8th pan-european conference on international
relations
18th- 21st September
Warsaw, Poland
Continuity and Change in China-Africa
Relations:
The Case of Tanzania
Xuefei Shi,
PhD student, Radboud University Nijmegen, Centre for International
Development Issues Nijmegen (CIDIN),
The Netherlands
&
Prof. dr. Paul Hoebink
Radboud University Nijmegen
Director Centre for International Development Issues Nijmegen (CIDIN), T
he Netherlands
First Draft, Not to be cited
Continuity and Change in China-Africa Relations: The Case of Tanzania
Abstract
China maintains a good and stable relationship with Tanzania for already five
decades. As China has recently expanded its influence over the continent, this paper
focuses on the old and new ties that China has developed with Tanzania to provide
insight into the continuity and change in China-Africa relations in the new century,
particularly in terms of development cooperation. With the analysis of data from
several Chinese aid projects across Tanzania, this paper examines at a micro level
how the construction and maintenance of these projects has been dominated by the
broader political agenda between the two countries in different periods, which in
turn affected the bilateral political relations. It also reveals how their partnership that
was established long ago has evolved and intensified in the context of China’s new
visions on Africa. This paper argues that while the alliance between China and
Tanzania continues, China with a strong economic agenda today has developed
pragmatic ways in the bilateral cooperation to secure its valuable established
strategic advantages in the region. The distinct characteristics of China’s foreign aid,
“Based on request” and “Non-conditionality” are also illustrated in four case studies
to show China’s practice of new strategic thinking over its foreign aid to Africa.
Key-words: China, Sub-Sahara Africa, Tanzania, co-operation, development
assistance, foreign aid.
Introduction
No other country in Africa has been closely connected to China as Tanzania, with an
uninterrupted flow of aid since the 1960s. Since its independence and unification of
Tanzania, China has supported it with more than 140 development projects in forms
of grants and concessional loans. During the height of Tanzania’s Ujamaa movement
led by its founding father Julius Nyerere and in order to build a developed socialist
country in the 1960s and 1970s, the most famous project of this long-time
cooperation was the famous railway that connects Zambia and Tanzania until today.
It was considered a miracle when it was constructed and the railway today has
become a symbol of China’s foreign aid and the China-Africa relationship. A more
modest but also symbolic project was the Urafiki textile mill in Dar es Salaam. These
two projects thus also are symbols of the continuity of the relation between China
and Tanzania.
This linkage between China’s foreign aid and its foreign policy has been simplified by
scholars as geo-political (before 1980s) and economic-orientated (after the domestic
reform). Politically, China used its foreign aid, particular to Africa, mainly for two
purposes: the promotion of its ideas as anti-imperialism, solidarity, the Third World
alliance (Li 2007, Yu 1975, Alden & Alves 2008, Chan 1985) and the construction of
TAZARA reflected this. Second, there was the diplomatic competition with Taiwan
and the aim to in win supporters in Africa which culminated in fierce diplomatic
competition in the late 1990s up to the early 2000s, when the ‘struggle’ was more or
less won by China (Taylor 1998, Lin 1996, Cheng & Shi 2009). However, this paper will
not discuss the details of China’s geo-political interests. This paper intends to analyse
not only the past relations between China and Tanzania, but also the current
conditions of different Chinese aid project from diverse backgrounds,1 in order to
demonstrate to what extent China’s recent aid policy and Africa policy are
functioning in Tanzania and to explore what kind of change China’s aid policy have
undergone.
1.China’s relations with Tanzania
1.1 The origin
The origin of China’s thinking on the relations with African countries in terms of aid
can be traced back to half a century ago. In the year of 1964, China’s Prime Minister
Zhou Enlai presented the Eight Principles on China’s External Economic and Technical
Assistance during his marathon visits to up to fourteen Asian and African countries
including Tanzania. The principles demonstrated China’s programmatic political and
economic thinking on external economic and technical assistance, the concise
summary of which is:
1) China does not offer one-way aid. Aid is mutual and based on equality.
2) China respects strictly recipient countries’ sovereignty, with absolutely no
conditions and prerogatives.
3) China gives aid by way of interest-free or low interest loans.
4) China does not want recipient countries to become dependent on aid. China wants
1
Data for this paper were collected in Tanzania in the period November 2012 to April 2013.
to help them to be self-reliant and economically independent.
