Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:
End of 'Angola model' sees number of Chinese in oil-rich
African country plummet
South China Morning Post
Sun, July 3, 2022 at 2:30 AM
The number of Chinese people living in Angola is estimated
to have dropped from a peak of more than 300,000 during a post-civil war
construction boom to less than 20,000 as a new president recalibrates the
African country's relationship with China.
When the Angolan civil war ended in 2002 after 27 years of
destruction, it was China rather than the West that agreed to fund the
country's reconstruction. That coincided with the Chinese government's
going-out strategy, which encouraged state-owned or private companies to
venture overseas.
The resulting infrastructure boom, especially in housing,
roads and power plants, attracted several Chinese companies, and in 2004
Export-Import Bank of China pledged US$2 billion in oil-backed loans to fund
reconstruction.
In what came to be known as the Angola model, Luanda
pioneered the concept of oil-backed loans as an easy way to access Chinese
funding for the building of roads, hydroelectric dams and railways. It was
successful until oil prices fell, forcing the country to pump more oil to
service its debts.
In the interim, Angola became a star performer in
sub-Saharan Africa, with its economy growing by an average of 11 per cent a
year between 2001 and 2010 under president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who stepped
down in 2017 after 38 years in power.
In the early 2000s, Angola became Africa's biggest
destination for Chinese capital, receiving US$42.6 billion from Chinese lenders
- more than a quarter of China's total lending to African countries between
2000 and 2020.
But the boom was short-lived. When global oil prices
plummeted to below US$50 a barrel in mid-2014 from a high of US$115 per barrel,
the Angolan economy suffered. It fell into recession in 2016 and contracted for
five consecutive years. The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the problem, and the
country only narrowly avoided a debt default recently.
Joao Lourenco - also known as JLo - who replaced dos Santos
as president in 2017, promised to reverse the nation's dwindling fortunes,
diversify the oil-dependent economy and reduce its excessive reliance on China,
describing economic diversification as "a matter of life or death"
for Angola's long-term prospects.
In 2019, he admitted the concept
behind the oil-backed loans the country had signed with China was not working.
"The thing is
that such kinds of credit lines had a condition that the debt would be switched
out with oil as a collateral," he said. "But today we are
discontinuing such a practice ... advised by the IMF and the World Bank."
As president, Lourenco, a former
defense minister and freedom fighter, has led an anti-corruption campaign
targeting his predecessor's family and close associates that has seen a number
of them charged, including Isabel dos Santos, the ex-president's eldest
daughter, who stands accused of money laundering and mismanagement while head
of state-owned oil firm Sonangol.
Researchers say the
new government's change in attitude towards Chinese credit has contributed to a
decline in the country's Chinese population, now estimated to have been reduced
to less than 20,000.
"There are fewer and fewer Chinese citizens on the
streets of Luanda," said Gilson Lazaro, an associate professor in the
sociology department at Agostinho Neto University and an investigator at the
Centre for African Studies at the Catholic University of Angola.
However, he said a few Chinese workers could be seen around
some commercial projects, mainly outside the city center.
"Most Chinese citizens in the
city are outside the urban centre, in peripheral areas, in business or
commercial projects," Lazaro said. "In some places you can say they
are part of the Chinese trading community."
He attributed the
exit of Chinese from Luanda to the end of employment contracts related to major
construction projects. He said Chinese construction companies had maintained a
notable presence in Angola during the past decade, with a particular focus on
the construction of housing.
"Due to the end of contracts and changes in the
priorities of the Angolan government, the Chinese presence has been
substantially reduced to residual levels," Lazaro said.
Analysts say Angola's relationship with China has changed
dramatically under the new government.
A 2021 study co-authored by Dominik Kopinski, an associate
professor at the University of Wroclaw in Poland, said interviews had revealed
"a great deal of uncertainty among the Chinese business community, who
fear the cozy relations guaranteed by the dos Santos clique may prove to be a
thing of the past given the volatility of oil prices and the allegedly corrupt
nature of many of the deals in place".
"The so-called Angola model is now regarded not only as
unsustainable, but as posing an existential threat to the stability of the
Angolan economy," it said.
