Udeala, Samuel.
"Nigeria-China Economic Relations Under the South-South Cooperation."
African Journal of International Affairs 13 (2013): 71-77. African
Journals Online. 2013. Web. 1 Oct. 2014. <http://www.ajol.info/>.
In the research paper, the author first pointed out that as China adopted the capitalist ideology, it also adopted other economic concept such as unequal exchange and imperialism. The current factors that motivates the China to be involved in Africa are resource security, new market and investment opportunities, development assistance and cooperation, and forging strategic partnerships The author do not believe that China is in Africa to help the African economic but simply for its own benefit. Thus the author pointed out a Marxist economic belief which is the dependency theories. The dependency theory believe that when trade is conducted between a more developed country and a less developed country, that nature of the trade would be exploitative. The current developed world is the core and the developing world is the periphery. The core would extract resources from the periphery, so the core would always be benefited more in this trade. When a economic crisis hits, as the periphery would be in this case assumed as mostly resources based countries, would be more devastated compared to the core. The author also provided some hard data using the example of Nigeria-China Economic relations. For example, the export of crude oil takes 90% of Nigeria's income and most of that export goes to China. More importantly, conducting international trade should help with the domestic economy, Nigeria should simply have more budget to spend. However, Nigeria always has a trade deficit by trading with China. That is mainly because Nigeria's economy is too underdeveloped, not because of resources concentrated export. Nigeria's non-oil export to China has increased throughout years but the deficit kept increasing. In another word, Nigeria has to use crude oil as the main export to sustain its economy. Other sectors might slowly grow larger, but it is still ineffective at the current stage. Other evidence provided by the author also shows that Nigeria is not benefiting much from trade with China. Some of the examples are the railroad program from China, all of the employed workers are Chinese so it does not help with the unemployment problem. The Nig-ComSat-1, which is a Communication Satellite for Nigeria built by a Chinese company has proven to have serious quality issue. The solar panel of the satellite is designed to sustain for 15 years, but it shut down itself after about 13 months, a huge waste of money.
The author provided plenty of evidence to show some of the problems of the Sino-African relations using the example of Nigeria-China economic relations. It really helps us to see the nature and essence of Sino-African relations and what might be the future of this relationship.
In economic terms, trade between two or more people or countries are always beneficial to all parties involved. More goods to Nigeria from china means low prices for the consumers in Nigeria. Simply speaking, there is no one in Nigeria who can produce those products a lower cost than the Chinese. Chinese who work for the railroad spend most of their income in Nigeria for food and housing which is to the Nigerian businesses. They also pay the taxes to the Nigerian government. Budget deficit is not such a big problem unless repeated year after year. Even the deficit repeats over and over, I think it is not the consequences of trade rather it is institutional problems.
ReplyDeleteExcellent use of vocabulary, Phillip! I have been learning a lot about Boko Haram and other insurgent groups around Nigieria as part of the curriculum for my criminology classes. I have become greatly interested in the oil reserves that Nigeria has, and what it brings to the continent. I am astonished at how well established China has become in the international oil market, and am surprised that they have economically embedded themselves so seamlessly with what seems like little effort. I cannot help but wonder what kind of bribes and kickback Nigerian government officials have been receiving to allow a foreign power such access to valuable oil resources.
ReplyDeleteAll of your blog posts are so educational to me and they really give a sense of understanding when wanting to know about your topic. You explain it in a way to help the viewers understand. There is one thing that I would like to quote you on that I really liked: “However, Nigeria always has a trade deficit by trading with China. That is mainly because Nigeria's economy is too underdeveloped, not because of resources concentrated export. Nigeria's non-oil export to China has increased throughout years but the deficit kept increasing.” This is very true and I actually just read about this not too long ago.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting topic and easy to read and understand. I really liked reading about the core and periphery model. There have been many cases throughout the history where the developed countries have exploited the developing countries when performing a trade transaction. For example, when businesses from developed countries transfer their workshops to developing countries, they are not looking for developing countries’ growth. However, they look at the cheap labor that can be exploited by giving them low wages and having them work long hours under worse conditions. Looking forward to read your next post! Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeletePhil, your post definitely intrigued me especially since my career is nursing. I had no idea that the Chinese had interest in Africa... I like how the author provided a lot of evidence to show some of the problems of the Sino-African relations. It really helps one see the nature and essence of Sino-African relations and what might be the future of this relationship; it is obvious that it is only going to benefit China not Africa due to it being underdeveloped.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting. The same could probably be said for most major countries. Almost all of them take advantage of the less developed countries they trade with. If they did not then the more developed country would not prosper economically. Even though the less developed country gets the "short end of the stick" it is still advantageous for them I would assume. They are improving economically, as someone said, the workers from the other country are going to spend money in the country which will help them. So even though it does not seem right, it kind of has to be this way or most trade would not happen.
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