CHALLENGES OF AFRICA –CHINA CONFERENCE

The challenges of returning to the cultures of scholarship and intensive inventions should be central in China’s relations with Africa, writes Okello Oculi

The 1956 Bandung Conference probably started active diplomatic relations between African and China on a faulty nutritional fuel consisting of a shared deep condemnation of humiliation, domination and exploitation by a combination of countries mainly from Euro-America. The gang-up to dominate China reached its fullest in 1901 when the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Japan, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Austro-Hungary, Belgium, Spain and Netherlands collectively imposed a ‘Protocol’’ to punish the nationalist violence of the ‘’Boxer Rebellion”. Only Russia, Austro-Hungary and Japan did not cut chunks of the Africa elephant as colonisers.

Japan’s establishment of ‘’New Japan’’ in China’s Manchuria region - although temporary following defeat by Mao Zedung’s communist guerrilla army- was matched in barbaric cruelties by settlers from Netherlands establishing apartheid in South Africa; and German genocide in Namibia. While China liberated itself as a vast unified country as early as 1949, Africa is yet to overcome colonial balkanisation and only won African majority rule in South Africa in 1994. During the Bandung conference, Africa’s wounds were still bleeding profusely with no end in sight, not to mention 400 years of European slave depopulation of Africa.

While hostile contact with Euro-America was important, priority attention should have been given to records of superiority by Africa and China over Europe. As Professor Cheik Anta Diop demonstrated convincingly, black African Pharaohs built the mathematics (especially algebra and geometry), astronomy, religious, political and philosophical theories which Greeks borrowed - as Plato reports – for onward transmission to northern Europeans.

According to Martin Jacques, China’s Northern Song dynasty (9601126) achieved the invention of gunpowder, woodblock printing, the spread of books and ‘’major advances in mathematics, natural sciences, astronomy and geography’’. Europe stole intellectual property from China and started her ‘’renaissance two centuries later’’. China also came up with a civil service based on passing a stiff examination, thereby linking a ruling class to intensive intellectual work. Ancient Egypt of the black African Pharaohs built a religious class around the ruler whose responsibility was to produce high intellectual work; including the architecture which built great pyramids and statues.

Both systems ran colonies over conquered peoples, however, China led with habits of administering vast governments run on a centralised basis for the longest time despite Europeans and Americans creating areas of influence in which their nationals were not subject to Chinese laws from 1858 to 1949. The current spectacle of huge assemblies of officials at meetings of central policy-making bodies of the Communist Party of China has a long and sustained legacy. Africa only began to resume a huge collective policy farming arena in 1963 with the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).

China’s Zhou dynasty (1100- 256 B.C.), shared with Ancient Egypt of the black African Pharaohs the notion that the legitimacy of their power was based on being accountable to a deity located in the heavens. For the Pharaohs, their power (‘’Ka’’) had to serve the welfare of the people. Like the Chinese, signs of failure were a series of low harvests; invasion by locusts; floods or drought, and defeat in war would provoke demands for the end of a ruler. Among the Jukun, Yoruba and Baganda, the offending ruler was encouraged to commit regicide by drinking poison gladly offered by elders.

It is widely said that in Africa colonialism corrupted power and led to a pandemic of governance without accountability to the will and welfare of the people. China would serve Africa well by putting emphasis on a return to this legacy of governance. China under Xi Xinping has vigorously purged corrupt top officials. Her diplomatic relations with Africa should emphasise this shared legacy of effectively punishing violations of community welfare.

Archaeologists digging graves of Ancient Egypt, including pyramids of various sizes, have found pharmaceutical products, chemicals used for embalming bodies of rulers, textiles, paints for artworks and gold. The culture of invention in this system was severely disrupted by invaders. China was more successful in defeating invasions. Defeat in the 1857 – 1860 war waged by British troops promoting consumption by China’s population of opium which their merchants would bring from India – as a strategy for wrecking the fabric of the society – did not succeed in destroying the culture of invention deeply entrenched in China. Ancient Egypt did not survive waves of ransacking by barbarian invaders from Persia and Arabia.

The challenges of returning to cultures of intensive scholarship by government and religious officials, combined with a culture of intensive inventions, should become central in China’s relations with Africa in the 21st Century. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank pushed for African countries to focus on primary school education, and withdraw funds from tertiary education. Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) which they bullied African officials to sign into, have wrecked the educational sector. It drained brains out of Africa’s universities and devastated previous high quality cultures of academic research and teaching in educational institutions. Corruption set in and deepened the crisis. China should join Africa in confronting the necessity of returning to these ancient legacies. Youths bred either on destructively poor quality education or none at all, are wasted generations.

Euro-America desperately needs markets and raw materials. Africa-China relations must combat mind wars for promoting consumption of their merchandise; intellectual laziness and dependency.

EURO-AMERICA DESPERATELY NEEDS MARKETS AND RAW MATERIALS. AFRICA-CHINA RELATIONS MUST COMBAT MIND WARS FOR PROMOTING CONSUMPTION OF THEIR MERCHANDISE; INTELLECTUAL LAZINESS AND DEPENDENCY