊地达成一项重建尼日利亚炼油能力的230亿美元的协议。中国的企业背后有强大的把商业和经援合二为一的政府的支持。这样的后盾加上在时间上放长线的战略大大降低了风险。中国驻刚果民主共和国大使吴泽献谈及这种新发展援助模式时说，“以前，非洲国家从未从自己的资源中获益。现在，中国企业帮助他们建设基础设施。其他国家认为刚果有很多问题。而我们认为刚果有巨大的潜力。”关键在于长远目标。 “是的，是有风险，”他说。“但50年后，我们仍然在这里。刚果及其矿产同样还在。短线投入是有问题，但长期投入没有太大的风险。”
　　那么非洲又在如何改变中国？2005年，49人在中国赞比亚谦比希矿厂爆炸事故中死亡。赞比亚民粹主义反对派领导人麦克·萨塔指责政府向北京出***家的立场曾为其赢得了2006年和08年选举的广泛支持。他对中国的看法带有明显偏见，其表达方式会让很多中国人感到不快。“在赞比亚每一个地方都有中国佬，8人挤在一个房间，”他在位于卢萨卡的办公室说。“这些中国佬在做什么，没有人知道。”
　　赞比亚只是众多批评中国的非洲国家之一。在南非，中国在反驳前总统姆贝基的“新殖民关系”的警告。在埃塞俄比亚，2007年4月，欧加登民族解放阵线叛乱分子在一个中国人的油井设施杀害了74名工人，其中9人是华人，中国因此不得不在***分子的冲突中选择立场。同年，一个中国工程师在肯尼亚蒙巴萨石料工厂一次袭击中死亡。中国石油工人在尼日利亚被绑架。在阿尔及利亚首都阿尔及尔，中国移民与阿尔及利亚人发生激战。
　　中国也在为自己辩护。中国的银行家、学者和外交官在非洲大陆轮番闪亮登场，参加各种经济首脑会议。“人们对中国不信任，”吴说，“所以我们必须说话以寻求理解。”但中国所做的不仅仅是说话，甚至包括在某些情况下放弃其不干涉主权国家内政的一贯立场。中国驻非洲事务特别代表、高级外交官刘贵今称自己是“政治麻烦解决者”，并说他花费很多时间在苏丹斡旋达尔富尔冲突。这听起来可不像“不干涉”。“我们对'不干涉'有灵活的解释。”刘笑着回答。尽管最初并不愿意，但中国现在是维和行动派遣部队人数第四多的国家。中国士兵作为联合国维和部队的成员出现在利比里亚、苏丹和刚果。
　　一个人的所谓灵活性可能会被另一个人看做是做事不讲原则。而中国对这类批评十分敏感。在津巴布韦，中国往往被指责为帮助罗伯特·穆加贝连任提供资源。但“争取民主变革运动党”（MDC）的一名高级成员却并不这样认为。他说中国为确保总理摩根·茨万吉拉伊，而不是穆加贝，能够于 2009年7月获得一笔新的9.5亿美元贷款“费了很多心思”。
　　中国本身也反映了这种变化。中国与非洲的关系是“因双方更好地相互理解而不断变化和成熟。” 泛非洲集团英国伦敦和罗得西亚矿业和土地有限公司首席执行官杰弗里·怀特杰说。正是基于这种理解，中国在国际货币基金组织反对的刚果协议中放弃了一些条款，并将基础设施部分的投资从60亿美元削减到30亿美元。刘（贵今）说，虽然中西方有“不同的轻重缓急，不同的立场和不同的做事方法，但我们需要共同努力，使双方的利益和政策取得一致。”
　　中国在非洲能走多远毕竟有限。它将继续与包括民主和独*在内的所有非洲国家保持友好关系。部分原因是每个非洲国家都有可能对台湾获取外交承认的努力投反对票。中国不干预内政的立场仍然很坚定。例如，不支持国际刑事法院以战争罪起诉苏丹总统奥马尔·巴希尔。
　　中国将援助、投资和外交混合在一起给非洲带来了变化。中国已经把非洲从一个慈善集散地转变成了商业场所。据经济合作与发展组织（OECD）称，2006年进入非洲的外国直接投资（FDI）金额首次大于援助金额 - 48亿美元比40亿美元，且数量还在不断增加。据联合国的贸易机构贸易和发展会议（UNCTAD）称，2008年，非洲的外国直接投资达880亿美元。 “贸易，而非援助”成为非洲有影响的领导人如卢旺达总统卡加梅等的新口头禅。
　　无论怎样解释中国在非洲的存在，它的馈赠都在这一大陆留下了印记。曾发生49人死亡的赞比亚谦比希矿工工会代表、45岁的穆文毕·斯坦拉斯（音译）对中国在非洲的扩张应该保持戒心才对，但是他的话正好相反：“我曾经为英国人、美国人、犹太人和瑞士人工作，”他说。“他们全都关闭了。而中国人没有离开。我的孩子将在这个矿区找到工作，他的儿子也会如此。中国正在接手非洲。我认为这是一个好事。”

英文原文：


Thursday, Jun. 24, 2010
China's New Focus on Africa
By Alex Perry / Kinshasa, Cape Town and Lusaka
　　If you want to see what's wrong with Africa, take a trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The size of Western Europe, with almost no paved roads, Congo is the sucking vortex where Africa's heart should be. Independent Congo gave the world Mobutu Sese Seko, who for 32 years impoverished his people while traveling the world in a chartered Concorde. His death in 1997 ushered in a civil war that killed 5.4 million people and unleashed a hurricane of rape on tens of thousands more. Today AIDS and malaria are epidemics. Congo, then, is not a place you'd normally associate with a yuppie.