5) The projects that China assists are aimed at increasing recipient governments’
funds in a short time. Thus, they are projects with small investment but rapid
returns.
6) China promises to offer the best equipment and material that China can produce
itself, based on prices determined in the global market, and is responsible for the
return of disqualified ones.
7) China promises to make the local technicians of recipient countries sufficiently
master the technologies that China transfers.
8) Chinese experts will live in the same standard with the local counterparts. They
are not allowed to have any privilege.
In spite of the fact that some technicalities of China’s foreign aid have changed or
even been abandoned in the last sixty years, those principles remain up till now the
fundamental guide to China’s overall aid policy. The core of them that was repeated
and further advanced by Zhou’s successors and eventually noted in China’s White
Paper on Foreign Aid issued in 2011 can be outlined as follows:
1) Unremittingly helping recipient countries build up their self-development capacity;
2) Imposing no political conditions and respecting recipient countries’ right to select
their own path and model of development;
3) Adhering to equality, mutual benefit and common development;
4) Remaining realistic while striving for the best;
And
5) Keeping pace with the times and paying attention to reform and innovation.
Several reasons have contributed to the evolution of these principles on foreign aid
with specific Chinese characteristics. Historically, China commenced to provide
external assistance under the circumstance that it was itself an extremely
underdeveloped country. Before the end of 1970s, political considerations,
particularly seeking for international recognition and alliances, were extremely
important in aid decision-making. With the changes and reform in domestic policies
starting from late 1970s, economic factors became more important when Beijing
envisaged the outcomes of its foreign relations. Aid programs were hence
deliberatively designed to serve as well China’s own economic growth while
“striving” to satisfy the requests of the recipient countries. Second, in terms of
lessons obtained from China’s domestic reform, aid programs from the West, such as
the structural adjustment programs, that were coincidental in time, did deeply
deviate from China’s own development path. China’s success in poverty reduction
and economic growth was resulted more from massive unconditioned investment,
international trade and the strict financial control from a powerful central
government. In addition, experiences gained from international donors in helping
China’s own development in the last thirty years have caused Chinese aid experts to
believe that indigenous development of the recipient country, mutual benefits to
both sides and economic reforms without political preconditions could not be
incompatible to each other, which is in sharp contrast to many western development
theories.
Tanzania recognised the People’s Republic directly at its independence and visits
from Zanzibar, which led to the first loans and a first agreement in 1964, and from
Nyerere2 in 1965 were the first steps on the road to a long-standing aid relationship.
On 5 September 1967 the agreement on the Tanzania-Zambia Railway was signed
and in 1972 26 projects were counted, among which printing stations and textile
factories, a stadium, a police station and a party office, 15 of these on Zanzibar and
Pemba.3 In 1965 also the first medical team was sent to Zanzibar (to the mainland
from 1968) and from then on every two years a new team would follow. All this was
also accompanied by military aid, training of soldiers and officers (Shinn & Eisenman:
259-263).
1.2. On the ebb and low tide (1980-2000)
Tanzania definitely was in the 1960s and 1970s China’s most favoured partner. But
the relationship was not always without problems. China’s support for so-called
liberation movements that were supported by the USA, and not by Nyerere’s
Tanzania (and not by the Sovjet Union) led to tensions and some distance from the
Tanzanian side.
In the 1980s when China was focussing more at its own development China’s
relations with Africa in general, and also with Tanzania, were on a low level and no
new projects were undertaken. In the economic and financial crisis that Tanzania
went through in that period, under surveillance of IMF and World Bank, there was
anyway little room for new projects.
This is clearly visible from the figures: 25 projects were started in the 1960s and
another 14 in the 1970s. This went down to four in the 1980s, among which is a
donation of drugs, medical instruments and surgical dresses. Also the number of
agreements between China and Tanzania reflects this: six agreements in the 1960s
and also six in the 1970s, only three in the 1980s.4
Like the projects of other donors, also Chinese projects ran into trouble in the long
crisis of the 1980s (see also below). Several projects had to be closed down or
needed support from other donors, like the sugar plantation at Zanzibar, which
received assistance from the Netherlands, when this was left as the only donor in the
sugar sector.
