CASADE

Beyond ‘Dragon In The Bush’: The Study Of China-Africa Relations

 

Daniel Large.

In the wake of China's Year of Africa in 2006, China–Africa relations are currently the subject of unprecedented attention. However, although those relations are widely covered they are also under-researched. This article offers an introduction to China–Africa relations, covering background to the history and politics of Chinese involvement in the continent and identifying areas of further research. It concludes by calling for the study of China–Africa relations to develop a culture of serious research beyond current ‘dragon in the bush’ preoccupations and so engage a complex subject that is about to become a mainstream issue in African politics.

RELATIONS BETWEEN AFRICA AND CHINA ARE TOPICAL. Once again, ‘a new Wind from the East is blowing across Africa’,¹ and it is attracting unprecedented attention. This is driven in part by the wider resurgence of China in world affairs, but much is also the result of the recent visibility and interest in the growing presence, roles, and impacts of Chinese actors throughout the continent. China's ‘Year of Africa’ in 2006 saw cascading media and academic interest and, fifty years after Egypt became the first country on the continent to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC), culminated in the high-profile third Forum on China–Africa Cooperation. The scramble by Western governments, international organizations, and NGOs to assess the implications of China's rise in Africa and how to ‘engage’ China over Africa, and Africa over China, continues.

In 1968 George Yu, a leading contributor to China–Africa research, wrote that “‘studying China in Africa is much like pursuing a dragon in the bush. The dragon is imposing but the bush is dense’.”² The notion of a Chinese ‘dragon’ operating in the African ‘bush’, its actions constrained by yet selectively visible against ‘unfamiliar terrain’, persists in much of the language and assumptions used to describe China–Africa relations today. This is particularly the case in Western coverage.³ The effect is often emotively to describe China's rise in Africa in terms of a monolithic Chinese dragon in an unvariegated African bush stripped of historical and political content. It is time, however, to go beyond this framework of presenting and thinking about different levels and dynamics of the emerging Chinese relations with 48 (53) African states.⁴

The background to issues of current concern has at times been understandably neglected amidst a general preoccupation with the present. The subject has produced a number of studies to date even if it has been an under-researched area overall. In China the Institute of Asian–African Studies was established in July 1961 following Chairman Mao's observation that ‘We don't have a clear understanding of African history, geography and the present situation.’⁵ Subsequent research would be affected by politics inside and outside China and, as Li Anshan has noted, ‘African studies in China have been more or less a mystery to Africanists in other parts of the world.’⁶ Within the Western academy, however, the study of China–Africa relations is probably too formal a description of what has proceeded hitherto in a rather ad hoc, limited fashion, especially since the 1960s. It has been – and largely remains – disadvantaged by the longstanding divide between research on African and Chinese politics and foreign relations. This has produced a persisting symmetrical neglect: like China's relations with Latin America or the Middle East – studied yet comparatively marginalized in the literature – Africa has never been a mainstream subject in the study of Chinese foreign relations. It has tended to be subsumed as part of the Third World – and even then as not an especially noteworthy constitutive member.⁷ In the study of African politics and foreign relations, China similarly has never been deemed sufficiently important to merit dedicated, sustained research. This might be attributed to the apparently ambitious and ideologically prominent post-colonial Chinese engagement in Africa that was in practice limited and mostly upstaged by the major vectors of colonial and post-colonial change: decolonization, Cold War competition (China's rivalry with the Soviet Union – and Taiwan, to an extent – tending to attract more attention than its actual conduct in Africa), followed by the structural adjustment period that coincided with a more inward-focused, modernizing China.

This article is aimed at those familiar with and interested in African affairs but for whom China, and China–Africa relations, is new. It offers an accessible introductory guide to the literature and sketches aspects of the background to the history, and especially the politics, of China–Africa relations. The former has been somewhat overlooked, apart from the popular rediscovery of the Muslim eunuch Admiral Zheng He, and the latter is an area whose importance is set to grow as Chinese actors become more established in Africa. Secondly, it identifies avenues of further research in an area that is showing signs of developing into an eclectic subject of academic study. The conclusion calls for the study of China–Africa relations to develop a culture of rigorous applied research capable of engaging the complexity of what will soon be a mainstream issue in African politics.

Historical background

History is frequently invoked as a common reference point in the official discourse of contemporary China–Africa relations. Current appreciation of China's historical involvement in the world, including Africa, contrasts with former notions about its supposedly isolated position at the centre of a hierarchical tributary system.⁸ Recognition that Chinese foreign relations over time have been characterized by a plural approaches, as opposed to a single dominant and enduring tradition, thus provides a suitable framework for considering its current relations.⁹ In this, Africa figures in the contemporary reassessment of China's earlier involvement in the world. The Ming Dynasty's (1368–1644) lack of a lasting colonizing project in eastern Africa provides a different chapter in the history of comparative world colonialisms.¹⁰ However, the way in which history plays in the present is revealing. The symbolic and more instrumental uses of a shared, interpreted past is one salient facet of China's officially mobilized version of its historical connections with Africa today, the flipside of which often comes in the form of virtuous commitments against any future hegemonic role.

An historically informed approach to contemporary relations clearly affords a better perspective on China's route to and position in the modern world order,¹¹ as well as growing China–Africa relations.¹² Essential reading about the historical background to China–Africa relations is Philip Snow's The Star Raft: China's Encounter with Africa.¹³ This pioneering work provides a comprehensive account of a subject that had fallen by the wayside in the 1980s, with an engaging narrative conveying the richness of historical contacts and instructive thematic coverage of post-1949 relations.¹⁴

Understanding the lineages of today's interest also constructively historicizes emerging debates on various issues. The current period departs in significant ways from its precursors in China's historical relations with Africa. Nonetheless, concern with the negative dimensions of China's re-engagement in Africa echoes a similar debate in the West during the 1960s. Literature from the Cold War provides an instructive point of comparison with recent coverage,¹⁵ much of which has reprised the concerns as well as the themes (and even the titles) of the 1960s.¹⁶ One such text from the heat of the 1960s is Cooley's East Wind over Africa: Red China's African Offensive, which provides access to that heady time of ideological intrigue.¹⁷ This earlier literature also compares interestingly with some of today's media coverage: the PRC as an intentionally destabilizing revolutionary factor in Africa versus China's current inclination to support the status quo and established African governments; the PRC as an ideological threat to newly independent African states versus China as an interest-driven threat to ‘good governance’ or ‘democratization’ today. The language may have changed (Cold War period ‘gun running’, ‘propaganda’ or ‘indoctrination’ as opposed to more recent ‘arms sales’or ‘soft power’¹⁸), but concerns about the Chinese impact on African politics have reappeared and intensified in certain quarters.

China's post-colonial relations with Africa

Peter Van Ness's characterization of China's post-colonial interaction with the Third World as ‘a shifting pattern of engagement and indifference’¹⁹ might be extended to academic and media interest in China's African relations. China's Africa relations last attained a comparable visibility during and after Zhou Enlai's path-breaking African tour in 1963–4. This pro- voked an upsurge of media and academic interest, not to mention West European and American government attention. As decolonization proceeded, and amidst Sino–Soviet competition in Africa, there were other reasons behind such interest. China was mostly approached as a less intimidating part of the broader Communist threat to Africa.²⁰ However, not unlike today's Africa variation of the ‘China Threat’ analysis, questions about China's expansionist or aggressive behaviour were also considered.²¹

One pattern characterizing coverage has been for commentary to wax and wane in tandem with officially declared Chinese policy on African affairs and its related actions. For instance, at the last peak period of Western interest, in the mid-1960s, Africa was often considered important to the PRC's foreign relations. As Yu wrote: ‘Africa occupies without doubt a central place in the contemporary foreign policy of Communist China.’²² Not long afterwards, in the context of a number of setbacks for China's strategic objectives in Africa (including the aborted second Asian–African Conference of 1965) together with other world events (escalating US engagement in Vietnam, political convulsions in Indonesia), Yu also wrote about ‘China's failure in Africa’.²³ On the back of the quiet 1980s, Segal dismissed China in Africa (though he, like Yu later on, did allow for the future development of relations).²⁴

The literature on China's foreign relations with the Third World features Africa as part of a wider approach to ‘non-aligned’, ‘developing’ or ‘Southern’ countries.²⁵ In this vein, Jackson's detailed case study of Chinese foreign policy towards Angola and Mozambique sees the country strategies as operating within the framework of China's Third World foreign policy.²⁶ Where attention was devoted more specifically to China, this was often in the context of its competition with Taiwan in African context.²⁷ China also features as a case study in the literature on Communist relations with the Third World²⁸ and ‘Great Power’ relations with Africa.²⁹ A leading textbook on China's foreign relations departed from this pattern by having a dedicated Africa chapter by Philip Snow, probably the best overview of the subject before the recent upsurge of interest.³⁰

Journal coverage was complemented by monographs. Of note here is the work of Emmanuel Hevi, a Ghanaian who studied in China and wrote both from the perspective of ‘Africa in Peking’³¹ and ‘Peking in Africa’. Dedicating his book An African Student in China ‘To Mother Africa’, he sought ‘to tell Africa what Communist China is really like’.³² This explicitly political volume warns Africans that Nkrumah will lead Africa down a dangerous Chinese road, recounting ‘the China I saw and experienced: the China which so enchants many leading figures in African politics that they want to make it their model’.³³ Hevi's The Dragon's Embrace: The Chinese Communists and Africa presented a forceful argument against Chinese communism in Africa. His conclusion, and call to ‘have faith in Africa’, illustrate an earlier interest in, and attempt to formulate, ‘African responses’ to China that resonate with today's calls for strategic African responses to the challenges and opportunities China's engagement with Africa has brought.³⁴

Other texts included Ogunsanwo's China's Policy in Africa, 1958–71, a chronological examination of how China's involvement developed in importance as part of China's overall foreign policy; he argues that Chinese behaviour was characterized by a combination of state-determined pragmatic interests and revolutionary ideology (‘revolutionary pragmatism’).³⁵ A different, more theoretically engaged approach was employed in Larkin's China and Africa 1949–1970: The foreign policy of the People's Republic of China. This contextualized Africa within wider Chinese foreign policy as less important, advocated ‘a more complex understanding’ of China's African engagement, and called for analysis to transcend convenient explanations for China's African engagement (variations on separately identified or combined issues such as Taiwan, the Sino-Soviet dispute, and short-term economic or political gains).³⁶ Arguing that ideological commitment to world revolution was driving China's role in Africa, even if this was ‘more expressive than substantive’, Larkin considered this longer-term objective unlikely to succeed. Larkin departs from contemporary coverage by offering a more disaggregated account of China's African policy within a more theoretical analysis of its ideological motors, resting in part on available Chinese sources.

Yu sought to illuminate Chinese foreign policy in Africa through the example of Tanzania.³⁷ China's African Policy: A study of Tanzania examined the ‘foreign policy and interaction pattern’ between China and Tanzania in what was characterized as ‘the Chinese-Tanzanian partial informal alliance’.³⁸ Yu argued that wider dynamics of Chinese foreign policy could be shown using a detailed case study of Tanzania, and aimed to demonstrate how China–Tanzanian relations extended beyond bilateral connections to embrace and contribute to China's relations with Africa and the Third World more generally. Besides discussion of Chinese and Tanzanian ‘national images’, Yu analyses the nature of the China–Tanzania alliance, including mutually advantageous ‘triangular’ relations involving China and Sweden in development projects, notably the Tazara railway, China's key development assistance project in Africa completed in 1975. Themes of continuing relevance include the potential ‘agency’ of African governments, and the challenges of managing relations to optimal African advantage: ‘The problem for Tanzania was how to maintain the special relationship yet not become economically and politically dependent on China.’³⁹ One route to maximize African benefit from Chinese involvement, and possibly foreclose new forms of dependency, is suggested in non-aligned Tanzania's ‘judicious balancing of aid from different sources’.⁴⁰ In contending that the behaviour of China fell within the limits of Tanzania's tolerance of external interference, Yu presages an emerging area of contention today, namely the necessary evolution of China's African involvement once the boundaries of its ‘late-entry’ non-interference mode of engagement are tested and transgressed.

The ‘China model’: development in Africa

Africa was cited by certain reforming Chinese intellectuals, including Liang Qichao, as a warning example to the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) of the perils of full colonial domination. The thrust of much interest in a ‘model’ to follow, however, has come from those looking to China for potential answers to questions of African development. Whereas post-1949 China was devastated by war, and levels of ‘development’ in certain African states were above that of China and other East Asian countries, today China offers an impressive, if highly mixed, demonstration of a developing yet already significantly advanced economy. The widespread current interest in China as a ‘development model’ that might be looked to for ideas and assistance is happening in a very different political context from that of the post-colonial period, when the radicalism of certain African leaders had conjoined with a desire for colonial emancipation to render Communist China a promising object of interest.⁴¹ The PRC encouraged this with political exchanges and extensive aid programmes. These are outlined in a number of contemporary sources;⁴² others consider Chinese operations in Africa and different parts of the world.⁴³

The lack of empirical research on Chinese aid in Africa was highlighted and corrected by Deborah Brautigam. China's ‘largely unexamined’ foreign aid programme, she wrote, ‘has as deep a history and as broad a range of experience as any established in the West’.⁴⁴ A leading part of that history in Africa is explored in Jamie Monson's work on the history of the Tazara railway.⁴⁵ However, in her seminal Chinese Aid and African Development: Exporting Green Revolution, Brautigam demonstrated that ‘the absence of documentation on the work of the People's Republic of China is a major gap both in the literature on development and in studies of China's relations with the Third World’.⁴⁶ Unlike other publications that mostly used available secondary English language sources,⁴⁷ Brautigam drew on extensive fieldwork and Chinese sources to explore China's agricultural aid programme with Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. Spanning the Cultural Revolution and post-Mao periods, she engaged three phases of Chinese politics, allowing questions about the domestic sources of China's foreign aid programme to Africa and impact over time to be explored. Development policy reflections are also presented as part of an analysis of variables affecting the relative success or failure of Chinese aid programmes, including how the conjunction of agriculturally innovative projects and weak institutional situations produced problematic development outcomes.⁴⁸

The current period

There were comparatively few publications on China–Africa relations during the 1990s: Ian Taylor was one of the few Western scholars to work on the subject,⁴⁹ and coverage of Taiwanese diplomacy in Africa continued.⁵⁰ However, Chris Alden's book China in Africa stands out amongst the recent publications in providing a measured, condensed single-volume analysis.⁵¹ Other publications include Taylor's China and Africa: Engagement and compromise and China in Africa: Mercantilist predator or partner in development? (edited by le Pere)⁵². Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong's analysis of China's ‘distinctive links’ with Africa provides a more critical departure.⁵³ Generally speaking, coverage has neglected Chinese-language sources and the expanding body of recent literature on Chinese foreign relations.⁵⁴ Nonetheless, other works include a special edition of the South African Journal for International Affairs⁵⁵ and African Perspectives on China in Africa, which provides a mixed collection of views ranging from critical to celebratory.⁵⁶

Trade and resource extraction have generated the most literature to date.⁵⁷ Resource extraction is generally presented as the primary motivating dynamic behind the current Chinese engagement in Africa.⁵⁸ The related and contentious subject of governance has not been the subject of the same degree of academic research.⁵⁹ This theme emerges in more generalist coverage characterized by ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ critical interpretations on the impact of the Chinese role on politics in Africa, and is foregrounded by development policy publications.⁶⁰

In terms of country studies, literature on South Africa is more extensive than other countries. This might be expected given its importance in China–Africa relations and the fact that interest ignited in South Africa significantly before the more prominent global coverage of today.⁶¹ Garth le Pere and Garth Shelton's China, Africa and South Africa is a notable recent publication.⁶² There are a small number of studies on other countries.⁶³ Amidst speculation about the impact of China's re-engagement in Africa over the medium and longer terms, two contrasting views stand out. Alden's consideration of ‘Africa without Europeans’ broaches the possibility of transformative impact, whereas Clapham, emphasizing the constraints on external actors in Africa, argues that China's intervention is unlikely to change Africa fundamentally.⁶⁴

Future research

Recent Western literature on China–Africa relations, with certain exceptions, could be considered as the first wave of sometimes reactive but generally broad-ranging assessments of a comparatively new or recently reanimated subject.⁶⁵ Generally these have not involved extensive sustained field research. The very ‘China–Africa’ formula in part reflects wider concerns of a geopolitical nature as well as a renewal of global interest in Africa, in considerable part because of China's interest and an underlying global reconfiguration of relations.

