如果非洲的进步可以用选举频率作为衡量标准，这座大陆可能已经接近奥林匹克水平了。
今年，非洲大陆有15个国家计划举行选举，而1990年仅有两个。选举过程和执行方式对于苏丹、科特迪瓦和布隆迪将至关重要——此处仅列举3个撒哈拉以南非洲地区的潜在危机爆发国，在这些国家，有许多东西比选举结果更利害攸关。
然而，事实证明，选举并不是万能药。非洲的冲突根源一直难以消除，许多国家仍缺乏政治领导力。
不过，其它动态已经在开始改变这座大陆及其与外部世界的关系。
今年的选举不大可能导致领导权的变更，只有刚刚启动从军队统治到文官统治的脆弱转型的毛里求斯和几内亚可能成为例外。
从冷战主要参与者开始摆脱附庸独裁者至今已有二十年，但通过投票箱实现权力的和平更迭仍然不太现实。相反，一个更重要的游戏改变者可能正在从外界而来：中国。
在全球衰退浪潮冲刷非洲海岸之前，来自中国与其它亚洲国家的贸易与投资，推动非洲迸发出一波空前的经济增长。
2008年，中非贸易增至1070亿美元，较十年前增长了10倍。同期，中国对非洲基础设施与发展的资助，已增长至与世界银行(World Bank)、国际货币基金组织(IMF)等多边机构的贷款旗鼓相当的水平。
如今，在一些非洲国家，中国移民的数量已经超过了殖民时期欧洲移民的数量。
2008年末的全球经济衰退遏制了这一势头，从而减少了外国投资，削弱了对私人部门的信贷，旅游与汇款收入受到严重影响。许多国家重新陷入赤字，给了借款者重新获得关键角色的机遇。
但即使是在经济增长率大幅降至人口增长率以下的时候，中国仍一再强调对非洲的承诺。如今，随着大宗商品价格回升，市场重拾信心，在加快推动与非洲关系的进程中，中国处在比非洲传统伙伴更有利的地位。
中国对非洲不断增强的兴趣产生了乘数效应。亚洲对非洲大宗商品的需求改善了贸易条件，进而推动了其他投资者以不同的眼光看待非洲，修正了银行家所形容的“对非洲资产的低估”。
继中国人之后，巴西、印度、俄罗斯及其它新兴市场的投资者也都纷纷开始加强与非洲的关系。非洲内部的商业也开始增长，来自南非、尼日利亚和肯尼亚（程度不及前者）的一些公司开始建立横跨大陆的业务。
其结果就是，由谨慎的西方捐赠者与前殖民霸权所主导的千疮百孔的旧秩序开始动摇。众多非洲领导人——最明显的是卢旺达总统保罗•卡加梅(Paul Kagame)和塞内加尔总统阿卜杜拉耶•瓦德(Abdoulaye Wade)——称赞中国在非洲发展商贸的方式，并批评西方将与非洲的关系主要建立在援助的基础上。
目前还不能确定，非洲与外部世界不断变化的关系，将会对其经济与政治现实产生何种影响。
排华人士认为，中国的重商主义扩张，与过去作为欧非关系特征的剥削模式如出一辙。他们还担忧，中国政府愿意不附加任何政治条件就提供贷款，会削弱西方劝诱非洲皈依民主的效果，在治理刚刚开始转好之际让腐败的领导人逃脱制裁。
但中国对建筑项目的积极参与，有助于解决阻碍非洲增长的基础设施不足的问题。另外，对非洲资源的争夺，也大大提高了非洲国家与外国合作伙伴讨价还价的能力。
如果净效果是增长率的提高，那么这可能会让非洲的中产阶级进一步增加，而社会的这个阶层最有可能要求领导人担负起更大的责任。
这正是美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)去年首次正式访问非洲时所强调的问题。他在加纳议会发表演讲时强调指出，非洲人民必须把握住非洲今日的前途。
中国总理温家宝去年在埃及中非峰会上所传达的讯息也大同小异。
他表示：“许多人在给非洲的发展开药方……但我认为，非洲的发展应从非洲的实际出发……任何国家的发展，归根结底要靠自己人民的努力。”
在上一场欧洲瓜分非洲的“大博弈”中，非洲处于严重劣势。然而，在这一场大博弈中，非洲却占据了很多先机。
译者/何黎
If progress in Africa could be measured by the frequency of elections, the continent might already be nearing Olympian form.
