Comment

Mail & Guardian, South Africa

June 23, 2006

 

South Africans, it is fair to say, are frightened by China. We complain about the cheap imports that are doing South African garment workers out of their jobs, we fret about the "insatiable" demand for natural resources, and the re-ordering of influence on the rest of the continent. And when we are really nervous, we talk about drug gangs that trade smuggled abalone for mandrax in the coastal villages of the Western Cape.

And we aren't alone; the whole world is convulsed with anxiety as it watches the dragon rise to a level of global influence it has not enjoyed since the 14th century. Like the Americans, and the Europeans, of course, we worry even as we stock up on cut-price DVD players and bargain bras.

There is an element of racism in all this that is reminiscent of the "yellow peril" hysteria whipped up against Chinese immigration around the turn of the last century. China is undemocratic, mind-bogglingly huge, and developing at a rate we can only dream of. So it is probably not surprising that it figures in the language of economists and ordinary citizens alike as a kind of monster rampaging through global markets, with scant regard for the proprieties of good governance, environmental standards and labour rights.

The real picture is, at once, more complicated and simpler.

That China's boom is reorganising the world in disruptive and often disturbing ways there can be no doubt. And there is nothing South Africans, or anyone else, can do to prevent that. China is now deeply integrated in the global economic system. Not only is it keeping the resource-based economies of the world churning, it is lending the United States billions of dollars to keep its consumption spree going. And it has dragged Japan out of its prolonged malaise.

We have more to fear from the collapse of those cycles than from any number of Mr Price T-shirts.

And China's internal changes go much deeper than the arrival of traffic jams and skyscrapers. Private firms -- some of them even with South African partners -- are increasingly coming to dominate the economy, and to move beyond the control of Beijing. Meanwhile growing social unrest, particularly over unemployment, poses major new challenges for the Communist Party.

To be sure, it would be unwise for South Africa to rush into a free trade agreement with such a large and effective competitor. But there is no point in building new barriers to trade in the hope that they will hold back the tide of globalisation. On the contrary, riding this wave will take Chinese levels of flexibility and discipline. For a government unskilled in economic and diplomatic Tai Chi, it will be tough to sell the concept to a sceptical public, but it is going to have to do it.