[Igor Antunov]

Is it really a source of cheap labour? So far we haven't seen anything akin to the east asian cheap labour pools. It's simply too unstable to support industry, and that's only one of many reasons. If the cheap labour theory held up, south africa, the only country on the continent south of the sahara with some kind of stability, should have become some kind of economic tiger. It isn't.

[Rei Murasame]

Well, yes, the idea I think ought to be to get stability and security and then after that a lot of useful things can be accomplished. It won't be easy though, since it will require them to treat the whole thing like a very big COIN operation from the very start, chiefly because insurgency will definitely occur in various places.

Just for any onlookers who don't know what COIN is:

• 1-9. The contest of internal war is not "fair"; many of the "rules" favor insurgents. That is why insurgency has been a common approach used by the weak against the strong. At the beginning of a conflict, insurgents typically hold the strategic initiative. Though they may resort to violence because of regime changes or government actions, insurgents generally initiate the conflict. Clever insurgents strive to disguise their intentions. When these insurgents are successful at such deception, potential counterinsurgents are at a disadvantage. A coordinated reaction requires political and military leaders to recognize that an insurgency exists and to determine its makeup and characteristics. While the government prepares to respond, the insurgents gain strength and foster increasing disruption throughout the state or region. The government normally has an initial advantage in resources; however, that edge is counterbalanced by the requirement to maintain order and protect the population and critical resources. Insurgents succeed by sowing chaos and disorder anywhere; the government fails unless it maintains a degree of order everywhere.
  
  
• 1-10. For the reasons just mentioned, maintaining security in an unstable environment requires vast resources[...]. In contrast, a small number of highly motivated insurgents with simple weapons, good operations security, and even limited mobility can undermine security
  over a large area. Thus, successful COIN operations often require a high ratio of security forces to the protected population. [...] For that reason, protracted COIN operations are hard to sustain. The effort requires a firm political will and substantial patience by the government, its people, and the countries providing support.
  
  
• 1-11. Revolutionary situations may result from regime changes, external interventions, or grievances carefully nurtured and manipulated [...]. Sometimes societies are most prone to unrest not when conditions are the worst, but when the situation begins to improve and people's expectations rise. For example, when major combat operations conclude, people may have unrealistic expectations [...]. The resulting discontent can fuel unrest and insurgency.
  
  At such times, the influences of globalization and the international media may create a sense of relative deprivation, contributing to increased discontent as well.
  
  
• 1-12. The information environment is a critical dimension of such internal wars, and insurgents attempt to shape it to their advantage. One way they do this is by carrying out activities, such as suicide attacks, that may have little military value but create fear and uncertainty within the populace and government institutions. These actions are executed to attract high-profile media coverage or local publicity and inflate perceptions of insurgent capabilities. Resulting stories often include insurgent fabrications designed to undermine the government's legitimacy.
  
  
• 1-13. Insurgents have an additional advantage in shaping the information environment. Counterinsurgents seeking to preserve legitimacy must stick to the truth and make sure that words are backed up by deeds; insurgents, on the other hand, can make exorbitant promises and point out government shortcomings, many caused or aggravated by the insurgency. Ironically, as insurgents achieve more success and begin to control larger portions of the populace, many of these asymmetries diminish. That may produce new vulnerabilities that adaptive counterinsurgents can exploit.
  
  
• 1-14. Before most COIN operations begin, insurgents have seized and exploited the initiative, to some degree at the least. Therefore, counterinsurgents undertake offensive and defensive operations to regain the initiative and create a secure environment. However, killing insurgents—while necessary, especially with respect to extremists—by itself cannot defeat an insurgency. Gaining and retaining the initiative requires counterinsurgents to address the insurgency's causes through stability operations as well. This initially involves securing and controlling the local populace and providing for essential services. As security improves, military resources contribute to supporting government reforms and reconstruction projects. As counterinsurgents gain the initiative, offensive operations focus on eliminating the insurgent cadre, while defensive operations focus on protecting the populace and infrastructure from direct attacks.
  
  As counterinsurgents establish military ascendancy, stability operations expand across the area of operations (AO) and eventually predominate. Victory is achieved when the populace consents to the government's legitimacy and stops actively and passively supporting the insurgency.
  
