The Nation Newspaper

Tag: china

  • ‘Nigeria, China world’s fastest economies’

    ‘Nigeria, China world’s fastest economies’

    China and Nigeria are strategic partners, and the biggest developing countries in the world and Africa respectively, with highly complementary economies and huge potential of pragmatic cooperation, Charge d’Affaires, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China to Nigeria, Mr. Qin Jian, has said.

    Speaking during the celebration of the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between both countries, he said China-Africa relations have kept good momentum of overall development in the past decades, with growing political mutual trust and frequent high level exchanges, yielding fruitful economic cooperation and deepening mutual understanding between Chinese and African peoples.

    He said in the past, through the joint efforts between our two sides, the political mutual trust between the two countries has enhanced, economic ties forged closer and mutual understanding between our two peoples deepened further.

    He said last year, President Xi Jin ping met with President Muhammadu Buhari in New York and Johannesburg respectively where they exchanged views on bilateral cooperation and issues of common concern, reached wide-ranging consensus, and charted the direction of future development of China-Nigeria strategic partnership. “Now Nigeria has become the largest engineering contracting market, the second largest export market, the third largest trading partner and major investment destination of China in Africa for years,” he said.

    He recalled that in last November, the country smoothly and successfully got a new cabinet, which is working hard to implement President Buhari’s Agenda of Change. “We congratulate the people of Nigeria on this new development, and wish to embrace the opportunities in its nation building and future advancement. As China and Africa jointly implement the results of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Johannesburg Summit, new opportunities of development and prosperity have arisen for both China and Nigeria.”

    He also hinted that China has pledged $60 billion in development funding to Africa. The three priorty areas, he stressed, includes improvement of African people’s livelihood and prioritising enhancement of Africa’s capacity for independent development.

  • China indicates more interest in Nigeria’s natural products

    Mr Wang Ming, Deputy Director- General of Fujian Province of China’s Foreign Affairs, on Monday announced the growing interest of the province’s manufacturing companies in Nigeria’s natural products.

    Wang told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that major manufacturing companies in the province were interested in honey and other natural products from Nigeria and other African countries.

    “As much as we want Nigerians and other Africans to come and take advantage of the existing tourism potential in Fujian Province, we are also interested in their natural products.

    “Let me say that more and more Fujian companies are in need of Nigerian honey and other natural products.

    “There is a growing need and market for Nigerian and other African natural products in our province and other parts of China,’’ he said.

    The deputy director-general also disclosed the province’s plan to increase trade and investment with Nigeria in the years ahead.

    He said that the province’s deputy governor had three years ago, led a business and investment delegation to Lagos.

    Wang said that the visit was to promote trade and investment cooperation between the province and the Lagos State government.

    He said that a high number of textiles, shoes, furniture, umbrellas and vehicles in Africa were being manufactured by companies in Fujian province.

    The deputy director-general said that the provincial government would soon organise another business delegation to Nigeria to showcase its investment and trade potential to Nigerians.

  • 58 bodies found in China landslide

    58 bodies found in China landslide

      Facebook  Google+  LinkedIn

    Local authorities said on Wednesday in Shenzhen, China, that 58 more bodies have been recovered from the Shenzhen landslide, 18 days after the accident.

    The authorities said in a statement that the command headquarters of the clearing operation put the total number missing at 77.

    It said of the 58 bodies found, 52 have been identified as among the missing, while workers on the scene are trying to confirm the identity of the other six.

    “Of 17 people hospitalised after the landslide, 10 have been discharged.’’

    Meanwhile, police has confirmed the arrest of 11 people for their roles in the landslide.

    Those arrested included a legal representative and a deputy general manager of a company that was in charge of the landfill, where a mountain of construction waste collapsed on Dec. 20, destroying 33 buildings in the Hengtaiyu industrial zone, Shenzhen city.

  • China rules out approval for couples to have two children

    China rules out approval for couples to have two children

    China has explained that under its new “two-child policy”, prospective parents do not need to obtain approval to have two children.

    A document released by the central government and ruling Communist Party on Tuesday in Beijing said families would be able to “independently arrange childbearing” under the new policy, without applying for approval.

    The National Health and Family Planning Commission had said in October that couples would still need approval at first.

    The document released said the implementation of the policy would begin this year, without giving a date.

