 Hi everyone. Welcome to the China and the Global South small group expert led discussion of the 2021 epic symposium. My name is David Jang and I'm a second year student in this year's epic class who's studying international relations. Today's discussion will look forward to discussing China's growing involvement in burgeoning relations in the LAC, Latin American and Caribbean and African nations. China's relations with these nations have reached a high profile since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative. However, actual relations between China and Global South nations are far reaching and intricate in their historical breadth. The BRI is only a recent development. With China's plethora of infrastructure projects in the growing number of Global South nations and billions of investment flying around the world, we hope to delve deeply into the true impact of Chinese projects abroad. What is the situation like on the ground with social economic environmental factors considered? Do China's projects provide tangible economic promise to the receiving country or are they exploitative in the nation in which they operate? In addition, we hope to analyze the diversity of strategies taken by various nations interacting with China and the vastly different outcomes that result. So before I introduce our panelists, I want to explain how this discussion will run. The purposes of encouraging as much discussion as possible. After my introduction, each panelist will give an opening remarks of five or six minutes. And then I'll post a general question to get the ball rolling and after that, we will see what the discussion takes us. We want a lot of back and forth dialogue and hope this will be very intellectually stimulating and engaging. So I'm joined today by two experts. So we have Miss Margaret Myers, who's the director of the Asia and Latin American program at the Inter-American Dialogue. She established the Dialogues China and Latin America Working Group in 2011 to examine China's growing presence in the Latin America and the Caribbean. Myers also developed the China-Latin America Finance Database, the only publicly available source of empirical data on Chinese state lending Latin America, in cooperation with the Global China Initiative at Boston University's Global Development Policy Center. Next we have Dr. Emmanuel Matambo. Dr. Emmanuel Matambo is a visiting research fellow at the Center for Africa-China Studies. The Center is a joint initiative of the University of Johannesburg and Nanjing Tech University. While at the University of KwaZulu Natal, he published two dissertations about China-African relations with his dissertation for a Master of Social Science degree based on the China-South Africa relation while his doctorate dissertation was a constructivist analysis of Sino-Isambian relations. While he has published many academic articles on a range of topics like conference resolution, contemporary terrorism, African agency, his main interest is on the growing China-African relationship. So I will let Miss Myers give her remarks first, followed by Dr. Matambo. Thank you so much, David, and also for the kind invitation to join you all. Just from what David said, the folks here in the room have some very fascinating backgrounds and a lot of related interests. So I look forward to hearing about your interests, your areas of focus, and having a really rich discussion for the remainder of the session. It's also a distinct pleasure to be joined by Dr. Matambo as well. I look forward to learning from him, too. As you know, as David mentioned, I've been at the Inter-American Dialogue now, which is a Latin America Affairs or actually Western Hemisphere Affairs think tank in Washington DC for about a decade. The think tank itself was, you know, was developed back in the 1970s to address the debt crisis in Latin America, bringing together key actors from across the region to come up with solutions to what at that time was a common issue and a pretty existential one for many countries. And then has become, you know, we focus on a much wider range of topics. We have five different program areas and one of them is Asia and Latin America. And I would say, you know, I direct the Asia Latin America program, I came to the dialogue to do just that. And I would say that although it's Asia and Latin America, the title of the program, we focus probably about 80% of our time looking at China. The transformative nature of Chinese engagement with Latin America and how very much the relationship has evolved over the past, you know, 10 years, two decades really, but really in the past 10 years we've seen some quite remarkable and dramatic And another, you know, 20 or so percent of time is of our time and attention is focused on mostly on Japan. Japan's sort of long standing relationship with the region, which is also very interesting. And has become a renewed interest of late in Washington DC for those who don't know as you know the US government, whether under the Trump administration or the Biden administration looks to partner with like what are called, you know, like minded countries with shared values to try to make more alternatives in terms of investment in certain strategic sectors to to Chinese investment. This is just sort of the nature of policy at the moment and so certainly the US Japan Brazil relationship US Japan. Other countries in Latin America triangular dynamics are of heightened interest in Washington at the moment and so have been an area of focus for us as well. So in this program, what we tend to do with the dialogue, and our areas of focus actually evolved over time just given priorities at any given moment whether in Latin America and China or in the United States but what we've tended to do sort of since the beginning is to make their work into three different areas. One is looking at the sort of macro relationship what's happening broadly speaking in terms of capital flows, in terms of broad sort of economic trends broad political trends. And as David mentioned we started something called the China Latin America finance database. Gosh, I don't know maybe seven years ago to start tracking Chinese sovereign loans so very specific kind of loan right to to Latin American finance and state owned enterprises. And at the onset of this relationship so much of what was happening in the financial space was indeed sovereign loans, you know, China's big banks I don't know how familiar you all are with the sort of, you know, bank, sort of financial landscape in China but they're two big banks China Development Bank and Export Import Bank. They do a lot of the overseas lending or at least have historically and continue to do so in support of the Belt and Road Initiative. And they gave you know, lots of money to a handful of countries in Latin America over time. So what we did was to track a lot of that. In addition to that we try and track other sources of finance commercial banks for example you've probably heard of the ICBC Bank of China which are you know, present here in the United States to some degree but also better you know especially prominent in certain countries in Latin America, for example, if anyone spent Argentina of late and you've headed down to the river to Porto Marero, you've seen a huge ICBC building that does a lot of work both in terms of retail banking and giving money to companies of various forms to do projects in Argentina and elsewhere. In addition to that we track, you know, developments in trade, bilateral trade, you know, regional trade. And, and also flows of foreign direct investment be it acquisitions of existing assets or greenfield investment meaning building new things right in and across the Latin