This year, 15 countries are scheduled to go to the polls compared with just two in 1990. The process and how it is conducted will be critical for Sudan, Ivory Coast, and Burundi, to name three potential flashpoints in sub-Saharan Africa where there is much more at stake than results.
Elections, however, have proved no panacea. The causes of conflict in Africa stubbornly persist and the political leadership in many countries remains wanting.
Other dynamics are nonetheless beginning to transform the continent and its relations with the outside world.
With the possible exceptions of Mauritius and of Guinea, which has just embarked on a fragile transition from military to civilian rule, it is unlikely that any of this year's polls will lead to a change of leadership.
Two decades after the Cold War's protagonists began cutting loose client dictators, peaceful transfers of power via the ballot box remain the exception. Potentially a greater game changer is instead coming from outside: China.
Before the global downturn washed up on African shores, trade and investment from China and other Asian countries were contributing to an unprecedented spurt of economic growth.
Trade between China and Africa rose to $107bn in 2008, up tenfold from a decade before. In the same period, Chinese funding of infrastructure and development in Africa grew to rival lending by multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
In some African countries there are now more Chinese immigrants than there were Europeans during colonial times.
The momentum was arrested in late 2008 by the global downturn. This has slowed foreign investment, crippled credit to the private sector, and knocked income from tourism and remittances. Many countries are back in the red, giving lenders an opportunity to regain a central role.
But China repeatedly emphasised its commitment to Africa even as growth slumped below the rate of population expansion. With commodity prices now recovering and confidence returning, China is in a more solid position than Africa's traditional partners to pick up the pace.
China's burgeoning interest in Africa has acted as a multiplier. Asian demand for African commodities improves trade terms. This in turn encourages other investors to look at Africa with different eyes, correcting what bankers describe as the ”undervaluation of African assets”.
On the heels of the Chinese, investors from Brazil, India, Russia, and other emerging markets have all been gearing up their relations with Africa. Inter-African business is also on the rise with some companies from South Africa, Nigeria, and to a lesser extent Kenya beginning to build continental scale.
The effect has been to shake up an old and fraying order dominated by cautious western donors and former colonial powers. A host of African leaders – most emphatically President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal – applaud the way China does business in Africa and have criticised the West for basing relations with the continent mainly on aid.
What remains uncertain is the impact that Africa's changing relations with the outside world will have on the shape of its economic and political realities.
China bashers see in Beijing's mercantilist expansion the same exploitative patterns that typified Africa's past relations with Europe. They worry too that Beijing's willingness to lend with no political strings attached is undermining Western proselytising about democracy and letting corrupt leaders off the hook just as governance was beginning to improve.
But hyperactive Chinese involvement in construction projects is helping to address infrastructure shortcomings holding up African growth. Competition for African resources meanwhile has given African states greatly increased bargaining power with foreign partners.
If the net result is higher growth, this is likely to further the expansion of the middle classes in Africa, the section of society most likely to demand greater accountability from leaders.
This is an issue that Barack Obama, the US president, made central on his first official visit to Africa last year. Speaking to Ghana's national assembly, he emphasised that the continent's moment of promise is one that Africans must seize for themselves.
The message of China's premier Wen Jiabao's at the China Africa summit in Egypt last year was not so different.
“Many people are trying to offer prescriptions for Africa's development…yet it seems to me that Africa's development should be based on its own conditions…In the final analysis, the development of a country depends on the efforts of its own people,” he said.
During the last “great game”, when Europe carved up the continent, the cards were stacked heavily against Africans. This great game, however, is very much Africa's to lose.
No comments:
Post a Comment