CHINA has brought cheap consumer goods, roads and schools to many parts of Africa over the past decade, but the continent’s leaders are increasingly pushing for it to provide more of what many Africans want most: jobs.

From Pretoria to Abuja, governments have begun voicing frustration that China’s use of Africa as a source of natural resources and a market for its goods may be hindering the continent in hauling its billion people out of poverty.

A recent report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) highlighted the risk that the continent’s relationship with the world’s second-largest economy could strangle its attempts to industrialise.

China’s trade with Africa ballooned from $10bn in 2000 to an estimated $200bn this year — four years after it overtook the US as the continent’s largest partner.

But about 85% of China’s exports from Africa are raw materials, such as oil and minerals. According to the African Development Bank, most minerals mined in Africa are exported raw, meaning the jobs and wealth from processing them is created elsewhere.

A flood of Chinese produce, meanwhile, has accelerated the decline in industrialisation since the 1980s. Africa’s textile industry alone lost 750,000 jobs over the past decade, says the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation.

Even in the continent’s manufacturing powerhouse, South Africa, about 40% of footwear and fabrics come from China.

Expressing the concerns of many African governments, President Jacob Zuma bluntly warned last year that such unbalanced trade was "unsustainable".

"The romanticised relationship surrounding China’s investment in Africa has passed," says Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at the Chatham House research institute. "With the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population, the main pressure on governments in Africa is to provide jobs. Having the Chinese take those jobs doesn’t help."

It is true that China’s boom has brought many benefits to Africa.

Beijing has won fulsome praise from many governments for its willingness to finance large infrastructure projects without conditions relating to democracy, governance and human rights — the "strings" Africa has often criticised as attached to aid from the West.

Chinese economic growth rates averaging 10% a year for almost a decade fuelled a commodities "super-cycle" which has lifted Africa’s own growth to unprecedented rates.

And the cheap Chinese goods being imported help to make everyday living more affordable and develop the consumer sector across the continent.

But in many countries, China’s demand for ore, timber and oil is forcing African states to specialise at the bottom of the value chain in areas with low productivity gains, Uneca says.

With Africa supplying one-third of China’s oil, much of it from Angola, Uneca highlights the risk of "Dutch disease", whereby demand for raw materials inflates a currency, making other sectors of the domestic economy uncompetitive against foreign competition.

Even in Senegal, an arid country not usually associated with the "resource curse", domestic peanut-processing factories face the threat of being driven out of business as Chinese exporters buy up the crop to ship home.

Attempts to legislate for industrialisation, such as bans on the export of unprocessed logs from Gabon and Mozambique, have often proved fruitless. In Gabon, where Beijing has broken French dominance over logging, an estimated 60% of timber is exported illegally to China.

Respected Nigerian Central Bank governor Lamidu Sanusi said in March that China’s extraction of resources from Africa had all the attributes of "colonialism". In an apparent response to such criticism, Chinese President Xi Jinping took pains during a six-day African tour in March to emphasise that his country was seeking a win-win partnership. "The development of China will be an unprecedented opportunity for Africa, and Africa’s development will be the same for my country," he told legislators in the Republic of Congo.

Beijing has provided much-needed capital to a continent starved of investment. The China Import-Export Bank is the continent’s largest creditor and Beijing has promised $20bn more in loans over the next three years.

But Beijing’s money comes with its own strings attached: it must be spent on Chinese goods or Chinese-built infrastructure. And Chinese firms often source their supplies and workers back home.

The number of Chinese in Africa has increased 10-fold over the past 20 years to an estimated 1-million. From shopkeepers in Malawi to prostitutes in Cameroon, Africans complain that Chinese competition is making life tougher.

Unlike western immigrants, the Chinese diaspora comes from the poorest section of society and competes for work with Africans, 80% of whom are in "vulnerable employment" according to the International Labour Organisation.

In Ghana, tensions flared into violence last month when police and residents attacked artisanal Chinese gold mineworkers, claiming they were driving locals out of the industry. Many were brutally beaten and 200 were deported.

Frustration has also emerged with the operating practices of some Chinese firms. In Gabon, Chinese refiner Sinopec’s Addax Petroleum is embroiled in a $1bn legal dispute over an oil licence after the government alleged it failed to pay customs duties.

Zambia, where Chinese mines have a record of violent labour disputes, revoked three licences for the Chinese-owned Collum coal mine, alleging nonpayment of royalties taxes, and poor environmental and safety records.

"Now more countries are engaging with Africa, there are more options. Several countries are looking at Chinese investment with a more critical eye. There will be more and more scrutiny of these contracts," says Razia Khan, head of Africa research at Standard Chartered Bank.

Responding to the criticism from Nigeria and South Africa, China’s commerce ministry has encouraged firms to increase investment in Africa. China is launching special economic zones for manufacturing companies on the continent.

Though it is Africa’s largest trading partner, China has only 6% of the stock of foreign investment — well behind France on 18% — says United Nations trade body Unctad. Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has urged African countries to woo Chinese manufacturing firms into offshoring their production as their domestic labour costs rise.

"We need to prepare ourselves to provide a welcoming home for some of the industries where the Chinese will no longer be competitive," she said last month.

Reuters