The separation between those studying Africa and China, broadly conceived especially in terms of foreign relations, has produced a theme familiar in other contexts of the study of Chinese foreign relations concerning assumptions about and perceptions of Chinese ‘power’. Breslin's question: ‘Is China as powerful as some people are making it out to be?’⁶⁶ is pertinent in the African context where ‘China's apparent (and, more importantly, imagined) presence, reach, and role appear to loom large and promise – or threaten, depending on outlook – so much. The distinction of approaching China from the ‘inside out’ and from ‘outside in’ captures much of the contrast between analyses that highlight Chinese ‘power’ (‘outside in’) and those that emphasize China's ‘vulnerability and dependence rather than power’ (‘inside out’).⁶⁷ The latest Chinese engagement throughout Africa might thus also be approached from two related but differently oriented starting positions, the first anchored in China and connecting Chinese dynamics to the African context, and the second, starting from within defined African locales and engaging the Chinese presence in grounded context.

What have been until recently somewhat estranged areas of academic research appear to be fusing as China–Africa relations become a subject of academic study, not to mention the object of increasing attention from development policy practitioners. At the same time, however, the subject to date remains paradoxically under-researched and, as Alves and Draper rightly note, ‘a host of research questions remain’.⁶⁸ Despite wide coverage since 2006 in particular, there remain often basic knowledge gaps about many areas of China's expanding involvement in Africa.⁶⁹ Given some of the more inflated claims about the impact of China in Africa, often contained within arguments about a ‘new scramble’ or ‘new imperialism’, there is a marked gap between the perceptions and exaggerated projections of an inexorable Chinese rise in Africa and knowledge of how this is actually playing out. In 1975 Hutchison noted the ‘striking discrepancy between what China was actually doing and what her critics said she was doing’ but emphasized that he was not providing ‘an apologia for China's African policies’.⁷⁰ Today, the tide of Western academic and media opinion on its involvement in Africa has flowed more towards critical coverage, though that appears to be evolving as a reflection of broader dynamics. The difficulty of navigating between competing poles of binary positions for any critically aware engagement remains.

The challenge is to deepen research and analysis of key current areas of Chinese engagement in Africa. This includes the (global) political economy of resource extraction, but also, importantly, should entail extending research beyond concerns that dominate headlines and addressing a broader range of issues. In following this objective, ethnographic methodologies and work that integrates a range of Chinese and African sources will particularly enrich current and future research, as Gillian Hart and Nina Sylvanus demonstrate.⁷¹ Reliance on English-language sources has clear limitations, including the danger of playing out a self-referential logic. In this light, notable examples of multilingual ethnographic research enabling rich engagement with Chinese involvement include Elisabeth Hsu's work on Chinese medicine in Tanzania and Haugen and Carling's work on Cape Verde.⁷² While a select few countries have attracted most attention – Angola joining Sudan, Zimbabwe and, for different reasons, South Africa – ‘small places’ like Cape Verde provide insights not merely into the quotidian details of Chinese actors in Africa and the success story of Chinese business involvement, but also transnational processes casting light on aspects of contemporary China and the emerging pluralism of Chinese–African relations. This ‘view from the edge’ is enriching.⁷³

There are clearly a range of areas that remain to be researched in depth and a number of disciplinary perspectives will doubtless be mobilized as different fields of the social sciences engage appropriate concerns and theoretical debates. The growing interest in, and demand for, policy-relevant research from development agencies on questions of ‘engaging China’ about the conduct of its relations with Africa is indicative of the wider catalytic impact China's new African relations are likely to have within development studies. Concern over governance questions and the consequences of the new ‘triangulation’ in African foreign policy options, which reprise similar concerns in a very different context to those raised over Communist China's influence in decolonized Africa, appear set to rejuvenate a number of debates, including those over democratization and development.

Research could be pursued productively in a number of areas. From an ‘Africa–China’ perspective, these include unpacking the detail of African government reactions and policies and the unfolding institutional responses of the African Union and NEPAD to China. Business activity and the political economy of Chinese investment is another key subject. This includes but is by no means confined to resource extraction, as the examples of Chinese textile manufacturing in Southern Africa and issues concerning employment, labour relations, and the environment in various contexts illustrate. The related nature, reception, and impact of Chinese aid projects in Africa – including donor activities and financing, and the emerging politics of Chinese development in Africa – is a broad and topical theme, especially given the rapid rise and importance of the China Import Export Bank. Finally, the reception of Chinese actors by African communities over time, their social integration, and other questions of impact are themes that are woven into a number of issues. A notable and sensitive area where research is needed concerns the nature and impact of the growing Chinese social presence across the continent. This is apparently expanding in significant numbers, and has already emerged as a politically contentious issue, in places fuelling xenophobia and political tensions at different levels, although little hard information is available.

There is a pronounced need to deepen understanding of China and bring in Chinese perspectives on the subject.⁷⁴ Areas where further research exploring the Chinese side might be productive include the nature of Chinese policy making on Africa, in what currently is an engagement involving multiple state bureaucratic bodies that can operate with conflicting agendas on African policy. How political structures in China other than the central state – provincial governments and municipalities in particular – pursue relations in Africa, and how networked Chinese business investment in Africa plays out, are additional areas that pose connected questions concerning the issue of ‘principal-agent’ dilemmas at different levels of China's multiple bureaucracies seeking to enhance economic engagement.⁷⁵ Despite the merits of ‘de-stating’ coverage along these lines, this ought not to proceed at the expense of misunderstanding the importance and particular nature of the Chinese state, its position and growing role in the global economy. Finally, there is the subject of growing African business activities, commercial links and social existence in China.

A further challenge is to move beyond China–Africa coverage that orbits almost exclusively around state elites, and disaggregate a number of areas too commonly presented as unitary bodies. Connecting and extending analysis of elites into wider social contexts would contribute to opening up key transnational processes of developing interactions. The micro-dynamics of China's current and developing relations with Africa is one area where ethnographic work, drawing upon appropriate languages, might be rewarding. The rich detail of Chinese links with Africa that this approach produces can lead to more general conclusions, as well as capturing those less visible but important subjects, such as race, gender and questions of power, that have been largely emasculated to date. This would open up interesting points of comparison with the thrust of Western engagement, including the contrasting entry points of external actors into Africa and those areas problematically upheld as distinctly Chinese (such as ‘enclave existence’). Transcending the state-bounded framework of analysing economic ties would move beyond the misleading notion of a neatly bounded ‘Chinese’ economy to reflect the interdependent reality of the global manufacturing and trade system located in China and contributing in part to its African links.

Conclusion

Attention to China–Africa relations fluctuated in the post-colonial period amidst the Cold War and China's episodic involvement. Today, however, there is greater reason than before to argue that China's re-engagement with Africa will persist, deepen and be consequential. Similar views have been expressed by commentators from the 1960s, and the complexities and contingencies of current relations should not be underestimated, but much of China's involvement currently appears to be predicated on medium- or long-term objectives, and is occurring as China's economic and resource interdependence in the world economy becomes more of a reality than before. Rather differently to the notion of a ‘dragon’ conspicuously operating on ‘unfamiliar terrain’, the latest wave of Chinese relations looks set to become an established part of the African continent.

Chinese involvement throughout Africa and African engagement with China are two broad areas attracting increased attention at a number of levels. This article has merely begun to engage a dynamic field whose academic literature is set to increase exponentially. However, the subject and the analytical construction of ‘China in Africa’ should additionally challenge the way in which the predominant approach to studying China, Africa and their growing interrelations has been developed. As pursued in the Western academy, at least, the subject is ripe for reflection on questions about studying and representing ‘the other’ (how African actors frame and engage China, and how China studies France, Britain, or America in Africa, as well as Africa itself, are related questions).

In contrast to the comparative neglect of Africa in coverage of post-colonial Chinese foreign relations, the unprecedented contemporary interest from the media, academic quarters and a range of governments and international organizations has not been matched by research thus far. It is to be hoped, however, that beyond the initial wave of interest, the study of Chinese engagement throughout Africa will develop into a fully fledged subject of inquiry in its own right and produce in-depth, more theoretically rigorous research to inform debate and deepen understanding. This would be one means to transcend the ‘dragon in the bush’ framework. Incorporating the study of China in Africa within the wider parameters of research directed toward Africa–Asia – or ‘South–South’ – relations would also help. The near-exclusive focus on Chinese involvement has upstaged rising Indian and continuing Japanese (not to mention Taiwanese) engagement, as well as that of other countries, including Middle Eastern ones.⁷⁶ A potentially more rewarding approach to studying China–Africa relations might be to pursue this within a wider framework of African–Asian relations. This might help break down binary China–Africa conceptions at the same time as engaging what could well be shaping up to become the most important development for the continent since the end of the Cold War.

 