American region. Is this headed is it changing you know what are the sectors that China Chinese companies are prioritizing why are they prioritizing them trying to get a sense of, of how this works. And also providing recommendations to Latin American governments to ensure best outcomes right with respect to these various investments and build capacity. On the other side, we have been trying to understand a firm level dynamics so what's happening within Chinese companies as concerns for example, views of corporate social responsibility, or governance right to potentially affect outcomes on the ground in Latin America are there is there a growing interest in engaging with local communities before or during project development. Which companies are performing best in the Latin American region and which are still struggling to meet certain standards. How do companies react to to controversy. These sorts of questions are things that we have explored over time as part of the program. We've also done a recent paper if you're interested in in kind of in this world right in China Latin America or China's global engagement called going local. It examines the extent to which China is engaging at various administrative levels in the Latin American region. We've seen a lot of bilateral engagement really since the onset of the relationship a couple of decades ago. And just as a point of comparison the Latin America relationship is about a decade younger this enhanced relationship right China's been in Latin America for many, many, many decades, engaging in various ways but this enhanced economic relationship really started a couple of decades ago, about a decade before. And, you know, Dr Matambo can correct me on this but about a decade before Africa's enhanced relationship with with with China. In any case we explored the extent to which you know bilateral engagement continues to be an area of focus versus regional engagement through various platforms that had already been an existence or of our of China's design like the China select forum for example which I'm happy to talk about, but also a growing interest it's been you know ongoing for a number of years now but a growing interest certainly in engaging at the local level. With cities with municipalities with states or provinces. In order to advance a wide range of objectives economic right commercial or political and some in some instances as well, and more broadly speaking sort of just shaping views of China across the region through a wide range of mechanisms and through wide actors, you know some of them, you know, official diplomatic actors, you know embassies for example others coming from various ministries in China others sort of quasi diplomatic actors, such as the CPA FFC which is responsible for sister cities and others right and all sorts of other networks that are being developed right now, and that's a big part of course of the Belt and Road as well. The Belt and Road has sort of five different areas that it focuses on, you know, in terms of promoting connectivity and one of those is people to people engagement right so that's certainly a big part of that. And then a third area that we look at as part of the program is this US China Latin America triangular dynamic right which is a complex one has you know the tensions in this relationship have really intensified quite considerably over the past I'd say four years, which probably comes as a surprise to no one, you know, seeing any headlines of late with real, you know concerns on all sides about where this is headed. That can be done. Sorry, in the interest of discussion. I'll stop right there. Thank you. I imagine we're in different time zones. It's, it's it's quarter to eight in the evening here in South Africa, Johannesburg. So, good evening. Good afternoon, wherever you are. David, thank you very much and thank you to your institution as well for your kind invitation. And thanks to everyone else who is participating in this meeting. Well, and I'm really honored to share this platform with with Margaret Myers as well. I'm an admirer of what, of what she does. And then most of what I'm going to say here could actually apply to what she was saying because if we look at Africa in the developing world, then we would see that there are some intersections between what has been happening between China, Africa relations and what has been happening between China's relationship with with Latin America. Now, if you indulge me, I will start by creating a context of China's relationship with Africa, and then cascade it down to China's relationship with my native country of the Republic of Zambia visit if you have a chance it's a beautiful country. And so I will go in that I'll go in that I'll proceed in that fashion. Now, what informs this stimulated relationship between China and Africa because this is a relationship that has goes back centuries of centuries even when Jean Hey, was a Chinese expeditionary mostly mostly went to the east coast of Africa with some some porcelain have been found in Africa centuries old porcelain and then it was gifted with a giraffe to go back to China but then the establishment of formal relations between China and Africa happened in 1956, with Egypt being the first to establish formal relations with China and this was a year after the 1955 Bandung conference or the Afro Asian conference through which the developing world sought to establish some synergy and done some independence against the Soviet Union and the United States in their pursuit for global dominance. And then the after after that, of course, the mainland China itself had to make sure that it impact on a diplomatic offensive, so that it could rest its, its recognition at an international level from from the Republic of China which is Taiwan was Taiwan, the nationalist government that fled to Taiwan after the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and the biggest clue that China had mainland China that it was in 1971 when 35 African countries. I think it was 22 African countries but I think they formed something close to 36% of the membership of the United Nations voted in favor of China being the recognized representative of the Chinese people and thus occupying the United Nations Security Council seat. The determination of all that came in 2000 in the year 2000 when China was growing in its economic profile and it established the forum on China Africa cooperation, popular known as fork egg, and David made mention of course, of the built and road initiative, which was initially called the one built one road initiative, which was established in 2013. So that is how this relationship has grown and between 2003 to 2019, which is a space of about 16 years. China's investment overseas for indirect investment in Africa grew from only 75 million to 2.7 million but then direct flaws increased up to 5.5 billion. And because of the bank that Margaret mentioned the ICBC the Industrial Commission Bank of China buying about 20% of the stake in the standard bank of of South Africa which is one of the biggest banks not only in Africa but in the world. So that is what has been happening now, coming to Zambia, you have to look at the history as well of China Africa relations and then in Zambia respect that it is a relationship that was steeped in ideology because China was pivotal in helping in terms of material production and also propaganda and helping Zambia to make sure that it helped in the struggle against colonial settler and apartheid who in Southern Africa. And then in 1970 1967 to 1975 China contributed to us building the Tanzania Zambia rail line, famous known as the Gazara rail line, and then China as a poor country that now that this is