Africa used to be in the Middle Ages, Europeans said that Africa was the antithesis of Europe or the height of European culture. The opposite was Africa, which was uncultured, low in human dignity, and the center of darkness in the world, until several centuries later Africa was still ignored by the world, its contents only conflict, poverty, hunger, and ignorance, until one day there was a country saw a great opportunity in Africa and since then there has been competition for struggle in Africa.
It's not really different from the behavior of Europe in the Middle Ages, where Europe was until the 20th century, where British and French colonialist countries for example took African raw materials and then enslaved African people, and all of this influenced the world geopolitics.
Now in the 21st century, the competition is the same in China, America, India, Canada, the European Union, Israel, and Japan. All these countries are vying for control of Africa and in that competition, one country can be assured of absolute victory over the race to conquer Africa, namely China.
This information about Africa is important because so far Africa is known as a continent consisting of 54 independent countries, Sovereign countries, 17 percent of the world's population, 9.6 percent of the world's oil producers, 90% of the world's platinum suppliers, 90% of the world's Cobalt providers, half of the world's platinum suppliers. World gold production, 2/3 of the world's manganese producer, 30% of the world's uranium production, and of course 54 votes or Votes in the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations that's all that make Africa very attractive, which makes Africa a battlefield of the global world of all things by experts. countries categorized as Global players are carried out in Africa such as building infrastructure, building diplomacy, providing military power, using soft power, trade, and geopolitics all played in different styles by all countries interested in Africa.
We give examples of what world players are doing in Africa, for example in 2016 Israel maneuvered in Africa, when Benjamin Netanyahu was the first Israeli leader to be present in Africa in the last 50 years. What does Israel want? Israel needs 54 votes to support the UN resolution that is pro-Israel and against Palestine.
Africa and Israel have a common history. Thus Netanyahu diplomatically then Israel became a sponsor or supporter of Africa's need for energy with solar power, clean water supply, and the world of agriculture where we all know Israel these three things are the best in the world about agriculture in the desert, clean water from seawater, and electrical energy. from solar power.
Later that same year 2016, Senegal protested the construction of Jewish housing on Palestinian land on the West Bank. What did Israel do to Senegal? Israel cancels The Mashav Drip irrigation project in Senegal that could drink 5,000,000 Senegalese people.
This is just one example and there is another EU that will invest 54 billion-dollar in Africa, the question then what does the EU want? namely access to African markets for the 1.3 billion people on the African continent.
The European Union has entered into trade agreements with 40 African countries but does this trade agreement benefit African countries? no, Europe is the one who gets the big profit, remember that the investment must be the one who wins, but whatever it is there is no country that has the biggest interest in Africa other than China.
China has in the last 17 years financed one in four infrastructure projects in Africa and we all know that Africa is very short on road infrastructure and China knows that and prepares a thick checkbook to build and finance it.
Since 2005, China has provided funds worth more than 2,000,000,000,000 USD or 2,000 billion dollars or 16 times Indonesia's State Budget to Africa, a course in the form of goods, technology, and jobs, the money remains in China, capitalizing on its own company, its own State-Owned Enterprise.
China built 6,200 KM of railway which is the longest railway network in Africa connecting Ethiopia and Djibouti and to control Chinese investment, Beijing built an African development headquarters in Addis Ababa.
So what did China get? Many. China won very much. All infrastructure in Africa is what makes it easier for Chinese goods to enter Africa and makes it easier for African natural resources to go out to China, sound familiar? seems familiar with this strategy.
In addition to economic factors, China gets geopolitical support from the United Nations, China is not only building Africa but selling Chinese culture, selling Chinese money, and even street signs in many African countries using mandarin letters, it can be concluded that in the past 17 years China has tied 50 African countries.
Several African countries have used Yuan in their daily transactions in the market and China obtained a strategic location for its naval power and seaports in 2017 for the first time China built a military base outside China, namely at the tip of the African continent, namely in the country of Djibouti in East Africa.
Djibouti connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean through the Suez canal at the Chinese military base in Djibouti. A total of 10,000 troops are already deployed there. On the product side, Africa is the world's largest dumping ground for Chinese products.
China is Africa's largest trading partner, which has grown 44 times or 4,400 percent in the last 2 decades or in the last 20 years in Africa, there are more than 10,000 Chinese companies there. Based on information from a study conducted by Mackenzi, why is Africa said to be a dumping ground for Chinese goods? We all know that in production there is an Economic Scale or a certain amount of products that will be efficient in cost, for example, making shirts.
If you make 10 it costs US$ 15, if you make 1000 it costs US$ 10 per piece, if you make 100,000, the price per fruit is only US$ 5. If you make one million pieces, it turns out to be US$ 5 per piece. So US$ 5 and the number 100,000 is the Economic Scale, China sells one shirt for only US$ 20 for example per piece.
China produces for the world 1,000,000 shirts it produces, its capital is 5,000,000,000 sold 250 shirts, investment returns. Sold 800,000 shirts, luckily very big. Now, the remaining 200,000 in the warehouse are sold at a price of zero US$, profit instead of having to fill the warehouse volume, so China is dumping it and dumping it into Africa at any price, 50 cents is also okay.
For Africa, Waow China is very good. That is one of the uses of Africa for China, a place to dispose of goods at cheap prices, and a place for dumping, on the other hand, what is equally important for China is its natural resources.
Indeed, Africa has the raw materials, China is the one who builds access to and controls them of course. China's third-largest investment worldwide is China's mining sector in Africa, so what lessons have been learned so far have you started to understand?
#GEOPOLITICS
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