　　Tell that to Mathis Xu, 26, a manager at a Chinese state construction company whom I met last year. As a languages student in Beijing, Xu took French to be different - and different is what he got. In April 2008, he was selected to translate for the Congolese government and the state-owned China Railway Engineering Corp. (CREC) in negotiations over a $9 billion deal. CREC and others would build thousands of kilometers of roads and railways, 32 hospitals, 145 health centers and two universities - an investment of $6 billion in the kind of infrastructure Congo desperately needs. As partial payment, China would receive $3 billion in concessions to mine the copper and cobalt essential to its growing industries. When the deal was struck that month, Xu found himself posted to Kinshasa as CREC's liaison with the government. "We will transform this city," he exclaims, watching CREC's giant road builders level a hillside in Kinshasa next to the Congo River. "It will be fantastic!"  
　　As more than 300 political figures, business leaders and champions of civil society gather in Cape Town for a forum sponsored by TIME and our corporate cousins at Fortune and CN*, China's role in Africa will be a key part of the discussions. Notwithstanding the Great Recession, many observers think the African economy is poised for great things. Fueled by a commodities boom, the continent's output grew 5% to 7% in both 2007 and '08 and even managed 2% growth in 2009. China is not the only nation that has noticed opportunities in Africa, but it is the one that has taken them most seriously, in ways that may change not just the region's economic landscape but its political one too.
　　The ambition, speed and scale of Chinese involvement in Africa is extraordinary. According to Chris Alden, author of China in Africa, two-way trade stood at $10 billion in 2000. By 2006, it was $55 billion, and in 2009 it hit $90 billion, making China Africa's single largest trading partner, supplanting the U.S., which did $86 billion in trade with Africa in 2009. Today the Chinese are pumping oil from Sudan to Angola, logging from Liberia to Gabon, mining from Zambia to Ghana and farming from Kenya to Zimbabwe. Chinese contractors are building roads from Equatorial Guinea to Ethiopia, dams from the Congo to the Nile, and hospitals and schools, sports stadiums and presidential palaces across the continent. They are buying too. Acquisitions range from a $5.5 billion stake in South Africa's Standard Bank to a $14 million investment in a mobile-phone company in Somalia.