    An official said on condition of anonymity that the two-child policy was itself a relaxation of the “one-child policy” that led to forced abortions and infanticides for decades.

    He said the new policy was a further relaxation of reproductive controls in the world’s most populous country, noting that “Beijing hopes to reduce the pressure of the ageing population.

    “About 90 million families may qualify for the new two-child policy.”

    He said that China, the world’s most populous nation, had 1.37 billion people at the end of 2013.

     

  • China to support Africa’s development in three years

    Ambassador Lin Songtian, Director-General of African Affairs at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, on Monday, restated his government’s commitment to support the development of African countries in the next three years.

    Lin told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the Chinese government would in the next three years follow-up on the outcome of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit.

    ‘’Let me reassure African countries, including Nigeria, that the ten areas of cooperation announced by President Xi Jinping at the Summit would be completed within the next three years.

    ‘’Whenever the Chinese government makes any promise, we always ensure that such promises or development projects are executed,’’ he said.

    Lin, also the Secretary General of the Follow-Up Committee on FOAC, said that the Chinese government would, within the period, support African countries in industrialisation, agricultural modernisation and
    infrastructure development.

    He also listed other areas of cooperation to include financial, green development, trade and investment facilitation, poverty reduction, public health, cultural and people-to-people interaction, as well as peace and security plans.

    The Chinese official said that the move was to make African countries self-dependent, as well as fast-track their overall development.

    Lin said that the Chinese government had already set aside ‘’huge’’ sums of money toward realisation of these set areas of cooperation within the period.

    ‘’We earnestly want African countries to develop because we regard African countries as our brothers and partners in progress.

    ‘We are committed to promoting our win-win-cooperation with our dear African countries and friends.

    ‘’We want to see these countries develop in all areas, so that they also become self-dependent,’’ he added.

     

  • China launches advanced observation satellite

    China launches advanced observation satellite

    China has on Tuesday launched its 19th rocket of the year, sending its most sophisticated observation satellite into high Earth orbit.

    A report from Xichang space centre in the south-western province of Sichuan, said the “Long March-3B carrier rocket bearing the Gaofen-4 satellite’’ blasted off shortly after midnight on Tuesday from the centre.

    It said “Gao fen” means “high resolution” in English, and Gaofen-4’s camera can pick out an oil tanker at sea, was the 222nd Long March rocket flight.

    “The first in a series of seven, Gaofen-1 was launched in April 2013.

    “The last two are expected in orbit by 2020 at the latest,’’ it said.

    The centre explained further that Gaofen-1 and Gaofen-2 are circling 600 to 700 kilometers above the planet, while Gaofen-4 is in a synchronous high Earth orbit of 36,000 kilometers.

    It said the Gaofens provide Near-Real-Time observations for disaster prevention and relief, climate change monitoring, geographical mapping, environmental and resource surveying, as well as precision agriculture support.

  • China, Africa and new collective clientelism

    China, Africa and new collective clientelism

    During the Cold War era, France was the most powerful foreign presence in ‘post-colonial’ Africa, with the most vicious economic and military vice-like grip on the continent. At the height of its political influence in the 1970s and 1980s, France held sway in large swaths of the continent, serving as the armed guarantor of regime survival in scores of often illegitimate Francophone regimes. With 40 African heads of state and government attending the 1983 annual Franco-African summit in Vittel, France, an obviously elated and fulfilled President Francois Mitterrand could hardly contain his jubilation, boasting that France was the only country in the world that could summon a plethora of African leaders to a meeting and guarantee that they would all attend! One would ordinarily be forgiven if one had thought that such ‘collective clientelism’, (this phrase is actually borrowed) had ended with the Cold War. Well, one is wrong, for we may only have exchanged the European powers for two new Asian masters, China and India!

    Two recent summit meetings will help put the issue in perspective. First was the 3rd India-Africa Forum Summit held in New Delhi from October 26 –30, and second is this year’s edition of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) which held in Johannesburg, South Africa first week of December. Each summit meeting was reportedly attended by no less than 40 African heads of state and government, making them unquestionably the largest gatherings of African plenipotentiaries in any single location outside the annual summit of the African Union. Is this not a powerful indication that African nations are once again the collective protégés of new rising Asian economic powerhouses? The discernible trend now is that of foreign powers so casually summoning African heads of government to such forums, dangling outwardly attractive aid packages as carrots to secure and guarantee their attendance in large numbers.