Footnotes

• The author is grateful to Nina Sylvanus, Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Chris Alden, and especially Nai Rui Chng and Deborah Brautigam for helpful comments on an earlier version.
• ↵¹ John Cooley, East Wind over Africa: Red China's African offensive (Walker and Company, New York, 1965), p. 3.
• ↵² George T. Yu, ‘Dragon in the bush: Peking's presence in Africa’, Asian Survey, 8, 12 (1968), p. 1026.
• ↵³ Emma Mawdsley, ‘Fu Manchu versus Dr Livingstone in the Dark Continent: popular geopolitical images of Sino-African relations’, paper presented at the Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference, London, 29 August 2007.
• ↵⁴ Depending on how those states that currently recognize Taiwan Burkina Faso, the Republic of The Gambia, the Republic of Malawi, the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Pŕincipe, and the Kingdom of Swaziland are considered.
• ↵⁵ Li Anshan, ‘African studies in China in the twentieth century: a historiographical survey’, African Studies Review 48, 1 (2005), p. 62.
• ↵⁶, p. 59.
• ↵⁷ One established textbook on Chinese foreign relations, for example, lacked a dedicated chapter on Africa. See Samuel S. Kim (ed.), China and the World: Chinese foreign policy in the post-Mao era (Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1984); and also Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross (eds), New Directions in the Study of China's Foreign Policy (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2006).
• ↵⁸ See Mark Mancall, China at the Center: Three hundred years of foreign policy (The Free Press, New York, 1984), p. 63. See also Joseph Fletcher, ‘China and Central Asia’ in John Fairbank (ed.), The Chinese World Order (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1968), pp. 206–24; Morris Rossabi (ed.), China Among Equals (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1983), Peter C. Perdue, China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2005).
• ↵⁹ See Michael H. Hunt, The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy (Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 1996); S. M Adshed, China in World History (Macmillan Press, London, 1988).
• ↵¹⁰ See Teobaldo Filesi, China and Africa in the Middle Ages (trans. David. L. Morison) (Frank Cass, London, 1972); J. J. L. Duyvendak, China's Discovery of Africa (Arthur Probsthain, London, 1949). See also Gao Jinyuan for an orthodox Chinese account, ‘China and Africa: the development of relations over many centuries’, African Affairs 83, 331 (1984), pp. 241–50. These missions can be too easily romanticized, however, as entirely benevolent.
• ↵¹¹ See Gerrit W. Gong, ‘China's entry into international society’ in Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (eds), The Expansion of International Society (Clarendon, Oxford, 1984), pp. 171–84; Rana Mitter, ‘An uneasy engagement: Chinese ideas of global order and justice in historical perspective’ in Rosemary Foot, John Gaddis, and Andrew Hurrell (eds), Order and Justice in International Relations (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2003), pp. 207–35.
• ↵¹² These are proceeding in a manner contrasting with that envisaged by certain European experiments with using Chinese labour to ‘open up’ Africa. On the most notorious episode of this, see Gary Kynoch, ‘“Your petitioners are in mortal terror”: the violent world of Chinese mineworkers in South Africa, 1904–1910’, Journal of Southern African Studies 31, 3 (2005), pp. 531–46; and Peter Richardson, Chinese Mine Labour in the Transvaal (Macmillan, London, 1982).
• ↵¹³ Philip Snow, The Star Raft: China's encounter with Africa (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1988).
• ↵¹⁴ For a collection of Chinese experiences, see Li Anshan (ed.), Feizhou huaqiao-huaren shehui shi ziliao xuan ji (1800–2005) [Social History of Overseas Chinese in Africa: selected documents, 1800–2005] (Hong Kong Press for Social Science, Hong Kong, 2006).
• ↵¹⁵ Including the American African Affairs Association, Red China in Africa (1966); Peter Lessing, Africa's Red Harvest (Michael Joseph, London, 1962); Robert Scalapino, ‘On the trail of Chou En-Lai in Africa’ (Rand Corporation, April 1964). For a contrary PRC view, see also Nan Han-Chen, Resolutely Struggle Against Imperialism and Neo-Colonialism and for the Economic Emancipation of the Afro-Asian Peoples (Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1965).
• ↵¹⁶ Popular enduring themes include ‘China in Africa’ (e.g., S. K. G, ‘China in Africa’, Africa Quarterly 4 (1965), pp. 224–8; Leon Slawecki, ‘Two Chinas in Africa’, Foreign Affairs 41 (1963), pp. 398–409; a language of courtship and romance (e.g., R. W. Howe, ‘China bids for Africa: a suitor amid chaperons’, New Leader, 29 November 1971; Reuters, ‘China seduces Africa while West watches’, 6 November 2006); and lastly, of course, the ‘China Threat’.
• ↵¹⁷ Cooley, East Wind Over Africa; Colin Legum, ‘Peking's Strategic Priorities’, Africa Report 10, 1 (January 1965), p. 20. See also William Attwood, The Reds and the Blacks: A personal adventure (Hutchinson, London, 1967) for a sprinkling of detail on Chinese activities in Africa in the dry mould of diplomatic autobiography.
• ↵¹⁸ See Joshua Kurlantzick, Charm Offensive: How China's soft power is transforming the world (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007) for a recent discussion.
• ↵¹⁹ Peter Van Ness, ‘China and the Third World: patterns of engagement and indifference’ in Samuel S. Kim (ed.), China and the World: Chinese foreign policy faces the new millennium (Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1998), pp. 151–168. See also Peter Van Ness, Revolution and Chinese Foreign Policy: Peking's support of wars of national liberation (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1971).
• ↵²⁰ See ‘The Chinese in Africa’ in Fritz Schatten, Communism in Africa (George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London, 1966) pp. 187–223; Richard Lowenthal, ‘China’ in Zbigniew Brzezinski (ed.), Africa and the Communist World (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1963), pp. 142– 203. For a Taiwanese deconstruction of communist ‘smiling face diplomacy’, see Chang Ya-chun, Chinese Communist Activities in Africa: Policies and challenges (World Anti-Communist League, China Chapter, Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League, Republic of China, April 1981). See also G. P. Deshpande and H. K. Gupta, United Front against Imperialism: China's foreign policy in Africa (Somaiya Publications, Bombay, 1986).
• ↵²¹ See the comparatively balanced treatment by W. A. C. Adie, ‘Chinese policy towards Africa’ in Sven Hamrell and Carl Gosta Widstrand, The Soviet Bloc, China and Africa (Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1964), pp. 43–63.
• ↵²² George T. Yu, “Sino-Africa Relations: a survey”, Asian Survey 5, 7 (1965), p. 330.
• ↵²³ George T. Yu, ‘China's failure in Africa’, Asian Survey 6, 8 (August 1966), pp. 461–8.
• ↵²⁴ See Gerald Segal, ‘China and Africa’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 519 (1992), pp. 115–26; George T. Yu, ‘Africa in Chinese Foreign Policy’, Asian Survey 28, 8 (1988), pp. 849–62.
• ↵²⁵ See Lillian Craig Harris and Robert L. Worden (eds), China and the Third World: Champion or challenger? (Croom Helm, London, 1986); Lowell Ditmar, ‘China's search for its place in the world’ in Brantly Womack (ed.), Contemporary Chinese Politics in Historical Perspective (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991), pp. 209–61; Peter Van Ness, ‘China as a Third World state: foreign policy and official national identity’ in Lowell Dittmer and Samuel Kim (eds), China's Quest for National Identity (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1993), pp. 194– 214. See also Harish Kapur, China and the Afro-Asian World (Prabhakar Padhye, New Delhi, 1966).
• ↵²⁶ Steven F. Jackson, ‘China's Third World foreign policy: the case of Angola and Mozambique, 1961–93’, The China Quarterly 142 (June 1995), pp. 388–422.
• ↵²⁷ For example, George T. Yu, ‘Peking versus Taipei in the world arena: Chinese competition in Africa’, Asian Survey 3, 9 (1963), pp. 439–53.
• ↵²⁸ Alvin Z. Rubinstein (ed.), Soviet and Chinese Influence in the Third World (Praeger Publishers, New York, 1975).
• ↵²⁹ Waldemar A. Nielsen, The Great Powers and Africa (Pall Mall Press, London, 1969).
• ↵³⁰ Philip Snow, ‘China and Africa: consensus and camouflage’ in Thomas W. Robinson and David Shambaugh (eds), Chinese Foreign Policy: theory and practice (Clarendon, Oxford, 1994), pp. 283–321.
• ↵³¹ See the review in Sheldon Weeks, “Africa in Peking”, Africa Today XI, 4 (1964), p. 14.
• ↵³² Emmanuel John Hevi, An African Student in China (Pall Mall Press, London, 1963), p. 9.
• ↵³³ 201.
• ↵³⁴ Hevi, The Dragon's Embrace: The Chinese Communists and Africa (Pall Mall Press, London, 1967), p. 136. His frustration at paternalistic Western responses to China-Africa relations is arguably still relevant.
• ↵³⁵ Alaba Ogunsanwo, China's Policy in Africa, 1958–71 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1974).
• ↵³⁶ Bruce D. Larkin, China and Africa 1949–1970: The foreign policy of the People's Republic of China (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1971), p. 8.
• ↵³⁷ George T. Yu, China and Tanzania: A study in cooperative interaction (Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 1970).
• ↵³⁸ George T. Yu, China's African Policy: A study of Tanzania (Praeger, New York, 1975), p. xv.
• ↵³⁹, p. 86.
• ↵⁴⁰, p. 53.
• ↵⁴¹ Ismael noted, in a different period, the importance of this model over China's ideological example. See Tareq Ismael, ‘The People's Republic of China and Africa’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 9, 4 (1971), p. 527.
• ↵⁴² For example, Kurt Muller, ‘Soviet and Chinese programmes of economic and technical assistance to African countries’ in Sven Hamrell and Carl Gosta Widstrand, The Soviet Bloc, China and Africa (Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1964), pp. 101–30.
• ↵⁴³ Peter Andrews Poole, ‘Communist China's aid diplomacy’, Asian Survey 6, 11 (1966), pp. 622–9. John Franklin Cooper, China's Foreign Aid (Lexington Books, Lexington, MA, 1976); Law Yu Fai, Chinese Foreign Aid: A study of its nature and goals with particular reference to the foreign policy and world view of the People's Republic of China, 1950–1982 (Verlag Breitenbach, Saarbrucken, 1984).
• ↵⁴⁴ Deborah Brautigam, Chinese Aid and African Development: Exporting Green Revolution (Macmillan Press, London, 1998), p. 4.
• ↵⁴⁵ See Jamie Monson, ‘Freedom Railway: the unexpected successes of a Cold War development project’, Boston Review 29, 6 (December 2004/January 2005); ‘Defending the People's Railway in the era of liberalization’, Africa 76, 1 (2006), pp. 113–30; and ‘liberating labour? Constructing anti-hegemony on the TAZARA railway in Tanzania, 1965–76’ in Chris Alden, Daniel Large, and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa (Hurst, London, 2008).
• ↵⁴⁶ Brautigam, Chinese Aid and African Development, p. 4.
• ↵⁴⁷ See Joseph P. Smaldone, ‘Soviet and Chinese military aid and arms transfers to Africa: a contextual analysis’ in Warren Weinstein and Thomas H. Henriksen (eds), Soviet and Chinese Aid to African Nations (Praeger, New York, 1980), pp. 76–116.
• ↵⁴⁸ See also Deborah Brautigam, ‘Close encounters: Chinese business networks as industrial catalysts in sub-Saharan Africa’, African Affairs 102, 408 (2003), pp. 447–67. See also her articles ‘What can Africa learn from Taiwan? Political economy, industrial policy, and adjustment’, Journal of Modern African Studies 32, 1 (1994), pp. 111–38; and ‘Local entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa: networks and linkages to the global economy’ in Ernest Aryeetey, Julius Court, Machiko Nissanke and Beatrice Weder (eds), Asia and Africa in the Global Economy (UN University Press, Tokyo, 2003), pp. 106–27.
• ↵⁴⁹ His works include ‘China's foreign policy towards Africa in the 1990s’, Journal of Modern African Studies 36, 3 (1998), pp. 443–60; ‘The “Captive States” of Southern Africa and China: the PRC and Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 35, 2 (1997), pp. 75–95; and, with Scarlett Cornelissen, “The political economy of Chinese and Japanese linkages with Africa: a comparative perspective’, Pacific Review 13, 4 (2000), pp. 615–33. For official Chinese views, see the English language journal ChinaAfrica.
• ↵⁵⁰ George T. Yu and David J. Longenecker, ‘The Beijing–Taipei struggle for international recognition: from the Niger affair to the UN’, Asian Survey 34, 5 (1994), pp. 475–88; Deon Geldenhuys, ‘The politics of South Africa's “China Switch”’, Issues and Studies 33, 7 (1997), pp. 93–131; Ian Taylor, ‘Africa's place in the diplomatic competition between Beijing and Taipei’, Issues and Studies 34, 3 (1998), pp. 126–43; Richard Payne and Cassandra Veney, ‘Taiwan and Africa: Taipei's continuing search for international recognition’, African and Asian Studies 36, 4 (2001), pp. 437–50; Ian Taylor, ‘Taiwan's foreign policy and Africa: the limitations of dollar diplomacy’, Journal of Contemporary China 11, 30 (2002), pp. 125–40.
• ↵⁵¹ See Chris Alden, China in Africa (Zed Books, London, 2007). See also his ‘China–Africa relations: the end of the beginning’ in Peter Draper and Garth le Pere (eds), Enter the Dragon: Towards a free trade agreement between China and the Southern African Customs Union (Institute for Global Dialogue/South African Institute for International Affairs, Midrand, 2006), pp. 137–53 and ‘China in Africa’, Survival 47, 3 (2005), pp. 147–64.
• ↵⁵² Ian Taylor, China and Africa: Engagement and compromise (Routledge, Abingdon, 2006); Garth le Pere (ed.), China in Africa: Mercantilist predator or partner in development? le Pere. (Institute for Global Dialogue, Midrand, and South African Institute for International Affairs, Johannesburg, 2007).
• ↵⁵³ See Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong, ‘Friends and Interests: China's Distinctive Links with Africa’, African Studies Review 50, 3 (December 2007); and ‘Forest for the Trees: Trade, Investment and the China-in-Africa Discourse’, Pacific Affairs 81, 1 (Spring 2008).
• ↵⁵⁴ Including Yongjin Zhang and Greg Austin (eds), Power and Responsibility in Chinese Foreign Policy (Asia Pacific Press, Canberra, 2001); Yong Deng and Fei-Ling Wang (eds), China Rising: Power and motivation in Chinese foreign policy (Rowman and Littlefield, London, 2005); Rosemary Foot, ‘Chinese strategies in a US-hegemonic global order: accommodating and hedging’, International Affairs 82, 1 (2006), pp. 77–94. Johnston and Ross (eds), New Directions in the Study of China's Foreign Policy; Bonnie S. Glaser and Evan S. Medeiros, ‘The changing ecology of foreign policy-making in China: the ascension and demise of the theory of “peaceful rise”’, The China Quarterly 190 (2007), pp. 291–310; Joshua Eisenman, Eric Heginbotham, and Derek Mitchell (eds), China and the Developing World: Beijing's strategy for the twenty-first century (M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, 2007).
• ↵⁵⁵ ‘China in Africa’ special edition of South African Journal for International Affairs 13, 1 (2006).
• ↵⁵⁶ Firoze Manji and Stephen Marks (eds), African Perspectives on China in Africa (Fahamu, Oxford, 2007), Henning Melber (ed), China in Africa (Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, 2007). See also Kinfe Abraham (ed.), China Comes to Africa: The political economy and diplomatic history of China's relation with Africa (Ethiopian International Institute for Peace and Development, Addis Ababa, 2005).
• ↵⁵⁷ Andrea Goldstein, Nicolas Pinaud, and Helmut Reisen, with Michael Chen, ‘China and India: What's in it for Africa?’ (OECD, Paris, 2006); David Hale, ‘China's economic takeoff: implications for Africa’ (Discussion Paper 1/2006, Brenthurst Foundation, Johannesburg, 2006); Harry G. Broadman et al., Africa's Silk Road: China and India's new economic frontier (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006); Raphael Kaplinsky, Dorothy McCormick, and Mike Morris, ‘The Impact of China on sub-Saharan Africa’ (April 2006); Raphael Kaplinsky, Dorothy McCormick, and Mike Morris, ‘The Impact of China on sub-Saharan Africa’ (Institute of Development Studies Working Paper 291, November 2007); Owen Wilcox and Dirk van Seventer, ‘Current and potential trade between South Africa and China’ in Draper and le Pere (eds), Enter the Dragon, pp. 167–220; Martyn Davies, ‘The rise of China and the commercial consequences for Africa’ in Enter the Dragon, pp. 154–66.
• ↵⁵⁸ See Erica S. Downs, ‘The Chinese energy security debate’, The China Quarterly, 177 (2004), pp. 21–41; Erica S. Downs, ‘The fact and fiction of Sino-African energy relations’, China Security 3, 3 (2007), pp. 42–68; Linda Jakobson and Zha Daojiong, ‘China and the worldwide search for oil security’, Asia-Pacific Review 13, 2 (2006), pp. 60–73; Ian Taylor, ‘China's oil diplomacy in Africa’, International Affairs 82, 5 (2006), pp. 937–59; Michael Klare and Daniel Volman, ‘The African “Oil Rush” and US National Security’, Third World Quarterly 27, 4 (2006), pp. 609–28; Jonathan Holslag, ‘China's new mercantilism in central Africa’, African and Asian Studies 5, 2 (2006), pp. 133–69; Wenran Jiang, ‘China's booming energy ties with Africa’, Geopolitics of Energy 28, 7 (2006); Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, ‘Making sense of Chinese oil investment in Africa’ in Alden, Large and Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa; Margaret Lee, ‘The 21st Century Scramble for Africa’, The Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 24, 3 (2006), pp. 303–330.
• ↵⁵⁹ See Denis M. Tull, ‘China in Africa: scope, significance and consequences’, Journal of Modern African Studies 44, 3 (2006), pp. 459–79.
• ↵⁶⁰ See Institute for Public Policy Research, The New Sinosphere: China in Africa (IPPR, London, 2006); Elling Tjonneland et al., ‘China in Africa: implications for Norwegian foreign and development policies’ (Discussion Paper, Chr. Michelsen Institute, 2006); Bates Gill, Chin-hao Huang, and J. Stephen Morrison, ‘China's expanding role in Africa: implications for the United States’ (discussion paper, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, 2007).
• ↵⁶¹ See Garth Shelton, ‘South Africa and China: a strategic partnership?’ in Alden, Large and Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa. See also Chris Alden, ‘Leveraging the Dragon: towards an Africa that can say no’, E-Africa, Electronic Journal of Governance and Innovation (February 2005), pp. 6–9.
• ↵⁶² Garth le Pere and Garth Shelton, China, Africa and South Africa (Institute for Global Dialogue, Midrand, 2007).
• ↵⁶³ Gregor Dobler, ‘Solidarity, xenophobia and the regulation of Chinese business in Namibia’; Manuel Ennes Ferreira, ‘China in Angola: just a passion for oil?’; Jørgen Carling and Heidi Østbø Haugen, ‘Mixed fates of a popular minority: Chinese migrants in Cape Verde’, all in Alden, Large and Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa. See also Ali Abdalla Ali, The Sudanese-Chinese Relations before and after Oil (Sudan Currency Printing Press, Khartoum, 2006).
• ↵⁶⁴ Chris Alden, ‘Africa without Europeans’ and Christopher Clapham, ‘Fitting China in’, both in Alden, Large and Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa.
• ↵⁶⁵ See Giles Mohan and Marcus Power, ‘New African choices? The politics of Chinese involvement in Africa and the changing architecture of development’, Review of African Political Economy (forthcoming, 2008) for a more considered and stimulating approach. See also Stephen Chan, ‘Ten caveats and one sunrise in our contemplation of China and Africa’, in Alden, Large and Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa.
• ↵⁶⁶ Shaun Breslin, ‘Power and production: rethinking China's global economic role’, Review of International Studies 31, 4 (2005), p. 735. This was prompted by Segal's article, which argued that China was overrated as a world power but had mastered the art of diplomatic theatre to suggest otherwise. See Gerald Segal, ‘Does China matter?’, Foreign Affairs 78, 5 (1999), pp. 24–36.
• ↵⁶⁷ Breslin, ‘Power and production’, p. 742, or a cogent version of Lattimore's call to see ‘China from the inside, looking outward’. Owen Lattimore, From China Looking Outward – An Inaugural Lecture (Leeds University Press, Leeds, 1964), p. 29.
• ↵⁶⁸ Philip Alves and Peter Draper, ‘China's growing role in Africa’ in Garth le Pere (ed.), China in Africa, p. 28.
• ↵⁶⁹ A good example of field-based research is that on the Chinese construction sector in Angola, Sierra Leone, Zambia, and Tanzania. See Lucy Corkin and Christopher Burke, ‘China's interest and activity in Africa's construction and infrastructure sectors’ (Research Report, Centre for Chinese Studies, Stellenbosch University, 2006).
• ↵⁷⁰ Alan Hutchison, China's Africa Revolution (Hutchinson, London, 1975), p. xi.
• ↵⁷¹ Gillian Hart, Disabling Globalization: Places of power in post-apartheid South Africa (University of California Press, Berkeley, LA, 2002); Nina Sylvanus, ‘Chinese devils, the global market, and the declining power of Togo's commodity queens’ (Paper presented at the workshop ‘Rethinking Africa's “China Factor”’, UCLA, 27 April 2007).
• ↵⁷² See Elisabeth Hsu, ‘Medicine as business: Chinese medicine in Tanzania’ in Alden, Large and Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa; Hsu, ‘Zanzibar and its Chinese Communities’, Population, Space and Place 13, 2 (2007), pp. 113–24; Jørgen Carling and Heidi Østbø Haugen, ‘On the edge of the Chinese diaspora: the surge of baihuo business in an African city’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 28, 4 (2005), pp. 639–62.
• ↵⁷³ Richard Bulliet, Islam: The view from the edge (Columbia University Press, New York, 1994).
• ↵⁷⁴ For a recent sample, see Li Anshan, ‘China and Africa: policy and challenges’, Feizhou guojia minzuhua 3, 3 (2005), pp. 69–93; He Wenping, ‘The balancing act of China's Africa policy’, China Security 3, 3 (2007), pp. 23–40, and her Fei Zhou guo jia minzu hua jincheng yanjiu [The Study of the Democratization Process in African Countries] (Shi Shi Chubanshi, Beijing, 2000).
• ↵⁷⁵ Bates Gill and James Reilly, ‘The Tenuous Hold of China Inc. in Africa’, The Washington Quarterly 30, 3 (2007), pp. 37–52.
• ↵⁷⁶ See John Edward Philips, ‘African studies in Japan’, African Studies Review 40, 1 (1997), pp. 161–80; and Sanusha Naidu, ‘Riding the Dragon's Tail? India's growing African strategy’, Review of African Political Economy (forthcoming, 2008).
• © The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved

