In a two-part serices "Thorns in the African dream" in China Dialogue dated 31 January and 1 February 2012, Wang Xiaojuan, a project manager at the Heinrich Böll Stiftung China office, explains why China needs to adopt a more sophicated, and more socially and environmentally responsive strategy in her trade and investment projects in Africa.
Part I - Click here
Part II - Click here
Short of colonization and slavery, China is essentially treading the footsteps of earlier Western industrializing powers, promoting trade in exchange for Africa's resources.
While China struggles to project her soft power of peaceful co-existence and win-win foreign policies, the Chinese state and Chinese businesses have not been coping well with a changed and changing Africa.
In addition to an integrated model of investments and infrastructural projects designed to benefit the host economy, China needs to put in place a mechanism to ensure that corporate social responsibility, ecological concerns, community livelihoods, social integration, civil society and a multiplicity of other local and international stakeholders are taken good care of.
Working more closely with the United National Development Program as well as local and international NGOs may well need to be China's first step.
For a "Paper on A New China-Africa Financial, Investment & Business Partnership", please Click here
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