New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. xv, 222 pp. (Tables, maps.) US$27.95, cloth. ISBN 978-0-19-939685-6.
Alarms about China’s intentions towards Africa are a feature of Western outlooks towards both continents. Towards the former, there is a gaze that seeks rapaciousness in a fast-rising rival. Towards the latter, there is a condescension and a lack of differentiation. Condescension because, clearly, Africans are primitive and gullible and cannot negotiate terms with China; or their leaders are wicked and corrupt and gain money by not negotiating terms with China. Lack of differentiation because, although Africa contains fifty-five states, they are all equally and evenly open to exploitation.
This world view, reductionist and self-exonerating, is disingenuous since it was precisely Western colonial powers that exploited Africa—and attempted the same thing with China—far more than anyone else.
Deborah Brautigam’s is a voice that offers a stern and evidence-based corrective to the alarms about China and Africa. Time and again, careful, sometimes forensic research unmasks the media frenzy and political vilification for what they are. In this book, she looks at the accusations that China is buying up huge tracts of African land on which to grow crops to feed the Chinese in China. The counterpoint in Western views is that Africa is a continent of starvation—now being made worse by the Chinese.
Brautigam finds that, in fact, Chinese land acquisitions in Africa are modest and that China exports more food to Africa than it imports. Importantly, it is the Chinese, with their models of transition from agriculture to agribusiness, that might be best suited to engineer the generation jump many African countries need in order to feed themselves in the future. The days of the African peasant and subsistence agriculture are waning fast, simply because this model doesn’t feed growing populations sufficiently, nor does it bring in export revenues to finance other facilities which those same populations need.
Brautigam is not content with sifting evidence and data. Much of her work is based on field investigation. Her illustrative case examples are rich in anecdote and worldliness, as well as sources of evidence from location. Basically, (a) there is not yet significant Chinese land acquisition; (b) there is no over-arching Chinese “grand plan” for African agriculture; (c) most Chinese farm projects do not export food to China but produce food for local African consumption; and (d) there is not yet any huge influx of Chinese farmers.
This is not to say that things might not change. And there has been a tendency, as in Zimbabwe, to work hand-in-glove with irresponsible governments while, all the same, increasing agricultural yield on previously unproductive land. There is no doubt China seeks and needs food security, but Brautigam raises the distinct possibility that the Chinese model in Africa, thus far, may have the potential to feed both Africa and help feed China.
As someone familiar with many African locations, and deeply knowledgeable about China, Brautigam’s patient investigation re-establishes sober judgement against a backdrop of shrill alarms. What, for me, were the highlights of this book? I think the case study on Mozambique, both in chapter 1 and selectively throughout the book, sets the tone of a dispassionate analysis that, all the same, is implicitly admiring of the Chinese intervention in Africa. Chapter 3, “Seeds of Change,” about the advent and transmigration of agribusiness, is masterly.
Having said all that, there is a point of dissatisfaction with the book. It is not actually the book’s fault. It set out to disprove or query much alarmist and often false reportage about the “Chinese plan” to intrude upon Africa with a form of agricultural colonialism. It finds no evidence of any such “plan” and finds many instances of mutual benefit to both China and African countries. But much of the alarmist reportage of Chinese behaviour is based on (a) its seemingly sudden and rapidly growing agricultural presence; (b) the fact that African development of commercial agri-industry and agribusiness would not have taken so many steps forward without the Chinese; and that (c), therefore the projects and interventions to date, although often beneficial and at least benign, are harbingers of a second stage of, if not Chinese ownership of key agricultural sectors, then African dependency on the Chinese presence.
The book concludes with the hope that Africa, with Chinese help, will feed itself and maybe even one day, through thriving exports, help feed China. But what if Africa does not rise to the challenge of its own self-directed sufficiency? What if the Chinese intervention leads to an inescapable Chinese leverage on the sector’s future? What if, after all, there is a “plan,” only a very long-term one? The book looks at China in Africa. It does not deeply enquire into future Chinese needs, i.e., can Chinese agriculture within China feed China by itself? What if Chinese self-sufficiency runs out? And, even if not, what about aspects of the Chinese success in Africa? For example, will plantation agriculture (sometimes seen in Chinese practice) be harmful to ecological diversity and peasant small-scale ownership? And, finally, what about corrupt African regimes, whether in Zimbabwe or elsewhere, which operate by rentier models and do not care whether China owns agriculture or not, provided rent is available? A follow-up effort to this book would be very welcome.
Stephen Chan
SOAS University of London, London, England