very important. The poor country that contributed 500 million. Now, to put this in context, in 1978 China's per capita GDP was $156 and what people will not guess is that the per capita GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa that moment was three times better than that of China at $490, but still this is a country that contributed to as Africa's struggle against colonialism. So that created this semblance of formidability between Zambia's relationship with China, Zambia was very vocal in promoting decolonization in Southern Africa and President Kounda, the first president of Zambia, described this relationship as a relationship between all weather frames. Now, increasingly this relationship has become lopsided, why? Because China's economic progress has been sustained over 40 years, but Zambia's economic progress has been fit for and it has been declining since 2011. And you find the situation now where 30% of Zambia's external date, we have an external date, official statistics say our external date is 11.7 billion and 3 billion of that, which is about more than 30%, let me just say more than 30% of Zambia's external date is all to China. And we have seen a situation where the Zambian government is all too eager to please the Chinese government and of course the investment has come in form of a road infrastructure, airport building and foreign direct investment as well. And that has had an impact on Zambia's sovereignty, Zambia's democracy because everything that is against China is frowned upon by the Zambian government. And I'll be happy to talk about the aspect of what democracy entails in the country of Zambia, not only voting, not only media independence and not only multi-party democracy, and how China has impacted on all those. I hope I have reached my five minutes limit now. Thank you. Thank you both for your remarks. So just as a questioning, you can question that whatever comes to your interest. I know we have some T-Lip international delegates here. So if they have any specific questions to either Miss Myers or Dr. Matambo, we encourage the dialogue. So I can jump into my first question. So this is a question that comes out. It's more specific to Miss Myers, but I think that it applies to Dr. Matambo's case as well. So in her book, Dragonomics, how Latin America is maximizing or missing out China's international development strategy by USC, Professor Carol Wise, she claims that China's involvement in Latin America complements rather than threatens the presence of the United States, as China fills critical infrastructure gaps for its own interests rather than taking on usual western positions in aiding emerging economies. So this could also, this question could go up to both of you. Do you agree with her assertion and what implications positive or negative does this have for nations of the region, as well as their agents? I'm happy to take an initial stab at that. I mean, I think the first point is one that you alluded to is that China has a very different view of and definition of overseas development assistance. Right. And it comes in different forms, but it's also largely based on infrastructure driven growth. Right. And so we see that playing out across the world. Right. Including in Latin American and Caribbean region in a considerable fashion. And indeed, the Chinese companies, you know, have been exceedingly active in the development, especially of transport infrastructure with a major focus, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean on ports, but also road and rail electricity, transmission, you know, energy infrastructure, things of this nature, where, you know, there are other companies involved, including U.S. companies, right, but not nearly to the same extent. And often they don't have access to the same sources of the extent of finance, right, especially low interest finance that the Chinese companies have. So Chinese companies broadly speaking are in a better position often to engage and have more indeed interest in engaging, including in countries that are perceived to have a sort of more risky politically or economically profile. And so, yes, I mean, there is a sort of complementarity there where in, you know, China is engaging in areas where the U.S. is not. That said, I think we have to break it down by sector. Right. So in infrastructure, yes, there's quite a bit of complementarity, but there's quite a bit of competition and other sectors and tech is one of those, right. And tech is one of those and it's going to be increasingly an area where there's a lot of competition. If we're talking about 5G infrastructure, you know, small cell technology, things like that. The U.S. doesn't really have a, is it a horse in the race or a dog and the fact I have no, these idioms I can never get them right, but in a case that we don't have a supplier, right, the U.S. does not have a supplier of these things, but many other countries do. And there are four other, I guess it's three other other than China, because Huawei has two major providers ETE and China has two major providers ETE and Huawei. But in any case, whether we're talking about telecoms 5G smart cities, cloud computing surveillance tech, a wide range of other areas there is a lot in fact a lot of competition not just with U.S. companies but with European ones, Japanese and Korean ones. So I think it's really critical I agree with Carol wise absolutely and she's a good friend, but I do also think it's really absolutely critical to break it down by sector because indeed there is growing competition in certain areas Ag is another one where competition is really quite extensive. Thank you, my great. If I could just add to that as well. As Margaret has rightly put it there are some areas of complementarity and intersection if you look at infrastructure for example President George Bush came up with a millennium challenge which was very pivotal in improving Africa's infrastructure and China has looked at in countries like Zambia China has looked at sectors where for example the millennium challenge could not cater. These are areas such as the provision of good transport infrastructure because the millennium challenge in Zambia's respect was mainly towards sanitation and coming up with an effective sewer network. Let us come back to other sectors as well and other aspects of China's relationship with Africa and as against the West now the fundamental difference is in on a matter of engagement and the form of engagement. When you look at what is happening in terms of material terms, economics infrastructure yes it was just an intersection but the fundamental difference comes in when you want to look at the values and the principles of the engagement. Now you have a China that seeks nothing but order. And you have the United States that seeks nothing but freedom and liberty in terms of their values. So that is where the difference comes in. There are countries where China will go to and say, we're not going to disrupt everything that happens because we are very touchy about you are disrupting our internal affairs. So that is what happens. So China has more of a cultural relativistic way of engaging with Africa and the developing world. The United States has an absolutist way of engaging with Africa and the Latin America thinking as though they are setting universal values to which we all should adhere. And that is where the difference comes in but then when you look at things like engagement in terms of oil in terms of economic development in terms of infrastructure cooperation. China is really doing nothing fundamentally different from what the West has been doing. Thank you. Thank you. Does the audience have any questions. Please