Over the past 50 years, Nigeria and China have enjoyed mutual respect, trust and support in
various fields which have yielded good results. Both countries have a long history of friendly
relations and cooperation which are an integral part of what is popularly known as China-Africa
cooperation and South-South cooperation.
The substance of Nigeria-China relations has grown in leaps and bounds over the years. Bilateral
relations between the African and Asia giants have metamorphosed from humble beginnings to
more robust frontiers of international cooperation today. Besides being the single largest trading
partner to Nigeria, the relationship between the countries has gone beyond Nigeria being just a
provider of raw materials to China. Development partnerships are expanding into ICT, modern
agro-businesses, security, banking, satellite and digital development, health, among others. A
number of institutions and programmes have been established in both countries to promote
achievements in these sectors. In September 2018, Nigeria signed about $320m loan with China
to heavily boost the development of telecommunication infrastructure in Nigeria.
In 2019, the bilateral trade between Nigeria and China reached $19.27b. China provided the
financing of series of projects in Nigeria including the Abuja-Kaduna railway, Port Harcourt
Airport terminals, Lekki Free Trade Zone, Zungeri Hydro-Power Dam, University of
Transportation, Daura, anong others. In exchange, Nigeria often hired Chinese firms to oversee
its development projects such as the Mambila Hydro-Electric Power Station.
Players have a great deal of flexibility when conducting diplomatic relations with their allies.
Mike Simpson.
Both countries have certain similarities including multiple ethnic groups that are practising
multiple religions. Another unique political fact is that both countries celebrate their national day
on the 1 st of October. In reputation, Nigeria is the most populous country and largest economy in
Africa while China is Nigeria’s counterpart in Asia in this regard.
China is considered one of Nigeria’s most important trading and export partners. China is one of
the world’s largest importers of Nigeria’s crude oil and Nigeria is benefitting from infrastructural
development and a great deal of financing being offered by China especially in rail development
as well the procurement of military hardware to counter insurgency in parts of the country.
The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a
convenience. Winston Churchill
Strategic relationships between the two countries are guided by historical conditions and factors.
This is underpinned by economic interests, political and diplomatic security, and other priorities.
The historical angle relates to the Guangdong Conference, which was about the first time
Chinese communist leaders were exposed to African leaders. Following those meetings, the then
prime minister of China visited 10 African countries between 1963 and 1964. That led to the
solidification of political and diplomatic relations which were consolidated by the gesture made
by 26 African countries around 1971 to enable China to be admitted into the UN.
It was on the 10 th of February 1971 that Nigeria established an embassy in China, and that was
the beginning of that relationship characterized by mutual strategic cooperation, and guided by
the Ambassador Bill that looked at ‘Symbiotic Relationship.’
However, in 1989, after the Tiananmen Square incident, China was virtually isolated from the
rest of the world. It was African countries that actually opened the gate for China to re-engage
with the world by inviting China’s foreign minister to visit some African countries, African
foreign ministers, and Heads of State actually visited China in 1989. Since then, China decided
to establish a strategic partnership with Africa. Each year since then, China tries to ensure that
every Chinese foreign minister’s first visit outside China to any continent is Africa. That has
been underpinned by the development of frameworks like the Forum on China-Africa
Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000 which led to the adoption of specific engagement strategies by
China.
Recently however, Nigeria-China relations have come under criticism, with regard to how
mutually beneficial the underlining principals and core values of diplomatic relations have been.
Nigeria is yet to fully tap from the Sino-Nigeria trade relations in critical areas such as trade,
knowledge transfer, building of industries, SME development and job creation. Nigeria exports
products like cassava, ginger, cashew, hides and skin, and even toothpicks to China. But we have
more China’s toothpicks in circulation in Nigeria than Nigerian toothpicks in China. China will
be a good market for Nigerian textile. But Nigeria’s potential in textile and hides and skin is yet
to be fully tapped to gain comparative advantage in exports with China.
This has resulted in series of trade imbalances with Nigeria importing about 10 times more than
its exports to China in spite of China’s population of over one billion to Nigeria’s 200 million.
Chairman Mao recognized that a huge population without effective demand is like a hip of sand.
It is not enough to have a huge population. It is important to create genuine demand in this huge
population. And China’s structural reform has not only met the supply side but also the demand
side, knowing full well that a population in itself does not constitute a market except there is
effective demand. So, China began from the very first time of its market reforms to appreciate
the fact that demand and improving the citizen are very central to making China attractive. The
relative labour cost was the foundation of China’s modernization; cheap labour attracted foreign
investment.