 

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by CASADE

The Risks Of African Military Capacity Building: Lessons From Rwanda

Danielle Beswick.

Civil war and insecurity are widely seen as obstacles to development and threats to international stability, and donors are therefore keen to develop African capacities to manage conflict on the continent. Building the capacity of African militaries is hazardous, however, given their frequent roles in coups, support for authoritarian regimes, and violence against civilians. This article argues that the risks of military capacity building can be assessed more accurately by understanding how national governments view and utilize the military as a policy tool. It demonstrates this using the case of post-genocide Rwanda, a significant contributor to African peacekeeping but also to instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The article identifies four features of the Rwandan regime's understanding and use of military force, using these to explain the dual and divisive role of Rwanda's military as an agent of instability on the one hand and peace on the other. Finally, the article explores the M23 crisis, considering implications for donor efforts to manage risks inherent in international commitments to “African solutions”. It concludes by arguing that, as African military capacity building continues, recognizing the ways in which such enhanced forces are likely to be used will be crucial to developing a better understanding of the continent's peace and security prospects.

AMBITIOUS PLANS TO BUILD AFRICAN CAPACITIES to manage crises on the continent reflect a conviction that insecurity hampers development, generating threats within and beyond affected states and regions. Such plans require substantial investment at continental and regional level but also improvements in national military units. Military capacity building remains controversial, however, due to the continent's history of coups and the militaries' frequent support for authoritarian rulers and their violence against civilians. By focusing on Rwanda, a state with an effective military that is a significant contributor to African peacekeeping, this article illustrates the dilemmas of military capacity building. The article proposes that the risks involved in developing African national military forces could be assessed more accurately by appreciating the ways those forces, and military force as a policy tool, are viewed and utilized by their national governments. It provides a framework that explains the dual and divisive role of the Rwandan military, as an agent of instability on the one hand and peace on the other. Lessons from Rwanda are then used to illuminate the limits of donor efforts to mitigate risks inherent in international commitments to “African solutions to African problems”.

The risks discussed here are not limited to donor relations with Rwanda. Peace support training, military capacity building, and security sector reform programmes have burgeoned in recent years. Donors training and developing national security forces, and the African governments that commit such forces, are facing the significant challenge of locating better-trained, better-equipped forces with greater self-confidence, professionalism, and prestige within often precarious, fractured, and fragile political and social contexts.¹ There is very little research on the implications of such shifting military–military and civil–military dynamics. There are also regional dynamics to consider. In East Africa, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya have become important partners in African peacekeeping, with limited evidence that donors have considered the roles that enhanced national military forces could play in future in these states' domestic arenas or in regional rivalries and disputes. A consideration of how we can better understand risks and implications of military capacity building, and options for mitigating these, is thus particularly interesting in the Rwandan case but also relevant beyond it. This article thus seeks to contribute to an important emerging research agenda.

The article begins by outlining international efforts to build African peace support capacity, a commitment that is often restated or expanded in response to specific trigger events such as the 1994 Rwandan genocide or more recent crises in Mali and the Central African Republic. To develop African peace support capacity, donors must decide where to allocate their investment in African militaries. Since 2004 Rwanda has emerged as a core contributor to African peacekeeping, now the sixth-largest contributor of personnel to UN peacekeeping operations globally and a target country for military capacity building.² The article briefly discusses the evolution of the Rwandan military, before moving on to explore how the post-genocide regime views the role of the military and military force in domestic and foreign policy. The genocide and the experience of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) as a rebel group are identified as significantly affecting how Rwanda's military forces are viewed, portrayed, and used by national leaders. A country-specific analysis is therefore crucial. The article argues that the post-genocide approach to the Rwandan military is characterized by four features: mistrust of external actors twinned with an emphasis on self-reliance; an ‘interventionist’ outlook, incorporating a narrative on sovereignty as being primarily about responsibility to protect citizens; a view of military force as an effective bulwark against genocide; and the promotion of an embedded role for the military, within and reflecting the ‘new’ Rwandan society. Evidence for these characteristics draws on two arenas in which Rwandan military power has been exercised – intervention in neighbouring Zaïre/DRC and peacekeeping in Darfur, Sudan, and South Sudan – as well as statements by Rwandan leaders on international and African crises. Finally, the article reviews the inconsistent donor responses to allegations of Rwandan direct support for the M23 rebellion in the DRC in 2012–13. Reflecting on the lessons from Rwanda, it concludes that as African military capacity building continues apace, developing a better understanding of the ways such enhanced forces are likely to be used will be crucial to understanding Africa's peace and security prospects.

International support for African solutions: the need for national military capacity building

The call for “African solutions to African problems” has been much criticized by scholars evaluating strategies for tackling civil war and insecurity in contemporary Africa. They question the ability of the African Peace and Security Architecture³ to fulfil such ambitious roles, and whether ‘African’ is an accurate label for activities so reliant on external support. The notion nevertheless retains appeal, set against a backdrop of persistent civil war and insurgency and the limited willingness of external states and institutions to commit forces to peace missions in Africa.⁴ Its attractiveness is reinforced by a desire for African ownership of peace support activities on the continent, though this remains stymied by challenges including the limited capacity of African states and institutions to fund, staff, and manage such missions.⁵ Support for “African solutions” also reflects the fact that underdeveloped states and regions are often identified as sources of insecurity to developed states and regions. As Rita Abrahamsen noted almost a decade ago, Africa has become ‘securitized’, labelled by high-profile politicians, public figures, and media in many donor states and at international fora as a source of fear and threat.⁶ This, along with the contention that successful development requires an environment of peace and security, means conflict and insecurity on the continent cannot be ignored by donors. Both they and many African leaders are therefore keen to identify ways to end civil conflict and sustain the peace that follows.

Peacekeeping is central to this strategy, buttressed by positive assessments of its medium-term effects. Virginia Fortna argues that ‘[t]he presence of international personnel is not a silver bullet … but it does tend to make peace more likely to last, and to last longer’.⁷ Others instead suggest peace could be prolonged by ‘giving war a chance’, following Edward Luttwak's claim that ‘[t]oo many wars nowadays become endemic conflicts that never end because the transformative effects of both decisive victory and exhaustion are blocked by outside intervention’.⁸ Indeed, military victory appears to prolong peace when compared with stalemate or negotiated settlement.⁹ However, backing one “side” in civil war, to hasten the destruction of another with no regard for the human cost of such a strategy, is rarely appealing to the international community. Though imperfect, peacekeeping therefore remains the preferred option for ending conflict and delivering peace.

Since the early 1990s African states have become regular contributors to peacekeeping on the continent. Initially this trend was led by states like Nigeria and Ghana but contributing countries now include many others, such as Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi.¹⁰ Ground-breaking African Union missions in Sudan and Somalia demonstrated African willingness to contribute peacekeeping personnel in Africa, in contrast to major Western powers.¹¹ An ambitious programme has developed to build rapid reaction forces and standby brigades in African sub-regions, to support African Union missions and to build its capacity to deploy such forces in future. Non-military support, for mediation and early-warning systems in the event of conflict, is also provided – but, to staff peacekeeping missions, national military forces will require training, equipment, funding, and transport to mission locations.

Limitations of African financial and technical capacity mean responsibility for meeting these needs falls primarily on donor states. The United States has trained tens of thousands of African peacekeepers since 2004 through its Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance programme (ACOTA). The US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs justified this commitment in 2012, arguing that ‘the only way to achieve sustainable, long-term stability on the continent is to provide our African partners with the tools needed to bring about that stability themselves’.¹² Other bilateral donors, including the UK and France, have also trained African peacekeepers through the African Peacekeeping Training Support Programme and the RECAMP (Reinforcement of African Peacekeeping Capacities) programme, respectively. Reflecting such support, in the past decade the African Union has led peace support missions in Burundi, Sudan, Somalia, Comoros, and Central African Republic.

Capacity development remains vital: African national security forces are often ill-disciplined, under-equipped, and irregularly paid. However, some national militaries have been used to destabilize neighbouring states and support autocratic rulers, becoming predators rather than protectors of civilians.¹³ Engaging in African force development is thus a necessary but risky business for donors. Though decisions on whether to engage with particular African militaries remain surprisingly absent from public scrutiny and academic analysis,¹⁴ it is reasonable to question the wisdom and long-term consequences of building and strengthening the military capacity of states with a history of military coups, interventions in neighbouring countries, or human rights abuses committed by the very same security forces.¹⁵ With few, mainly partial, exceptions, the leaders of key African contributors to missions on the continent are accused of degrees of authoritarianism.¹⁶ A question thus arises: on what basis should donors decide which states to work with to develop military capacity and efficiency that potentially could be used against governments, citizens, or a neighbouring state?

Rwanda, accused of destabilizing neighbouring Congo and of domestic authoritarianism, but also Africa's third-largest contributor of peacekeepers to UN missions, exemplifies this challenge. The purpose of this article is not to determine whether Rwanda should be supported to develop its military capacity. That decision rests on many factors beyond the scope of this analysis, not least the risks and benefits of partnering with alternative states and donor policy considerations.¹⁷ Instead, this article explores the ways that the RPF-led government views the role of the military and military force in achieving foreign and domestic policy goals. All policy decisions entail risk. Donors cannot control the ways in which the African forces they train will be used, and they will also inevitably face critics who argue that an African regime's shortcomings in areas such as democratization should affect donor willingness to train their armed forces. However, by analysing the national and policy context of the national militaries they choose to support, and considering the circumstances in which they are likely to use military force, donors can develop a more holistic understanding of the risks and benefits of providing such assistance, and make better-informed decisions on that basis.