raise your hands and I can call you perfectly happy to talk about also bilateral relationships that there's a specific country of interest. Hey, but I had a quick question, if you don't mind me jumping in. Oh, I call in Jason you can go next Alex. Okay, great. Thanks. Yeah, so thank you so much for both of you for coming here and just joining this discussion with subs. So, Professor. Mutom. Mutombo. Mutombo. Yeah, so you were mentioning how like, you know, fundamentally like with the projects, especially I guess with like sectors like infrastructure like the US and China they're essentially doing the same thing but, you know, the values are different. The US is more, you know, like, you know, valuing freedom and like, like making that like pretty absolute and just based on my understanding, like a lot of like, for example, investments and loans from the US and Western countries they have like the standard maybe like on human rights or like political system that like requires a country to like reach a certain standard in order to receive the loan but the Chinese investments are much more relaxed about that. So just based on your understanding of like the current state of Africa, like, do most countries like fit the standard of us investments or do they not and if they, if, if, if like they do not fit the case, like, if they do not fit the standard for us they could then technically they could only receive Chinese investments then are they like, you know, like happily receiving Chinese investment because they need to develop or it's like, no, we, we really want the US investment but we just like cannot like ensure like, like our political system to be like democratic enough or like human rights standards to be high enough to receive that and unfortunately we have to take the Chinese money like like if the countries they could choose and then based on my understanding then they preferred the Western investments more than China is not the case. David, do you want me to answer right away. Yes. Thank you very much, Jason. That was a deep, deep question for me to aside fully, I'll probably need to write a book. Margaret talked about bilateral relations and I look to that now because what you talked about cannot be generalized in the aspect of Africa so let's speak in general terms, I'll start by speaking in general terms. Since 2011 when when Libya was invaded up to now, there has been a loss in democratic dividend in Africa because the African Union has been very unhappy with how Libya has ended up and the crisis just happening in the, in the Sahel region. So because of that we have found ourselves drifting even more into China's orbit. Now, when you talk about, do we happily receive aid or investment from China. Now that has to be on a country by country basis and I'll give you two examples. I'll give you the example of countries that are actually neighboring countries, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Now if you look at the aspect of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe was forced into going to China out of necessity because of this disastrous war and then the ruinous land redistribution program, which actually incurred a lot of sanctions on Zimbabwe. So, because of those sanctions Zimbabwe was forced to go into China, not because it chose, but because it was forced out of necessity. Prime Minister Tony Blair, he kind of went against his own word about how the people were the British occupants of Zimbabwe are going to be compensated. So when he backtracked on his way, Mugabe decided to seize the land from British descendants and that is why Zimbabwe came under strangeness sanctions from the United States, from the World Bank and from the West in general, and then it went to China. You have another country and let us look at this Zimbabwe is an authoritarian country. And then you have another country right next to Zimbabwe, which is Botswana, which is by African standards. It's a bad thing to say by African standards, but unfortunately we have to say that because the democratic dividend in Africa has been on a decline, but by African standards Zimbabwe Botswana could be described as a stable democracy. Botswana has, because of the fortified nature of its democratic institutions, it is in a position to actually choose wherever it wants to have close ties with and it has chosen both China and the United States but Botswana has been more assertive there's been a lot of agency from Botswana. That is why even when countries, big economies like South Africa, for example, backward under Chinese pressure by refusing to give the visa to the Dalai Lama, for example, Botswana agreed to give the visa to the Dalai Lama, it ended up not coming because of the exhaustion. So countries that are more democratic, but authentically democratic are more inclined to assert independence and choosing who to go for whether the West or China, but countries that are more authoritarian like Zimbabwe, Zambia is increasingly becoming so. Those are out of necessity being forced to have stronger economic ties with people's Republic of China. I hope I answered it exhaustively just now. Yeah, that was a really great answer. Thank you. Thank you very much. Alex. Yeah, great. Thank you. So this question, first of all, thank you to both of our speakers for coming in discussing with us today. So going back to something that Mr. Mutombo said how China has more of a cultural way with engaging with Africa versus the US and a lot of the Western Europe maybe is more of an absolutist way. I was wondering if both Miss Myers and Mr. Mutombo could comment on what the West could potentially have to learn from China's engagement in in the developing world in the global south, and what the future could look like if the West chooses to adopt something closer to the Chinese model as China continues to invest more and more in these regions. I think it's a really great question. I mean, it's a really great question. It's really important question and I think actually, you know, observing the popularity at least, you know, in the past, gosh, I don't know, at the height of Chinese of the world to Latin America which you know was in 2010 when we saw 35 billion being given by CDB and Exib Bank to Venezuela and Brazil and you know a couple other countries. I think there was a lot of sort of critical thinking in Washington not just among us officials probably less among us officials that among that among the multilateral development banks that are situated in Washington and the multilateral development bank for example in the World Bank who you know which have very strict ESG standards right which they apply when when giving loans and which you know slow down processes quite considerably and make it difficult for them to to compete effectively right for certain projects that they're going head to head to China with China in certain cases right and also to get things just approved at all. It's a real sort of reckoning with this as I understand it right at the time at the Inter-American Development Bank in particular, should we downgrade somewhat right some of these standards in order to be able to engage more extensively with countries and to avoid losing some of this business we want to call it that right to China, or to avoid, you know, what they perceived at the time is as you know the ability to sort of influence outcomes as concerns, you know, the environment or, you know, social welfare or governance in various forms and at different levels. I don't they have not as I understand it downgraded any of their standards or guidelines, but this was something that they were absolutely considering on the US I mean within the US government. So what strikes me is, you