Critique of Belt-and-Road Podcast by the China in Africa Project

In this excellent podcast of China-Africa relations, Zheng Zhu gives some inputs about One Belt One Road from a Chinese perspective, commented by Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden. It is definitely worth listening to, although I have some critical comments I want to share.

They make the very interesting observation that Chinese use the word politics to describe power-play coercion. In fact the big problem is the English definition of politics which is a total mess. Corporate English often says: don't bring up this topic, it's way too political. So political means controversial, disputed and is negatively connoted. I learned in democratic theory that exactly the controversial topics which don't have a clear rational or scientific best choice, must be debated in public. Please let's discuss because this topic can only have a political solution. Here political means relating to values and is positively connoted. Perhaps the difference is, corporate is an authoritarian environment where there is a boss who says how it's done, so debating values is a waste of time and an unnecessary risk of aggravating colleagues. In the end there is always someone at higher level who gets to decide anyway. In the democratic environment of national politics only public debate can solve value controversies. That two completely different meanings both use the term 'political' is indeed a weakness of the English language.

I also disagree with the term 'authoritarian capitalism' to describe China, because a capitalist society is designed in a way to always profit the capitalists (i.e. the owners of the means of production, or very simplified: the rich). In China many means of production are state owned, i.e. SOE and the party officials merely the managers but not the owners. Others are privately owned and some people have indeed become very rich, but: you can be as rich as you want in China you will never stand above the politics of the CPC. They will listen to you as an advisor, as by becoming rich you have proven to understand something about business, but if you cross the line of your area of expertise, your fall will come very quickly. You may advise on a healthy business environment, but the Marxist scholar will be the one to advise on political institutions reform and don't you dare question that job split. In the West if you are rich enough, you basically just buy politics. Not in the sense of corruption which exists in both systems but is a flaw and not the design of the system. But in the sense that you can buy access to politicians via donations, you can finance your own party, or you simply buy the media that control the public narrative, see Australia.

I disagree that there is a fundamental difference between Chinese SOE and Western private enterprises in foreign countries, not because I believe the Chinese SOE are purely profit driven (they aren't. They compete only as long as the CPC doesn't interfere, but ultimately all listen to the leadership of the CPC) I disagree the idea that Western enterprises are apolitical just because they are private. Two supportive observations: large private enterprises heavily finance political parties in their home countries. Why would they do so if they had no benefit from it? That wouldn't even be legal because they are bound by law to maximize the profits for shareholders. And second: what happens when any country seizes assets of a large American enterprise? If they were apolitical then the US politics would have to say: bad luck. You invested in a high risk country, they changed their political system, now you bear the losses. The actual response by Western especially US government is more along the lines of sanctions, threats and sponsored counter revolutions – see Cuba, Venezuela, and others. This point of proof actually is not necessary anymore, given how Google treats Huawei in a way which is surely not in Google’s own best interest from a commercial perspective. Western enterprises can be used by western governments, if they see the need arise. That is exactly what many Westerners state as reason for distrust against Chinese corporations. We should clearly understand, why non-western cultures distrust Western corporations just as much. Some do it overtly, like Iran, China, or Russia, some do it more low-key like Japan and Korea. None of them want to rely completely on foreign corporations for vital sectors. Only Europe seems to be oblivious to the risks, or just incapable to take action.

As final remarks I want to mention a book by Prof. Em. Jean Ziegler (vice-president of the Advisory Committee to the United Nations Human Rights Council), called "La haine de l'Occident" (in English it is translated as "Hate for the West", which is a pity, as the French title can mean both hate for the West but also hate of the West, and both is described in the book). The book, like all his works, may be a bit extreme at points, in its judgement of the West in total. But what it does really well, is to explicitly illustrate how the combination of Western policies, corporate actions, law and court systems, military action, and other seemingly independent activities by Western actors work together to - in effect - destroy the world of many people in developing countries. He is not saying that there is this intention by any of these actors, but rather that they are oblivious to the combined effects of their independent actions. That is the conclusion we should always have in mind, when people criticize the close alignment of Chinese corporations with the government. Yes it makes them very powerful, which can be scary, but this coordination can also bring benefits, as in the example of successful Belt-and-Road projects e.g.industrial zones in East Africa.