Kopinski, who is also a co-founder of the Polish Centre for
African Studies, said Lourenco had made it clear that "the relationship
with China got to the point where it was too cosy, too pricey and thus
politically risky for the regime".
"There was some serious rethinking on the Chinese part
too at roughly the same time, and the realization came that China might have
become simply overexposed in Angola, and debt sustainability might be an
issue," he said.
"There are, for instance, rumors that when JLo made a
trip to China in October 2018 asking for loans, the Chinese said that the lending
spree was no more. Most importantly, the pandemic came and did the rest of the
decoupling."
Kopinski, who has done extensive field studies in Angola,
said that as loans ground to a halt, Chinese state-owned enterprises were cut
off from financing and most had left or drastically curtailed their operations
in Angola.
"Nowadays, maybe 10,000 to 20,000 Chinese are living in
Angola, compared with 300,000 at the peak," he said. "But the truth
is that you can barely see Chinese on the streets of Luanda these days, so the
honeymoon is over, and the Sino-Angolan marriage of convenience has reached a
turning point."
Marisa Lourenco, an analyst at Control Risks, a global risk
consultancy, who focuses on southern Africa, said that as Chinese investors
fled to other markets and workers left, "we are seeing the return of old
partners to Angola", like Brazilian conglomerate Novonor, formerly
Odebrecht, and Mitrelli from Israel.
She said no new Chinese projects had been announced under
President Lourenco, and only Huawei, in the telecoms sector, was active.
"Lourenco has fostered strong ties to the United States
and Germany as well as strengthening existing ties with old partners France and
Portugal," she said.
However, Lazaro said Angola was still a long way from
substantively reducing its dependence on China. "There has been movement
in this direction, but there is still a long way to go before this can become a
reality," he said.
Translation
隨著安哥拉新總統重新調整非洲國家與中國的關係，居住在安哥拉的中國人人數估計已從內戰後建設熱潮期間的
30 萬多人的高峰降至不到 2 萬人。
安哥拉內戰在經歷了 27 年的破壞後於
2002 年結束時，同意資助該國重建的是中國而不是西方。這與中國政府的
“走出去” 戰略相吻合，該戰略鼓勵國有或私營企業到海外投資。
由此產生的基礎設施繁榮，特別是在住房、道路和發電廠方面，吸引了幾家中國公司。在2004
年，中國進出口銀行承諾提供
20 億美元的石油支持貸款，以資助重建。
這在後來被稱為安哥拉模式，Luanda 率先提出了石油支持貸款的概念，作為獲得中國資金用於建設公路、水電大壩和鐵路的一種簡便方法。它是成功的,
直至在油價下跌迫使該國抽出更多的石油來償還債務。
在此期間，安哥拉成為撒哈拉以南非洲地區的明星，2001 年至 2010
年間，安哥拉經濟在總統Jose
Eduardo dos Santos 的領導下平均每年增長 11%，後者在執政 38 年後於
2017 年下台。
2000 年代初期，安哥拉成為非洲最大的中國資本目的地，從中國貸款機構獲得 426 億美元，超過
2000 年至
2020 年間中國對非洲國家貸款總額的四分之一。
但繁榮是短暫的。 2014 年年中，當全球油價從每桶 115 美元的高位暴跌至每桶
50 美元以下時，安哥拉經濟遭受重創。
