【08.12.29独立报】中国新的出口项目:农民

yangfuguang

【原文标题】China's new export: farmers
【中文标题】中国新的出口项目：农民
【登载媒体】独立报
【来源地址】http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinas-new-export-farmers-1215001.html

【译者】yangfuguang
【声明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，转载请注明译者及出处，谢谢！


China's new export: farmers

China has a shortage of land, Africa a shortage of food. So one entrepreneur had the bright idea of persuading Chinese farmers to emigrate.

Clifford Coonan reports from Hebei province
Monday, 29 December 2008

Liu Jianjun is wearing a brightly coloured African tunic, the tall hat of a tribal leader, a string of red beads round his neck and carrying a stick with a secret knife in the handle. Beside him sits a portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong. It is a slightly incongruous scene but one that mirrors the ever-closer relationship between Asia's economic giant China and the world's poorest continent.

"The African people yell, 'Mao Zedong is all right' and they are very warm-hearted when I'm there," says one of China's most prominent private sector ambassadors. "The minute Chinese people get off the plane, the Africans are friendly. Chinese do not bring rifles and weapons; they bring seeds and technology."


China's Ministry of Commerce triumphantly announced this month that its bilateral trade with the continent is set to hit $100bn (£67.8bn) by the end of 2008, two years ahead of schedule. Africa's plentiful oilfields and rich mineral deposits are top of China's imports, and in return the world's most populous nation is exporting tens of thousands of its countrymen.

By some estimates, 750,000 Chinese people have spent time on the continent or have moved to Africa permanently to do business and take advantage of the natural resources. And Hebei, the province from where the middle-aged Mr Liu hails, is no exception. He reckons 10,000 farmers from Hebei alone have gone to 18 African countries in the past few years.

They work in "Baoding villages", named after the dusty township where Mr Liu lives; he likes to point out that Baoding means "Protection and peace". The villages, ranging in size from 400 to 2,000 Chinese, have been set up across the continent, from Nigeria to Kenya, from Sudan to Zambia.

Mr Liu started the Baoding villages when he was head of Hebei province's foreign trade bureau in 1998 and was seeking ways to boost the local economy, which had been dampened by the Asian financial crisis. He discovered Africa.

"We found Africa was not affected by the crisis, and we went there, and found that local people were short of food, even though there was lots of land not in use for farming and plenty of animals," he says. "So I decided to switch from exporting goods to exporting agricultural expertise."

It is a winning formula for China, which has more than 20 per cent of the world's population but only 7 per cent of its arable land. "China has too many people and too little land," Mr Liu ponts out. "In Africa, they have plenty of land and too few farmers. Places such as Ivory Coast are short of 400,000 tonnes of food a year, and the local people cannot farm enough to feed the population. Local farming skills are not developed."

In the kind of comment you do not hear in public in the politically correct West any more, Mr Liu describes African farmers as "a little bit lazy, happier to pick the fruits off the trees than grow it themselves". But he obviously loves the place.

One of the Baoding villagers who went to work in an African namesake is farmer Zhang Xuedong, who spent about a year in Abidjan, the Ivory Coast capital. "I'm fond of African culture and I find the people there quite lively," the farmer says.

Although China has witnessed astounding economic growth, albeit slowing in recent months, there is a yawning gap between the city and the countryside, and the largely rural hinterland remains poor. So for Chinese farmers in places such as Hebei, the prospect of earning up to £7,000 a year in Africa is remarkably attractive, allowing them to send home vital remittances. "My family stayed in Baoding while I went to Africa on my own to teach the Africans how to plant vegetables," Mr Zhang adds.

Li Zhu, chairman of Dafei International Investment, first heard about the opportunities in Africa through the internet and the papers. "Before going there, I was very worried," says Mr Li, who bought 2,000 acres in Mbale in Uganda and is running a Chinese club there. "My family also felt worried. We all heard there were wars, conflicts and diseases. But finally I went there in August last year." A friend of Mr Liu, he hopes to set up a farm and a tractor factory, and is teaching Africans planting techniques using machinery.