know, a response a real sort of competitive response, which strikes me as a bit short sighted but I mean, the sort of initial response was a development of the build act, right or the creation of that in the passage of the Build Act which then led to the development of the US Development Finance Corporation which has at this point I forget how many loans it is but something like six or seven have been issued across the Latin American and Caribbean region and a wide range of different countries, mostly supporting infrastructure projects of various forms. But in general I mean it's $60 billion globally, right, that the the the DFC is able to offer. It's slower again right then what China tends to do. And the numbers really do pale in comparison to what China offers whether we're talking, especially for talking cumulatively like from the development from the policy banks commercial banks from private equity friends and you know the wide range of other financial sources that that are operating in these various regions at any given time and so, whether that's a, you know response. It's good right to be potentially you know doing more in the way of investment but also there's the prospect of further indebting some of these countries if it's purely loans right and this is. This is a bit controversial of late with respect to Ecuador, right where the DFC. It was it's a memorandum of understanding of understanding it's not something that's been signed off on yet but offered alone to Ecuador. It was conditioned on the privatization of some oil assets and also on the rejection of Huawei as a bitter in the upcoming 5G auctions. So, you know, there are ways to go about this. I don't know if that's the best way but certainly these are some of the things that we've seen materialize or the conversations and reactions that we've seen materialize in the past few years in response to all of this. Thank you. Thank you, Margaret. I'll just add a few words to what Margaret said. Thank you very much Alexander that was a very profound question actually what the United States and the West, let me just say the United States and the West in general, could learn if there's anything to learn from the from the Chinese model in Africa. The first thing is the acknowledgement of the different contexts. There is a different, there's a difference context between the United States is a different context happening in Africa, and there's a different context happening in China now China seems to pay heed to those different dynamics. Now Africa is at a certain at a different stage of development from the United States. If you look at the, they ran up to the 1960s the agitation for civil rights in the United States. There was a lot of exploitation that was happening to people of color in the United States so most of the things that Africans today talk about is well, you're forcing a paradigm on us that is not really suited to us because you're kind of it's a question bed the United States wants Africa to prove some kind of delay it says Africa should run most everyone is working I think the United States actually wants Africa to even fly the worst. The rest of the world is working and I think that that cannot work you have to understand, you have to understand the dynamics that we have here in Africa we're at a certain stage of development we're still trying to play catch up. The United States has to make sure that it takes us at that level do not come up with this absolute this way of looking at the world make sure that you also consider the dynamics of individual African countries and then. Another thing is there is an expression do not shoot the message I think it's an American or Western expression. Well, here in Africa, when we look at our colonial history unfortunately cannot disentangle the messenger from the message. In China, for example, in the United States and Britain, France and other colonial previously colonial powers are pontificating to us. We always look at the person talking about that particular giving us that particular message. And China has been very deft in that because most of the times when China is engaging with the developing world, African particular, it will take it to always evoke the issue of humiliation. I always talk about it being humiliated by Japan, it being humiliated by the Soviet Union, it being humiliated by Great Britain that only gave it back home in 1997. So that creates this intersecting history of victimhood between China and African we look at now the capitalist orders being the common enemy. So that is those are just some of the things to with the United States should pay it look at the individual context of African countries, the cultural context of African countries and pay it to that, not when once you come as as as the power that was previously linked to colonial powers, and you're just pontificating to Africa, we tend to look at more the present that is saying those things, rather than the message that they that they are conveying. Thank you. Hi, thank you for coming to talk to us today, I have two questions, and the first one is like related to sustainability as well. So China like although they are like investing in like energy, the coal plant and other like energy infrastructures like they're also kind of like preventing developing countries from like developing sustainably. So how would how what will be like the perspectives of like African countries or Latin American countries on like the balance between the sustainable development and economics like development in the short run. And my second question is, it's also related to economic development. But, so China is investing more on like infrastructure, but like they are not providing much on human target compared to other countries like the US and, or other like European countries so how do you see China will like will China continue to focus more on like maybe investment on like infrastructure because it will promote like China's economic might be beneficial for like China's companies itself or how would you see China will put more resources on my humanitarian aid if you have any ideas. I can make a few sort of brief comments to start out the. I'm going to just put out a new white paper on development assistance which is worth, you may have already taken a look at that. Yeah, I don't know. But, you know, it talks about more of a focus on humanitarian assistance and untied aid. So, you know, the provision of concessional lending, for example, low interest rate rent lending that is not tied to the use of Chinese companies or to the use of Chinese equipment, things of this nature so sort of sort of rethinking of what it is to to engage in development assistance in various regions right. I don't know if that will fundamentally change this this extensive focus on infrastructure development I still feel like you know the the view of what it is to do human through development assistance is very much, you know, infrastructure based. And that's unlikely to change all that much but the nature of the ways in which they may go about that the mechanisms used could could vary somewhat in the coming years so I think it might be worth taking a look at that particular document I haven't studied but perhaps in perhaps Mr. Dr. Matambo has has and can provide some more information but on the, you know, on the sustainability question this is something that strikes me as sort of evolving. I'm going to get quite quite a bit, at least rhetorically right it's hard to say whether there will be a major evolution on the ground still you know in Latin American region I can speak only about that region right we're seeing considerable investment in sectors that tend to have an impact on the environment