Emerging Powers news roundup

Guinea, Ghana And Other Deals
Guinea’s military government, facing international sanctions and heavy strictures over a mass killing of unarmed demonstrators, was highlighting a recent agreement with a Chinese company that could provide it with billions of dollars. More

But while human rights groups slammed the $7bn mining deal, China kept a low profile, not confirming the announcement by Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara who seized power in a coup in December.

David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso and an expert on Chinese-African relations, said the timing of the announcement was strategic on Guinea's part.

"The fact that the announcement came from Guinea and not Hong Kong or China is important," he said. "I can't imagine that China would want to use this timing to announce it." More

As Daniel Howden pointed out in the Independent; ‘There are now some 800 Chinese companies operating in Africa and the investors in talks in Conakry are not from Beijing but from the Hong Kong-based China Investment Fund. Yet only two months ago officials in Beijing said that China would not be investing in Guinea’.

"It's not clear if the CIF has the support of Beijing," said Dr Chris Alden, author of China in Africa. "Just like ordinary Western actors in Africa, China has independent actors who take decisions without reference to central government."More

Later Guinea confirmed that it was ‘in talks with China Investment Fund’ on the $7 billion deal.. More

The Ghanaian government was reported to be ‘divided’ over whether to cut a deal with a leading Chinese oil company or with Exxon Mobil Corp. to develop a giant offshore oil field. More

Nairobi and Beijing are mulling a huge project to develop a port on the Kenyan coast and a corridor creating a new export route for China's oil in Sudan's secessionist south, the Financial Times.

China's involvement would come as an alternative to a project floated last year in which Qatar would have invested 3.5 billion dollars in the port in exchange for a lease on a huge tract of land to grow crops.
The newspaper said the ambitious project would be a key issue during a trip to China by Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga. More

At the same time, more than 40 Kenyan businesspeople left the country for a two-week trip to China where they will explore various investments opportunities. More

South Africa and Kenya plan to launch a joint trade commission by the end of the year to guide investors on opportunities.. Once the Commission is launched the team will be expected to facilitate the launch of a joint chamber of commerce to be in the hands of the private sector. More

Singapore has sent its largest ever delegation of local companies to Sub-Saharan Africa to seek business opportunities. More

China Railway Engineering Corp. and Sinohydro Corp. signed an amendment to a $9 billion agreement with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Wu Zexian, China’s ambassador to the central African country, announced.

Congo needed the Chinese parastatals to sign the changes in order to move closer to debt relief from the Paris Club and to have a $600-million International Monetary Fund loan program approved. The Washington-based lender previously said the deal could add to Congo’s $11 billion foreign debt. More

Bric Powers And Others
Economists at a prominent South African bank are excited about burgeoning investment by Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) in Africa. But they are vague on the question of how far it will benefit the majority of Africans. Ensuring this, they believe, is the responsibility of African states themselves. More

In particular Simon Freemantle, a Standard Bank economist, advised African governments to make the most of their relationships with these emerging economies. "There needs to be more proactivity from the African side" he argued More

South American and African leaders will meet in Kenya in December this
year to forge stronger cooperation between the two regions and discuss
their positions with regard to a number of pressing international
concerns.

A statement from Kenya's foreign ministry said on Monday the
South-South Cooperation Summit which will be held between Dec. 1-3 in
Nairobi will bring together delegates from Africa and South America. More

After President Putin’s China visit resulted in outline agreement on massive oil and gas deals, Time Magazine argued that Russia and China’s old alliance now hinges on energy. More

The financing of a joint Africa-EU development initiative could be headed for an operational shift as leaders press for an independent Pan-African kitty to bankroll projects launched under it. More

India and China
New Delhi is objecting to Chinese projects in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir after Beijing protested a visit by India's premier to Arunachal Pradesh state, portions of which China claims.
More

The India-China border dispute could escalate into a broader conflict. China claims some 90,000 square kilometers of Indian territory. And most of those claims are tangled up with Tibet. More

Environment
Eighteen top multinational and Chinese corporations, including Shell and Sinopec, violated a new Chinese environmental regulation in its first year of enforcement, a Greenpeace report has shown.

“It is shocking that these companies that are leaders in their respective industries did not even manage to obey the most basic environmental regulation in China,” said Tianjie Ma, Senior Campaigner for Greenpeace China.

“The public has a right to know about what these corporations are discharging in the rivers and lakes around their communities and what risks they face.” More

Developing countries have dropped long-standing demands for access to rich countries’ technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions, removing a big obstacle to an international deal on climate change, European officials said on Thursday.
In part, the shift reflects the reality of the world economy. The rush of western companies to set up factories building wind turbines and other low-carbon technology has made China one of the biggest exporters of environmental goods. More

Us/Global
The United States is going out of its way to build a warmer economic relationship with China and the strategy seems to be paying early dividends. In the past two weeks, China has endorsed a U.S.-backed commitment to rebalance the global economy, and impressed some European officials by backing up the pledge with specific steps it planned to take to reconfigure its own economy. More

The Obama administration said on Thursday that it had “serious concerns” about the value of the renminbi. But in keeping with the new climate, it once again stopped short of accusing China of manipulating its currency in a closely watched report to Congress. More

China's second-ranking military officer will travel to Washington later this month on a week-long visit designed to promote trust and avoid "misunderstandings," the Pentagon said. More

FOCAC
A new website for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was launched at a ceremony in Beijing. More

Great potential still needs to be explored in the cooperation and communication between Chinese and African non-governmental organizations (NGOs), heads of NGOs from the two sides said Wednesday here at a China-Africa NGO seminar.

The seminar, which invited 20 persons in charge of NGOs and ambassadors from eight African countries and more than ten Chinese NGOs, is the first high-level one linked to the Ministerial Conference of the forum.
More

China And The Media
The future of one of China's best-selling investigative magazines is at stake in an increasingly public battle for control that pits its envelope-pushing editor against her financial backers. More

The Chinese government’s effort to prevent dissident authors from taking part in the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair, an international showcase for freedom of expression, has raised the broader question of China’s attitude to the media. More

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Stephen Marks is research associate and project coordinator with Fahamu's China in Africa Project.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.