This makes Nigeria’s economy to become over-reliant on cheap foreign imports to sustain itself,
costing it thousands of jobs in the textile, manufacturing sectors, among others.
There are instances where Nigerians staying in China tried in vain to register their businesses.
There are markets where an African can’t locate a shop in China. In 2009, Africans took to the
streets in China because of the attacks against them.
The underpinning words are inconsistency and lack of focus, and those have been the problem
affecting our planning, implementation and vision. We have so many policies for engagement
with partners who are sometimes bewildered for what purposes they were devised or developed,
and for how long they have been pursued by successive governments.
After the 2015 FOCAC in Johannesburg, the Chinese president outlined 10 cooperation plans
and provided $60b funding support. Nigeria couldn’t identify its areas of interest to partake in
the fund which was to be disbursed on first come, first served basis. But countries like Rwanda,
Kenya and Ethiopia outlined areas of cooperation, and funding was released.
When the belt and road initiative (a massive framework of connectivity between countries) was
outlined by President Xi Jinping, Nigeria didn’t take advantage of such international public good
to address its infrastructure deficit. The initiative was a broad strategy of international
engagement that featured mutual consultation, mutual contribution and shared benefits.
The Asian investment and infrastructure development bank was founded solely for the purpose
of filling infrastructure gap in Africa and developing countries. Over 100 countries including
some European countries expressed interest in the bank, which is reported to be the most
capitalized bank after the World Bank. Since about ten years since that bank was founded,
Nigeria is yet to access resources in the bank. Apart from the liquidity provided by this bank, the
institution is said to be the new international financial architecture. It seems Nigeria is not yet
strategically positioned to engage China in different aspects of national development.
The McKinsey Group projected that by 2030, Nigeria will be the 20 th largest economy in the
world given all the ideal circumstances. To ramp up strategically with China and achieve an
inroad into its economy, we must improve on governance and strengthen our capacity for
planning and implementation. We need to create clusters around energy, agriculture,
infrastructure, transportation, water resources, among others. The aggregate utilization of all
these clusters will make Nigeria a large economy in the world from where investments especially
from China can come into the country.
The MoU signed by President Muhammadu Buhari and President Xi Jinping in April 2016 is
good to be the platform on which Nigeria’s diplomatic, political, economic, security and trading
relationships should be premised upon. That document provides specific leverages which Nigeria
can take advantage of in terms of expanding its opportunities in China.
We must find our niche in China. Nigeria has to explore its light crude oil. China has virtually an
insatiable appetite for it and uses it for industrial purposes. In the solid minerals component of
our export, there is a lot that China requires for its development; iron, manganese, bauxite,
aluminum, among others. We are not just going to dig out these raw materials and send to China
but we should insist on value addition before exporting.
Chinese requirement for maize from the US alone amounts to tens of millions of tons to provide
feed for livestock and also for human consumption. Nigeria can meet some of the requirements.
We should have access to documents that articulate what the Chinese economic outlook is. It is
hoped that the collaborative project between the National Institute for Policy and Strategic
Studies (NIPSS) and Chinese ministry of foreign affairs will address Chinese concessionary
loans and grants, Chinese investments, trade imbalance, the focus of Chinese investment in
infrastructure, among others. Equally heartwarming is the recent agreement signed by the
ministry of foreign affairs and China. The document led to the setting up of an intergovernmental
committee on diplomatic relations. The primary aim of that committee is to streamline all
agreements with China to create a platform whereby every agreement with China will be looked
at by the relevant department, ministries and agencies that will make inputs into the
implementation of specific clauses, articles and provisions in all agreements.
We have to back up our agreements with funding which will be followed up by a monitoring
component. There must be an analysis of who implements what within the content of the
agreement. In this regard for instance, the CBN in 2011 reached out to China to establish a
framework for currency swap to reduce our dependency on US dollar and other western index
foreign currencies, and to admit the RND, the Chinese currency, as a currency of reserve deposit
by the CBN. Also, in 2018, the CBN held large sums of RND in reserve. Between 2011 and
2018, the swap exchange between CBN and the People’s Bank of China amounted to about
N7.2trn for development projects.
True relations never break and relations which break were never true. Abhishek Shukla.
The trade imbalance in favour of China can be mitigated if we decisively proritise our economic
relationship in terms of increasing the manufacturing capacity, value
No comments:
Post a Comment