1.3. Changes China’s Africa policy and the reconstruction of a relationship
As a new round of domestic economic reform in China carried out around the year of
1995, Beijing’s policy to Africa became more deeply incorporated into the country’s
comprehensive financial and trade strategy, while the past geo-political thinking has
been gradually decreased in the decision making except that the Taiwan issue was
involved. Overseas investment, trade and economic assistance were treated equally
as the troika of China’s foreign economic cooperation. Foreign aid, particularly the
2
It is not by coincidence that Nyerere with Mao or Zhou Enlai appears on many of the covers
on China-Africa relationships.
3
Bartke (1972) provides a first overview of projects of the 1960s.
4
Bartke (1989), pp. 126-135.
one toward Africa, the “biggest developing continent”, became not simply a political
tool that has obtained substantial diplomatic victories in the past, but also a principal
channel for China’s Great Economic and Trade Strategy as well as the sequent Going
Out policy, with an emphasis on its economic effects.
The Great Economic and Trade Strategy was proposed by vice prime minister Zhu
Rongji and his assistant Wu Yi in 1994. The strategy refers to an attempt to exploit,
with the help and coordination from multiple sections as production, technology,
finance and service, the complete potential of foreign trade and economic
cooperation. Due to the success of the aid reform in the last fifteen years, as well as
the example of how Japan was taking advantage of its ODA to China, China’s own
foreign aid for the first time was incorporated into the country’s major financial
framework. Concessional loans were copied from traditional donors (i.e. Japan). New
policy banks, namely the China Export and Import Bank and the Agriculture
Development Bank of China, were established to issue and manage new financial
vehicles as concessional loans and preferential credits. Though this strategy is seldom
referred to nowadays, it has had a deep impact on China’s current financial and
international trade system.
The Going Out Strategy, introduced in the late 1990s and still functioning today, is in
some way a ramification of the previous one in the area of investment and enterprise
support. Generally speaking, it is a state-level policy that encourages China’s
domestic enterprises, especially state-owned ones, to go worldwide to find
investment opportunities and potential markets. The government, including its
overseas embassies, offers administrative convenience, political support or even
financial subsidies to qualified companies. In terms of foreign aid, the strategy means
an increasing number of China’s aid programs are becoming tied in with Chinese
enterprises by way of subsided concessional loans from the state, in spite of the fact
that concessional loans do not constitute a substantial part of China’s financial
outflow.
Along with China’s internal economic and financial reforms, Africa became for the
second time in the history the centre of China’s diplomatic and financial focus. From
July 1995 to August 1995, Zhu Rongji visited, as a political tradition inherited from
Zhou, Tanzania, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia. During his
stay in Harare, he introduced China’s new policy on Africa, including utilising aid to
accelerate economic and trade growth between China and Africa. He said from then
on, Chinese government would support more small- and mid-sized investment
projects and social well-being programs urgently needed by the recipient countries,
and would encourage more Chinese enterprises to participate in the economic and
trade cooperation between China and Africa. His government thereby would provide
official loans, and guide its state-owned banks to issue preferential loans to the
qualified programs. Zhu’s visit to Africa in the next year of the rise of Great Economic
and Trade Strategy was then considered as a kick-off of a new “African boom” in
China (Li 2007).
The first Chinese concessional loan was provided after the address to Zimbabwe.
Other examples of projects supported by China’s early concessional loans are the
follow-up investment to the Segou Textile Mill in Mali, the Urafiki Textile Mill in
Tanzania and the Mulungushi Textile Mill in Zambia (however only the one in
Tanzania survives at last).
It is not surprising that old projects in Tanzania gained the favour of China’s decision
makers given that the alliance between the two countries from the old time had not
faded completely even after ten years’ low tide of Chinese aid. Besides Zhu Rongji,
the majority of China’s top political leaders have visited Tanzania for various purposes
in the last twenty years, especially in the new century (see Table 1 below), among
which the most prominent one should be the newly-elected president Xi Jinping who
chose Tanzania as one of the destinations during his first state visits in this year 2013.
President Xi not only brought a new pack of aid and investment programs to
Tanzania, including a plan to build a port in Bagamoyo of which the total investment,
if successfully finalised, will be comparable to those invested in TAZARA, but also sent
a strong message about his respect to the past friendship consolidated by the Fathers
and his will to continue it.
