Chinese investment in Liberia brings risk
Eric Witte August 23rd, 2008
The Economist provides a nice overview of Liberia’s gradual recovery under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf*, who took office in January 2006. While she has tackled corruption and sought to spur economic growth to the advantage of average Liberians, Liberia has received substantial aid from the United States and Europe, as well as benefitted from mounting international investment. As The Economist notes, China is among the countries putting cash into Liberia:
The Chinese are getting involved too. They have resurfaced the decrepit William Tubman Boulevard, Monrovia’s main artery, named after the country’s longest-serving president, and will take on similar projects throughout Liberia.
China’s influence across Africa is growing, which has rightly sparked concern. In such places as Sudan, Chinese investment serves as a crutch for dictatorial (and in Sudan’s case, genocidal) regimes. By contrast, Chinese investment in democratic Liberia seems unproblematic at first blush. Yet it still poses a potential risk.
If Liberia’s fragile new democracy were to falter, there is a decent chance that western aid would be used as leverage to keep democratic governance on track. The response of the United States and European Union to the August 6 coup in Mauritania, for example, could eventually create real pressure for the restoration of democratic order in that West African nation. It is evident that Western defense of democracy in the region (and beyond) is far from guaranteed. Witness, for example, the West’s appalling, passive acceptance of outright dictatorship in Liberia’s bauxite-laden neighbor, Guinea, or its cozy diplomatic relationships with the despots of oil-rich Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
While use of the established democracies’ leverage cannot be taken for granted in pressing for democratic change or seeking to prevent democratic backsliding, it is clear that China doesn’t care about democracy or good governance at all. As long as natural resources from African countries continue to fuel China’s rapid economic development, Beijing will maintain support for the most odious of regimes. To the extent that China becomes a major player in Africa, potential leverage from established democratic governments for maintance of human rights and democracy declines.
Liberia remains one of the poorest countries in the world and obviously cannot afford to turn up its nose at any aid or investment. But China’s no-strings-attached approach to investing in Africa raises the stakes for Liberia by cutting away part of the safety net under President Johnson Sirleaf’s impressive high-wire act.
*Most media organizations - including The Economist - hyphenate her last name, but in interviews President Johnson Sirleaf has said that it isn’t hyphenated.