　　Beijing insists it is a partner in Africa's development, delivering investment and gaining a new market for its products and new access to resources. Western business leaders say China is on a resource grab. They worry that it is playing unfairly, undercutting them by paying low wages; skirting standards on safety, the environment and human rights; and coordinating commerce, assistance and diplomacy in ways impossible, not to say illegal, in the West. The truth is somewhere in between. To the extent that China is using Africa as an experiment - to try out ideas of how it might be in the world - it is worthy of close study. To do that, we must answer two questions: How is China changing Africa? And how is Africa changing China?
　　Let's go back to Kinshasa. Congo's got problems. The Western way of helping has been with aid - multilateral, bilateral or through self-funding religious groups and NGOs. To stem fighting in the east, Congo has a 21,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force, MONUC, the biggest in the world. These efforts have had mixed success. The war hasn't ended, and the world's loans to Congo have helped fuel corruption. Little has been done to address Congo's infrastructure. Coordinating aid among so many groups and nations remains difficult.
　　Enter China. Beijing doesn't do gifts; it does deals. In Congo, China's infrastructure-for-mines deal irked the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF argued that Congo's guarantee to China that it would recoup at least $3 billion in minerals was an IOU on Congo's national assets and therefore a new debt. That fell afoul of debt-write-off conditions, which require that the debtor take on no new loans. "If the Congolese take the Chinese deal," said a Western official familiar with the negotiations in mid-2009, "they will not get any more [Western] support." A standoff ensued. An earlier deal, in 2007 with Angola, had also outraged the IMF, which had been negotiating a new loan with Angola for years, with carefully calibrated conditions to block corruption and alleviate poverty. By paying Luanda $5 billion in return for oil concessions and infrastructure contracts, China effectively made the IMF redundant. Diplomats across Africa like to say the continent offers space for everyone. But what's happening in Angola and Congo is a new scramble for Africa. Xu, the translator, has no doubt that he is engaged in an intense rivalry. "Not everybody is pleased to see us here, that's for sure. But we are not going to lose."
　　For all the heat, IMF officials admit that the Chinese model for African development has some advantages. First, it's quick. Loan talks with multilateral agencies take years. The China-Angola discussions took weeks. "With the West, there are studies, analyses and bureaucracy," says the Western official. "The Chinese just ask what the government wants, and they don't question or comment or judge. They just do it." China also works as visibly as it does quickly. Drive across almost any African country today, and you'll find Chinese engineers by the side of the road, sleeves rolled up, overseeing work crews. IMF officials in suits crunching numbers inside air-conditioned compounds just don't have the same kind of dash. "What we do is always in the shade," complains an IMF staffer in Africa. "Macroeconomic stability - what is that? You can't show it on camera."
　　The Asian model of development is looking increasingly attractive in ways beyond aid. African governments look at Western economic instability over the past two years and find a better model in Asia's extraordinary growth. Special economic zones, one of the engines of China's growth for two decades, are popping up across the continent. But what really distinguishes Chinese businesspeople from their Western rivals in Africa is how risk-happy they seem. Barely a month goes by without the announcement of a new billion-dollar investment in one of the world's least stable countries. The latest? A stunning $23 billion deal in May to rebuild Nigeria's oil-refining capacity. For Chinese businesses, having the backing of a rich state that packages aid with commerce and has an extended time horizon cuts risk significantly. Wu Zexian, Chinese ambassador to Congo, elaborates on this new model of development assistance. "Before, African countries never profited from their resources. Now they help them build infrastructure. Other countries say, This country has a lot of problems. We say, This country has huge potential." The key is long-term vision. "Yes, there is a risk," says Wu. "But in 50 years, we will still be here. So will Congo and the mines. Short term: sure, problems. Long term: not much risk."
