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SILENCE CHARUMBIRA Recent Western policy briefs on Chinese activities in Africa reveal troubling historical amnesia. For centuries, European and American corporations systematically extracted Africa’s wealth through colonialism and continue doing so through neo-colonial arrangements. Western capitals were built directly on African minerals, timber, and enslaved labour – yet throughout this plunder, Western civil society, environmental watchdogs, and governments remained silent. Western nations built their prosperity on centuries of unrestricted emissions and environmental destruction, yet now impose stringent climate requirements on developing nations. The same Western corporations that benefited from “weak” regulatory environments – deliberately created through structural adjustment programmes imposed by Western-dominated financial institutions – now criticize Chinese firms operating under identical conditions. Western corporate environmental damage in Africa rarely generates criticism. This selective outrage reveals the primary concern is not environmental protection, but maintaining Western commercial dominance. Deconstructing flawed recommendations Western policy reports systematically attribute environmental degradation to “Chinese entities” while ignoring the multinational nature of African extractive industries. Many sites involve partnerships between Chinese, Western, and local actors, yet damage is selectively attributed to Chinese participants without comparative analysis showing whether Chinese operations are systematically worse than Western counterparts. Environmental destruction in African mining predates Chinese involvement by decades. Western corporations established the extractive infrastructure and exploitative practices characterizing the sector. Many “Chinese companies” are actually joint ventures with significant Western investment and technical participation. The neat attribution of environmental problems to “Chinese” entities obscures globalized capital and shared responsibility. Impractical and discriminatory recommendations The policy recommendations reveal their true purpose: creating obstacles to Chinese engagement rather than solving environmental problems. Suggestions that African countries implement comprehensive digital reporting systems ignore the reality that most African governments operate with analogue systems. The reports fail to address who provides digital infrastructure, who maintains it, or where data is stored – likely because honest answers would reveal Western technology firms controlling the systems. This represents digital colonialism embedding Western surveillance into African governance. The recommendation for visa requirements specifically targeting Chinese nationals is transparently discriminatory. This would restrict Chinese mobility while maintaining visa-free arrangements for Western nationals, hampering legitimate business, cultural exchange, and technical cooperation while doing little for environmental protection. This exposes the recommendation as a geopolitical tool to disconnect Africa from China rather than genuine environmental protection. Modeling development against China’s environmental protection achievements China has achieved remarkable environmental progress contradicting Western narratives. China has incorporated environmental protection into its Five-Year Plans since 1975, with increasingly sophisticated approaches, and has developed some of the world’s most comprehensive environmental legislation, demonstrating that rapid development can transition toward sustainability through strong state capacity. Since the 11th Five-Year Plan, China has included binding environmental targets as government promises, representing governmental commitment to environmental outcomes few nations have matched. China’s achievements include massive reforestation programs, dramatic air pollution reductions, leadership in renewable energy deployment, and the world’s largest carbon trading scheme. This demonstrates environmental protection and economic development need not be mutually exclusive – a model directly relevant to African countries seeking their own development pathways. China’s 15th five-year plan: deepening environmental commitment China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) places green development and environmental protection at the center of its development strategy, with this cycle placing low-carbon transformation front and center through ecological restoration, green manufacturing, renewable energy, and digital governance. This domestic commitment demonstrates China’s seriousness about sustainable development and provides a model that African nations can study and adapt. Unlike Western climate action focused on imposing restrictions on developing nations while protecting Western industries, China’s approach emphasizes technological solutions, renewable energy investment, and support for other developing nations’ green transitions. This offers African countries partnership for environmental protection respecting their sovereignty and development needs. President Xi’s concrete FOCAC commitments At the 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), H.E. President Xi Jinping emphasized China is ready to help Africa build “green growth engines,” with China pledging 30 green cooperation projects focused on green investments in energy and renewable technology sectors, along with $51 billion in financial support over three years. These are concrete pledges backed by financial resources, not mere rhetoric. China announced it would “use development assistance to deliver 1 000 ‘small and beautiful’ projects to improve people’s livelihoods,” reflecting a focused approach prioritizing tangible improvements in African lives. This evolution – moving from only massive infrastructure toward smaller-scale initiatives directly improving livelihoods – demonstrates China’s willingness to adapt based on African partners’ expressed needs. Renewable energy impact and transformation in Lesotho The tangible benefits of Chinese investment become clear examining specific examples. In Lesotho, the Mafeteng Solar Power Plant Project, financed by the Exim Bank of China, generates 30MW of electricity that could power 30 000 homes, helping Lesotho optimize its energy structure and address electricity shortfalls that previously forced many people, especially in rural areas, to rely on biomass such as wood for fuel. This exemplifies China’s “small is beautiful” philosophy in practice. Rather than creating unsustainable debt burdens, this approach delivers meaningful energy access improvements directly impacting daily lives. The Lesotho government has engaged Chinese firms to construct