and on, you know, social well being welfare, you know, on specific communities where for some of these investments are taking place because, you know, most of the focus is on extractive sectors and on large scale infrastructure projects including through, you know, areas that are environmentally very sensitive. And so, you know, undoubtedly there will continue to be sustainability problems associated with those sorts of projects and the extent of engagement in those particular sectors at the same time we're seeing in policy documents a lot more of a focus on sustainability a lot more of a focus on sort of greening the Belt and Road Initiative on what's called quality infrastructure which is a term that Japan uses extensively to write the China appears to have borrowed from Japan in just the past few years. But, you know, also, and and on, you know, much higher standards and much more rigorous approval processes for overseas investment through the Belt and Road Initiative by Chinese companies and so a lot depends on on whether these new initiatives, you know, have any teeth, whether they are, you know, upheld, and whether Chinese companies go forth with all of this in mind, and that's hard to say, but things could change, you know, and right now, according to China and other studies, there's quite a bit less focus on on coal than there has been in the past. So that's called that power plant development, you know, globally, whether this continues to be the case, you know, again still remains to be seen. Well, thank you. Thank you Margaret for that. And thank you for your question. I can only pronounce your last name is Takamoto, but your first name. Rie. Rie. Okay. All right. Thank you very much for that question. Let me start with a way Margaret left in terms of infrastructure. I say your question is very not not only a good one but very important because whenever we talk about the issues of how sustainable China's projects. We, we should have the wrong target in the developing world. We are very quick to, and the West has helped us in that road towards error. We are very quick in blaming China, rather than putting the responsibility on China on Africa and the development, because we know exactly what we, we know how sustainable China's investment could be and how we could make use of China's investment in order to to sustain what is happening. I'll give you a specific example of my own country again somewhere where we have a desperate lack of electricity these days in Zambia. It is not actually unusual to have a power outage of about, about 12 hours in a day that's half a day in total darkness or do you realize the economy for example. So, in order to remedy that we, we hired a Sinohydro, a Chinese company to build the Kahfewa gorge electricity supply station well that was hot in 2018 because the Sinohydro could not actually explain why it had voted that but it was probably because there was no assurance from the Zambian government that it could actually service the date that it had incurred from that particular area. So it is the responsibility of Africa to ensure that whatever is invested in Africa is sustainable. So the responsibilities is on Africa and not on China when it comes to humanitarian aid. So the strongest point about China is actually its standard. It is very candid when it's coming to Africa. It does not come under our first pretenses. If at all there are some negative aspects to China-Africa relations or China's relationship with the developing world, then those are kind of byproducts but not that it, not that it actively seeks to undermine democracy or to undermine the local economy. So it was the case during the Cold War for example when the United States actually actively undermined democracy in countries like the Congo, they are provided, you are, you are, you are, you are against the Soviet Union. China does not do that. It comes as a strictly business partner to Africa. And so we know exactly what we're getting ourselves into. And not tell us, okay, we are going to promote good governance in your country. We are going to come up with all, did not use all these flowery language. They'll tell you, this is exactly what you want, and we are going to go into it. And in terms of humanitarian speaking, when Margaret in our opening remarks was talking about the micro level, she was talking about community social responsibility. Well, that has been slowly coming into the mainstream of Chinese investment in Africa. For example, you have the Kajado project in Kenya where China, the Chinese company, the private Chinese company is providing portable water to the Masai people. Not only that, it is also embarking on building schools, coming up teaching people fish farming and stuff like that. So that is happening, but not at a scale that the West has been, has been doing. Thank you. Frankie, the floor is yours. Hi, thank you both so much for being here and for such an insightful discussion. This is sort of jumping off of what you were just talking about and raise question. So from your perspective, how should both China and the US, how should their approach to foreign aid and investment in Latin America and in Africa, how should it change to best support economic development. Should it change at all what industries are the most important to support what form should this economic support take. And also, in that, what is the role of international institutions. What is the role of the, like the World Trade Organization, for example, is there one. Yeah, thank you. Unless you don't understand that one. Thank you very much, Frankie, for, for that question there. In terms of what their approach should be. It's been a long time and I think this is also happening in the in a way that the China has been cooperating with Africa so there is a certain level of condescension really when a lot of actors come to come to Africa, and that has been detrimental to the, to the continent. Every time everyone always feels as if no we have to go and help Africa that is why sometimes if you look at the first two documents of the, on the forum on China Africa Corporation. It was about how do we develop Africa, rather than how do we help Africa to develop itself. So I think that that is how they, the approach should be, and then, if the rest of the world is held to certain standards of governance. Africa should be held to that particular standard as well and I know this is very problematic because then China will say we do not want to interfere into the internal affairs of Africans but that only happens when you are dealing with Africans at a political level. The political elite of Africa will be very happy if you if we continue with what has been obtaining since the end of the Second World War, where you are just dealing with the elite, give the money and you don't care really about ordinary Africans. But if you are engaging with Africans holistically in a situation where you actually care about the plight of ordinary Africans, then the approach has to change. It has to be an approach that also caters for what happens at a subnational level, not only at a state level. And that will mean engaging more in the provision of effective education in Africa, the provision of healthcare and the development of civil society organizations in Africa. And that approach should, you could be adopted and it could work well. And that has been a very big blight on China's engagement with Africa because it only engages mostly with the African elites, that's why you find that it has had closer relationships with very obnoxious regimes, like the independent regimes such as the Zimbabwean regime and the Sudanese regime. What is the role of international institutions where