The G20, China and the implications for Africa

On paper it all looks great. The G20, its communiqué assured us, had pulled the rabbit of expansion and regulation out of the hat and clearly turned the old days of global free market dogmatism into history. Bretton Woods is born again, Keynesianism has returned, and the world's great age begins anew.

However on a second and subsequent examination, the shine begins to fade. The new money turns out not to be so new after all, the re-regulation has still to be agreed, and the new age is to be governed by the same monarchs as the old, with only the promise of a new constitution. The poor get sympathy while the rich keep a tight hold of the purse-strings. And in the final communiqué, Africa is not mentioned once.

But you would not think so from the spin that grabbed the headlines. 'The agreements we have reached today, to treble resources available to the IMF to US$750 billion, to support a new SDR allocation of US$250 billion, to support at least US$100 billion of additional lending by the MDBs, to ensure US$250 billion of support for trade finance, and to use the additional resources from agreed IMF gold sales for concessional finance for the poorest countries, constitute an additional US$1.1 trillion programme of support to restore credit, growth and jobs in the world economy. Together with the measures we have each taken nationally, this constitutes a global plan for recovery on an unprecedented scale', the Third World Network has analysed nine IMF loans extended since September last year to emerging market economies and developing countries affected by the crisis. It finds that:

'[F]iscal and monetary tightening is still being prescribed. The loan conditions typically reduce or limit government spending and reduce or limit the budget deficit. Fiscal deficit reduction targets are to be achieved by cutting public expenditure, involving reductions in public sector wages, caps on pension payments, postponement of social benefits and minimum wage increases, elimination of energy subsidies and in the case of Pakistan, by raising electricity tariffs by 18% and reducing tax exemptions.

'Similarly, monetary policy conditions are focused on reducing inflation through rigorous inflation targeting regimes and tightening monetary policy by increasing interest rates. In the case of both Latvia and Iceland, the official interest rate was increased by 600 basis points, or 6 percentage points. Most other countries are also asked to raise their interest rates.

'The pro-cyclical conditions in these recent IMF loans contradict the directive given in the G20 communiqué that resource increases to the global financial institutions will "support growth in emerging market and developing countries by helping to finance counter-cyclical spending". They are also opposite to the counter-cyclical policies that the G20 countries have prescribed to themselves; the G20 communiqué for example reports that within G20 countries "interest rates have been cut aggressively…and our central banks have pledged to maintain expansionary policies."'

Things look a bit better when it comes to the next tranche of goodies – the US$250 billion in new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) which are not subject to IMF conditionality. However, they are not to be allocated to the countries that need it most, but rather to the 186 IMF member countries according to their voting shares. As a result 44 per cent of the total will go to the richest seven countries, while only US$80 billion of the total will go to middle-income and poor countries.

However, the promise to 'ensure [the] availability' of US$250 billion to support trade finance over the next two years should provide welcome lubrication to the wheels of commerce, if it materialises. Welcome too will be the 'substantial increase in lending' for the Multilateral Development Banks totalling US$100 billion – though the communiqué commits the G20 only to 'support' the increase, not actually to provide it.

And while the communiqué's , 'The current crisis is a grand opportunity to craft a new system that ends not just the failed system of neoliberal global governance but the Euro-American domination of the capitalist global economy, and put in its place a more decentralised, deglobalised, democratic post-capitalist order. Unless this more fundamental restructuring takes place, the global economy might not be worth bringing back to the surface.'

A start, as he also points out, has been made by the stimulating and scandalously under-reported produced its report, which is due to be discussed at a We haven't managed to create a stable foundation for the African economies', he commented.

How far can China's continued African involvement offset the trend? The World Bank recently cut its 2009 economic growth forecast for developing East Asia to 5.3 per cent from 6.7 per cent and warned of a 'painful surge' of unemployment as the global recession hits home. But the bank reiterated its projection that China's economy will expand 6.5 per cent this year and called the prospect that China's economy will bottom out mid-year, as its massive stimulus package kicks in, a 'ray of hope' for the region.

There should be some spin-off for Africa's primary producers from this, as continued Chinese demand for raw materials offsets in part declining demand from the West and North. But the boost is part of a more ambitious plan to make China less dependent on export demand from the West by expanding China's internal market.

In its turn this would make China's demand for raw materials more independent of global cycles and increase its counter-cyclical effect. A key indicator that this aspect of China's stimulus is still central was the announcement last week of guidelines for China's ambitious healthcare reform, for which a total investment of US$124 billion is planned over the next three years.

While basic healthcare was largely free after 1949, the system was dismantled after the country shifted to a market-oriented system in the early 1980s. As a result Chinese people save for a rainy day instead of spending. A revival of public sector spending on healthcare and other services is therefore seen as central to expanding domestic demand.

There may seem little connection between China's healthcare reform, the G20, and the international role of the US dollar as a reserve currency. But whatever the divergent motives of other G20 players, China at least has an interest in seeing that the reforming rhetoric of the official communiqué is turned into reality. For the rhetoric of global reform owes a lot to the pressure exerted by China and the other BRIC [Brazil Russia India China] countries in the weeks before the G20 meeting for developing countries to have a bigger say in world financial institutions.

At their 'a little bit worried' about the safety of Chinese assets in the US, where China's massive trade surplus is largely invested in US Treasury bonds.

One way to assuage these fears would be to find an alternative to the US dollar as the basis of the global monetary system. A recent paper from the People's Bank of China floated the possibility of an alternative global currency based on a greatly expanded use of the IMF's Special Drawing Rights – to which a small gesture was made by the G20.

But pending the unlikely adoption of this scheme, there are advantages for China if its own currency could play a more leading role in the global financial system. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported:

'Beijing has signed currency swap agreements with six central banks: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Belarus and most recently Argentina. These swaps permit those central banks to sell yuan to local importers in those countries who want to buy Chinese goods. This is particularly useful for importers struggling to obtain trade finance as a result of the financial crisis. As such, it's consistent with China's desire to participate in the Group of 20's efforts to support trade financing.'

Pilot schemes are also planned to encourage currency exchanges between the Yangtze River Delta region, Guangdong Province, Hong Kong and Macau. Also included would be settlements between entities in Guangxi Autonomous Region and ASEAN-member nations.

A recent article in the Chinese economic journal Caijing describes these trends as a way of getting round the shortage of dollars and other currencies and offsetting the global economic downturn – as well as giving China's yuan improve transport infrastructure in southern and central Africa.

Of course this does not mean that China and the other BRIC countries are automatically the champions of the global poor. They have their own national and even sub-imperial ambitions, indeed their own justified national self-interest. As South Africa's Mail and Guardian reported last week, 'In the same week that South Africa claimed it had refused the Dalai Lama a visa in the interests of trade relations with China, the Chinese cocked a snook at the South African government by in doing case studies by selecting pilot companies to follow the guidelines'.

This is the sort of grassroots cooperation which can ensure that any new global financial architecture that emerges from the crisis works 'for the many not the few'.

* Stephen Marks is research associate and project coordinator with Fahamu's China in Africa Project.
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