林德宜：非洲、中国与全球秩序

推动非洲发展的非政府组织Abantu人员拉比巴雷瓦（Rabia Balewa）表示，非洲仍然是“被遗忘的大陆”。“除非面对著灾难，否则非洲不会成为全球焦点。人们总是倾向于以消极的方式看待非洲大陆，即使那里正在发生一些积极的事情”。在这领域工作的欧盟官员也表达了同样的观点。“非洲受到的关注越来越少……”有人说，“人们普遍认为，非洲就是一块一群国家互相争斗的大陆。”

在西方主导的全球政治经济秩序中，一直被忽视的利益相关者就是非洲。

经常被称为“被遗忘的大陆”的53个非洲国家的领导人最近齐聚北京举行的中非合作论坛北京峰会，与非洲大陆最大的投资国和支持者合作，帮助打造一个拥有14亿人口，与中国人口差不多的新非洲- 解决非洲发展落后和贫困问题，这些问题破坏了世界18%人口的潜力。

中国外交部称此次峰会是中国近年来举办的“规模最大、外国领导人出席人数最多的外交盛会”，峰会重点关注于工业化、农业、基础设施、教育、卫生以及一系列其他对非洲发展有著重要角色的领域。

除了个别国家和计画协议外，“被遗忘的大陆”在这项峰会上最重要的成果包括：

●中国对非洲33国产品100%税目给予免税待遇
●中国未来三年提供非洲3600亿人民币（2126亿令吉）财务援助
●涵盖学习、贸易、产业链合作、互联互通、发展合作、医疗卫生、乡村振兴民生、人文交流、绿色发展、共同安全等领域的共同倡议。

西方媒体对这次峰会采取忽视或不屑一顾态度，许多则将这一新闻放在报纸上不起眼的部分，或强调中国如何策划这次活动，以进一步加强其对非洲原材料的获取，并扩大其对非洲的“恶意”影响。

西方：非洲不发达主要因素

这种沉默是可以预料的。历史记录表明，非洲从来都不是一个“被遗忘”的大陆，尽管它被贴上了“被遗忘”的标签。在过去的两个世纪中，多个欧洲国家，包括当时最强大的国家——比利时、法国、英国、德国、意大利、西班牙和葡萄牙——在旨在剥削非洲劳动力的“新”帝国主义中掠夺、征服和瓜分了非洲土地和自然资源。他们留下了饱受创伤的社会、掠夺后的经济、人为的国家界线，以及反复循环的暴力、贫穷和独裁主义，其影响至今仍然可见。澳洲的原住民社会也面对著同样的情况，使得他们遭到边缘化并被排斥在澳洲主流社会和生活的许多方面。

对欧洲和欧洲人来说，非洲从来都不是“黑暗”、“神秘”或“被遗忘”的。相反，这是一个开放的、备受追捧的、持久的战利品和无数财富的来源。一些经济史学家估计，仅以货币价值计算，这种殖民掠夺就达到了数百兆美元，这种殖民掠夺，摧毁了前殖民时期的非洲社会，却在为我们今天所知的富裕的现代欧洲奠定基础方面发挥了关键作用，但许多欧洲人和其他西方人似乎没有认识到这一点。

欧洲及美国和其他盟国在对非洲进行新殖民主义剥削的过程中，掩盖或忽略了这段历史。我们看到的是持续的施压，以确保无论发生什么变化，非洲仍然与西方联系在一起，特别是在采矿、能源、运输和工业领域，西方企业在这些领域有著根深蒂固利益，这是殖民遗产也是非洲跳出不贫穷陷阱所在。

对于非洲会否与欧洲疏远的担忧——不仅源于财政和经济收益的考虑，尤其非洲在近年于经济、意识形态和文化上对西方的依赖紧密相连。而中国的崛起​​和成功为世界其他地区提供了不同的政治和社会经济发展模式，这对西方而言成了一个更迫切的课题。

一个摆脱殖民和新殖民主义束缚的新非洲，拥有借鉴中国和世界其他国家最好的发展模式的新非洲，将不再成为被怜悯、同情、救济和充满负面观感的对象，特别是在西方人视角下。

这也是一个重塑世界秩序机会。用中非合作论坛高峰公报的话来说：

双方倡导平等有序的世界多极化，主张各国不分大小、人口多寡、经济社会发展情况，都应实现权利平等、机会平等、规则平等，维护以联合国为核心的国际体系、以国际法为基础的国际秩序、以联合国宪章宗旨和原则为基础的国际关系基本准则，反对少数国家垄断国际事务，反对霸权主义和强权政治，推动全球治理朝著更加公正合理的方向发展。

林德宜《非洲、中国与全球秩序》原文：Africa, China and the Global Order

But Africa remains the “forgotten continent”, according to Rabia Balewa of development group Abantu. “Africa disappears from the agenda unless there is a disaster. There is a tendency to always view the continent in negative terms, even when there is something positive happening there,” she said.

