KalahariLog

There is a China-Africa Summit in Beijing. The heads of 45 out of 61 African countries are there. Note that 13 of these 61 have populations under 1 million, such as the tiny Seychelle islands; thus nearly every major African country is shopping for more Chinese deals. Over the last decade China has replaced both the US and Russia as the most important country in nearly all parts of Africa. As the Russians have given up most of their attempts to influence the world outside of Eurasia, and the Americans are busy in the Middle East and have been cutting aid to countries that still promote condom use, China’s sphere of influence has extended all over Africa. Trade with China is now 10 times more than 10 years ago, to the tune of over 42 billion US$ (according to the BBC).

China is the major developer of infrastructure, the major investor in local economy, and major buyer of Africa’s natural resources. Even in Botswana, the local papers are writing about the huge influx of Chinese illegal immigrants. However, the few papers that actually use numbers say that there may be up to 500 Chinese in Gaborone, which doesn’t strike me as a national crisis yet. It is worth noting that the population of the entire continent of Africa is smaller than that of China…

I saw the brother of our department's Chief Technician on television last night. Mr. B. Gaolatlhe is the Minister of Finance of Botswana and he gave a fairly lengthy and detailed report on BTV about what Botswana is getting out of the China-Africa summit. From what I understood, Botswana has been getting soft loans in the past and will be getting even more of those in the future. There was also an interview with President Mogae about the trouble of being moderately successful in Africa; As a moderately successful country, Botswana is not getting debt relief like most other African countries. Botswana is also receiving less aid and other kinds of assistance, despite having to deal with major problems such as HIV-AIDS. Mogae was given a tour of the Three Gorges Dam, and there was nice footage of him and Chinese officials walking around the giant building site.

In the last bit of Chinese news, there is another TV station that our TV sometimes receives Gaborone TV, or GTV. I've seen several Chinese documentaries -- one about the glorious revolution led by Chairman Mao and another about the imperialist United States of America. They also have a pretty good news-show with in-depth reporting that one can't see on CNN or even BBC. The anchormen and women are Chinese with impeccable English. I read somewhere that GBC is a private TV station that has been in operation for many years. In the beginning they were a bit of a pirate station as they were showing content that was not paid for. In addition to the Chinese shows, they have lots of music videos and some local news and soccer; go Zebras!