"I don't like the food – it's always Western cuisine – but I do love Africa," Mr Li says. "The weather is nice, comfortable and warm. The people are kind and they live in a harmonious society, and are full of passion. I visited Kenya and Uganda. I ultimately chose Uganda, because the country is steady. The local government is very eager to develop the country, but they don't know how to do that. So they want to learn from us. We provide ideas such as development zones. I also heard that there are some good mines, gold mines and quarries, in Uganda. The downside is that we don't know the countries and their local customs; corruption is a problem."

It is not just individuals who are capitalising on an abundance of workers to send over to Africa. The head of China's Export-Import Bank, Li Ruogu, pledged to help finance emigration to Africa as part of a rapid urbanisation scheme in the western Chinese city of Chongqing, already reckoned the world's biggest metropolitan area with 32 million people. "With the establishment of the rapid urbanisation project, several million farmers will have to move," Mr Li told the People's Daily.

But critics of Chinese expansion into Africa see plenty of downsides. Beijing is willing to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses, and is widely accused of helping prop up unpopular leaders, including Zimbabwe's Robert, with arms shipments. China has also been widely condemned in the West for not doing more to pressure the government of Sudan – from whom it buys two-thirds of the national oil output – to end the conflict in stricken Darfur.

Now two Chinese destroyers and a supply vessel are to set sail to Somali waters to help international efforts to fight piracy. Somali pirates off east Africa have taken an array of shipping vessels hostage, including at least seven ships flying the Chinese flag or carrying Chinese crew, in the past 12 months. Now Chinese warships will be deployed to Africa for the first time in 600 years.
Mr Liu largely skirts these broader geo-political concerns, focusing more on the positive impact of Sino-African relations. He notes that the cultural exchange can even extend to marriage. "Some Chinese men marry African women; they like African girls because they are very slim."

With that, he stands up beside the portrait of Mao, and gathering his chiefly African robes, he quotes a Chinese proverb. "People are scared before they go, they are surprised when they arrive, and they miss it when they leave."

【译文】


        中国新的出口项目:农民

中国少地，非洲缺吃的。所以一个企业家有了一个天才的想法，那就是鼓励中国农民移民非洲。

克利福德·库南河北报道 2008，12，29   

    刘建军（音）身着鲜亮的具有非洲民族特色宽松外衣，头戴部落领袖的帽子，脖子上缠绕着一串珠子穿成的项链，手持一个上面有把隐秘的刀的权杖，他旁边是毛泽东的肖像。这看起来是不协调的，但这却是反映亚洲经济巨人中国和最贫困的非洲日益紧密的关系的一面镜子。

    “非洲人民喊叫“毛泽东是正确的”，而且当我刚到这儿的时候，他们很热情”,中国最杰出的私人部门的大使说：“当中国人下飞机时，非洲人民很热情。中国人没有带着枪支武器，我们带来了种子和技术。”

    这个月中国商务部耀武扬威地宣布中国和非洲2008年双边贸易额达到1000亿美元（678亿英镑）。非洲丰富的石油和矿物是中国最主要的进口品，作为回报，世界上人口最稠密国家向非洲输出了成千上万的农民。

    据估计，大约有75万中国人在非洲或永久定居在非洲，做生意或者利用自然资源。已到中年的刘先生的家乡，河北，也不例外。他估计在过去几年间大约有10000名农民从河北来到非洲的18个国家。

    他们在“保定村”工作，这是以尘土飞扬的刘先生生活的小镇命名的。他特意指出“保定”意味着“保护和安定”。这些村子，住着400——2000个中国人，已经在非洲大陆上建立了——从尼日利亚到肯尼亚，从苏丹到津巴布韦。

