China’s Gold Still Glitters For Africans

2010-05-05 (수) 12:00:00

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NIAMEY, Niger - For China, the transition seems smooth.

Just a few months ago, China was widely derided here as the financial backbone propping up an autocratic president, Mamadou Tandja, giving him the confidence to ignore international condemnation as he chopped away at Niger’s democratic institutions.

But now that Mr. Tandja has been overthrown, China appears to be settling into a new role: business partner to the military officers who ousted Mr. Tandja under the banner of restoring democracy and good government.

“Our diplomatic relations with China were not affected by the coup d’etat,” said Mahaman Laouali Dan Dah, a spokesman for the military junta .

That was plain to see recently on the front page of the government newspaper. China’s ambassador to Niger, Xia Huang, was prominently shown inspecting a bridge that his country is building here in the capital. About 10 days before, Mr. Xia had proclaimed on state television that China’s extensive oil and uranium interests in Niger had not been “disrupted by the events” - the coup - in February, news agencies reported.

There may still be some small perturbations. The junta has said broadly that it may adjust any deals made by Mr. Tandja to ensure that they sufficiently benefit Niger, a nation rich in uranium and, potentially, oil.

But the junta does not seem eager to upset the Chinese, and for now China appears to be proceeding confidently, sealing its reputation here as the continent’s behind-the-scenes force, ready to do business regardless of who is in power or whatever outrage exists about it.

“They couldn’t care less” who leads the country, Mohamed Bazoum, a former opposition leader recently appointed by the junta to a civilian council, said. “The Chinese, they were about to destroy democracy. They were playing a very negative role.”

But even Mr. Bazoum did not suggest breaking with China now. In a sign of how desperately Niger needs investment Mr. Bazoum said he hoped the old deals would be respected.

“When the international community turns its back on you, you’ve got to find money somewhere,” said Sanoussi Tambari Jackou, the senior member of Niger’s Parliament. After all, he said, “it’s the West that threw Tandja into the arms of the Chinese.”

France, the former colonial power here, has also been criticized by opposition leaders for not speaking out forcefully enough against Mr. Tandja, and the largely state-owned French nuclear engineering giant, Areva, has two uranium mines here, with plans for a third.

But last year, as Mr. Tandja dissolved Parliament and the nation’s highest court, France adhered to the European Union’s suspension of aid to Niger, a penalty enforced by the United States as well. The suspension has hurt the junta, too, because it remains in effect until new elections are scheduled.

China, by contrast, has stayed the course. Cash flowed from a substantial fund established by the Chinese, allowing Mr. Tandja to continue paying salaries as Western support ebbed. Now that he is gone, work has continued on a giant Chinese-built oil refinery in the nation’s east.

As Mr. Tandja consolidated his grip on power, ultimately pushing through a new Constitution that seemed tailormade to keep him in office indefinitely, the streets rumbled with protests. Yet Mr. Tandja evidently felt buffered by his powerful ally. Chinese cash, Chinese investments, big Chinese projects in oil, uranium and hydroelectric power - potentially worth billions of dollars - had been multiplying in Mr. Tandja’s final years in power.

“He was counting blindly on the Chinese,” declared a former top official in the Tandja government.

Mr. Tandja is now being held without charge by the military junta in a villa near the palace, a prisoner under guard. In his place, a previously unknown army major and squadron commander, Salou Djibo, is running the country, the world’s sixth-largest uranium exporter. He promises a transition to civilian rule and elections, but has not said when.

Ultimately, the marriage of convenience was mutually self-deceiving, in the view of diplomats here. Mr. Tandja “lived in a world of dreams,” believing he could continue to “mobilize new dollars,” said one diplomat with knowledge of the country’s resources.

The Chinese Embassy did not respond to a request for comment, and the local office of the China National Petroleum Corporation did not answer queries. But the ambassador, Mr. Xia, has vigorously defended his country’s activities here, pointing out China’s investments in health, education and agriculture. Xinhua, the Chinese state-run news agency, quoted him as saying that the people of Niger “are eyewitnesses to the benefits of the friendship between the two countries.”

By ADAM NOSSITER