Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LoneClone who wrote (77447)	1/8/2007 10:04:28 AM
From: LoneClone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206085

China's Africa Policy a Harsh Lesson to the West By Stephen Clayson 07 Jan 2007 at 10:26 AM EST resourceinvestor.com LONDON (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Coverage abounds these days of China’s advances in Africa; of money thrown at impoverished regimes and special privileges granted in return to Chinese companies. But not many commentators go beyond the obvious and think about what this means for us here in the West. That China is increasingly in competition with the West for the resources needed by all industrial economies - oil, iron ore, copper and so on - is an inevitable result of its abandonment of the perverted ideology of communism and its embrace once again of a relatively free economic system. Furthermore, a China no longer afflicted by the malevolent set of ideas that is communist thought is a good thing for all of us. People around the world will benefit from the now untrammelled capacity for innovation of the Chinese economy, as well as appreciate China’s unadulterated cultural richness. But there is no denying the fact that in foreign relations, China plays a different game than Westerners are used to. Foreign policy ought to be about the interests of the country conducting it, and this is the model that China follows. In the West though, foreign policy has become some sort of depraved quest to mould the rest of the world in our image, regardless of whether this is achievable in the first place or sustainable in the long run. The actual, straightforward interests of the Western populations our governments are supposed to represent come a distant second. The net result is that our companies are out there in the world on their own, with next to no real support from our governments. In stark contrast, opportunities for Chinese companies are foremost in the minds of Chinese government officials when they venture abroad. In a sense, we have fallen victim to the same poisonous ideology that held China back for so long, albeit to a lesser extent. In the West, ever more pervasive becomes the idea that ‘corporations’, ‘multinationals’ and ‘big business’ are a force for evil, and for government to be aiding industry, especially in its dealings with the Third World, is seen as bad public relations. Films like the absurd and misleading “Blood Diamond” single out the mining industry as particularly unsavoury. The Chinese government sends aid to Africa with none of the political conditions any Western government might attach. China’s conditions are economic – open markets and plum investment opportunities for Chinese companies. But the Africans much prefer the latter. It may well be true that these deals benefit China more than the African side, but given that Africa is such an economic basket case and that as a result its governments negotiate from such a position of weakness, this is only to be expected. The question must be then, how do we compete with the Chinese for overseas resources? We cannot expect to materialise the sea change in the attitudes of Western governments and in the flavour Western public opinion that would be necessary to enable us to do business overseas the way the Chinese do. So the only thing we can do is play to our strengths. Many Western companies do mining and oil and gas extraction very well indeed, in spite of a lack of assistance from their home governments. Years of experience should put us in a strong position. But it feels strange to see a nominally communist Chinese government outflank ours in terms of business savvy.