EU officials working in the field echo this concern. “Africa gets less and less attention,” said one. “There is a widespread view that it is nothing more than a bunch of countries fighting each other.”

In the global political and economic order dominated by the West, the continent continually overlooked as a stake player has been Africa.

Often described as the “forgotten continent”, leaders of 53 African countries gathered at the China-Africa summit recently in Beijing to work with the continent’s biggest investor and supporter to help build a new Africa with its 1.4 billion people - about the same as China - overcome the underdevelopment and poverty that has blighted the potential of 18% of the world’s population.

Described by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the “largest diplomatic event” the country has hosted in recent years with the highest attendance of foreign leaders, the summit focused on industrialisation, agriculture, infrastructure, education, health and a host of other sectors important to the region's development.

Besides the individual country and project agreements, the most important outcomes for the “forgotten continent” include

● China’s duty-free tariff treatment to 100% of the tariff lines of products from 33 African countries
● China’s 360 billion yuan in financial support to Africa over the next three years 
● Joint initiatives covering learning, trade, industrial chain cooperation, connectivity, development cooperation, healthcare, rural revitalization and people’s wellbeing, people-to-people exchanges, green development, and common security.

Western media have been quiet or dismissive of the summit with many consigning the news to an inconspicuous section of the paper or stressing how China has engineered the event to further enhance its access to Africa’s raw materials and extend its ‘baleful’ influence over Africa.

West: Primary Factor in Africa’s Underdevelopment 

This reticence is to be expected. The historical record is that Africa was never a “forgotten” continent though labelled as such. In the last two centuries, multiple European nations including the most powerful at their time - Belgium, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal - scrambled, conquered and divided up Africa in their ‘new’ imperialism aimed at exploitation of African labour and natural resources. They left behind traumatised communities, plundered economics, artificial states and recurring cycles of violence, poverty and authoritarianism whose effects are still to be found today. The same too happened with aboriginal communities in Australia as their marginalisation and cancellation continues in many aspects of mainstream Aussie society and life. 

Africa was never “dark”, “mysterious” or “forgotten” to Europe and Europeans. On the contrary, it was an open, much sought after and enduring source of loot and countless wealth. Estimated by some economic historians to run into the hundreds of trillion dollars simply in monetary value, this colonial extraction which wrecked the societies of pre colonial Africa has played a key part in laying the foundation for the affluent modern Europe as we know it today but which many Europeans and other people in the West appear oblivious of.

This history is one that has been glossed over or omitted by Europe and its United States and other allies in their efforts at neo-colonial exploitation of Africa. What we see is continuing pressure to ensure that Africa remains tied to the west in whatever changes take place, especially in the mining, energy, transport and industrial sectors where western corporate interests have long been entrenched and where the colonial legacy with its poverty trap continues.

The concern that Africa does not decouple from Europe - that it is firmly tied to economic, ideological and cultural dependence on the West - arises not only from considerations of monetary and economic gain. It has been made more urgent by the rise and success of China in providing a different political and socio-economic model of development to other regions of the world.

A new Africa freed from colonial and neo-colonial bondage and with its own model of development borrowing the best from China and other countries of the world will not only no longer be a subject of pity, remorse, charity and negative sentiment, especially as seen by the West.
It also has the opportunity to remake the world order. In the words of the final communique released by the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit 

The two sides advocate an equal and orderly multipolar world, and maintain that all countries, regardless of differences in terms of geographical size, population density and socioeconomic development, should have equal rights, equal opportunities and follow the same rules, uphold the international system with the U.N. at its core, the international order underpinned by international law and the basic norms governing international relations based on the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter, oppose the monopoly of international affairs by a few countries, oppose hegemonism and power politics, and make global governance more just and equitable.