international institutions such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, have a pivotal role to play, but then these are institutions to which Africa and the development, the developing world actually left at their mercy, because who controls the world back realistically speaking, who has more influence at the World Trade Organization. It is the same powers to which we have to go and protest when they're engaging with us in a way that is kind of, in a way that is kind of lopsided and not the benefit of Africa. So that is a very difficult question and in no honesty, I'll tell you, there is a role that Africa could play through the African Union, but of course that will have to proceed from how Africa wants to engage with China. Do we engage with China as Africa or do we engage with China as individual African countries and then if we go that level then we'll see that realistically speaking Africa will not have the chance of engaging with China at a level of equal, but at a mutually beneficial level was China's 1.4 billion people, Africa's 1.3 billion people. So already you see that even China's economy is greater than Africa's 1.3 trillion economy. So all those kinds of things they just realistically tell you that there can never be a relationship between two equals, unless as an international institution the African Union chooses to engage with Africa at a continental level. Okay, let me, I'll just, that's a fantastic answer and let me just underscore a couple of things that Dr. Mthumple said that, you know, look, I mean pretty much every development organization multilateral development bank regional institution at this point has noted that the infrastructure deficit in Latin of the African Union is extensive and is limiting prospects for development, you know, in the near medium and long term. And so I mean it's, it stands to reason that, well, first of all, obviously, you know, China has identified this as a critical problem for Latin America as a critical problem previously for China and one in which China might be able to engage more extensively with some degree of mutual benefit and has done so well. And, you know, the US has not engaged as extensively in the past in sort of hard infrastructure as part of its development assistance profile and indeed, you know, education health, other forms of infrastructure water and sanitation for example which was mentioned earlier have featured far more prominently in the US's, you know, ODA in Latin America and in a wide range of other regions. That said, you know, there's good infrastructure and there's bad infrastructure right not all infrastructure is the same and has the same effects on on development outcomes I mean if we look at Argentina for example, China. I mean, you know, Christina Kirchner's presidency decided to support through China Exim Bank, the development of two huge hydroelectric dams and Christina Kirchner's home province, wherein, you know, her associates where the benefits, you know, drive the benefits of pretty that work, you know, her friends got the contracts to both to, you know, do the initial studies and also to construct the actual thing and you know this. This is the sort of thing that we see happening all over the place and that the actual need for those dams was also heavily debated within Argentina they're very very far from Buenos Aires. It costs a lot of money to transfer that electricity there and there are a number of dams that would have been better of better, you know, used to Argentina had they been constructed instead of these two sort of pet projects right is what many people in Argentina have called them. So, you know, it's a matter of thinking, you know, very of doing some critical thinking right about how best to approach infrastructure whether we're talking about you know the US doing it or, or China doing it or anyone else. We're also engaging in a lot of capacity building right and I don't see China doing this. I don't know if there's a lot of interest in China doing this or among Chinese officials and doing this or not but certainly there's growing interest in the US and helping countries and not just countries and sort of institutions that are responsible for accountability and for you know managing procurement processes and and and other things associated with sort of deal making whether with China with other countries or companies, but also as Matambo mentioned, you know, strengthening civil society's capacity to monitor what's happening on the ground whether it's China related or otherwise and and and to hold companies, you know, and others accountable for for practices that may not have an, you know, an overall positive outcome in the end. So that's a I mean that's a big, big part of it I don't see the US, fundamentally changing its ODA profile at all in the coming years but I think I do think that infrastructure at least within USA ID there's more talk about including hard infrastructure as part of some of the outreach that the US is doing and this is indeed very much in response to China's model. I think we have time for one more question, or perhaps to depending on the time but Colin. Hi yeah thank you to both, both of you for coming to speak with us today. My question was also it's it's about like sustainability of Chinese investment, like through the BRI and other ways. I used to live in Ethiopia and in Ethiopia there's like a lot of Chinese investment and you would hear often stories of, you know, Chinese companies receiving like special exemptions from, you know, certain things so it's just cheaper for their companies to operate. And so, you know it's kind of creating like a distortion almost of like a like a fair market and so I'm just, my question is about that it's like, to what extent does you know Chinese investment, like in the long term, does it like benefit like the the market of you know the recipient countries, or does it is it going to, you know, create more problems. You know more distortions in the market such like like that. And also maybe like to what extent does like you know the the the Chinese investment like that like disproportionately benefit more like elites versus you know people I think like it obviously does you know provide economic growth and you know that's good. I'm just wondering like, is there like some sort of balance there. Thank you. Alright. I think I could go first on that one calling. Thank you. Thank you very much for, for that question. When you look at Chinese investment in Africa and to what to the extent to which it is benefiting recipient countries I think the jury still out on that. When when when we look at it's, it's engagement with the with the content is still at a nascent stage. And then it is very difficult in a space of 20 years to really gauge whether or not this will be sustainable but there are of course opportunities for growth between in terms of China's relationship with Africa, and that is in the skills capital. We have a continent that is the youngest content. We have an abundance of human capital, if only, and this will link to your second question by the way about the elite. If only China could try and benefit more the human capital of Africa but of course that will have to be that will have to be the primary initiative and responsibility of African countries themselves. There are certain sectors for example in the provision of water in areas like in Zambia and in Kenya, where hydro technology from from from China could actually help to alleviate Africa's problems when it comes to the provision of portable water. When it comes to the digital migration in Africa, although it is coming it comes with all sorts of with with all sorts of stereotypes because people