Table 1 Major Chinese Leaders’ Visits to Tanzania since 2003
Date
Visitor
Main Purpose
February 2003
Li Ruihuan
Chairman of the National Committee
of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC)
TAZARA modernisation
February 2005
Li Changchun
Member of the Standing Committee of New agreement of economic
the Political Bureau of the CPC
and technology cooperation
Central Committee
June 2006
Wen Jiabao
Prime Minister
Aid package
February 2009
Hu Jintao
President
Sate visit
January 2010
Chen Deming
Minister of Commerce
2 economic and technical
cooperation agreements / 2
preferential loan framework
agreements
November 2011
Liu Yunshan
Head of the Propaganda Department
of the CPC Central Committee
Party-Party
September 2012
Hui Liangyu
Vice Premier
Various agreements of
economic and technology
cooperation
Source: Authors’ own compilation from Xinhua News Agency reports.
In general, China maintains a good and stable relationship with Tanzania for almost
five decades and the alliance between the two countries serves as China’s most
valuable asset particularly in East Africa. As China has recently expanded its influence
over the continent, new packages of aid to this allied country have been issued while
the old interests and seed of friendship that have been long invested in Tanzania are
rehearsed. (See Table 2) Nevertheless, in spite of the traditional platforms of ChinaTanzania cooperation, the Chinese have developed new pragmatic ways in the
bilateral relation to secure its valuable established strategic advantages in the region.
By these new ways and channels, old Chinese projects are to some extent revitalised
and new ones are constructed for Tanzania’s current development and political
needs. In the next section, four cases of Chinese aid projects (two old and two new)
will be analysed as an illustration to these changes in China-Tanzania relationship.
Table 2 Major Chinese Aided Projects in Tanzania since 2001
Year
Project
Sum
2001
Chalinze Water Plant
$11.73 million
2005
National Stadium
$25 million
2007
Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centre
$7 million*
2008
Julius Nyerere International Conference Centre
$33.4 million at Chinese side
2009
Cardiac Surgery Treatment & Training Centre
$9.33 million
2009
Malaria Prevention & Treatment Centre
-
* Data from Interview, Manager, Chinese Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centre,
Cholima, Morogoro, 17 March 2013.
Source: Authors’ own compilation from Xinhua News Agency reports.
2. To illustrate: Old and new projects
2.1 TAZARA
There is probably no aid project that drew more attention than the Tanzania-Zambia
Railway, or TAZARA as commonly referred by the Tanzanians.5 TAZARA is one of the
two major Chinese-aided projects that were constructed almost forty years ago and
are still functioning in Tanzania. It was the largest Chinese foreign aid project in Africa
in terms of finance and labour force before the construction of the AU headquarters
building in Addis Ababa and at the time of its construction it was the largest aid
project at that time, considered even to be larger (not in terms of money) than the
Aswan Dam in Egypt, constructed by Russia. Its original contract, which was signed in
1967, has been renewed in the form of trilateral protocols every other year until
today, in which technical issues, repayment and even new loan agreement were
negotiated.
5
There is e.g. no project to which three books are dedicated (Bailey, 1976; Hall & Peyman
1976; Monson 2009).
The construction and maintenance of TAZARA was the best example in probing
China’s foreign aid policy in Africa. Initially, the plan to build a railway from Zambia to
Tanzania was to find a reliable port for landlocked Zambia to export its copper as well
as to transport the natural resources in southwest Tanzania to its economic capital
Dar es Salaam. After western countries refused to fund the project because of its
financial impracticability, the two governments turned to China for support.
Especially Tanzania, which was ruled by a revolutionary party and wad undergoing its
own socialist movement at that time, sought actively China’s engagement in the
country as a balancing power against the traditional donors.
The Chinese agreed to build the railway in spite of China’s own financial difficulty.
The construction took almost seven years, with a huge interest-free loan from China
and 50,00 Chinese workers and technicians. The railway was handed over to the local
authority in 1976, but the Chinese has been sending expert teams in the last forty
years with more than 3,000 technicians to support its maintenance. Several Chinese
workshops were also built along the railway to produce necessary parts for the tracks
and locomotives, some of which are still being run by the Chinese today.