Rwanda's military development: from independence to civil war and genocide

To understand the contemporary Rwandan military it is useful to explore briefly some aspects of its historical development.¹⁸ From 1923 to 1962, political power in Rwanda lay with a Tutsi monarchy supported by Belgian colonial administrators, but, as independence approached, Belgium moved to support majority rule. As Tutsi represented around 15 percent of the population, this effectively meant transition to rule by the Hutu, who made up about 85 percent. From 1959 to 1962, violence against Tutsi by Hutu groups led thousands to seek refuge in neighbouring states and beyond.

Following independence Rwanda was ruled by Hutu President Gregoire Kayibanda. In 1973, Defence Minister Major General Juvenal Habyarimana seized power in a coup, placing Rwanda under military control until a 1978 referendum and election through which he became president. Under Habyarimana's rule, benefiting from a close relationship between the political and military elites and close ties with France, the Rwandan military enjoyed considerable investment, becoming recognized as a well-trained and adequately equipped force by African standards.¹⁹ By 1990, when the (primarily Tutsi) RPF invaded Rwanda from neighbouring Uganda, sparking a civil war, the military (Forces Armeés Rwandaises–FAR) included a ‘small but fairly well-equipped regular army of 5,200 men’.²⁰

During the civil war this small, highly professional force expanded, reaching 50,000 by mid-1992. By the time of Habyarimana's assassination in 1994, these new recruits were strongly opposed to the military downsizing that would result from a peace agreement with the RPF and its military wing, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). The higher echelons of the military had also become divided on military integration and power sharing, with those most vehemently opposed to power sharing aligning with Hutu nationalist politicians. Following Habyarimana's death, the armed forces split – like much of the Hutu population – with some groups setting up roadblocks and organizing house-to-house searches for Tutsi, and others attempting to stop the killing.²¹ Nevertheless, from coordinating atrocities at the national level to soldiers killing Tutsi or supporting Hutu militias, the military became highly complicit in genocide. When it became clear that the RPF would defeat the genocidaires militarily, the FAR helped shepherd around 2 million Hutu refugees into neighbouring Zaïre, creating a prolonged refugee crisis. By August 1994, much of the FAR high command was either in exile, wanted for war crimes, or part of the control structure of Rwandan refugee camps in Zaïre (renamed as the DRC in 1997). Former FAR and Hutu militia thus became the primary security threat to the new regime in Kigali, cultivating a refugee army in exile.²²

This brief account highlights the strong links between political and military elites in Rwanda. It is important to note that these have continued post-genocide. This account also indicates the scale of the security challenge facing the RPF. To understand how Rwanda's military has been used since 1994 and to identify the regime's understandings of the role of the military – both tasks are central to assessing the risks involved in building Rwandan military capacity – we must next consider how the military was rebuilt after genocide, and its place in broader domestic and foreign policy.

Rebuilding and redefining the Rwandan military post-genocide

Two overarching factors affect how Rwanda's post-genocide regime sees the military and military force in domestic and foreign policy: the terms of settlement of the 1990–4 conflict and the ‘pathway to power’ of the RPF.²³ In ending the genocide the RPF succeeded where the international community, and the UN, had failed. Victory meant ‘they did not have to make any significant political concessions to their military adversaries (the defeated genocidaires), their political allies (the Hutu and Tutsi democrats), or the discredited international community’.²⁴ Secondly, the RPF was an armed refugee group in exile, an armed rebel group fighting a civil war in its ‘home state’, and finally the dominant force in post-genocide politics. This path gives Rwanda's leaders a keen awareness of the threat posed by opponents in exile and a militaristic approach to managing security threats and reconstruction.²⁵ Observers often characterize the country's leaders as single-minded in implementing policy once a decision is taken, regardless of counter-arguments from domestic or international actors. This is reflected in Scott Straus and Lars Waldorf's depiction of the individuals, trained as soldiers, who dominate the RPF: ‘They are hierarchical and disciplined, and they place great value on security and military power.’²⁶ The rebuilding of the military is strongly influenced by past experiences. Such experiences are not, however, unique to Rwanda. Similar trends can be observed in other regimes which have become important contributors to African peacekeeping, including those led by rebel groups remodelled as political parties, most notably Uganda and Ethiopia.²⁷

Since 1994, Rwanda's military has been transformed. Nina Wilen notes the demobilization of 60,000 soldiers from the RPA, ex-FAR, and other armed groups, and reduction from a peak of around 80,000 soldiers in 2002, after absorption of ex-FAR soldiers, to 35,000 in 2009.²⁸ Concerns remain that senior military positions are dominated by former RPA,²⁹ but the contemporary Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF, renamed in 2002) are regarded by many international observers as well-trained, professional, disciplined, and core partners in African peacekeeping. The Director of the US ACOTA programme commented in 2013: ‘ACOTA trains over 17 countries engaged in peacekeeping but Rwanda remains the best … .’³⁰ The UN Assistant Secretary General for Peace Building Support similarly identified Rwanda as ‘a model country when it comes to professional peacekeeping missions, systematic demobilisation of soldiers and reconciliation processes’.³¹

International support for Rwandan military capacity building began almost immediately after the genocide. Colin Waugh's analysis of US support compares the Rwandan military to the Israeli Defence Forces: the strongest military power in their sub-region and a key ally of the US in maintaining regional stability.³² Benefits for Rwanda include prestige, donor investment in its military capacity, and reluctance to apply diplomatic or financial pressure on the government for fear of affecting its peacekeeping contribution.³³ There is also a financial incentive: participation in peace support operations earned Rwanda reimbursements from the UN worth more than two-thirds of its defence budget in 2010.³⁴

However, though praised for contributing to African peacekeeping, Rwanda also faces criticism. There is often a considerable gap between the stated positions of Rwanda's leaders and the activities of the RDF on the ground. This is most starkly illustrated by Rwanda's involvement in Congo. Acknowledging that the military fulfils a number of purposes and roles at different times, or even simultaneously, allows us to make sense of the multiple and at times contradictory roles of the RDF. The four features identified below define the post-genocide regime's stated understanding of the roles of its military and military force as a policy tool and help explain these contradictions. By moving away from simplistic and one-dimensional views of the roles of African militaries, seeing them in the light of both domestic and foreign policy considerations, we can provide a more stable and comprehensive basis for assessing the benefits and risks of supporting military capacity building.

Mistrust of external actors and emphasis on home-grown solutions

Rwanda's leaders display a mistrust of external actors, stemming from the international failure to end the genocide. This shapes their pursuit of relative military strength in the region and willingness to use force to achieve policy goals. They also reject external interference in security matters, with security policy described by analysts as ‘off the table’ during discussions with donors.³⁵ In 1994, the RPF faced security and legitimacy threats from ex-FAR and Hutu militias in Zaïre, and was frustrated by international aid to Hutu refugee camps, which it viewed as feeding a genocidal army.³⁶ Since 1996, Rwanda has twice intervened in Zaïre/DRC to return refugees forcibly and tackle militias threatening to ‘finish the genocide’. The conduct of these interventions has tarnished Rwanda's reputation, with allegations that the country's political and military leaders and armed forces are involved in arming, supporting, and directing Congolese rebel groups, illegally exploiting Congolese mineral wealth, human rights violations, war crimes, and genocide.³⁷ In contrast to its stated preference for a stable Congo, Rwanda is accused of worsening instability in the east.

Contesting these charges, Rwanda has variously denied or defended its activities, citing positive motives that include the prevention of genocide. President Paul Kagame positions this interventionism against a background of mistrust of the UN and an international community that failed Rwandan Tutsis in 1994, and has also failed to bring peace to the DRC since that time. As Vice-President in 1996, Kagame argued: ‘The defence and security of my country have been my problem … I do appreciate what comes from other people, but my experience is that sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't come.’³⁸ This degree of mistrust may seem surprising given Rwanda's reliance on international aid, but the RPF has consistently shown a clear preference for national ownership of security policy. Wilen's analysis of military reconstruction concurs, noting that though Rwanda contributed little funding to the process it ‘still managed to control the process sufficiently to claim local ownership, radically different from the discursive and rhetorical local ownership usually found in these circumstances’.³⁹

Mistrust of outsiders has been twinned in post-genocide policy with an emphasis on self-reliance. “Rwandan solutions to Rwandan problems” are promoted, revising historical practices to underpin post-genocide approaches to justice (gacaca) and civic education (ingando/itorero).⁴⁰ This reinforces a strong narrative in RPF domestic and foreign policy, in which the fickle nature of interest and support from outsiders means that Rwanda must strive to exert real ownership of its development, security, and future. Further-more, this fierce, and often declared, mistrust of the UN and strong sense of independence can make Rwanda an even more valued partner for donor states. A strong African actor in peace and security which shares some key interests with its Western partners is perhaps more valuable to those partners than a more compliant regime. By not acting as a passive or predictable puppet of key donors and security partners such as the US, Rwanda retains its credentials as an authentic and authoritative African voice in the international arena.⁴¹ In the current context of renewed African activism and agency in peace and security debates, the leaders of such states must bridge African and international audiences. Rwanda does this effectively at international fora, as we will see below.⁴²

Interventionist foreign policy and support for R2P

A second feature of Rwanda's approach to the role of military force is its “interventionist” foreign policy outlook. This rests on an interpretation of sovereignty as being primarily defined by responsibility to fulfil basic criteria of statehood rather than reflecting absolute rights to non-intervention.⁴³ It is demonstrated most clearly in Rwanda's use of military power in the DRC and peacekeeping, but also in its stance on other security crises in Africa and beyond.

Despite its small size and internal challenges of development and reconstruction, Rwanda is highly active and visible in the region and the international community. This is a deliberate policy choice, marking significant change from pre-genocide foreign policy. In a 2013 statement to the German Parliament, Rwanda's Foreign Minister, citing international failings during the genocide, asked:

“Will rage at this historic transgression turn us into an insular and embittered nation – or can we transcend anger and instead seek more and better engagement with the world? We chose the latter, opting for a path of reconciliation both inside and outside our borders."⁴⁴

The genocide has become shorthand for international failures to manage African conflict and protect civilians. This gives Rwanda's representatives a respected and perhaps unique voice in debates on African conflict management and genocide prevention internationally. It has used these credentials to promote a view of sovereignty as responsibility, in line with the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) agenda.⁴⁵ Referencing the Darfur crisis, Rwanda's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Cooperation told the 2005 UN World Summit:

“no nation or people should have to face the horrors that we faced 11 years ago. Where a state is unable or unwilling to protect its people, as was the case in Rwanda in 1994, then the responsibility to provide such protection should, indeed must, shift immediately to the international community."⁴⁶

Similarly, following Rwanda's election to the African non-permanent member seat on the UN Security Council in 2013, Mushikiwabo highlighted the country's pride in co-chairing the Group of Friends on the Responsibility to Protect.⁴⁷ Support for international action to protect civilians is not limited to sub-Saharan Africa. Rwanda has been a vocal supporter of the Group of Friends of the Syrian People, established in response to the ongoing civil war.⁴⁸ Rwanda also broke rank with many African states, again illustrating strong policy autonomy, by supporting international action in response to the Libyan regime's attempts to crush an uprising in 2011. On this intervention, Kagame stated:

“Given the overriding mandate of Operation Odyssey Dawn to protect Libyan civilians from state-sponsored attacks, Rwanda can only stand in support of it. Our responsibility to protect is unquestionable – this is the right thing to do, and this view is backed with the authority of having witnessed and suffered the terrible consequences of international inaction."⁴⁹

This interventionist stance and promotion of R2P is a double-edged sword in Rwandan foreign policy, however, with significant implications for donors providing support to develop the country's military capacity. While Rwanda is a strong advocate of African peacekeeping, its argument that states failing to secure their territory and citizens lose the right to have their sovereignty respected is also applied to relations with the DRC. By presenting insecurity in the DRC as a result of the failings of successive Congolese governments and the international community, the Rwandan regime implies that interventionism is not a choice but a necessity. Historically, some donor representatives, particularly in the US and UK, were sympathetic to this argument.⁵⁰ However, having spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years on UN peacekeeping missions, elections, development, and reconstruction in the DRC, even strong supporters of the regime have begun to use their bilateral relationship to attempt to convince Rwanda to stop supporting rebels and instead seek long-term solutions.

Rwanda's support for R2P may be selective, and its advocacy on this, for example with regard to the Libya crisis, may indeed benefit its key security partners, the US and UK. However, Rwanda's leaders continue to demonstrate elsewhere that they are not willing to act as a “pliable African state” for the purposes of securing “African” endorsement of other aspects of the global peace, security, and conflict prevention architecture. This is illustrated by the refusal to directly name or endorse the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a statement following a debate organized by Rwanda during the country's presidency of the UN Security Council in April 2013.⁵¹ Rwanda's representatives at the UN have identified justice mechanisms as necessary to prevent and deter crimes against humanity and genocide, consistent with R2P, but they have long been critical of the ICC as a mechanism to achieve this, refusing to sign the Rome Statute that created it. Their stance in the UN Security Council debate, during the month of the genocide commemoration, positioned Rwanda at the forefront of an emerging African consensus against the ICC, with other states and institutions, including the African Union, also accusing the ICC of targeting Africans for prosecution whilst ignoring crimes elsewhere.⁵²

Military strength as a bulwark against genocide

The Rwandan regime routinely presents the RDF, and military force broadly, as tools for preventing and combating genocide. This is reflected in four roles played by Rwandan military forces: ending the genocide; defeating the post-genocide insurgency; tackling genocidal militias threatening Tutsi in Rwanda and in Zaire/DRC; and peacekeeping in Darfur. The first two roles are highlighted in national commemorations of the roles played by the RPA and ordinary Rwandans, both Hutu and Tutsi, on the annual Heroes Day (1 February), Liberation Day (4 July), and Patriots Day (1 October). Activities outside its own borders are perhaps of greater interest to those considering investing in Rwanda's military development, and they will have heard the regime state its conviction that military force is necessary to secure populations facing the threat of genocide.

In offering personnel to the African Union, Rwanda became involved in what was labelled a ‘fight against genocide’ in Darfur.⁵³ A Rwandan newspaper editorial reflects the way the mission is presented by political leaders, arguing: ‘Rwanda has a moral obligation to stand up when genocide is happening, based on its own history and President Paul Kagame's commitment that Rwanda will not remain silent in the face of genocide.’⁵⁴ Political leaders expressed frustration over restrictive mandates with limited civilian protection, and Kagame threatened to withdraw Rwanda's personnel in 2007 unless improvements to the mission's capacity and ability to protect civilians were made.⁵⁵ The commitment to peacekeeping in Darfur can be seen as evidencing a conviction that where states cannot or will not protect civilians the international community has a responsibility to intervene, using military force if necessary. Rwanda's support for the use of force to prevent genocide can therefore be considered a thread running through foreign and domestic policy, with support for intervention in Libya and the Friends of Syria group further supporting this conclusion.

