中非关系并非仅限于开采原材料

African nations that have been supplying oil, copper, iron ore and bauxite to feed China’s supercharged growth have suddenly woken from a dream.

一直向中国供应石油、铜、铁矿石和铝土矿、以支撑中国迅猛增长的非洲国家，突然从梦中醒来。

China is slowing and trying to shift to a consumer-driven model that will inevitably depend less on African raw materials, and commodity prices are tumbling as a result. Further, some international investors, spooked by the prospect of rising US interest rates, have lost their appetite for emerging markets.

中国经济增长开始放缓，中国还在努力向消费驱动型增长模式转型——该模式将不可避免地降低中国对非洲原材料的依赖，大宗商品价格也因此不断下跌。另外，受到美国可能加息惊吓的部分国际投资者，已对新兴市场失去了兴趣。

“The past decade has been very benign for Africa,” says Paul Collier, an Oxford economist, “but that’s over.” The period began, he says, with debt relief, before “commodity prices went through the roof”. In the 10 years to 2014, trade between Africa and China increased 20-fold to more than $200bn.

“过去十年对非洲非常有利，”牛津大学(Oxford)经济学家保罗科利尔(Paul Collier)表示，“但那种日子已经到头了。”他说，那段时期一开始是各国减免非洲的债务，然后“大宗商品价格又一路飞涨”。截至2014年的十年，中非贸易额增长19倍，至逾2000亿美元。

The combination of low debt and high revenue allowed many African governments to tap capital markets for the first time. In some cases, that funded the discovery of more reserves of minerals and hydrocarbons.

债务低加上收入高，使得许多非洲政府头一次得以利用资本市场。在某些情况下，这为发现更多矿产和碳氢化合物储量提供了资金。

“This was the biggest opportunity Africa ever had,” says Mr Collier, “but it’s broadly been a missed opportunity.”

“这曾是非洲面临过的最大机遇，”柯利尔表示，“但这个机遇基本上被错过了。”

Countries that did not prepare in the good times by diversifying or building strong economic buffers are now likely to suffer a Chinese hangover.

如今中国做东的盛宴已散席，那些在景气时期没有未雨绸缪地进行多元化或打造强大经济缓冲的国家，眼下可能会受豪饮后遗症之苦。

Yet that does not mean the Chinese-African relationship has ended — far from it. For a start, China’s economy may be slowing but, barring a catastrophe, it is unlikely to grind to a halt. Even at 5 per cent growth, China would add an Indian-sized economy to its already massive bulk in four years, implying a steady, albeit more moderate, demand for African raw materials.

但这并不意味着中非关系已终结——远不至此。首先，中国经济或许正在放缓，但除非发生一场灾难，中国经济不大可能逐渐放缓至停滞。即便以5%的速度增长，已然庞大的中国经济也将在4年内增加相当于一个印度的经济体量，这意味着中国对非洲原材料的需求尽管将降温，但仍将保持稳定。

Second, the China-Africa relationship goes much deeper than extracting raw materials. “Rwanda and Ethiopia are not commodity exporters,” says Deborah Br甀琀椀最愀洀, an expert on China-Africa relations at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Those two economies have close trade and investment ties with China, and have racked up years of impressive growth. “So something else is going on.”

其次，中非关系的发展远远超过了开采原材料的范畴。“卢旺达和埃塞俄比亚并非大宗商品出口国，”约翰霍普金斯大学高级国际研究学院(Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies)的中非关系专家德博拉布罗蒂加姆(Deborah Br甀琀椀最愀洀)说。这两个经济体跟中国之间保持着紧密的贸易与投资关系，并且多年来增速令人瞩目。“所以，中非关系还有别的东西。”

In the case of Ethiopia, the relationship has been built on trade, and investment in infrastructure and manufacturing, says Arkebe Oqubay, architect of the country’s industrial policy. “I don’t think Chinese investment in Africa is primarily driven by resources.”

埃塞俄比亚工业政策的设计师阿凯贝攠鍙巴(Arkebe Oquba)表示，埃塞俄比亚与中国的关系一直建立在贸易、基础设施投资与制造上。“我认为，中国对非投资并非主要由资源驱动。”

More than any other country in Africa, Ethiopia has made concerted efforts to build an industrial base.

埃塞俄比亚一直比任何其他非洲国家都更努力地协同打造工业基础。

“While Africa cannot copy Chinese stages of development, it may be able to learn more than from Europe,” Xu Weizhong of the Institute of African Studies told a Chatham House conference this year. “Ethiopia, for example, has studied Asian dragons and tigers, which have influenced its policies.”

“尽管非洲不能复制中国的发展阶段，但非洲从中国身上或许能比从欧洲身上学到更多。”中国现代国际关系研究院西亚非洲研究所的徐伟忠今年在查塔姆国际事务研究所（Chatham House，又名英国皇家国际事务研究所(the Royal Institute of International Affairs)）的一次会议上表示，“比如，埃塞俄比亚研究了亚洲四小龙和四小虎，研究成果影响了该国的政策。”

Chinese companies, many of them private, have been among the most enthusiastic investors. In the leather industry, Huajian, one of the world’s biggest shoe manufacturers, employs 4,000 workers in an industrial park outside Addis Ababa. Its experience has been largely positive and it plans to increase its workforce to 40,000.