　　So how is Africa changing China? In 2005, 49 workers died in an accident at a Chinese mining-explosives factory in Chambishi, Zambia. Populist opposition leader Michael Sata accused the government of selling out the country to Beijing, a stance that earned him wide support in the 2006 and '08 elections. His views on China are colorful and expressed in terms that many Chinese would find deeply offensive. "In every part of Zambia, the Chinaman is there, packed eight to a room," he says at his office in Lusaka. "What the Chinaman is doing, nobody knows."
　　Zambia is just one country in Africa where China's presence has provoked criticism. In South Africa, China found itself rebutting warnings from former President Thabo Mbeki about a new "colonial relationship." In Ethiopia, China had to take sides in a separatist conflict in April 2007 when Ogaden National Liberation Front rebels killed 74 workers, nine of whom were Chinese, at a Chinese oil-field installation. The same year, a Chinese engineer was killed in an attack on a stone-material plant in Mombasa, Kenya, and Chinese oil workers have been kidnapped by rebels in Nigeria. Chinese migrants fought pitched battles with Algerians in their capital, Algiers, last year.
　　So China is trying to explain itself. Chinese bankers, academics and diplomats now take star turns at economic summits across the continent. "There is a mistrust of China," says Wu. "We have to speak to be understood." China has done more than just speak. It has also, in some cases, abandoned its long-standing policy of noninterference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. Liu Guijin, China's special representative to Africa and its top diplomat on the continent, calls himself a "political troubleshooter" and says he spends a lot of time in Sudan mediating the conflict in Darfur. That sounds like a definite departure. "Perhaps we are having a flexible interpretation of noninterference," Liu replies with a laugh. After an earlier reluctance, China is now the fourth largest contributor of troops to peacekeeping operations; its soldiers are on the ground in Liberia, Sudan and Congo as part of U.N. operations.
　　One man's flexibility can be another's willingness to do deals with anyone. But China is becoming more sensitive to that criticism too. In Zimbabwe, China is often accused of helping keep Robert Mugabe in power. Not so, contends a senior member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Party, who says China went to "huge lengths" to ensure that MDC Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, not Mugabe, got credit for a new $950 million loan in July 2009.
　　Mirroring the changes taking place in China itself, China's relationship with Africa is "changing and maturing month by month as both parties better understand each other," says Geoffrey White, CEO of the trans-African conglomerate Lonrho. It was that spirit that persuaded China to drop details in its Congo deal that the IMF found objectionable as well as cut the infrastructure part of the deal from $6 billion to $3 billion. Liu says that while China and the West have "different priorities, different approaches and different ways of doing things, we need China and [the West] to make efforts to align their interests and policies."
　　There are limits to how far China will go. It will continue to pursue warm relations with all African countries, whether they are democracies or dictatorships, partly because each African country represents a potential vote against Taiwan's efforts to gain diplomatic recognition. China's commitment to nonintervention also remains strong; it has, for example, not supported the International Criminal Court in its attempts to prosecute Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes.
　　For all the tangled tale of aid, investment and diplomacy, what China has really brought to Africa is a change in the way the rest of the world thinks of the continent. China has helped transform the idea of Africa from a destination for charity to a place for business. In 2006, for the first time, flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Africa were greater than the amount of aid - $48 billion of FDI, vs. $40 billion of aid, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And the numbers keep growing. In 2008, according to the U.N. trade body UNCTAD, FDI hit $88 billion. "Trade, not aid" is the new mantra of influential African leaders like Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
　　China's largesse, whatever the explanations for its arrival in Africa, has left a mark. As the representative of the Zambian Mineworkers Union at the Chambishi complex where the 49 workers died, Mwinbe Stanslas, 45, might be expected to sound a note of caution about China's expansion. He does not. "I've worked for the British, the Americans, a Jew and the Swiss," he says. "They all closed. The way the Chinese are investing, they're not leaving. My boy will get a job in this mine, and his boy after him. China is taking over. And I tell you, it's a blessing."
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