However, policy towards the DRC makes this simple evaluation problematic. Rwandan leaders argue that their involvement in Congo, and the emergence of successive rebel movements challenging the Congolese government, stem from the government's failure to protect Congolese Tutsi from attacks by Hutu groups and to secure the border with Rwanda.⁵⁶ By raising these charges it seeks to legitimize its involvement by reprising the role of its military in 1994 and during the post-genocide insurgency: a force fighting against genocide. However, despite this stated commitment to the use of force to prevent genocide and protect civilians, Rwanda's response to the decision to deploy a UN Force Intervention Brigade (the FIB) in eastern Congo in 2013 was mixed.

The Force has a strong mandate, similar to the kind Rwanda called for in Darfur, including the ability to ‘carry out targeted offensive operations in a robust, highly mobile and versatile manner’ to disarm, neutralize, and prevent expansion of armed groups.⁵⁷ Since its deployment Rwanda has nevertheless been critical of its efforts, and continues to criticize those of the broader UN mission in Congo (MONUSCO) and Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) to tackle Congolese rebel groups. In July 2013, it accused the FARDC of deliberately shelling Rwandan villages,⁵⁸ and it has accused the FIB of collusion in FARDC's arming of a rebel group formed of the remnants of Rwanda's 1994 genocidal militia and army, the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR).⁵⁹ Accusations of FIB and FARDC involvement with the FDLR serve to reinforce Rwanda's core argument, that outside forces cannot be relied upon and that Rwanda's military must stand ready to respond to threats from and within Congo, regardless of international opinion, if necessary. This bodes ill for donors supporting Rwanda's military development, particularly those who hoped the FIB, with its improved capacity and strong mandate, could preclude Rwandan involvement in eastern Congo, either by allaying Rwanda's fears or, at minimum, undermining suggestions that future genocide could occur within or emanate from that region.

The military's role embedded within and reflecting the ‘new’ Rwandan society

The final feature of the Rwandan regime's view of the role of the military is its promotion of the RDF as both embedded within and reflecting positive traits of a ‘new’ post-genocide society. Rwandans are encouraged through pro-government media to support and feel pride in their armed forces.⁶⁰ The qualities of efficiency and discipline often used to describe the RDF are promoted by the government more widely, pursuing what Straus and Waldorf characterize as an ambitious, ‘high-modernist’ ‘programme of political, economic and social re-engineering’.⁶¹ The post-genocide promotion of gender equality has also become a key strand of the Rwandan success story narrative,⁶² and is reflected in the RDF. Rwanda is amongst the top providers of female soldiers and police to UN Missions,⁶³ a fact often highlighted by UN officials and by Rwandan leaders at international fora.⁶⁴ This willingness to train and deploy female personnel in peace missions in Africa supports broader international goals, with anticipated benefits in peacekeeping and post-conflict security.

The RDF is highly visible in society. It is involved in development, through monthly umuganda in which Rwandans undertake development work within their communities, and through controversial solidarity camps (ingando and itorero), where people are educated on Rwandan history, the genocide, and the values of a ‘good Rwandan citizen’.⁶⁵ Former members of the RDF have also taken up positions in politics, the private sector, and civil society.⁶⁶ The RPF has thus crafted and promoted a new Rwandan national identity, within which the military is posited as a symbol of unity and valorized.⁶⁷

This positive view of the domestic role of the military is complicated, however, by evidence of splits between Rwandan military and political elites. The military elite has become a source of vocal challengers to the government. High-profile dissenters have gone into exile citing disagreements with political leaders over policy towards the DRC and also dissatisfaction with the political dominance of the RPF – even though some of these critics were well-known party members.⁶⁸ Though this is an area which is relatively under-researched, evidence from other contexts suggests such splits could be exacerbated by investment in the RDF, which further improves its effectiveness and self-image.⁶⁹

Donor responses to the risks of supporting the RDF

As the preceding analysis demonstrates, the RPF sees the military and military force as tools for achieving goals spanning domestic and foreign policy. The regime has developed a consistent narrative on the purpose of its military strength, emphasizing its benefit to Rwanda but also to African security. This narrative was challenged in 2012, when a UN Group of Experts report alleged Rwandan and Ugandan support for the Congolese M23 rebel group. This renewed debate highlights an ongoing dilemma – can, and should, donor states take the political and reputational risk of supporting Rwanda's military development when the country continues to be identified as a destabilizing force in Congo?

In response to the allegations, civil society organizations invoked the R2P principles that Rwanda promotes elsewhere, calling for aid suspensions and for donors to cease training the RDF.⁷⁰ Aid cancellations followed, including from the EU (suspended US$90 million), UK (withheld $34 million), Sweden (suspended over $10 million), Germany (suspended $26 million), the Netherlands (cancelled $6 million), and the US (cancelled $200,000 in military aid). This raft of suspensions denied Rwanda a strategy previously used in maximizing its policy independence – exploiting differences in approach between donors.⁷¹ The suspensions could be seen to imply a limited donor appetite for taking the risk of continuing to work with Rwanda as an African security partner. In some cases, such as Denmark's cancellation of a new military partnership programme in the wake of the allegations, this is an accurate assessment.⁷² However, Rwanda's contribution to peacekeeping is highly valued. For donor states to allow long-term strategy for building African military capacity to be derailed by individual incidents could render relationships with many other key contributors to “African solutions” – such as Uganda, Kenya, or Ethiopia – similarly problematic. This means that if donors wish to mitigate risks of African military capacity building whilst continuing to support “African solutions”, their approach must be more nuanced and take into account multiple audiences, at home and abroad.

Since the crisis some of Rwanda's donors have reinstated aid, including the UK and Germany in early 2013.⁷³ Medium-term responses have hinted at ways donors may try to leverage aid relationships to influence Rwandan security policy. Suspending aid, changing existing bilateral relationships to include greater emphasis on regional peace and security, and increasing donor control over how aid is used are some of the tools through which donors seek to influence the exercise of military power. By linking bilateral aid relationships to Rwanda's involvement in regional peace talks, or reallocating aid from budget support to specific development programmes, donors have sought to use their broader relations with Rwanda (for example in terms of development or trade) to influence the calculations of Rwanda's leaders.⁷⁴ In situations where donors lack multi-dimensional relationships with a recipient, as was the case with Denmark, which has no embassy in Kigali, the potential leverage of donors to influence countries to which they provide military capacity-building assistance is more limited. Such actions also challenge international principles of predictability and recipient-country ownership of aid, rendering such tactics problematic in view of donors' international commitments.

Nevertheless, such responses would probably generate less media and civil society criticism in donor states than would result from seeming to ignore negative uses of donor-enhanced military capacity. In considering donor attempts to influence the decision making of African actors, it is important to remember that foreign and development policies often have a strong domestic element. Donor understandings of the risk involved in African military capacity building will therefore by definition include not only consideration of the risk to security of other governments, states, and citizens but also the risk to the reputation of the donor government itself, alongside the rewards of continuing or reconsidering the relationship.

Conclusions

During recent crises in Mali and the Central African Republic, African insecurity has again been posited as a direct security threat to developed states, sparking renewed commitment to build African military capacity. Such support brings significant risks, including security risks for African states and communities that may find enhanced military capacity used against them, and also political risk to donors' domestic and international reputations in the event of misuse. It also entails a risk, reminiscent of cold war bipolar approaches to alliance and military aid, of reversing or stalling political reform in Africa, particularly in states whose peacekeeping contribution encourages donors to overlook democratic backsliding. Such scenarios are not hypothetical. They have emerged in Uganda and Ethiopia as well as Rwanda, with often limited and inconsistent donor responses to the increased authoritarianism of regimes considered central to the implementation of “African solutions”.⁷⁵ Despite these risks, commitments to African military capacity building will remain strong. They are indispensable in making “African solutions” a reality and serve donor purposes beyond those concerned with the security of Africa and Africans. They could, for instance, strengthen relationships with selected African states via a sector in which, compared to development assistance, rising powers such as China and India may struggle to compete with the prestige of established providers of military training.⁷⁶

This article has discussed the Rwandan case to demonstrate that analysing the priorities and goals of contributing African states, and the role of the military and military force in achieving them, offers a way for donors to assess more accurately how enhanced military capacity could be used. In doing so it has identified cross-cutting themes to explain Rwanda's seemingly contradictory contributions to African security, demonstrating the logic in seeming inconsistency. Rwanda may be something of a ‘special case’ given its history, but it highlights a wider challenge facing donors, of balancing support for effective, militarily strong regimes with commitments to democracy, stability, and security on the continent. The article has also reflected on donor responses to the M23 crisis to see how donors seek to minimize risk in building capacities of African militaries, ensuring they contribute to the security of African states and peoples without generating new forms of violence and insecurity. In sum, the evidence from Rwanda suggests that if donors are to appreciate the risks of military capacity building they must develop greater appreciation for the scenarios in which military force is likely to be used, inside or outside national borders. As African military capacity building continues apace, better understanding of the ways such enhanced forces are likely to be used will be crucial to understanding Africa's peace and security prospects.

 