The operation of TAZARA became increasingly difficult after 1990s due to a series of
factors as the demand of railway transportation decreased rapidly because of the
competition from highways and new ports at other directions, as well as the severe
management predicament and corruption within the railway authority. The reform
on the operation of railway and even on the authority itself was expected by both
the Zambian and Tanzania governments, however given the considerable scale of its
whole assets, it was quite difficult to privatise it by investors from within Africa. 6 At
the other hand, the Chinese still have influence on the decision about the future of
the railway. China had agreed in the past limited technical cooperation between
TAZARA and other donors. The Chinese considered the railway a precious “wedge” of
its political influence in the interior of Africa and would not give it away to other
competitive powers. Moreover, even the privatisation plan raised by Africans was
opposed by the Chinese side because of the strong attachment to the railway from
China’s own railway system that valued an orthodox of state ownership. Both the
construction and maintenance of TAZARA were contrasted to a Chinese state-owned
enterprise affiliated to China’s state-owned railway system. They believed that the
railway was built at the cost of China’s public resources and lives of their colleagues
and must not be allowed to hand over to some private capital as a humiliation to
their lifetime cause. 7
2.2 Urafiki Textile Mill
Tanzania-China Friendship Textile Co., Ltd, or Urafiki Textile Mill, a name well received
by most of the elderlies living in Dar es Salaam, is another good case that connects
China’s past aid and continuous commitments to Tanzania. The mill was built in the
6
Interview, Senior manager, The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA), Dar es
Salaam, 12 February 2013.
7
Interview, Railway engineer, TAZARA Chinese Expert Team, Dar es Salaam, 20 February
2013.
year of 1968 with an interest-free loan from the Chinese government, planning to
enhance Tanzania’s own ability of textile production both for domestic and
neighbouring markets. It was one of the largest textile mills in East Africa at that
time, with more than 20 buildings and 2,000 workers during its heyday. According to
the original blueprint, the mill had been managed and operated completely by
Tanzanians, while the Chinese side had provided merely technical support. It had
served as one of the sample projects across the continent to demonstrate China’s
way of aid to Africa until the 1980s.
Because of the breakdown of Tanzania’s national economy in 1980s, and the impact
of the competition from imported textiles (ironically some from China), the operation
of Urafiki Textile Mill had never became profitable and started to get into trouble and
almost bankrupted in the early 1990s. The visit of China’s vice Prime Minister Zhu
Rongji to the mill in 1995 dramatically changed its fate. Zhu, knows as the “Tsar of
Economy” in China, exercised his administrative power to point a state-owned textile
enterprise, Changzhou Textile State-Owned Assets Management Co., Ltd from a
traditional Chinese textile production region to take over the task of saving and
reforming the symbolic project of China-Tanzania friendship. Two concessional loans
were arranged while the old loan was converted as the share for the Chinese side in
the newly founded joint company. In addition, the Chinese government has been
supporting the Chinese company and the mill with limited annual subsidised loans to
keep it financially operating. (Brautigam 2009)
Nevertheless, the takeover of management by Chinese experts only successfully
avoided the shutdown of the mill, the trend of deficit year by year has never been
reversed until today. The aged facilities, the heavy welfare burden as a state-owned
enterprise obliged to its employees and retirees, labour disputes caused by
misunderstandings and the innate laziness of state-owned workers, together with the
inert market of the mill’s main product, Khanga, a traditional cloth for Tanzanian
women, have made the situation worse and worse. 8
The revitalisation of Urafiki Textile Mill means more to the Chinese than to the
Tanzanian. It is the only surviving Chinese aided overseas textile company after
China’s marketisation reform toward its foreign aid system. Moreover, because of its
geographical position and large space, the Chinese have been considering to partly
transform it into a base for Chinese aid workers in Tanzania and to partly marketise it
into a commercial real estate, to subsidise the operation of the mill itself.9 The mill
will never be allowed by the Chinese to shut down, however, the negotiation
between the Chinese capital and Tanzanian government about its future has been
carried out for a long time without any result.
2.3 Morogoro Chinese Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centre
The construction of agricultural technology demonstration centres for at least
fourteen African countries was initially decided in the FOCAC (Forum On China-Africa
8
Interview, Manager, Tanzania-China Friendship Textile Co., Ltd, Dar es Salaam, 10 April
2013.
9
Ibid.
Cooperation) Beijing Summit in November 2006. The selection of host countries was
based on three criteria primarily: the preliminary request from the government of a
potential host country, the feedback of the Chinese embassy in a potential host
country on the project feasibility, and the tradition of cooperation between China
and the candidate country. 10The last one, tradition of cooperation, plays an
important role in the contemporary China-Africa cooperation simply because most of
the Chinese aid projects are symbolic and political, which seek for immediate return
of reputation and influence, thus intend strongly to avoid any conspicuous conflict
with the recipient governments. As a result, traditional friendly African countries as
Tanzania are more likely to be targeted when a new Chinese aid plan is being phased.
