Posted on 07/18/2008 10:15:55 AM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
On June 5, 1873, in a letter to The Times, Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin and a distinguished African explorer in his own right, outlined a daring (if by today's standards utterly offensive) new method to 'tame' and colonise what was then known as the Dark Continent.
'My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race,' wrote Galton.
'I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semidetached dependency of China, or else in perfect freedom under their own law.'
Despite an outcry in Parliament and heated debate in the august salons of the Royal Geographic Society, Galton insisted that 'the history of the world tells the tale of the continual displacement of populations, each by a worthier successor, and humanity gains thereby'.
A controversial figure, Galton was also the pioneer of eugenics, the theory that was used by Hitler to try to fulfil his mad dreams of a German Master Race.
Eventually, Galton's grand resettlement plans fizzled out because there were much more exciting things going on in Africa.
But that was more than 100 years ago, and with legendary explorers such as Livingstone, Speke, Burton still battling to find the source of the Nile - and new discoveries of exotic species of birds and animals featuring regularly on newspaper front pages - vast swathes of the continent had not even been 'discovered'.
Yet Sir Francis Galton, it now appears, was ahead of his time. His vision is coming true -
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
1 out of every 5th person in this world is Chinese.
So the shock isn’t that Angola now has a “Chinatown”, but why every other country doesn’t.
West is afraid of Dark Continent for most part it seems. Bad news for US coming out of Africa is considered much worse than for example bad news coming out of Iraq or Afghanistan. Death of 20 US soldiers was enough for Clinton to withdraw from Somalia, but no one is willing to withdraw from Iraq or Afghanistan.
Chinese would BENEFIT Africa in my view, just as they are good for INDONESIA and MALAYSIA among other ASEAN Nations.
All the leading businessmen and entrepreuners in those Countries are of Chinese Heritage. I don’t think Indonesians and Malaysians are worse off for it. They are one of the leading growth economies and that’s a good thing.
Africa has the HIGHEST population growth rate amongst all Continents. It would be hard for *any* race to out grow Africans. Especially not the “elites”, who tend to not want have babies anyway because it is so much more fun to do so many other things.
My freind from South Korea told me that within 2 decades, South Korea like Japan would have NEGATIVE population growth rate, and since none of those Countries encourage or accept immigrants, they would suffer the consequences.
Success in Capitalism seems to reduce people’s desire to have babies is my point.
We make up for it with having higher birth-rate than Europeans and obviously through immigration and that keeps us strong.
If Chinese do not take elitist and racist and dominant attitude towards Africans, then they could possibly co-exist and prosper in Africa. We may have a new people knows as Chafricans. Who knows?
However if they try to form a separate society, and treat Africans as inferiors, then they would be well advised to view on what is going on in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
JMO.
Hmmmm ... I realize this statement calls for a response, but I will leave it to those with a better knowledge of prose.
Interesting series about China/Africa connection.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/126/special-report-china-in-africa.html
And I do believe the Chinese are establishing a seperate society. They do not meddle in local affairs. Their main goal is to benefit China.
I don’t really care that much. Let the Chinese go in there and invest - they can deal with the corruption, disease, rascim, claims of imperialism, etc...
China isn’t in Africa for any altruistic reasons. She’s there for the raw materials and energy and that’s the sole extent of her interest. Her dealings will enrich a few of the local strongmen but will leave the average African as bad off, if not worse off than he would have been without China’s presence. Witness Sudan and Darfur.
I am disappointed if my post came across as implying that China was in Africa for altruistic reasons.
The invisible hand is a good thing! Remember? With all the Liberal brainwashing, we are beginning to forget that.
Pursuit of “happiness” guided by invisible hand is what made us great and if more people allow the invisible-hand to function freely, they would become great too.
“And Why The West Should Be VERY Worried”
Why?
Leaving Africa to its own devices has been a failure all around. Being taken over by China will be just the last item in a long list of failures.
I don’t see a problem with this. Saddle the Chinese with Africa and see what they can make of it.
At least they’re not hampered by the West’s “delicate sensibilities.”
At this point, Africa is in dire need of a fresh dose of “colonialism”. Since the world is squeamish about the Western version, I guess the Eastern version will have to do.
The only real hope for Africa is a huge dose of Christianity. Some of the stories like Rwanda, Darfur and Zimbabwe are just too unbelievable to be real.
Deep Chinese involvement will do nothing to change the present nature of Africa ... have at it!
schu
If you read Philip Snow’s excellent book The Star Raft, he shows ( book is 20 years old) that Chinese interest in and penetration of Africa is very old news. Whree it failed in the past was because what African nation could ever become as regimented and single minded as Mao’s China. Now however the agents of the PRC arrive in Sayville Row suits and speak the language of international finance, with military hardware thrown in.They don’t bother the local leaders with niceties like civil rights. They very much remind me of good old American Organized Crime. As Michael might be paraphrased, for the Chinese in Africa “It’s business,not ideology.”
Wow! While the West is asleep, the Chinese are colonizing Africa.
“With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way.
The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve the problems of over-population and pollution.
The plans appear on track. Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities - oil, platinum, gold and minerals. New embassies and air routes are opening up. The continent’s new Chinese elite can be seen everywhere, shopping at their own expensive boutiques, driving Mercedes and BMW limousines, sending their children to exclusive private schools.
The pot-holed roads are cluttered with Chinese buses, taking people to markets filled with cheap Chinese goods. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold.”
Africa has demonstrated that they can do worse to themselves than would the Chinese.
Which is to say: China would be an improvement. Go for it. Just don’t ask for U.S. help unless you’ve shed blood or money for the U.S. (e.g. Ethiopia helping us in Somalia).
Some big differences between China and the US:
(1)They will not care about being called racist or imperialist
(2)They will not hesitate to use force if some African despot tries to nationalize their assets or kill their people
(3)They have no need for Africans. They have plenty of Chinese to do the work
The net result of Chinese colonization of Africa might just resemble the British colonization of North America (which didn't work out well for the Native Americans)
“China would be an improvement. “
Good point!
“Just don’t ask for U.S. help unless you’ve shed blood or money for the U.S.’
— Another good point. The US is sending Billions of dollars to Africa.
Let's say the Chinese brought lots of their people into Zimbabwe to get the country rolling again. Lots of young men of military age. And lets say that after a while the ZANU-PF thugs decide to hassle the Chinese.
Would the world care at this stage if the Chinese decided to arm their immigrants, and the Chinese proceeded to exterminate the Zimbabweans?
If that were to happen, I would suspect world would care to a degree. It won’t go unnoticed.
However, Chinese would be out of their mind if they think they have reached a point where they can occupy a Country and face insurgency thousands of miles away.
Their economic interest would be wiped out at that point.
Its costing us 10 billion a month to stay in Iraq.
Chinese would be dreaming if they thought they could afford to engage in that behavior.
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