Open Letter to my Brother Xi Jinping about China Policy on Africa

Dear Xi,

Let first begin to let you know my unwavering commitment and support to the China 🇨🇳 experiment of Liberation, Revolution, Reforms and Opening Up that the Communist Party of China 🇨🇳 has set up since 1949 to nowadays with unprecedented results in political change, economic and social transformation of China 🇨🇳 for the majority of Chinese people. This unique Chinese experiment in the human civilization history has helped China 🇨🇳 to go from a very poor country to an industrialized economy with the majority of its citizens enjoying the wellbeing of the middle and upper classes in just 4 decades of intense reforms and opening up.

Both China 🇨🇳 and Africa have more than 6 thousand years of known history. We should learn from this history to build a better future for our respective people. Contrary to China, which is a unified nation, Africa is a continent with many nations having different heritages shaped by the recent troubled legacies of slavery and colonialism.

Many often think or say that the tragic past of Africa should not be an excuse to the current debacle of African nations; because Asian and South American nations too were equally colonized. Their postcolonial experiments are not failures like most of African nations’ ones today. Yes, other nations too were colonized like in Africa. But none of them were colonized after 4 centuries of brutal slavery, like in Africa, denying to their people any recognition of the basic humanity by making them less than things that can be possessed as assets and treated less than machines used to recycle waste and garbages… If Asian nations and others went to the same process of dehumanization that occurred over 4 centuries before the beginning of colonialism in Africa; for sure their postcolonial experiments would have been as disastrous as those of Africa; maybe even worse.

It is based on the colonial experiences and postcolonial experiments lessons that I want our people and governments learn how to avoid the same mistakes that have made Africa a disaster. Unfortunately few really know those experiences and experiments from the recent history of Africa. This is the reason why Africa is going throughout a tragic repetition of its recent history.

I want to talk about my native country case, the Democratic Republic of the Congo 🇨🇩, to be more specific and precise. The Belgian colonization in the Congo 🇨🇩 was a racist, brutal and paternalistic domination on my people to control and plunder natural resources of my country. However, ceteris paribus, no postcolonial regime in Africa has succeeded up to nowadays to develop an efficient economy and ensure social transformation to its people at the magnitude and scale of the Belgian colonization achievement in Congo 🇨🇩 from scratches after the devastation of transatlantic slavery. As economist, I have made researches and published books on the making and the evolution of the Congo modern state and economy since the end of the 19th century. The outcomes from my analyses can be summarized in one finding: Congo has destroyed its economic and social systems of production and infrastructure.

Congo was not the unique Belgian colony in Africa. Rwanda and Burundi 🇧🇮 too were equally part of the same Belgian colonial empire. The economy and social conditions at that time were 10 times better, ceteris paribus, to what they are nowadays for these 3 countries. Most of the infrastructure systems, governance structures, economic organization, schools, hospitals and social security systems in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi are the vestiges of the Belgian colonial rule in these countries. Anyone pretending the contrary is either an ignorant or an imposter. Successive regimes in these 3 countries have just managed to preserve or destroy such vestiges. No one has made a real rupture with the colonial past in improving these 3 countries. That is a fact!

Since their respective independences, most of African nations have been managing to preserve or destroy the colonial legacies in politics, economy and social systems we have inherited. The context of the Cold War was very critical in shaping the postcolonial African nations. The United States 🇺🇸 with its Western allies as well as the Soviet Empire used huge money, military means, diplomatic and political influence in gaining ally governments in Africa. Bridges, roads, and other infrastructure were funded to support African governments; military coups, weapons and military training were provided to governments in Africa by both superpowers battling for influence to control the supply of natural resources. All that didn’t make a real difference for the majority of African people on the continent.

After the collapsing of the Cold War, the United States 🇺🇸 changed its policy from development assistance to the humanitarian one. This change is in fact an indicator of the evolution of Africa nations from functional states inherited from colonialism and during the Cold War to failed states after the Cold War. Congo is the extreme case of such evolution.

From this historic evolution of Africa, one of the major lessons is that building bridges, railways, roads, schools, hospitals and other infrastructures in Africa is not something new like some believe. The colonial rules and some postcolonial regimes during the Cold War did even better only to end up in failed states and humanitarian disasters.

Now the new tune that some are trying is the continental economic integration. How such continental economic integration will work with inefficient national and local systems at the base? Aggregating inefficient systems can never better the final outcome: it leads to more inefficiencies unless real reforms are designed and implemented to radically change how national and local structures work to better such integration…

If China 🇨🇳 wants really to help Africa, it is time to change the basis of partnership between China 🇨🇳 and African countries. China 🇨🇳 would better use its own experiment to help African countries through real and true nation building experiments that can allow them to rise strong and efficient political systems and manage their economic and social transformation.

If China 🇨🇳 just wants to secure the supply chain of minerals and other natural resources from Africa like other foreign powers have been doing for centuries by providing some support to very corrupted and inefficient local elites without real political, economic and social transformation for masses; the outcome will not be different from the past with masses’ revolts and rejection of those elites and their foreign allies.

If China 🇨🇳 wants to support Africa throughout a path of its real development like China 🇨🇳 itself has evolved; we should learn lessons from failed past experiments to change the course of History in Africa. China 🇨🇳 can really help to make difference in Africa. It is not about charity, or any other consideration. It is about mutual best interests well understood for our respective people.

This is why I warn the Communist Party and the Government of China 🇨🇳 to not support the criminal regime of Kagame, which has been spreading violence and pillages in my country, the Congo 🇨🇩. Although all the perception that the Kagame regime is an exception in Africa; that regime doesn’t even equal the 10% of political, military, economic and social achievements the Mobutu rule succeeded to achieve in Zaire in its first 25 years. Only ignorance of the past of Africa, especially in the Great Lakes Region, can make anyone thinking that the Kagame regime is an exception in Africa.

The tactic of abusing a neighboring country to destabilize and plunder natural resources of another neighboring nation is not something new in the Central African region. The Zaire of Mobutu was to Angola exactly what the Rwanda of Kagame is to Congo nowadays. It didn’t produce any miracle. Angola has entirely recovered its sovereignty on its resources after an unacceptable and unnecessary bloodshed. The people of the Congo are paying a very high price today because of Mobutu regime irresponsibility… Rwanda will not get a different outcome by doing the same exact idiocy.

If China 🇨🇳 wants to hold a solid footprint in Africa for the benefits of our respective people; we should learn lessons from the past failure experiments and avoid to repeat them. I am a strong defender of the China 🇨🇳 experiment from its Liberation, Revolution, Reforms and Opening Up. This is why I am working to make sure that Africa, especially my native country Congo 🇨🇩, well understand how to benefit of the best that the China 🇨🇳 experiment can provide to our own struggles for real Liberation, Revolution, Reforms and Opening Up that bring an efficient political system for effective economic transformation and real social change for the majority of our people like it is the case in China 🇨🇳.

I hope that we will work together hand in hand for the wellbeing of our respective people while contributing to the global security, stability and prosperity of the mankind.

With my warm and fraternal compliments!

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