For that reason, when a pan-continental Chinese aid scheme to Africa comes,
Tanzania, Beijing’s long-time ally in East Africa, can always benefit from it. Tanzania’s
active role in the China-Africa cooperation again gives the impression that China will
prioritise the country’s need and request over others, which makes a self-prophecy
for both sides that Tanzania must be favoured by China’s aid all the time. With such a
way of thinking about each other and the traditional smooth bilateral
communication between governments and parties, a protocol between China and
Tanzania regarding a plan of action of a Chinese aided agricultural technology
demonstration centre was signed one year after the summit, as one of the first
started centres besides the other three in Benin, Mozambique and Liberia.
The construction of agricultural technology demonstration centres has explored into
a new area in the China-Africa cooperation. Its ultimate target, the upgrade of
plantations and agricultural techniques, echoes China’s own experience in rural
development, fulfills Africa’s most urgent need, costs less but impacts more, which
attracted several state-own enterprises (SOEs) from agriculturally advanced provinces
in China and ignited a high competition in the internal bid within China’s foreign aid
system. At last, the task to build an agricultural technology demonstration centre in
Tanzania and to transfer the necessary agricultural techniques to the locals was
contracted to Chongqing Sino-Tanzania Agricultural Development Co., Ltd, which was
co-funded by Chongqing Academy of Agricultural Science and Chongqing Agricultural
Investment Group, both of which have a strong official background and are affiliated
to China’s largest city with a high agricultural productivity in its suburb.
The centre is located in a town called Cholima in the Morogoro province 225
kilometres west to Dar es Salaam. The selection of site was recommended by the
Ministry of Agriculture of Tanzania together with three alternatives, and was decided
by the Chinese experts. The Tanzanians prioritised this region because of its rural
geographic advantages. First of all, it is one of the main agricultural regions in
Tanzania, possessing relatively better agricultural infrastructures, particularly a
nearby large state-owned irrigated area. Second, it is neighboured to Tanzanian
agricultural research institute, which will make the necessary technology transfer
more direct.
10
Interview, Manager, Chinese Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centre, Cholima,
Morogoro, 17 March 2013.
The main tasks of the centre include experiment, training and demonstration.
According to Tanzania’s domestic market, qualified seeds with much higher output of
rice, corn, bean, cabbage were imported from China and experimented in the centre,
which has achieved rich harvest for two years. Local farmers living in the nearby
villages and agricultural workers all over Tanzania have been regularly organised for
training in the centre, especially in the sowing and harvest seasons for
straightforward planting skill and advanced agricultural techniques. Additionally,
because of overwhelming scale and facilities of the Chinese centre in the whole
province, it provides a good platform for the international aid coordination. It has
offered classrooms and dormitories for the training program organised by the Korean
International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and obtained good reputation among the
international aid society in Tanzania. 11
2.4. Chalinze Water Plant
The construction of a water plant and a supporting water supply system in Tanzania’s
Chalinze region, not far from Morogoro, upon the river Wami and along the strategic
Dar es Salaam - Arusha road is one of the largest rural developmental infrastructural
projects in this country. The whole water supply system receives funding from
multilateral donors and the Chinese are responsible for its “heart” - a plant purifying
the water from river and five major pump stations with numerous smaller ones
scattered in the region. The first-phase design of the plant was capable to assure the
availability of 7,200 tons of safe and clean water a day to 105,000 residents in
Chalinze throughout the 160 kilometre-long pipelines. 12
While the construction of Morogoro Chinese Agricultural Technology Demonstration
Centre was mainly based on Tanzania’s nation-wide need of agricultural
development, China’s effort to build a water plant in the Chalinze region was more a
political gift with conspicuous purposes. Straightly speaking, it was a favour from
China Communist Party (CCP) to its brother in Tanzania, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM,
The Revolutionary Party).
Party-party communication has been an integral part of China-Tanzania relationship
ever since the independence and unification of Tanzania. The shared socialist
characteristic and the position as the ruling party in each country have made CCP
more sympathetic to the difficulties faced by its Tanzanian counterpart in nation
building as well as in keeping the ruling status especially after Tanzania adopted the
multi-party system in 1990s.
