On any given day, the West African country, Guinea is one of those that you can bet to not hear anything about in the news. Not in the mainstream media, or even the millions of blogs floating around the worldwide web. Why? That’s because not too many people care about what happens in Guinea. Well not exactly. . .China is leading the way in an unprecedented inter-national business venture which will set the stage for a pretty interesting economic globalization landscape. According to reliable sources (by which I mean anyone apart from my buddy Joe), Guinea's military rulers have agreed to a huge mining and oil deal with China. Just for the record, Guinea is thought to have the world's largest reserves of the aluminium ore, bauxite. The Chinese firm would invest more than $7billion in infrastructure which is a huge deal around Conakry (the capital city).
The story is camouflaged by a series of intriguing ideas, firstly because Guinea is supposedly a mineral rich country but loaded with poor people. That sounds to me like a familiar script from many developing countries around the world. So China shows up to strategically align itself with all mining projects, in spite of the fact that the fundamental economic building blocks like rule of law and economic freedom is seriously lacking in this society. Of course, everyone is busy putting a humanitarian and social consciousness façade on this, that’s a no brainer. I would have probably done the same too, but what’s in it for China?
For the Chinese, this is not their first time around the African block, and that maybe is testament to the fact that it has perhaps unlocked the secret for successful business dealings on the continent. Of course, almost all imports come from oil-rich nations like Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, and Sudan. In recent months however, China have made it abundantly clear that it wont hold any punches concerning African investments, even the controversial ones.
The point on my story is this, moving forward, to what degree does international business concern itself with the socio-political and economic institutions in the recipient country? I am not a proponent of tying strings and conditions to aid and investment but I will contend that such ideas haven’t been too bad in relatively unstable countries. The subtle conflict arises when other countries (mostly from the West) work overtime to ‘reward’ stability and a country’s commitment to progress, which China shows up with a business plan on one hand, and a balance sheet in another. I am in no position to criticize the Chinese for economic initiatives but striking deals with military governments is a slightly different ball game. Guinea’s government is as questionable as it gets, but it is not far fetched to ascertain that the Chinese are in this for the minerals and the oil, not the country and its people. I hope I have made it abundantly clear that I have opinions on economic globalization, but its worth pondering over the potential ramifications of risky business in one small country, for all of us.
What I know for a fact is that the rules of the game changed a long time ago, and the Chinese play hard.