    China and India are now cleverly using such summit meetings with African leaders to promote their own global outreach in the great-power hegemonic competition. As prominent members of the burgeoning BRICS trying to challenge or rival Western economic hegemony, these two nations require their own ready-made clientele to help them fulfil this ambition. China and India are, without doubt, emerging economic superpowers with ambitions for global roles as well. They are as yet great economic powers angling to become global powers capable of effecting desired outcomes beyond their immediate geopolitical neighbourhoods in Asia. While China is already a member of the pre-eminent United Nations Security Council, India is ambitious to clinch a seat in that august body too. Just as retaining considerable influence in its African colonies afforded post-war France the pretence to global relevance after its disastrous and humiliating defeat and occupation by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, China and India now require spheres of influence to carve a niche for themselves in the emerging global power configuration. And it may not be long before China especially starts seeking strategic military outposts on the African continent to expand its global reach. As of now, moves are already afoot to establish a Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean state of Djibouti. This is for starters, and more are to come.

    Whilst it is true that Africa requires aid for development, but we should proceed with caution, since no aid comes without a quid pro quo, both visible and invisible. And African leaders are impressed, dazzled or beguiled by what these two countries are offering in terms of bilateral and multilateral development packages. They are perhaps more impressed by their non-sanctimonious attitudes to mutual relationships unlike the preachy and hypocritical Western nations who impose killer political and socio-economic conditionalities to aid. But the question is: what is Africa to part with in exchange for Chinese or Indian aid? Is Africa ready to become a Chinese military outpost as well? The Chinese may be using ‘soft power’ for now, but we must not be surprised when the new scramble for Africa takes a new turn, more so that the Americans have been surreptitiously putting the continent on military lockdown in the past few years all in the guise of assisting African nations with the war on terror.

    What is particularly galling, and thus calls for caution, is the grouping together of African states as collective clients of these two emerging economic and technological great powers…Could this be a new condescending attitude, i.e. of regarding and herding the whole 54 countries together as collective wards of the international community? This reminds one of how Americans in particular regards all Blacks from the African continent. It is not uncommon for an American while trying to be friendly with you to say that “hey, you are from Africa” as if the whole continent is just a single country! We Africans aren’t also helping the matter, especially when we also claim that everything we do, sing, write, eat, wear or say is African! We also talk glibly about “African culture” African music, African fashion, etc as if there is a single African anything. I like to be seen and addressed as a Nigerian, simple as that. I have yet to come across anyone describing himself/herself as a European. A Frenchman is Frenchman, and a Dutch or German is simply that! Knowing this, why then do we accept and parrot this collective identity or homogenisation?

    Are the current African leaders truly able to perceive China’s long-term strategic intentions for hegemonic outreach? If so, what are they doing about it? If not, what are the rest of us doing to advise them? There will be more on this subject another day.

     

    • Professor Fawole is of the Department of International Relations, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife
  • China, a dependable partner in my ‘change’ agenda, says Buhari

    China, a dependable partner in my ‘change’ agenda, says Buhari

    President Muham-madu Buhari yesterday described China as a strategic and dependable partner of his administration in changing the direction and content of governance.

    This he said includes the management of the country’s resources with priority on accountability, transparency and result-orientation in governance.

    Speaking at the Roundtable of Chinese and African Leaders on the last day of the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in South Africa, Buhari said his administration has embarked on the “task of re-focusing our governance on the real needs of the vast majority of Nigerians.”

    He was confident that China “will always stand shoulder to shoulder with us in our quest to fulfill the aspirations of our people to propel them to prosperity.”

    On the 15-year-old FOCAC, President Buhari, who commended the theme of the Second Summit, “China-Africa Progressing Together: Win-Win Cooperation for Common Development, expressed the hope that it would “engender the right platform to engage Africa in all fields of human endeavours such as provision of essential infrastructure, skills development and capacity building, diversification of our economies and beneficiation of resources.”

    Identifying with the laudable objectives of FOCAC in cultivating, fostering and deepening political, economic, technological, social and other forms of relations between China and Africa, President Buhari praised China for the vision behind the establishment of FOCAC as a platform for higher level Africa-China relationship.

