China's Latest Lie: "China has never imposed its will or unequal
practices on other countries and will never do so in the future."

Micky's comment: Hu's latest words will be more convincing if Chinese
government "has never imposed its will or unequal practices on" ordinary
Chinese. It shall be more credible if chinese net-police has never
attempted to block and filtering the internet.

Hu Defends China's Role in Africa
Visiting President Says Rapidly Growing Investment Is Not Colonialism

By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 8, 2007; Page A14

JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 7 -- Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday sought
to reassure Africans that his country's aggressive investments in oil,
copper and other natural resources do not amount to a new wave of
colonialism, saying China would "not do anything harmful to the
interests of Africa and its people."

Hu's comments, made in Pretoria on the sixth stop of an eight-country
tour of the continent, came amid rising anxiety that China's economic
power is strangling African manufacturing while locking up vital
resources for years. Although China has made massive purchases of oil
from Angola, Sudan and Nigeria, the flood of finished goods to Africa
has created a large trade imbalance.

"For more than 100 years in China's modern history, the Chinese people
were subjected to colonial aggression and oppression by foreign powers
and went through similar suffering and agony that the majority of
African countries endured," he said at the University of Pretoria,
according to a transcript released by South African officials.

He added, "China has never imposed its will or unequal practices on
other countries and will never do so in the future."

China has long-standing relationships with many countries in Africa,
dating to the era when its communist government backed liberation
movements seeking to overthrow colonial and white supremacist
governments. In the past decade, China has dramatically escalated its
role through a combination of major construction projects and
investments in materials needed to keep its manufacturing boom at home
alive.

Chinese companies have built railways, water treatment plants,
telecommunication systems, highways and port facilities, often
subsidizing projects or working for much less than the bids of
competitors. And Chinese companies have not been content to merely buy
raw materials; increasingly they are investing in production capacity,
purchasing oil blocks in Nigeria or copper mines in Zambia. China also
has delivered billions of dollars in aid and loans.

African governments have largely welcomed the largess, as well as the
lack of accompanying demands for human rights reforms, expanded
democracy or increased financial transparency often made by Western
investors and their governments.

In advance of Hu's trip to Sudan last week, Andrew S. Natsios, President
Bush's special envoy for Sudan, traveled to Beijing to urge China to
help persuade President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to accept a strong U.N.
peacekeeping force in the war-torn region of Darfur. After the talks,
Natsios said that "our policies and the Chinese policies are closer than
I realized," adding that China would "play an increasingly important
role in helping us to resolve this."

But U.S. officials now say Hu did little to press Bashir, instead
calling on countries to "respect the sovereignty of Sudan," while
writing off debts and providing an interest-free loan to build a new
presidential palace.

"There have been some mixed signals, obviously," State Department
spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.

Among Africans, concerns about rising Chinese clout are more often
economic. Textile mills from Nigeria to South Africa have closed as
inexpensive Chinese imports have flooded markets. At the same time,
Chinese purchases of mining concessions have stirred nationalist backlashes.

Hu canceled a stop last Sunday in a mining community in Zambia after
threatened demonstrations against the alleged plunder of the country's
natural resources, according to news reports. The main opposition party
in Zambia, which accused China of dumping inexpensive goods and
bankrupting Zambian traders, fired a top official for attending a
welcoming ceremony for Hu.

There was little such rancor in South Africa, which has an especially
close relationship with China. Many South African companies have major
investments in China, and Hu on Tuesday signed deals opening his
country's markets to South African agricultural products.

"The Chinese government will continue to take steps to increase import
from Africa to balance the trade between the two sides," he said at the
University of Pretoria. "We encourage Chinese companies to increase
investment in Africa, provide technical and management training and help
Africa develop processing and manufacturing industries so as to ease
employment pressure and enhance the competitiveness of its exports."

In addition to South Africa, Sudan and Zambia, Hu also has visited
Cameroon, Namibia and Liberia and has planned stops in Mozambique and
Seychelles.

Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/07/AR2007020700960.html...