Footnotes

• ↵ See, for example, Erlend Grøner Krogstad, ‘Security, development and force: revisiting police reform in Sierra Leone’, African Affairs 111, 443 (2012), pp. 261–80.
• ↵ United Nations Department of Peace Keeping Operations, ‘Ranking of military and police contributions to UN operations: December 2013’, December 2013, <http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2013/dec13_2.pdf> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ This term is applied to institutions and tools established since 2002 under the African Union to promote peace and manage insecurity on the continent. See Alex Vines, ‘A decade of African Peace and Security Architecture’, International Affairs 89, 1 (2013), pp. 89–109.
• ↵ Paul Williams, ‘Keeping the peace in Africa: why “African” solutions are not enough' (Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, New York, NY, 2008); Stephan Klingebiel, ‘Africa's new Peace and Security Architecture: converging the roles of external actors and African interests’, African Security Review 14, 2 (2005), pp. 35–44.
• ↵ See, for example, Robert Feldman, ‘Problems plaguing the African Union peacekeeping forces’, Defense and Security Analysis 24, 3 (2008), pp. 267–79.
• ↵ Rita Abrahamsen, ‘A breeding ground for terrorists? Africa and Britain's “war on terrorism”’, Review of African Political Economy 31, 102 (2004), pp. 677–84.
• ↵ Virginia Fortna, ‘Does peacekeeping keep peace? International intervention and the duration of peace after civil war’, International Studies Quarterly 48 (2004), pp. 269–92, p. 288; T. David Mason, Mehmet Gurses, Patrick T. Brandt, and Jason Michael Quinn, ‘When civil wars recur: conditions for durable peace after civil wars’, International Studies Perspectives 12 (2011), pp. 171–89, p. 185.
• ↵ Edward Luttwak, ‘Give war a chance’, Foreign Affairs 78, 4 (1999), pp. 36–44, p. 44.
• ↵ Fortna, ‘Does peacekeeping keep peace?’, p. 273.
• ↵ At 31 December 2013, 32 sub-Saharan African countries were contributing personnel to UN peacekeeping missions; 10 of these were amongst the top 20 contributors. United Nations Department of Peace Keeping Operations, ‘Ranking of military and police contributions to UN operations: December 2013’.
• ↵ Jonah Victor, ‘African peacekeeping in Africa: warlord politics, defense economics, and state legitimacy’, Journal of Peace Research 47, 2 (2010), pp. 217–29, p. 217.
• ↵ Testimony by Johnnie Carson (Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs) to House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights, Washington DC, 13 September 2012, <http://www.state.gov/p/af/rls/rm/2012/197773.htm> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ Jeffrey Herbst, ‘African militaries and rebellion: the political economy of threat and combat effectiveness’, Journal of Peace Research 41, 3 (2004), pp. 357–69; see also Feldman, ‘Problems plaguing the African Union peacekeeping forces’.
• ↵ Herbst, ‘African militaries’, p. 367.
• ↵ For an excellent discussion of this dilemma in the context of support for developing police forces, including a reflection on the dichotomy of seeing insecurity and state weakness as the result of ‘too much’ or ‘too little’ force, see Krogstad, ‘Security, development and force’.
• ↵ Howard French, ‘The dilemma at the heart of America's approach to Africa’, The Atlantic, 15 June 2012, <http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/the-dilemma-at-the-heart-of-americas-approach-to-africa/258541/> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) Director of Strategy, Plans and Programmes, for example, suggests that US engagement in security assistance in Africa is at least in part aimed at cementing the US as ‘security partner of choice’ for African states considered pivotal in future African security. This, he suggests, addresses the risk that otherwise such preferred partner status could fall to others, ‘perhaps not those we would chose [sic]’. Charles W. Hooper, ‘Going farther by going together: building partner capacity in Africa’, Joint Forces Quarterly 67, 4 (2012), pp. 8–13, p. 11.
• ↵ For a detailed account of the historical development of the military in Rwanda and its links to the development of the Rwandan state, see Rwandan military historian Frank K. Rusagara, Resilience of a Nation: A history of the military in Rwanda (Fountain Publishers, Kigali, 2009).
• ↵ On Franco-Rwandan military cooperation during this period, and during the Rwandan civil war, see ibid., pp. 161–4.
• ↵ Gerard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a genocide (Hurst and Company, London, 2002), p. 94.
• ↵ Ibid., p. 229.
• ↵ Filip Reyntjens, ‘Waging (civil) war abroad: Rwanda and the DRC’, in Scott Straus and Lars Waldorf (eds), Remaking Rwanda: State building and human rights after mass violence (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI, 2011), pp. 132–51, p. 133.
• ↵ Scott Straus and Lars Waldorf, ‘Introduction: Seeing like a post-conflict state’, in Straus and Waldorf (eds), Remaking Rwanda, pp. 13–15.
• ↵ Ibid., p. 14; See also Nina Wilen, ‘A hybrid peace through locally owned and externally financed SSR–DDR in Rwanda?’, Third World Quarterly 33, 7 (2012), pp. 1323–36, p. 1326.
• ↵ On the formative experience of Rwandan refugees, many of whom would later become RPF fighters, as members of the Ugandan insurgency against Idi Amin, see Rusagara, Resilience of a Nation, Chapter 11.
• ↵ Straus and Waldorf, ‘Introduction’, p. 14.
• ↵ René Lemarchand has made similar observations on the ‘post-rebel’ nature of the Rwandan leadership and that of other states in the region: ‘Foreign policy making in the Great Lakes region’ in Gilbert Khadiagala and Terrence Lyons (eds) African Foreign Policies: Power and process (Lynne Reinner, London, 2001), pp. 87–106.
• ↵ Wilen, ‘A hybrid peace’, pp. 1328–9.
• ↵ Ibid., p. 1329.
• ↵ Jean d'Amour Mbonyinshuti, ‘Military chief reaffirms commitment to peacekeeping’, The New Times, 9 February 2013, <http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15263&a=63718> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ Ivan Mushiga, ‘UN top official salutes Rwandan peacekeepers’, The New Times, 6 October 2012, <http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15137&a=59220> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ Colin M. Waugh, Paul Kagame and Rwanda: Power, genocide and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (McFarland and Co., London, 2004), p. 98. See also David Renton, David Seddon, and Leo Zeilig, The Congo: Plunder and resistance (Zed Books, London and New York, NY, 2004), pp. 179–84.
• ↵ This was evidenced during a visit to Rwanda by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon after a leaked 2010 United Nations Group of Experts report accused the RPA/RDF and rebel groups linked to Rwanda of committing genocide against Hutu in DRC. See Danielle Beswick, ‘The role of the military in contemporary Rwanda’ in Maddalena Campioni and Patrick Noack (eds), Rwanda Fast Forward: Social, economic, military and reconciliation prospects (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2012), pp. 249–64; BBC News Online, ‘Ban urges Rwanda not to withdraw UN peacekeepers’, 8 September 2010, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11229201> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ Wilen, ‘A hybrid peace’, pp. 1332–3.
• ↵ Rachel Hayman, ‘Rwanda: Milking the cow? Creating policy space in spite of aid dependence’ in Lindsay Whitfield (ed.), The Politics of Aid: African strategies for dealing with donors (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009).
• ↵ Ben Barber, ‘Feeding refugees, or war?’, Foreign Affairs 76, 4 (1997), pp. 8–14.
• ↵ For two analyses of these allegations see Reyntjens, ‘Waging (civil) war abroad’; and Jason Stearns and Federico Borello, ‘Bad karma: accountability for Rwandan crimes in the Congo’ in Straus and Waldorf (eds), Remaking Rwanda, pp. 152–69.
• ↵ Philip Gourevitch, ‘After genocide: a conversation with Paul Kagame’, Transition 72 (1996), pp. 162–94, p. 187.
• ↵ Wilen, ‘A hybrid peace’, p. 1331.
• ↵ For an interesting discussion of the basis for the RPF leadership's decision to adopt, and adapt, existing historical cultural practices to tackle post-genocide challenges, see Rusagara, Resilience of a Nation, pp. 189–90.
• ↵ This approach to maximizing policy independence is an embedded feature of Rwanda's engagement with external actors. Whether negotiating development assistance or military assistance, Rwanda's leaders make skilful use of their available assets to create policy space and deter sanction, censure, or deterioration of relationships with key partners. In the arena of military/security relations these assets include the material, for example its strong military or its elected seat on the UN Security Council, and the more symbolic, such as Rwanda's status as a reference point in debates on intervention, genocide, and conflict prevention. The use of such narratives creates policy space by placing Rwanda in a position of moral authority relative to its international supporters. It also gives Rwanda a significant voice in international debates on peace, conflict, and security. See Danielle Beswick, ‘From weak state to savvy international player? Rwanda's multi-level strategy for maximising agency’ in William Brown and Sophie Harman (eds), African Agency in International Politics (Routledge, London, 2013) pp. 158–74.
• ↵ See Danielle Beswick and Anne Hammerstad, ‘African agency in a changing security environment: sources, opportunities and challenges’, Conflict, Security and Development 13, 5 (2013), pp. 471–86.
• ↵ This sentiment is also reflected in Wilen, ‘A hybrid peace’.
• ↵ Louise Mushikiwabo, ‘Opening remarks by Minister Mushikiwabo to Bundestag Committees of Economic Cooperation and Development, Foreign Affairs and Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid’, Berlin, Germany, 31 January 2013, <http://www.minaffet.gov.rw/index.php?id=886&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=483&cHash=abeed2dc8db631cea8a2247203ffba87> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ For an early overview of the principles of R2P, see Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, ‘The responsibility to protect’, Foreign Affairs 81, 6 (2002), pp. 1–8.
• ↵ Charles Murigande, ‘Statement by Hon. Dr Charles Murigande, Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, at the General Debate of the 60th Session of the United Nations General Assembly’, 18 September 2005, <http://www.un.org/webcast/ga/60/statements/rwa050918eng.pdf> (4 February 2014). Emphasis in original.
• ↵ Louise Mushikiwabo, ‘Statement by the Hon. Louise Mushikiwabo, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, at United Nations Security Council during the open debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflict’, New York, 12 February 2013, <http://www.minaffet.gov.rw/fileadmin/user_upload/minaffet/Documents/Statement_by_LM.pdf> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ James Munyaneza, ‘Rwanda stands with Syrians’, The New Times, 4 April 2012, <http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/views/article_print.php?i=14952&a=52108&icon=Print> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ Eugène-Richard Gasana, ‘Commemoration of Rwandan genocide: statement by H. E. Ambassador Eugène-Richard Gasana, permanent representative of the Republic of Rwanda to the United Nations’, UN Mission of Rwanda, 7 April 2011, <http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/component/content/article/35-r2pcs-topics/3372-rwandan-ambassador-reflects-on-recent-progress-at-the-un-to-protect-populations-commends-security-council-on-cote-divoire-and-libya> (4 February 2014). Emphasis added.
• ↵ Reyntjens, ‘Waging (civil) war abroad’, pp. 141–2.
• ↵ Frank Kanyesigye, ‘Mushikiwabo chairs UN conflict debate’, The New Times, 16 April 2013, <http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15329&a=65986> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ See United Nations, ‘Peace and security in Africa’, 6946th Meeting of the UN Security Council, 15 April 2013, New York (Ref: S/PV.6946); Gabe Joselow, ‘Rwanda challenges ICC role as court marks 15 Years’, Voice of America, 17 July 2013, <http://www.voanews.com/content/rwanda-challenges-icc-role-as-court-marks-fifteen-years/1703692.html> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ Scott Straus, ‘Darfur and the genocide debate’, Foreign Affairs 84, 1 (2005), pp. 123–33.
• ↵ Focus, ‘US Ambassador to Rwanda: political solution needed in Darfur’, Kigali, March 2006, p. 6.
• ↵ James Munyaneza, ‘Country may withdraw from Darfur – Kagame’, The New Times, 14 March 2007, <http://allafrica.com/stories/200703140472.html> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ Reyntjens, ‘Waging (civil) war abroad’, p. 142.
• ↵ UN Security Council Resolution 2098, UN Doc. S/RES/2098 (28 March 2013).
• ↵ See The East African [Kenya], ‘Rwanda warns its enemies as bombs from Congo land on villages’, 20 July 2013, <http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Rwanda-warns-its-enemies-after-bombs-from-Congo-/-/2558/1920954/-/j5lkro/-/index.html> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ Eugene Kwibuka, ‘Rwanda: UN brigade aiding FDLR-Congo alliance’, The New Times, 17 July 2013, <http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?a=68726&i=15421> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ Danielle Beswick, ‘Peacekeeping, regime security and “African solutions to African problems”: exploring Rwanda's involvement in Darfur’, Third World Quarterly 31, 5 (2010), pp. 739–54, p. 746.
• ↵ Straus and Waldorf, ‘Introduction’, p. 4.
• ↵ For critical analysis of the role of women and women's empowerment initiatives in post-genocide Rwanda, see Jennie E. Burnet, ‘Gender balance and the meanings of women in governance in post-genocide Rwanda’, African Affairs 107, 428 (2008), pp. 361–86.
• ↵ In December 2013, Rwanda contributed 228 female personnel to UN missions, the fifth highest contribution after Ethiopia (402), Nigeria (334), Ghana (300), and South Africa (298). See UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, ‘Ranking of military and police contributions to UN operations: December 2013’.
• ↵ Louise Mushikiwabo, ‘Statement by the Hon. Louise Mushikiwabo’.
• ↵ See Susan Thomson, ‘Reeducation for reconciliation: participant observations on ingando’, in Straus and Waldorf (eds), Remaking Rwanda, pp. 331–9; Rusagara, Resilience of a Nation, pp. 193–4.
• ↵ This has lead to concerns that non-military space is becoming militarized. See Reyntjens, ‘Waging (civil) war abroad’, pp. 140–1.
• ↵ Rusagara refers to the modern Rwandan military as a ‘socially integrative unifier’ with a ‘social responsibility in facilitating social cohesion’; a concrete expression of the unity and common identity of all Rwandans promoted under the RPF even prior to the genocide. See Resilience of a Nation, pp. 190–201.
• ↵ Beswick, ‘The role of the military in contemporary Rwanda’; Joseph Sebarenzi, ‘Justice and human rights for all Rwandans’ in Straus and Waldorf (eds), Remaking Rwanda, pp. 343–53.
• ↵ See Krogstad, ‘Security, development and force’, for reflections on this point in the context of police reform in Sierra Leone.
• ↵ See for example the open letter to US President Barack Obama in December 2012 signed by 15 organizations including the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, December 2012, <http://www.globalr2p.org/media/files/drc-letter-pres-obama-11_12.pdf> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ Scholars have demonstrated elsewhere that the RPF uses differences between bilateral donors on its stuttering democratization and role in Congo, along with its selective engagement with preferred donor models of development, to maximize space for policy independence. See Hayman, ‘Milking the cow’; Eugenia Zorbas, ‘Aid dependence and policy independence: explaining the Rwandan paradox’ in Straus and Waldorf (eds), Remaking Rwanda, pp. 103–17; Beswick, ‘From weak state to savvy international player?’.
• ↵ ‘Military capacity building: risk-taking in Danish development aid?’, seminar held at Bageriet, Kastellet, Copenhagen, 12 December 2012, organized by the East African Security Governance Network, the Royal Danish Defence College, and the Centre for Military Studies.
• ↵ Jean-Christophe Nsanzimana, ‘Germany unfreezes US$26 million to Rwanda’, Focus, 1 February 2013, <http://focus.rw/wp/2013/02/germany-unfreezes-us-26-million-to-rwanda/> (4 February 2014); Justine Greening, ‘Written ministerial statement on UK aid to Rwanda’, UK Department for International Development, 1 March 2013, <http://www.dfid.gov.uk/News/Latest-news/2013/Rwanda-ukaid-mar13/> (4 February 2014).
• ↵ BBC News Online, ‘UK and the Netherlands withhold Rwanda budget aid’, 27 July 2012, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19010495> (4 February 2014).

↵^75. See Jonathan Fisher, ‘Managing perceptions and securing agency: contextualizing Uganda's 2007 intervention in Somalia’, African Affairs 111, 444 (2012), pp. 404–23; The Economist, ‘Ethiopia's elections: forget about democracy’, 25 March 2010, <http://www.economist.com/node/15772973> (4 February 2014).

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by CASADE

Rising Global Poverty, Human Rights, And Insecurity

Thomas Pogge.

Despite a high and growing global average income, billions of human beings are still condemned to lifelong severe poverty, with all its attendant evils of low life expectancy, social exclusion, ill health, illiteracy, dependency, and effective enslavement. The annual death toll from poverty-related causes is around 18 million, or one-third of all human deaths, which adds up to approximately 270 million deaths since the end of the Cold War.1

This problem is hardly unsolvable, in spite of its magnitude. Though constituting 44 percent of the world's population, the 2,735 million people the World Bank counts as living below its more generous $2 per day international poverty line consume only 1.3 percent of the global product, and would need just 1 percent more to escape poverty so defined.2 The high-income countries, with 955 million citizens, by contrast, have about 81 percent of the global product.3 With our average per capita income nearly 180 times greater than that of the poor (at market exchange rates), we could eradicate severe poverty worldwide if we chose to try—in fact, we could have eradicated it decades ago.

Citizens of the rich countries are, however, conditioned to downplay the severity and persistence of world poverty and to think of it as an occasion for minor charitable assistance. Thanks in part to the rationalizations dispensed by our economists, most of us believe that severe poverty and its persistence are due exclusively to local causes. Few realize that severe poverty is an ongoing harm we inflict upon the global poor. If more of us understood the true magnitude of the problem of poverty and our causal involvement in it, we might do what is necessary to eradicate it.

That world poverty is an ongoing harm we inflict seems completely incredible to most citizens of the affluent countries. We call it tragic that the basic human rights of so many remain unfulfilled, and are willing to admit that we should do more to help. But it is unthinkable to us that we are actively responsible for this catastrophe. If we were, then we, civilized and sophisticated denizens of the developed countries, would be guilty of the largest crime against humanity ever committed, the death toll of which exceeds, every week, that of the recent tsunami and, every three years, that of World War II, the concentration camps and gulags included. What could be more preposterous?

But think about the unthinkable for a moment. Are there steps the affluent countries could take to reduce severe poverty abroad? It seems very likely that there are, given the enormous inequalities in income and wealth already mentioned. The common assumption, however, is that reducing severe poverty abroad at the expense of our own affluence would be generous on our part, not something we owe, and that our failure to do this is thus at most a lack of generosity that does not make us morally responsible for the continued deprivation of the poor. I deny this popular assumption. 

I deny that the 955 million citizens of the affluent countries are morally entitled to their 81 percent of the global product in the face of three times as many people mired in severe poverty. Is this denial really so preposterous that one need not consider the arguments in its support? Does not the radical inequality between our wealth and their dire need at least put the burden on us to show why we should be morally entitled to so much while they have so little? In World Poverty and Human Rights,4 I dispute the popular assumption by showing that the usual ways of justifying our great advantage fail. My argument poses three mutually independent challenges. 

