PRC looking to African nations for energy allies

Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) was in Kenya on Friday on the last leg of a diplomatic charm offensive that also took him to Nigeria and Morocco, and saw the inking of massive oil and mineral deals in exchange for mostly infrastructure support in oil-rich African countries.

In Nigeria, Hu oversaw the finalization of an oil deal that awarded the Chinese Offshore Oil Corporation a 45 percent stake in an oilfield in Africa's biggest oil-producing nation for US$2.27 billion.

The oil field is estimated to contain some 600 million barrels of oil with the potential for 500 million more.

An oil prospecting deal with Kenya off the east African coast in the Indian Ocean was another diplomacy coup during Hu's last stop on Friday.

China, the world's second-largest economy after the US, is cashing in its ideological and material largesse to Africa during the Cold War to shop for its rapacious domestic energy market, which currently consumes some 6 million barrels of oil a day.

Hu's second trip to Africa since he became Chinese leader three years ago also serves to report back on Beijing's policy on the continent, which promised "a new strategic partnership with Africa on a basis of `win-win' economic relationships with reinforced cultural exchanges."

Although trade with Africa only makes up 3 percent of the Asian country's total foreign trade, it leapfrogged to a record-breaking US$37 billion last year, up from US$10 billion in 2000.

With China poised to become Africa's largest investor in the next 15 years, Beijing's "no political strings attached" policy is also quickly gaining currency with African governments frustrated with what they perceive as the political and economic double standards practised by Western nations.

"While the developed countries are quick to pronounce themselves on matters of political governance and human rights in developing countries, they are not prepared to discuss the issues of justice and fair play concerning the international trade and commercial sector, which imposes considerable suffering and privation on developing countries," an African leader said.

Although an African diplomat remarked during Hu's 2004 visit to Gabon that "China has no friends, only interests," Africa has clearly decided that Beijing is the lesser evil among powerful nations.

Already Africa's main builder of infrastructure using mainly African labor, China is repairing Africa's dilapidated railway and road networks and telecommunications systems, further endearing itself to Africa's political and economic leaders.

Less is known about China's massive arms sales to the continent that led to some of Africa's first post-colonial states more than 50 years ago. The trend has continued but solidarity has now been replaced with profit.

China's support for oil-rich Sudan despite Khartoum's proved complicity in the three-year-old Darfur conflict, described as a genocide by the US, has drawn strong criticism from the US and Europe.

This may be true, but much less is made about US support to oil-rich but corrupt regimes like Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Chad and Angola, African analysts say.

Aware of the race with the equally oil-hungry US to secure more oil in Africa, away from traditional but now volatile Middle East sources, Beijing is using its colonial struggle credentials to assist its new yuan-powered diplomacy in Africa.