There were two factors that made the water plant in Chalinze possible. The first one
was the continuous promotion by the previous president of Tanzania, Benjamin
Mkapa. Because of his successful lobby, funds from World Bank and India had already
been ready for the peripheral infrastructures of the entire water supply system in the
region, for example, the repair and dredge of several old reservoirs located near the
11
Interview, Manager, Chinese Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centre, Cholima,
Morogoro, 17 March 2013.
12
People’s Daily, “China-Aided Water Project Begins Construction in Tanzania”, October 20,
2001, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200110/20/eng20011020_82736.html
upstream of the river where the water plant would be sited. The second, also as the
key factor that attracted China’s participation in the pivotal project within the entire
water supply system was highly political. In a broad sense, the radius of water supply
would cover the hometown of the present president of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete
who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Tanzania as
well as a member of the Tanzanian Parliament with his constituency in Chalinze at
that time. His possible succession of the presidency had been widely but implicitly
anticipated by the whole nation and the international community by the time when
the water plant plan was finalised. With the help of some institutionalised
advantages, for example, high-level party-party visits, China agreed to fund the most
costly part of the whole system in a short time, which would favour not only CCM’s
but also China’s existence in this politically critical region in central Tanzania.
According to both the Chinese and Tanzanian technicians working in the water plant,
the president himself indeed appreciates the project quite well.13
Technically, in order to maintain this important political project functioning perfectly,
Beijing decided to keep a team of experts for long-term service even after the
expiration of the maintenance contract. The team’s budget comes from China’s
national aid budget, and also from the subsidy of the parent company back in China.
All the scarce components for the maintenance will be shipped from China as
requested by the Tanzanian technicians who will receive further training about the
usage of these new components after their arrival. To put it short, the precious water
plant, as the source of life for a population more than one million, has been
supported by the Chinese aid at any cost, either in the financial way or in the
personnel way.
Conclusions
The core of China’s fundamental principles on aid has been always generalised both
by the Chinese officials and by scholars as “based on request” and “nonconditionality”. However, little literature before has had the opportunity or resource
to examine and to depict the modalities of how these core principles have been
carried out. Take “based on request” as example. The four cases discussed above
have displayed four different kinds of channels through which the requests from
recipient countries are expressed and the Chinese government responds. The first
and second cases show two traditional ways. The Chinese experts have stayed with
and kept close relations with the aided project. This long-term technical cooperation
has ensured the immediate response to the further possible need from the recipient
country about the operation and development of the project itself. The Chinese in
turn remain a strong influence on the decisive issues about the specific project, as
what they have done on the reform of TAZARA. Another case from Urafiki Textile Mill
reflects China’s strong willingness to return and to take back the control over some
old aid projects that have strong symbolic meaning or great strategic value. In such
case, Beijing is highly responsive to whatever is requested from the recipient country.
The modalities reflected from Morogoro Chinese Agricultural Technology
13
Interview, Manager, Chinese Technical Cooperation Team, Chalinze, 12 April 2013.
Demonstration Centre and Chalinze Water Plant are innovative in the recent ChinaAfrica cooperation. First, the agricultural centre belongs to a greater package of aid
programs that were announced in the new platform of China-Africa cooperation that
was established in this century. Collective requests of urgent development needs,
according to the design of the forum, will be forwarded from different recipient
countries to Beijing, which is more effective than before for African countries to
address the problems that they are facing together throughout the entire continent,
as agricultural development, debt relief, trade and so on. At last, Chalinze Water
Plant shows a unique cooperative way between China and some African countries.
Special aid request will be delivered to China’s decision makers through the partyparty communication, which is technically faster and more direct than the normal
inter-governmental cooperation, especially in systems that the ruling party is
revolutionary which resemble what it is in China and are easier to obtain sympathy
and understanding from CCP.
Diagram 1 Modalities of China's “Base on Request” Development Cooperation
Given the forms of cooperation in terms of “based on request” principle, another
advantage of China’s foreign aid compared to the traditional donors, “nonconditionality” could be better understood into different dimensions. Nonconditionality is usually translated as China will not impose any political or economic
preconditions when giving aid to a specific recipient country as Western donors did
before, which has been greatly welcomed by some African countries that have
disputes with other donors about their internal politics or economic plans. This
principle only applies to issues that are closely related to the sovereignty of a
recipient country, such as institutional reform, good governance, budget reform and
democratization, which go beyond China’s own interests in every respect.