ACTUAL HISTORY 

Many believe that the radical inequality we face can be justified by reference to how it evolved, for example through differences in diligence, culture, and social institutions, soil, climate, or fortune. I challenge this sort of justification by invoking the common and very violent history through which the present radical inequality accumulated. Much of it was built up in the colonial era, when today's affluent countries ruled today's poor regions of the world: trading their people like cattle, destroying their political institutions and cultures, taking their lands and natural resources, and forcing products and customs upon them. I recount these historical facts specifically for readers who believe that even the most radical inequality is morally justifiable if it evolved in a benign way. Such readers disagree about the conditions a historical process must meet for it to justify such vast inequalities in life chances. But I can bypass these disagreements because the actual historical crimes were so horrendous, diverse, and consequential that no historical entitlement conception could credibly support the view that our common history was sufficiently benign to justify today's huge inequality in starting places. 

Challenges such as this are often dismissed with the lazy response that we cannot be held responsible for what others did long ago. This response is true but irrelevant. We indeed cannot inherit responsibility for our forefathers' sins. But how then can we plausibly claim the fruits of their sins? How can we have been entitled to the great head start our countries enjoyed going into the postcolonial period, which has allowed us to dominate and shape the world? And how can we be entitled to the huge advantages over the global poor we consequently enjoy from birth? The historical path from which our exceptional affluence arose greatly weakens our moral claim to it—certainly in the face of those whom the same historical process has delivered into conditions of acute deprivation. They, the global poor, have a much stronger moral claim to that 1 percent of the global product they need to meet their basic needs than we affluent have to take 81 rather than 80 percent for ourselves. Thus, I write, "A morally deeply tarnished history must not be allowed to result in radical inequality" (p. 203).

FICTIONAL HISTORIES

Since my first challenge addressed adherents of historical entitlement conceptions of justice, it may leave others unmoved. These others may believe that it is permissible to uphold any economic distribution, no matter how skewed, if merely it could have come about on a morally acceptable path. They insist that we are entitled to keep and defend what we possess, even at the cost of millions of deaths each year, unless there is conclusive proof that, without the horrors of the European conquests, severe poverty worldwide would be substantially less today.

Now, any distribution, however unequal, could be the outcome of a sequence of voluntary bets or gambles. Appeal to such a fictional history would "justify" anything and would thus be wholly implausible. John Locke does much better, holding that a fictional history can justify the status quo only if the changes in holdings and social rules it involves are ones that all participants could have rationally agreed to. He also holds that in a state of nature persons would be entitled to a proportional share of the world's natural resources. Whoever deprives others of "enough and as good"—either through unilateral appropriations or through institutional arrangements, such as a radically inegalitarian property regime—harms them in violation of a negative duty. For Locke, the justice of any institutional order thus depends on whether the worst-off under it are at least as well off as people would be in a state of nature with a proportional resource share.5 This baseline is imprecise, to be sure, but it suffices for my second challenge: however one may want to imagine a state of nature among human beings on this planet, one could not realistically conceive it as involving suffering and early deaths on the scale we are witnessing today. Only a thoroughly organized state of civilization can produce such horrendous misery and sustain an enduring poverty death toll of 18 million annually. The existing distribution is then morally unacceptable on Lockean grounds insofar as, I point out, "the better off enjoy significant advantages in the use of a single natural resource base from whose benefits the worse-off are largely, and without compensation, excluded" (p. 202).

The attempt to justify today's coercively upheld radical inequality by appeal to some morally acceptable fictional historical process that might have led to it thus fails as well. On Locke's permissive account, a small elite may appropriate all of the huge cooperative surplus produced by modern social organization. But this elite must not enlarge its share even further by reducing the poor below the state-of-nature baseline to capture more than the entire cooperative surplus. The citizens and governments of the affluent states are violating this negative duty when we, in collaboration with the ruling cliques

PRESENT GLOBAL INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

A third way of thinking about the justice of a radical inequality involves reflection on the institutional rules that give rise to it. Using this approach, one can justify an economic order and the distribution it produces (irrespective of historical considerations) by comparing them to feasible alternative institutional schemes and the distributional profiles they would produce. Many broadly consequentialist and contractualist conceptions of justice exemplify this approach. They differ in how they characterize the relevant affected parties (groups, persons, time slices of persons, and so on), in the metric they employ for measuring how well off such parties are (in terms of social primary goods, capabilities, welfare, and so forth), and in how they aggregate such information about well-being into an overall assessment (for example, by averaging, or in some egalitarian, prioritarian, or sufficientarian way). These conceptions consequently disagree about how economic institutions should be best shaped under modern conditions. But I can bypass such disagreements insofar as these conceptions agree that an economic order is unjust when it—like the systems of serfdom and forced labor prevailing in feudal Russia or France—foreseeably and avoidably gives rise to massive and severe human rights deficits. My third challenge, addressed to adherents of broadly consequentialist and contractualist conceptions of justice, is that we are preserving our great economic advantages by imposing a global economic order that is unjust in view of the massive and avoidable deprivations it foreseeably reproduces: "There is a shared institutional order that is shaped by the better-off and imposed on the worse-off," I contend. "This institutional order is implicated in the reproduction of radical inequality in that there is a feasible institutional alternative under which such severe and extensive poverty would not persist. The radical inequality cannot be traced to extra-social factors (such as genetic handicaps or natural disasters) which, as such, affect different human beings differentially" (p. 199).

THREE NOTIONS OF HARM

These three challenges converge on the conclusion that the global poor have a compelling moral claim to some of our affluence and that we, by denying them what they are morally entitled to and urgently need, are actively contributing to their deprivations. Still, these challenges are addressed to different audiences and thus appeal to diverse and mutually inconsistent moral conceptions. 

They also deploy different notions of harm. In most ordinary contexts, the word "harm" is understood in a historical sense, either diachronically or subjunctively: someone is harmed when she is rendered worse off than she was at some earlier time, or than she would have been had some earlier arrangements continued undisturbed. My first two challenges conceive harm in this ordinary way, and then conceive justice, at least partly, in terms of harm: we are behaving unjustly toward the global poor by imposing on them the lasting effects of historical crimes, or by holding them below any credible state-of-nature baseline. But my third challenge does not conceive justice and injustice in terms of an independently specified notion of harm. Rather, it relates the concepts of harm and justice in the opposite way, conceiving harm in terms of an independently specified conception of social justice: we are harming the global poor if and insofar as we collaborate in imposing an unjust global institutional order upon them. And this institutional order is definitely unjust if and insofar as it foreseeably perpetuates large-scale human rights deficits that would be reasonably avoidable through feasible institutional modifications.6

The third challenge is empirically more demanding than the other two. It requires me to substantiate three claims: Global institutional arrangements are causally implicated in the reproduction of massive severe poverty. Governments of our affluent countries bear primary responsibility for these global institutional arrangements and can foresee their detrimental effects. And many citizens of these affluent countries bear responsibility for the global institutional arrangements their governments have negotiated in their names.

TWO MAIN INNOVATIONS

In defending these three claims, my view on these more empirical matters is as oddly perpendicular to the usual empirical debates as my diagnosis of our moral relation to the problem of world poverty is to the usual moral debates.

The usual moral debates concern the stringency of our moral duties to help the poor abroad. Most of us believe that these duties are rather feeble, meaning that it isn't very wrong of us to give no help at all. Against this popular view, some (Peter Singer, Henry Shue, Peter Unger) have argued that our positive duties are quite stringent and quite demanding; and others (such as Liam Murphy) have defended an intermediate view according to which our positive duties, insofar as they are quite stringent, are not very demanding. Leaving this whole debate to one side, I focus on what it ignores: our moral duties not to harm. We do, of course, have positive duties to rescue people from life-threatening poverty. But it can be misleading to focus on them when more stringent negative duties are also in play: duties not to expose people to life-threatening poverty and duties to shield them from harms for which we would be actively responsible.

The usual empirical debates concern how developing countries should design their economic institutions and policies in order to reduce severe poverty within their borders. The received wisdom (often pointing to Hong Kong and, lately, China) is that they should opt for free and open markets with a minimum in taxes and regulations so as to attract investment and to stimulate growth. But some influential economists call for extensive government investment in education, health care, and infrastructure (as illustrated by the example of the Indian state of Kerala), or for some protectionist measures to "incubate" fledgling niche industries until they become internationally competitive (as illustrated by the example of South Korea). Leaving these debates to one side, I focus once more on what is typically ignored: the role that the design of the global institutional order plays in the persistence of severe poverty.

Thanks to the inattention of our economists, many believe that the existing global institutional order plays no role in the persistence of severe poverty, but rather that national differences are the key factors. Such "explanatory nationalism" (p. 139ff.) appears justified by the dramatic performance differentials among developing countries, with poverty rapidly disappearing in some and increasing in others. Cases of the latter kind usually display plenty of incompetence, corruption, and oppression by ruling elites, which seem to give us all the explanation we need to understand why severe poverty persists there.

But consider this analogy. Suppose there are great performance differentials among the students in a class, with some improving greatly while many others learn little or nothing. And suppose the latter students do not do their readings and skip many classes. This case surely shows that local, student specific factors play a role in explaining academic success. But it decidedly fails to show that global factors (the quality of teaching, textbooks, classroom, and so forth) play no such role. A better teacher might well greatly improve the performance of the class by eliciting stronger student interest in the subject and hence better attendance and preparation.

Once we break free from explanatory nationalism, global factors relevant to the persistence of severe poverty are easy to find. In the WTO negotiations, the affluent countries insisted on continued and asymmetrical protections of their markets through tariffs, quotas, anti-dumping duties, export credits, and huge subsidies to domestic producers. Such protectionism provides a compelling illustration of the hypocrisy of the rich states that insist and command that their own exports be received with open markets (pp. 15–20). And it greatly impairs export opportunities for the very poorest countries and regions. If the rich countries scrapped their protectionist barriers against imports from poor countries, the populations of the latter would benefit greatly: hundreds of millions would escape unemployment, wage levels would rise substantially, and incoming export revenues would be higher by hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

The same rich states also insist that their intellectual property rights—ever-expanding in scope and duration—must be vigorously enforced in the poor countries. Music and software, production processes, words, seeds, biological species, and drugs—for all these, and more, rents must be paid to the corporations of the rich countries as a condition for (still multiply restricted) access to their markets. Millions would be saved from diseases and death if generic producers could freely manufacture and market lifesaving drugs in the poor countries.7

While charging billions for their intellectual property, the rich countries pay nothing for the externalities they impose through their vastly disproportional contributions to global pollution and resource depletion. The global poor benefit least, if at all, from polluting activities, and also are least able to protect themselves from the impact such pollution has on their health and on their natural environment (such as flooding due to rising sea levels). It is true, of course, that we pay for the vast quantities of natural resources we import. But such payments cannot make up for the price effects of our inordinate consumption, which restrict the consumption possibilities of the global poor as well as the development possibilities of the poorer countries and regions (in comparison to the opportunities our countries could take advantage of at a comparable stage of economic development).

More important, the payments we make for resource imports go to the rulers of the resource-rich countries, with no concern about whether they are democratically elected or at least minimally attentive to the needs of the people they rule. It is on the basis of effective power alone that we recognize any such ruler as entitled to sell us the resources of "his" country and to borrow, undertake treaty commitments, and buy arms in its name. These international resource, borrowing, treaty, and arms privileges we extend to such rulers are quite advantageous to them, providing them with the money and arms they need to stay in power—often with great brutality and negligible popular support. These privileges are also quite convenient to us, securing our resource imports from poor countries irrespective of who may rule them and how badly. But these privileges have devastating effects on the global poor by enabling corrupt rulers to oppress them, to exclude them from the benefits of their countries' natural resources, and to saddle them with huge debts and onerous treaty obligations. By substantially augmenting the perks of governmental power, these same privileges also greatly strengthen the incentives to attempt to take power by force, thereby fostering coups, civil wars, and interstate wars in the poor countries and regions—especially in Africa, which has many desperately poor but resource-rich countries, where the resource sector constitutes a large part of the gross domestic product.

Reflection on the popular view that severe poverty persists in many poor countries because they govern themselves so poorly shows, then, that it is evidence not for but against explanatory nationalism. The populations of most of the countries in which severe poverty persists or increases do not "govern themselves" poorly, but are very poorly governed, and much against their will. They are helplessly exposed to such "government" because the rich states recognize their rulers as entitled to rule on the basis of effective power alone. We pay these rulers for their people's resources, often advancing them large sums against the collateral of future exports, and we eagerly sell them the advanced weaponry on which their continued rule all too often depends. Yes, severe poverty is fueled by local misrule. But such local misrule is fueled, in turn, by global rules that we impose and from which we benefit greatly.

Once this causal nexus between our global institutional order and the persistence of severe poverty is understood, the injustice of that order, and of our imposition of it, becomes visible: "What entitles a small global elite—the citizens of the rich countries and the holders of political and economic power in the resource-rich developing countries—to enforce a global property scheme under which we may claim the world's natural resources for ourselves and can distribute these among ourselves on mutually agreeable terms?" I ask. "How, for instance, can our ever so free and fair agreements with tyrants give us property rights in crude oil, thereby dispossessing the local population and the rest of humankind?" (p. 142).

NOTES

1 World Health Organization, World Health Report 2004 (Geneva: WHO, 2004), Annex Table 2; available at www.who.int/whr/2004.
2 For detailed income poverty figures, see Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion, "How Have the World's Poorest Fared since the Early 1980s?" World Bank Research Observer 19, no. 2 (2004), p. 153; also available at wbro.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/19/2/141 (reporting 2001 data). Ravallion and Chen have managed the World Bank's income poverty assessments for well over a decade. My estimate of the poors’ share of the global product is justified in Thomas W. Pogge,"The First UN Millennium Development Goal: A Cause for Celebration?" Journal of Human Development 5, no. 3 (2004), p. 387. For a methodological critique of the World Bank’s poverty statistics, see "The First UN Millennium Development Goal," pp. 381–85, based on my joint work with Sanjay G. Reddy, "How Not to Count the Poor"; available at www.socialanalysis.org.
3 World Bank, World Development Report 2003 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 235 (giving data for 2001).
4 Thomas W. Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002). All in-text citation references are to this book.
5 For a fuller reading of Locke's argument, see Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, ch. 5.
6 One might say that the existing global order is not unjust if the only feasible institutional modifications that could substantially reduce the offensive deprivations would be extremely costly in terms of culture, say, or the natural environment. I preempt such objections by inserting the word "reasonably." Broadly consequentialist and contractualist conceptions of justice agree that an institutional order that foreseeably gives rise to massive severe deprivations is unjust if there are feasible institutional modifications that foreseeably would greatly reduce these deprivations without adding other harms of comparable magnitude.
7 See Thomas W. Pogge, "Human Rights and Global Health," Metaphilosophy 36, nos. 1–2 (2005), pp. 182–209.

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by CASADE