  [...]
  
  
• 2-5. Durable policy success requires balancing the measured use of force with an emphasis on nonmilitary programs. Political, social, and economic programs are most commonly and appropriately associated with civilian organizations and expertise; however, effective implementation of these programs is more important than who performs the tasks. If adequate civilian capacity is not available, military forces fill the gap. COIN programs for political, social, and economic well-being are essential to developing the local capacity that commands popular support when accurately perceived. COIN is also a battle of ideas. Insurgents seek to further their cause by creating misperceptions of COIN efforts. Comprehensive information programs are necessary to amplify the messages of positive deeds and to counter insurgent propaganda.
  
  
• 2-6. COIN is fought among the populace. Counterinsurgents take upon themselves responsibility for the people's well-being in all its manifestations. These include the following:
  
  
  • Security from insurgent intimidation and coercion, as well as from nonpolitical violence and crime.
  • Provision for basic economic needs.
  • Provision of essential services, such as water, electricity, sanitation, and medical care.
  • Sustainment of key social and cultural institutions.
  • Other aspects that contribute to a society's basic quality of life.
  
  Effective COIN programs address all aspects of the local populace's concerns in a unified fashion. Insurgents succeed by maintaining turbulence and highlighting local grievances the COIN effort fails to address.
  
  COIN forces succeed by eliminating turbulence and helping the host nation meet the populace's basic needs.

This sort of thing will really be the trial-by-fire for Asian neo-colonial efforts in sub-Saharan Africa, because simply driving tanks over those people after they finally revolt, is not going to work. From the outset, no one should go in naively expecting that they can just send teams of businessmen to build things and that everything will just remain sweet like that forever.

Enemies will come, insurgency will appear, and at that time, there must be an early detection of it and a unified command must co-ordinate a unified effort to quell the insurgency. Otherwise it will become a disaster.

Most simply, the task in most of these cases will have to become 'nation-building' because of the simple fact that insurgency will happen and 'nation-building' will be the by-product of securing and controlling the place.

So, to learn from the mistakes of European colonial powers is precisely to understand that simply going in and attempting to extract resources while ignoring the population, is the recipe for disaster, and that providing security and social services is a vital part of preventing the disaster.

[joe]

, but for every Chinese engineer building a road, there should be 5-10 African apprentices watching him, so they can learn the trade for themselves.

Why don't the Governments do this in Africa??

Africa really annoys me, there is soo much greatness the Government's could be doing, but they just dont.

Sometimes I wish I was in one of these Governments, to help them establish these kind of ideas and go for it.

I'm not 100% sure about the whole Africa/China alliances etc, but it just frustrates me when the African Governments do nothing about something they can fix.

[Igor Antunov]

Why don't the Governments do this in Africa??

You think the average african can afford to stand around learning engineering and labouring skills in between foraging for food and fighting disease?

[joe]

Hmm, I agree Igor.

However, why can't the Governments send soldiers and personnel to protect them?

Surely the people can understand that they are trying to HELP, not hinder?

It really frustrates me when I read about Africa, when these things can be avoided.

[Tailz]

You think the average african can afford to stand around learning engineering and labouring skills in between foraging for food and fighting disease?

So according to your view of Africans, they are all just poor subsistence farmers living in mud huts?

Stereotypes anyone?

[Rei Murasame]

I think the true answer to the question is that most of the leaders of sub-Saharan African nations are short-sighted fools and so rather than enacting polices to build up industries and foster the development of skills, they instead immediately join together with international finance to get rich quick as soon as they get power in a country. This then logically incentivises them to do the following:

• A. Mining raw materials and making quick money by selling those raw materials to countries that have already industrialised (refusal to set real tariffs!), rather than making homegrown industries. Often times even giving multinational companies the property rights to the mines. They use tribal-religious nonsensical dog-whistle justification if questioned by anyone on the sanity of this. If that fails, they summon a Chicago School economist to give a talk on 'common sense'.
  
  
• B. Suppressing labour movements in order to make the extraction of those materials cheaper and in order to gain comparative advantage over the neighbouring African countries who they are competing with rather than allying with.
  