However, China does separately impose some conditions to its aid projects in order
to keep an eye on its own contribution or ensure continuous influence and enough
soft power to the recipient country, at least in the local region where a project
locates. Take TAZARA for example, the long-term cooperation between the Chinese
experts and the Tanzanian counterparts was not only requested by Tanzania but also
desired by the Chinese donor itself. The thinking behind the cooperation, besides the
necessary and proper maintenance from an engineering point of view, was to defend
the diplomatic fruit that was with great political influence against poor treatment
and “free riders” from other competitors in the region. Similar thinking exists
amazingly in almost every Chinese that was interviewed, despite the turnkey
characteristic of the projects. The Chinese management, with the help from its
government, has changed Urafiki Textile Mill as a host place exclusively for new
Chinese aid workers arriving in Tanzania. The Chinese technical cooperation team
staying in Chalinze water plant cares seriously about the over exploitation of the
plant’s capacity from a radical regional development plan made by the Tanzanian
government, treating the plant as their own company and fearing any loss to the
Chinese fund.
References
Alden, C. (2007), China in Africa. London: Zed Books.
Alden, C. & Alves, C. (2008), History & Identity in the Construction of China's Africa
Policy, Review of African Political Economy, 35:115, 43-58.
Bailey, M. (1976), Freedom Railway. China and the Tanzania Zambia Link. London;
Rex Collins.
Bartke, W. (1972), Die Wirtschaftshilfe der Volksrepublik China. Hamburg:
Mitteilungen des Instituts für Asienkunde Hamburg.
Bartke, W. (1989), The Economic Aid of the PR China to Developing and Socialist
Countries. München: K.G.Saur.
Brautigam, D. (2009), The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa. Oxford;
Oxford University Press.
Chan, Stephen (1985), China's foreign policy and Africa: The rise and fall of china's
three world's theory, The Round Table, 296, 376-384.
Cheng, Joseph Y. S. & Shi, Huanggao (2009), China's African Policy in the Post-Cold
War Era, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 39:1, 87-115.
Coulson, A. (1982), Tanzania: A Political Economy. Oxford; Clarendon Press.
Franklin Copper, J. (1976), China’s Foreign Aid. An Instrument of Peking’s Foreign
Policy. Lexington; Lexington Books.
Hall, R. & Peyman, H. (1976), The Great Uhuru Railway. China’s Showpiece in Africa.
London: Victor Gollancz.
King, K. (2013), China’s Aid and Soft Power in Africa. London: James Currey.
Li, Anshan (2007), Transformation of China's Policy toward Africa: When, Why and
What, Paper presented at China-World Conference
”Made in China vs. Made by Chinese: Global Identities of Chinese Business”,
University of Durham, Britain, 19-20 March.
Lin, The-chang (1996), Beijing's Foreign Aid Policy in the 1990s: Continuity and
Change, Issue and Studies, 32:1, 32-56.
Michel, S. & Beuret, M. (2008), La Chinafrique. Pékin à la conquête du continent noir.
Paris: Grasset.
Monson, J. (2009), Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese development project
changed lives and livelihoods in Tanzania. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Ogunsanwo, A. (1974), China’s Policy in Africa 1958-1971. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Richer, P. (1971), La Chine et le Tiers Monde (1949-1969). Paris: Payot.
Shinn, D. & Eisenman, JU. (2012), China and Africa: A Century of Engagement.
Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press.
Snow, P. (1988), The Star Raft. China’s Encounter with Africa. New York; Weidenfeld
Nicolson.
Taylor, I. (1998), China's foreign policy towards Africa in the 1990s, The Journal of
Modern African Studies, 36:3, 443–460.
Yu, George T. (1975), China’s Africa Policy: A Study of Tanzania, New York: Praeger
Publishers, Special Studies Series.
Interviews
Interview, Senior manager, The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA), Dar es
Salaam, 12 February 2013.
Interview, Railway engineer, TAZARA Chinese Expert Team, Dar es Salaam, 20
February 2013.
Interview, Manager, Tanzania-China Friendship Textile Co., Ltd, Dar es Salaam, 10
April 2013.
Interview, Manager, Chinese Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centre, Cholima,
Morogoro, 17 March 2013.
Interview, Manager, Chinese Technical Cooperation Team, Chalinze, 12 April 2013.