Even as Western nations slowly rise to protest Uganda’s vow to exterminate HIV-positive Ugandans and to imprison friends and families of LGBT Ugandans, China is stepping in with $10 billion in new aid to Africa — much of it targeted at Uganda.
Unlike Western donors and importers, China attaches no strings involving human rights or democratization.
According to Uganda’s New Vision,
The aid offer, announced yesterday at a China-Africa summit in Egypt, is double that unveiled by President Hu Jintao at the last summit in Beijing in 2006.
President Yoweri Museveni is one of the 10 African leaders attending the two-day summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheikh. Also present is indicted Sudanese president Omar el Bashir.
The move by China highlights why the West may be reluctant to punish African nations for gross abuses of human rights: Any withdrawal by the United States or Europe will surrender Africa’s resources, labor, and geopolitical might to the rising global ambitions of Russia and China.
Back in the 1980s, this “lesser of evils” attitude by the West had a different name in South Africa: “Constructive engagement,” a euphemism for Western support of apartheid.