中国企业（其中许多为民营企业）一直投资热情极为高涨。在皮革行业，全球最大的制鞋企业之一华坚集团(Huajian)在亚的斯亚贝巴外围一处工业园雇用了4000名工人。该公司的经历基本是顺利的，它还打算把员工数量增加至4万人。

Howard French, an academic and author of China’s Second Continent, says that rising labour costs at home and the Chinese public’s growing awareness of environmental damage is driving some lower-end manufacturing out of China. These push factors, says Mr French, make Africa an interesting offshore destination. “It’s already a big deal, and potentially it’s a very big deal.”

著有《中国的第二块大陆》(China’s Second Continent)一书的学者傅好文(Howard French)表示， 中国国内劳动力成本的上升加上中国民众越来越在意环境破坏，开始推动部分低端制造业撤出中国。傅好文表示，这些推动因素使非洲成为一个值得关注的海外目的地。“这已经是一笔大交易，它可能还会是一笔非常大的交易。”

He describes Beijing’s resource grab, lubricated sometimes by massive bribes, as mostly “pernicious”. Yet Chinese individuals, and Chinese companies such as Haujian, he says, can have a potentially beneficial impact.

他把中国的资源夺取（有时是用大笔贿赂来疏通的）描述为基本上“极其有害的”。不过，他表示，中国的一些个人、以及华坚集团等中国企业可能会产生有益的影响。

One of Africa’s attractions is that it is largely uncontested territory. “Chinese companies can go and cut their teeth at [low] prices, because the top tier of western companies is not there. It’s an ideal training ground.”

非洲的吸引力之一，是国家之间基本没有领土纠纷。“中国企业可以去非洲以（低）代价获取经验，因为那里还没有第一流的西方企业。那是一个理想的训练场地。”

Mr French remembers 18 months ago on the drive into Kampala from Uganda’s Entebbe airport, seeing billboard after billboard for Chinese goods: “Mattresses, fridges, washer-driers, roof tiles — you name it.”

傅好文记得，18个月前，在从乌干达坎帕拉驾车去恩德培机场途中，他看到了一个又一个的中国商品广告牌：“床垫，冰箱，洗衣烘干两用机，屋面瓦——什么都有。”

Cheap Chinese products, such as textiles, have often been blamed for wiping out whole swaths of African industry. But Mr French argues that the death of inefficient industries selling overpriced goods to unfortunate African consumers is not necessarily to be mourned.

经常有人指责称，纺织品等廉价中国产品挤垮了非洲的一个个行业。但傅好文认为，那些向倒霉的非洲消费者出售高价产品的低效率行业垮掉，未必值得哀悼。

The trick is to harness the new opportunities provided by Chinese interest in the continent, he says. If governments respond with the right incentives, as Ethiopia has tried to do, by encouraging manufacturers to invest locally, transfer technology and employ local staff, China can be more a boon than a threat.

他说，关键在于抓住中国对非洲的兴趣提供的新机遇。如果各国政府像埃塞俄比亚一直努力在做的那样，拿出适当的激励措施作为回应，鼓励生产商在当地投资、向当地转移技术并雇佣当地员工，那么中国带来的可能会是福音而不是威胁。

Ha-Joon Chang, a development economist at Cambridge university, says that even though the Chinese state has been every bit as exploitative as the west, Beijing’s growing presence in Africa has been largely beneficial.

剑桥大学(Cambridge university)发展经济学家张夏准(Ha-Joon Chang)表示，尽管中国政府的剥削性与西方完全相同，但中国加大在非洲的存在，基本上是对非洲有益的。

“The most important thing is that there’s competition,” he says. “For African countries, there used to be only one bank in town. It was called the World Bank.” Ethiopia has found Chinese finance “smoother and faster”, he adds. African nations, says Mr Chang, must wean themselves off simply “digging things out of the ground”.

“最重要的事情是，这带来了竞争。”张夏准说，“过去，非洲国家只能从一家银行借钱，那就是世界银行(World Bank)。”他接着说，埃塞俄比亚已发现，从中国融资，过程“更顺畅、也更快捷”；非洲国家必须使自己摆脱仅仅“从地下挖东西”的状态。

Instead, they need to move to an early industrial phase in the mould of now-wealthy South Korea, whose GDP per capita in 1960 was half that of Ghana’s. One of South Korea’s first successful industrial experiments was wig-making, he says, a labour-intensive operation that required workers to attach individual strands of hair.

它们需要按照如今已跻身富国行列的韩国的模式，迈进早期工业化阶段。20世纪60年代，韩国的人均国内生产总值(GDP)仅为加纳的一半。张夏准说，韩国首批成功的工业化试验之一是假发制造业，那是一种劳动密集型业务，要求工人把一缕一缕的假发贴上去。

Other countries such as Rwanda, Mauritius and Ghana, have set off in the right direction, says Mr Chang. On the other hand, “Zambia is still digging copper...愠渀搀 Angola doesn’t appear to be doing much to prepare for the future.”

张夏准说，卢旺达、毛里求斯和加纳等其他国家已朝着正确方向出发了。另一方面，“赞比亚仍在挖铜……安哥拉似乎也没有为未来做太多准备。”

The next decade or so, he predicts, will see a sharp divergence between countries with good policies and those without. China’s interest in Africa, albeit tempered by its current slowdown, means that opportunity will continue to knock. But it will not knock equally.

张夏准预测，未来十来年，实施了良好政策的国家与未实施良好政策的国家之间将出现巨大分野。中国对非洲的兴趣，尽管因当前其自身增长放慢而减弱，仍意味着机会将继续来敲门。但是，它不会平均地敲每一个国家的门。