are generally skeptical of Chinese technology people from the West but if you come to digital migration for example in Zambia top stars been very instrumental in helping the Zambian National broadcasting company to migrate from analog to digital transmission of air so that is an aspect which China has actually benefited a recipient country. At the level of the elite or more or less repeat what I said again, disappointingly, what has been the case is that state level interaction has been to the detriment of an ordinary African, and there is actually a strange twist to that. And a lot of African flawed democracies in Africa are actually drifting towards China which is ironic because a lot of people think if you are an authoritarian country, then you should, you should, you should go to China, rather than, and rather than if you are democratizing but what has been happening is that there has been a reductionist view of looking at politics in Africa and democracy in Africa what the West promotes in Africa is not really democracy to just vote in political voting after five or four years. You find a situation where governments with flawed elections knowing very well that they are going to be voted in at the best of their people even if the election is flawed, they want to go to China was China gives them infrastructure, infrastructure development programs and they can easily go to the people until they will. There was no road here. There's a road today here and Africans would go well and vote for that if you're voting, not only looking at the sustainable nature of that. So all that as well is tied up to this emphasis on your relations with the elite catering to the elite to the detriment of ordinary Africans people as we call them. David is there time for me to respond or this. I mean I would just in the case of Latin America I would just say that the jury is also still out in terms of the overall, you know, economic impact, a very among, you know, a wide range of populations, largely because again this is a very young group and so many of the larger scale projects are still either being developed, you know, in negotiation or under construction, and very the ones that are not you know have been in existence for not all that long there are a few that have been highly controversial that are built like the Coca Cola Sinclair dam for example in Ecuador, which is one you know the benefits of which are hotly debated, including by Ecuadorians but but nevertheless yeah the jury is still you know you mentioned you know that there may be some some sort of market distortion or that Chinese companies may benefit from subsidies or preferential access to find answer things of this nature that could make them more competitive and indeed that is the case and you hear European not just us but European companies just fretting about this constantly like how in the world are we going to compete in Latin American market anymore, especially in certain industries. The concern is I mean usually these are going for projects that are needed right these are projects that the Latin American countries have put forth they want a 5G network they want a smart city they want, you know, somebody to buy this asset all of these tighter power projects that this other company is leaving behind because they need to leave the market so it's not as though they're coming in enforcing new projects on the region. But the concern is that they'll be outside Chinese influence in certain sectors for example in Brazil I mean a considerable portion of Brazil's electricity distribution market is owned by China, same in the same in Peru. And at this point in time and I mean the question that a lot of people asking are asking especially the defense community in the United States is you know whether this will lead to some sort of leverage over decision making on a wide range of issues whether they are related to human rights or internet governance or, you know, Taiwan or whatever it might be in the future whether that's a valid concern or not I do not know, you know but that's something that a lot of folks are asking in present. Thank you. I think we can go for one more question. Anyone in the audience to raise your hands. Okay, go ahead. I think I might have just missed it, but this year. Hi, I just wanted to ask about growing local. What's that the word for like China's policies in developing countries like what does it mean to kind of like focus more on like a local instead of even maybe like investments are like doing major projects in. Yeah. Yeah, no thank you for that yeah the going local report is more focused on sort of activity by Chinese entities of various sorts right at the local level. So so much of the relationship, you know, over the past decade or two right has been at the bilateral level a lot of negotiation with actual presidents right or officials sort of central government officials in terms of striking deals. And that still continues to be the case in certain countries where that model you know actually tends to work out for for China. There's also been a real extension of activity in or focus on on engaging regionally right through regional platforms, but also I would say in the past five years in particular, an extensive focus on engaging also at the local level so really critical connections with with officials in cities in provinces in states you know different Latin American countries have some house date some have provinces right, but in any case at various administrative levels. In order to be able to advance certain commercial objectives sometimes it's easier to, you know, negotiate a new solar park with the officials in who we province Argentina that it is with to do so with the, you know, Mauricio Macri government in Buenos Aires, or, you know, to, to try to strike, you know, a lithium contract in Chile, with a local entity than it is to do so. And a lot of this depends on how just how decentralized the governance structure is in any country and how much authority, you know, local level entities have over commercial decision making or other forms of decision making a lot of this is also related to sort of just broadly improving views of China among, you know, broad sections of the of the population and a lot of these countries so there's a lot of outreach network building at the local level that's a rather new at least in Latin America rather new feature of the relationship. I would just think it will be like beneficial like also for the maybe the locals and developing countries, not just like China just as like, um, yeah, mentioned earlier. What will it be beneficial to them if China does this more extensive. It could be but again it depends on the nature of the project right in the way that it's struck and whether there's sufficient transparency and accountability and it's actually something that the region needs rather than, you know, something that an individual leader is proposing in order to perhaps secure reelection you know there are a lot of factors at play so the quality of the deal. The way that it struck the various this sort of structure of of of institutions locally and and just how strong they are and able to hold you know various entities accountable. Thank you. Wonderful. I think that's about just about all the time we have today. I just wanted to thank our speakers for their insights and everyone who's joined us today for this conversation. We just, we hope to see you tomorrow on the second day of the symposium for some more lectures and some more interesting breakouts. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. Yes, thank you. Great moderation David. Thank you. That was great. Thanks for the great questions. Thank you guys so much.