The Historical Links Between China and Ghana

 “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall,” Confucius (551 – 479 BC).  This year, 2011, marks the 50th anniversary of the Friendship Treaty between Ghana and China signed by President Kwame Nkrumah and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlia in 1961. The arrival in Ghana of Zhou Enlai to seal the affair resulted in a celebration at the Accra airport, with the two foreign ministers – Kojo Bostsio and Chen Yi leading international dignitaries to welcome the premier.

The historical links between the two nations are worth the emphasis and provide a telling international case study for the youth aspiring for leadership roles.

Having just emerged from colonialism in 1957, and prodding other African nations to win their freedom, Ghana was natural suspect in its affairs with communist China in the western mindset, more so as China provided materials and advisors for armed liberation struggles.

China’s earlier experiences of exploitation and suppression were so similar to Africa’s that had Africa’s leading thinkers not consulted with China at the time in both their aspirations and apprehensions they would have been not merely short-sighted, but negligent.

In assessing which way forward, that quest must have led the giants of the African revolutionary movement W. E.B Du Bois, Kwame Nkrumah, and others to consult with China.  Whether the Chinese were advocating communism or was not the issue Colonial Africa shared a concern for the care of the poor uneducated African population similar to China’s predicament.

July 1, 2011 also marks the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and the occasion underscores a funny thing happening in the world of laissez-faire economic theory and practice.  How does one begin to unravel the riddle the so-called communist nation fills the capitalists’ market shelves with every conceivable item – from underwear to the latest digital equipment?  And how does one begin to square the reality that a communist nation is owed such huge monetary sums by capitalist ones?

The Economist, pulling no punches in an editorial to revive global economic growth (November 15, 2008), mocked the “gusts of grandeur rhetoric” of G20 economists.  The weekly deplored the beating about the economic bush, and declared that “China’s stimulus plan” was the real thing, and “it would be mistake” to merely depend on the IMF.

When Deng Xiaoping began in 1978 to steer China on the road to economic reforms, he was teased that “Only capitalism can save China”.  At present, whenever there are global economic uncertainties, the chorus reverses: “Only China can save capitalism”.

These days, the various “isms” that formerly hooted hatred, distrust, confusion, and wars have converged in more ways than one.  Are there, today, any true blue capitalist, socialist, democratic, Marxist, or communist nations?  The United States’ welfare system or the British dole will make the most socialist or communist idealists marvel.  Conversely, China’s production capacity and huge foreign exchange reserves will goad the staunchest capitalist to thing again.

The “isms” don’t mean much anymore, and, thank goodness, they are worth neither cold nor hot wars.  Every nation seems to adopt an ideal mix suitable for itself, while groping along in its own way and exploring correctives for solutions. Moreover, the skeletons rattling in each other’s backyard may render any “holier than thou” beatitudes as follies even under scant scrutiny.

John Stuart Mill, the British philosopher, used to say, “Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption”.  Mill’s observation seems to fit China’s rise from the ground to the top.  The initial ridicule was that China was poor and not worthy of emulation.  The discussion that followed suggested that the looming giant (as discerned earlier by Du Bois and Nkrumah in the 1950’s) was worth an American courting by President Richard Nixon later in 1972, and finally, the adoption of the Chinese work ethic as an imperative demanded that when we pour concrete for a pillar we don’t stop half way because it is 5 pm.  Rather, we stop when the whole pillar is completed.

The relationship between China and Ghana is a captivating one.  In Nkrumah’s July 1961 visit to Peking, Shou Enlia received him at the airport before the meeting with Mao Zedog at Hangchow.  The crowds that greeted the Ghanaian president were estimated at half a million Chinese.

On February 24, 1966, as a special guest of Chairman Mao, Nkrumah was being met by the Chinese President Liu Shao-chi at the Peking airport tarmac.  About that very hour he was over-thrown.  The circumstances of his demise smacked of a mystery.

Those days, it was politically incorrect, by western standards, to be seen in the company of communists, but Nkrumah was undaunted: he saw the future of China in glowing terms and worthy of emulation not by just Ghana, but Africa.

Today, China’s most recent stride includes the 1,318km Beijing-Shanghai high-speed of about 300 – 400km/hr railway to be operational in June offering online ticketing service.  Had that long high speed feat been accomplished in West Africa, that service would extend from the eastern tip of Liberia right across Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and end at the western margin of Nigeria.  Travelling by rail from Liberia to Nigeria would have taken about the same time as driving from Accra to Kumasi, about 240km trip, with savings in costs and hassles.

Even in the early 1960s Nkrumah foresaw China preparing itself for bold undertakings; he envisioned the same for continental Africa.  In “Africa Must Unite”, he wrote “Only China, with its huge population and massive land extent has a rate of productivity that is making her a potential challenger…it is estimated that if the relative rates of development persist, she will outstrip Japan and Britain in the not too distant future”.  As China heads for the premier economic slot, Nkrumah’s prescience glows right along-side that prospect.

Nkrumah envisioned a continental mass transport, dammed water reserves and hydroelectric power, food security for the continent, mineral extractions owned by Africans and benefiting Africans, accumulation of capital in Africa to build first class cities and towns, African currency traded on African stock exchanges, education in science and technology at the highest possible levels, and so on.  How many African leaders today think along those lines?  Rather, we see year by year, a good many of them busy stacking stashes as far away as possible from Africa.

The Chinese themselves – amid their economic triumphs – agree readily that; one, many people still live in rural poverty; two, industrialization has come with serious environmental costs in places; three, room has to be made for dissenters or people with opposing points of view to avert future Tiananmen Square type disasters as happened in 1989; and four, education has to elevated to the highest possible standards for as many of its citizens as possible – especially in the area of science and technology, and the acquisition of two major languages – Chinese Mandarin, and English.

The ability to shape the future positively is the ultimate task of statesmanship and economics.  The Confucian order sought inspiration through service to mankind in pursuit of a greater harmony; it sought redemption through righteous individual and state order.  To live by those tenets necessitates respect for human rights and protecting a planet that gives life to all.  We cannot choose to destroy one part of the planet to preserve the other.  That should have been known in the colonial past and needs to be known today.

By: Anis Haffar Political History of Ghana