  
• C. Using the power of the state to smash all impediments to capital, allowing it to wend its way through the entire society with no regard for community-maintenance whatsoever. This then creates a feeling of social deprivation among the population which leads to a bad security situation.
  
  
• D. Soon, the short-sighted leaders realise that because of how the basis of their power as a class is configured, they have more to fear from a revolt of their own unhappy working class, than they have to fear from multinational companies or financial institutions. They repeat Part B and Part C ad infinitum and hope not to be overthrown.

This is basically hand-to-mouth governance for hand-to-mouth leaders. You all might know it as "neoliberalism applied to a developing country".

Basically this happens if a young government in a developing nation is either made up of profoundly greedy idiots, profoundly treasonous race-traitors, or both. Unfortunately for many African ethnic groups, they are suffering from a total abundance of such people.

[Emerald Ocean]

So according to your view of Africans, they are all just poor subsistence farmers living in mud huts?

Stereotypes anyone?

You think the Chi-coms will look at Equatorial Africans in the same light as so many foolish Western idealists? Chinese do not think like liberal Europeans, they think rationally.

[Tailz]

You think the Chi-coms will look at Equatorial Africans in the same light as so many foolish Western idealists? Chinese do not think like liberal Europeans, they think rationally.

Are you kidding me? Do you think that Chinese people, by being Chinese, makes them immune to prejedious stereotypes? You have to be joking. There are racists schmo's in the Chinese population just as there are in the European population. Lets not forget the stereotypes you just displayed in your own text:

• Western idealists are foolish - Are chinese idealists foolish too?
• Chinese think rationally while Europeans do not - So Chinese think rationally because their Chinese while Europeans don't think rationally because their Europeans?

I had a good laugh at some Chinese guys I used to work with a while ago, who tried the same stunt. Their response to my accusation that Chinese people can be just as racist as Europeans was "We are not racists, we just don't like black people."

[SE23]

It's impossible to give any sort of definite answer to this, since a lot of it depends on giant ifs, like whether or not China will continue increasing it's economic aid to African nations, etc.

But I think if China continues at its current rate, then I'd have to say that Africans will begin seriously questioning China and China's motives. Already, we've seen violence being committed against Chinese workers in countries like Zambia. I can't remember the specifics, but I think it involved a group of protesters attacking the administration of a Chinese-run copper mine. There have been other, similar instances throughout Africa. Also, if Chinese immigration to Africa increases, then surely anti-Chinese sentiment will increase as well. After centuries of colonization, Africans, not surprisingly, tend to be a very xenophobic people. It would be good for Beijing should they realize that by sending increasing numbers of Chinese to the continent, it would be greatly jeopardizing long-term Sino-African relations.

True i reckon only time will tell but i do find it surprising, especially with the intensity of xenophobic attitudes in some African countries.

[Igor Antunov]

You can't use colour avatars, SE23.

And China has nothing on europe when it comes to hardships dished out to the continent. Building schools and hospitals does not compare with mass slavery and territorial colonisation.

[Rei Murasame]

I think it's true that Asian countries have one interesting advantage which is that there is virtually no history of Asian colonial presence in Africa, meaning that they wouldn't have to deal with that specific problem. However, that fair weather won't last very long, so people ought to be prepared for the discontent that will inevitably arise.

[Igor Antunov]

I don't think Asian countries are about to re-start the slave trade in Africa. In a sense they can never equal the atrocities commited by the arabs, spanish, british, french, belgians, etc.

[Rei Murasame]

Yes Igor, but you and I know that they are going to complain anyway, it's what they do. What'll happen is that as living standards rise a little, they will look around them and realise that they are still poor compared to the rest of the world, and then some North Atlantic organisations will begin telling them about how 'bad' the Asian neocolonialists are, and the horse will be out of the gate.

There's also the fact that industrialisation will wend its way through society like how food dye arcs its way through a cup of water, changing everything including religious attitudes, gender relations, people's hobbies and sources of entertainment, etc. This means that religious fundamentalist losers who can't maintain their relevance, will resort to terrorism in order to disrupt the modernisation project, and Asian security forces or those of the host nation will need to kill some people - most likely Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb would get involved too - at some point.

So it should just be anticipated that it will happen, and be prepared to tackle it head-on when it does.