an additional 70 MW solar power plant, further expanding Chinese contributions to renewable energy. These investments address real needs in a country where only 47 percent of households have electricity access, concentrated in urban areas. Unlike abstract policy recommendations, these projects represent concrete improvements in African lives. They demonstrate Chinese engagement delivers genuine development outcomes while advancing environmental sustainability – precisely the partnership African nations need. Impetus for African agency and rejection of weaponization of African voices African nations must recognize when their voices are weaponized to serve external geopolitical agendas. Western policy reports claim to incorporate African expertise, yet recommendations align with Western interests in containing China rather than genuinely empowering African institutions. True respect for African agency would produce recommendations centered on strengthening African institutions using African-designed solutions and South-South cooperation, not mechanisms increasing dependence on Western technical assistance and oversight. African environmental experts must ask: who benefits from these recommendations? When proposals systematically favour arrangements embedding Western control into African governance, increasing dependence on Western technology, and restricting partnerships with non-Western actors, they serve external interests. Genuine African agency means determining development pathways, environmental priorities, and international partnerships without external dictation. Strengthening South-South Cooperation African countries should deepen South-South cooperation as an alternative to dependent relationships with Western institutions. China’s development experience – transforming from widespread poverty to prosperity within decades while increasingly addressing environmental challenges – offers directly relevant lessons far more applicable than Western models from countries that industrialized under completely different circumstances with unlimited colonial resources. South-South cooperation could include: exchanges of environmental enforcement officials to share practical implementation experience; technical cooperation on renewable energy deployment including technology transfer and training; collaboration on developing appropriate environmental standards balancing development with ecological protection; and joint research on environmental challenges specific to developing countries. This cooperation should extend beyond China to Brazil, India, Vietnam, and other Global South nations with relevant experience, building a knowledge network on sustainable development reducing dependence on Western expertise. Seeking African agency and African-led solutions African nations must strengthen environmental governance by revitalizing enforcement of existing laws and building indigenous capacity – exactly the path China followed. This requires adequate funding for environmental agencies, eliminating corruption through institutional reform, and developing homegrown expertise rather than dependence on external consultants. Strengthening enforcement means ensuring environmental laws already on the books are implemented. Many African countries have adequate legislation; the problem is insufficient enforcement capacity. This requires investing in training inspectors, equipping them properly, ensuring adequate salaries reducing corruption incentives, and backing enforcement actions with political support. Any digital transformation must be homegrown – developed by African engineers, hosted on African servers, controlled by African institutions. African countries pursuing digital governance must insist on technology transfer, local capacity building, and full control over data and systems. Regional cooperation through African Union mechanisms offers more promising governance frameworks than externally-designed systems. African nations should develop continent-wide environmental standards, monitoring frameworks, and enforcement cooperation respecting national sovereignty while enabling collective action. The rise of the Global South, with China as a leading partner, offers African nations genuine alternatives to centuries of Western exploitation. This creates space to negotiate better terms, diversify partnerships, and pursue development pathways aligned with their own priorities. Western attempts to delegitimize these partnerships through selective environmental criticism must be recognized as desperate efforts to maintain fading hegemony. Western reports on Chinese activities in Africa weaponize environmental concerns to maintain dominance over African resources and delegitimize China’s growing partnership with African nations. While environmental protection is crucial, these recommendations serve Western geopolitical interests rather than African development. African nations must chart their own course – strengthening environmental governance on their own terms, applying regulations equally to all investors, building strong state capacity, and deepening South-South cooperation offering genuine alternatives to dependent Western relationships. China’s experience demonstrates rapid development and environmental protection can be reconciled through strategic planning, while its FOCAC engagement shows willingness to support African development respecting African sovereignty. The transformation of Lesotho’s energy sector through Chinese-financed renewable energy demonstrates concrete benefits South-South cooperation delivers – clean electricity, has allowed Lesotho to dream, with Foreign Affairs Minister Lejone Mpotjoane proclaiming last year that the kingdom would have 100 percent renewable energy on its grid by 2028. As China implements its 15th Five-Year Plan with deepened commitment to green development, African nations have unprecedented opportunities to pursue partnerships respecting their sovereignty and serving their interests. The future of African development will be determined by Africans, not by Western think tanks pursuing geopolitical agendas. That future includes strengthened environmental protection – but achieved through African agency, South-South cooperation, and partnerships respecting African sovereignty rather than mechanisms designed to maintain Western dominance. • Silence Charumbira is an international journalist based in Maseru, Lesotho. He is former Deputy Editor of the Lesotho Times and Sunday Express. He has also worked with multiple reputable organisations like China Daily, Guangming, Associated Press (AP) The Guardian and CNN, among others. He writes on diverse topics including China-Africa relations. Views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the publication