    在1998年，当刘先生还是河北外贸局主管的时候，他就开始建设这种村子了。他在寻求促进当地经济发展的方法，因为当时中国受到亚洲金融危机的影响。他找到了非洲。

    他说：“我们发现非洲没有受到危机的影响，我们到那儿，发现当地居民缺少食物，尽管那里有那么多的土地和动物。所以，我们决定从出口货物转向出口农业技术。”

    这对中国来说是稳赢的方式，中国人口占世界的20%，但只拥有世界耕地的7%。刘先生指出：“中国人太多，土地却太少。在非洲，他们有充足的土地，但是农民很少。像象牙海岸这个地方每年缺少40万吨的食物。当地的农艺技术有待提高”。

    在这种评论中，你在公共场合听不到关于政治的观点。刘先生认为非洲农民“有一点懒，喜欢从树上摘果子，不喜欢种果树”。但是，他显然喜欢这个地方。

    另一个在非洲保定村工作的农民是张学东（音），他在阿比让（科特迪瓦首都），象牙海岸的首都。他说：“我喜欢非洲文化，我发现这里的人民充满活力。”

    尽管中国经济发展让人震惊，尽管最近几个月增长放缓，但是城市和农村居民的收入存在很大差距，农村还很贫困。所以对于中国河北的农民来说，在非洲一年挣7000英镑是很有吸引力的，这可以让他们往家里汇钱。张先生补充道：“我的家人待在保定，我自己来到非洲教非洲人怎么种蔬菜。”

    李祝（音），达飞国际投资的主席，第一次知道非洲的商机是通过互联网和报纸。

    他在乌干达的姆巴莱买了2000英亩的土地，并经营一家中国俱乐部。他说：“在来之前，我很担心。我的家人也是，我们听说非洲到处是战争、冲突和疾病。但是，最终我在去年8月到非洲。刘的一个朋友也想建立一个农场和一个拖拉机厂，那样就可以教非洲人民用机械耕种了。

    刘先生说：“我不喜欢这里的食物——经常是西方的口味——但是我喜欢非洲。这里的气候很好，他们生活在一个和谐的社会，他们很有激情。我到过乌干达和肯尼亚。我最终选择了肯尼亚，这里国家稳定，当地政府也想振兴经济。所以他们想从我们这里学习。我们提供了很多想法，比如说经济特区。我也听说在乌干达有很多很好的矿产。不足之处在于，我们不是很了解这些国家和他们的生活习惯；腐败也是一个突出的问题。”

    把工人输送到非洲并不只是个人的行动。中国进出口银行的负责人，李若谷（音），保证将资助移民非洲的计划，以此作为中国西部城市重庆快速城市化计划的一部分，重庆估计是世界上最大的都市，市区有3200万人。李告诉人民日报：“为了快速实现城市化，几百万农民将要搬迁”。

    但是对于中国向非洲的扩张，批评的声音在下降。北京愿意对滥用人权睁一只眼闭一只眼，并且因为支持不受欢迎的领导人而饱受批评，这些人包括，津巴布韦的罗伯特·穆加贝，中国给他运送武器。中国在西方也是广受责难，因为中国没有向苏丹政府——从那里中国购买了该国三分之二的石油产量——施压，来停止在达尔富尔的冲突。

    现在中国两艘驱逐舰和一艘补给舰在驶向索马里海域，来支援国际打击海盗的行动。在过去的12个月里，非洲东海岸的索马里海盗已经劫持了很多船，包括至少七艘挂着中国国旗、或载有中国船员的船只。现在，中国海军600年以来第一次在非洲展开军事行动。

    刘先生极力绕开地缘政治的关系，更多关注的是中非关系中积极的因素。他强调说，文化交流甚至可以扩展到婚姻方面。“一些中国人娶了非洲老婆，他们喜欢非洲女孩是因为她们很苗条。”

    他站在毛泽东肖像旁边，整理他的非洲长袍，他引用了一个中国格言“人们来之前觉得害怕，到达的时候觉得吃惊，走的时候又觉得留恋”。