2016年陷入衰退，連續五年收縮。
Covid-19 大流行加劇了這個問題，該國最近才勉強避免了債務違約。
Joao Lourenco - 也被稱為 JLo - 於 2017 年接替dos Santos 擔任總統，承諾扭轉國家日益衰退的命運，使純依賴石油的經濟变得多元化, 並減少對中國的過度依賴，將經濟多元化描述為對於安哥拉的長期前景是“生死攸關的問題” 。
2019 年，他承認該國與中國簽署的石油支持貸款背後的概念並不奏效。
他說: “問題在於，這類信貸額度的條件是，債務將以石油作為抵押品”; “但今天我們將停止這種做法......由國際貨幣基金組織和世界銀行作出的建議。”
作為總統，前國防部長和自由鬥士 Lourenco 領導了一場針對其前任總統家人和親密夥伴的反腐敗運動，其中一些人受到檢控，其中包括前總統的長女
Isabel dos Santos 在擔任國有石油公司 Sonangol 的負責人期間被指洗錢和管理不善。
研究人員表示，新政府對中國信貸態度的轉變導致該國華人人口的減少，目前估計已減少到不到 20,000 人。
Agostinho Neto 大學社會學系副教授、安哥拉天主教大學非洲研究中心研究員 Gilson
Lazaro 說: “Luanda 街頭的中國公民越來越少。”
然而，他說在一些商業項目周圍可以看到一些中國工人，主要是在市中心以外。
Lazaro說： “這座城市的大多數中國公民都在市中心之外，在外圍地區，從事商業或商業項目”; “在某些地區，你可以說他們是中國貿易社區的一部分。”
他將中國人從Luanda 撤離歸咎於與重大建設項目相關的僱傭合同的終止。他說，在過去十年中，中國建築公司在安哥拉一直保持著顯著的影響力，尤其專注於住房建設。
Lazaro說: “由於合同的終止和安哥拉政府優先事項的變化，中國人的出現在已大大減少到殘餘水平” 。
分析人士說，安哥拉與中國的關係在新政府領導下發生了巨大變化。
由波蘭 Wroclaw University 副教授 Dominik
Kopinski
合著的一項 2021 年研究稱，採訪揭示了“中國商界存在很大的不確定性，,鑑於石油價格的波動和許多現有交易的據稱腐敗性質，他們擔心dos
Santos集團保證的友好關係可能將成為過去 "。
研究說: “所謂的安哥拉模式現在不僅被認為是不可持續的，而且對安哥拉經濟的穩定構成了生存威脅” 。
Kopinski同時也是波蘭非洲研究中心的聯合創始人，他說Lourenco 已經明確表示， “與中國的關係已經到了過於親密、過於昂貴的地步，因此對政權來說存在政治風險” 。
他說: “大約在同一時間，中國方面也進行了一些認真的重新思考，並意識到中國可能只是在安哥拉過度暴露，債務可持續性可能是一個問題” 。
“例如，有傳言稱，當 JLo 於
2018 年
10 月前往中國尋求貸款時，中國人說不再有瘋狂放貸。最重要的是，病毒大流行來了，要完成了其餘的脫鉤。”
在安哥拉進行過廣泛實地研究的 Kopinski 表示，隨著貸款停頓，中國國有企業的融資被切斷，大多數企業已經離開或大幅縮減在安哥拉的業務。
他說: “如今，可能有
10,000 至 20,000 名中國人居住在安哥拉，而高峰時期為 300,000 人”; “但事實是，這刻你在Luanda的街頭幾乎看不到中國人，所以蜜月結束了，中安聯姻已經到了一個轉折點。”
專注於南部非洲的全球風險諮詢公司 Control Risks 的分析師
Marisa Lourenco 表示，隨著中國投資者撤往其他市場和中國工人離開， “我們正在看到老合作夥伴重返安哥拉” ，比如巴西企業集團 Novonor ，以前的 Odebrecht, 和來自以色列的 Mitrelli。
她說，在Lourenco總統的領導下，沒有宣布任何新的中國項目，只有華為在電信領域很活躍。
她說: “Lourenco 與美國和德國建立了牢固的聯繫，並加強了與老夥伴法國和葡萄牙的現有聯繫。”
然而，Lazaro表示，安哥拉距離大幅減少對中國的依賴還有很長的路要走。他說： “這個方向已經有了進展，但要成為現實還有很長的路要走。”
So,
the number of Chinese people living in Angola
dropped from a peak of more than 300,000 during a post-civil war construction
boom to less than 20,000 as a new president adjust the country's relationship
with China. In the early 2000s, Angola was Africa's
biggest destination for Chinese capital, but the boom was short-lived. When
global oil prices plummeted, the Angolan economy suffered. It fell into
recession in 2016 and contracted for five consecutive years. The so-called
Angola model is now regarded as unsustainable, and the country still a long way
from substantively reducing its dependence on China. I am wondering if Sri
Lanka’s current difficult financial situation is due to over borrowing from
other countries, in particular from China.
Note:
Luanda is the capital and largest city in Angola. It is
Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban center.