    Africa, he said, “expects Chinese investment flows to the real sector of our economies to promote African enterprises. Our over-riding objectives are to tackle the challenge of unemployment, wealth creation, food security and industrialization.”

    He also stressed the crucial link between political stability, security and sustainable development on the African continent. “We are convinced that Africa can only leverage productively on the potentials of ties with strategic and development partners in an atmosphere of political stability and security of lives and property as well as in a policy environment that guarantees the sanctity of collaborative joint ventures and investment on the basis of agreed rules and regulations.”

    Drawing the attention of the Summit to the threat posed by global challenges such as fresh political conflicts, terrorism and other forms of extremism; trans-border crimes; illegal arms trade; irregular migration and cybercrimes, he said collective action was required to confront these new threats to global peace.

    He said, “these are veritable threats to peace and security and without peace and security we cannot succeed in our development objectives,” he stressed.

    He wanted  China and Africa to  work together to confront the above threats, as well as the challenge of climate change “for which Africa remains badly affected with severe threats to food security and social stability,” in addition to “unacceptable levels of poverty, unemployment and youth restiveness.”

     

  • China to invest $10b in Cross River, says Ayade

    China to invest $10b in Cross River, says Ayade

    Cross River Governor Ben Ayade yesterday said businessmen from the Henan Province of China will invest $10 billion in the state.

    The governor said a new China city would be built in Cross River by the Provincial Government.

    Ayade, who spoke at the Margaret Ekpo International Airport, Calabar, the state capital, hinted of the expected arrival of 100 investors from Henan to set up various companies and industries in the state.

    The governor said other teams of investors would focus on various key projects, including agricultural investments, renewable energy, the garment factory, hydro-power projects and the seaport.

    He said: “We have a large group coming in for agriculture; huge investments are coming in through renewable energy. We have a large group coming in, in terms of garment factory. We have a team also coming in hugely to invest in hydro-power project and the seaport.”

    Ayade said a logistics hub for Africa, which would focus on the Manufacturing sector, would also be established in the state.

    The governor noted that with the necessary arrangements on ground, his earlier budget of N350 billion for the 2016 fiscal year would be surpassed.

    On Carnival Calabar, said to be the largest street party in Africa, Ayade said it would assume greater heights this year.

    The governor said it would be awesome, filled with new excitement and a deepened content.

    He added: “Cross River, after 10 years of the carnival, needs to have a change. This year will be the first carnival under my watch. We are deepening the content, with new excitement. I use this opportunity to call on all to come to Calabar as the 2015 carnival will be quite awesome.”

  • Akwa Ibom woos investors from China, U.S, Europe

    The Akwa Ibom State government has set machinery in motion to fine-tune partnerships with the Chinese, American, European and South Korean companies among others, The Nation has learnt.

    The government has also  began moves to explore the viability of reported gold and coal deposits in some parts of the state in a renewed bid to expand the economic base of the state.

    It has also explained its growing partnership with China for the industrial and business development of the state.

    Chairman of the State Investment Corporation, AKICORP Dr Elijah Akpan told newsmen in Uyo that geologists would soon be contracted to determine the exact location and viability of the two minerals in the area.

    “The Chinese and Canadians are coming with their superior technology that will be based on using satellite technology to locate the exact locations of these minerals and how viable they will be,” Akpan said.

    The chairman said that the move was part of plans to also generate employment and discourage over reliance on crude oil proceeds which has continued to dwindle in recent times at the international market.

    He described last month’s Chinese investment delegation visit to the state as fruitful adding that the Chinese were satisfied with what was on ground and has expressed interest in investing in manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, oil and gas, automobile, mining, tourism, energy and railway.

    He explained that the growing partnership with China was due to their renewed and favourable interest demonstrated in recent times in Africa but said that government would also open its investment doors to businesses from Europe and other parts of the world.

    “Our interest in China is because if you look at the most of the economies of the Western nations today they are all slowing down and are now turning their eyes to Africa because they know that Africa is the next hub for development.

    “And so China’s leading interest in Africa is just because of that  and so the next move of development is Africa and they showed no hesitation and more interest to come into Akwa Ibom but we are also working with companies in America and Europe to bring investment to Akwa Ibom,” Akpan explained.

    On efforts to address the funding gap for Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs, in the area, Akpan explained that government has entered into a fresh negotiation with the Bank of Industry, BOI.