Relationships between China and Cameroon

Résumé du document

Is Cameroon in love with China? China's growing presence in Africa is now obvious. Trade between China and Africa has multiplied three times in five years. African people are both rejoicing and concerned at the same time, by this new alternative power. I choose to speak especially about the Cameroon case, as it is a country I partly know. The influence of China in Cameroon is recent and its interests are more diverse than in other countries, since Cameroon has both raw materials and a trade market. The Cameroon government (President Paul Biya) is trying to develop a foreign policy based on multi-lateralism . Within a month, between October and November 2006, five of the Cameroon papers published not less than ten articles and three entire files on the new partnership between China and Cameroon.

Extraits

[...] Just like China, the United States are avid of oil resources. With a new partnership with China, Cameroon would preserve a balance of power, just as it did during the Iraq crisis in 2003 by a strategic convergence with the White House. “Both Chinese and African elites like to adopt the posture of having experienced and continuing to face the common enemies of imperialism and ‘neo-imperialism” (Ian Taylor (2006), China's oil diplomacy in Africa, in International Affairs 82 p 939). [...]

[...] China is said to be essentially interested in African oil The return of Bakassi in the Cameroonian borders means that Cameroon becomes an important oil producer country[6]. Moreover, the construction of a pipeline between Chad and Cameroon gives another importance to Cameroon[7]. China is the world's second-largest consumer of oil, and its needs have become ever more pressing. Four of the top ten African partners with China are neighbours of Cameroon: Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and Chad[8]. That is the case of the four states mentioned. Cameroonians are very aware of this specific interest of China in Africa, and especially now in Cameroon. [...]

[...] Later in March 2007, Junior Binyam wrote in the same paper: routes chinoises ( ) font la fierté des populations surtout qu'avec très peu de moyens les Chinois se sont retrouvés en train de bitumer près de 30 kilomètres de routes où on en attendait juste 23 In his paper he was highly criticizing France, blaming the AFD (France Development Agency) for giving the contracts only to chosen companies, and not the best, according to him! The frequent announcement by Cameroon Tribune of every debt forgiveness and the reminder of previous aids help Cameroonians to consider China as the new Samaritan that could take the place of France. For some journalists from the governmental opposition[15], China is future of this country”. [...]

[...] China has diplomatic interests in Africa China is not only interested in oil and raw material. “After Tiananmen Square, China remembered that Africa was a very useful source of support if and when Beijing was in dispute with other global actors”[10]. The first consequence of the diplomatic bound between China and African States is that African states have had to cut off diplomatic relations with Taiwan. That is the view expressed by Le Messager, newspaper strongly opposed to government, in an article entitled “Tout sauf Taiwan”. [...]

[...] use of Chinese contract labour, rather than local workers, in Chinese-sponsored projects in Ethiopia, Sudan and Namibia has been criticised locally.” (Chris Alden (2005), China in Africa, in Survival vol p157). It is not benign: Cameroonian journalists frequently use diversions to express a non-consensual idea. With this article on Egypt, a bit light and funny, the redaction speaks about Cameroon. When a Chinese company builds a road or anything else, it first employs Chinese workers and engineers and no local workers. Nobody is quite sure of the exact number of Chinese workers in Cameroon, as they rarely mix with population. Le Messager is the first opposition paper in Cameroon. [...]