China's New Role in African Politics: From Non-Intervention Towards Stabilization? by Christof Hartmann & Nele Noesselt

Author:Christof Hartmann & Nele Noesselt [Hartmann, Christof & Noesselt, Nele]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138392076
Google: xw79wQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 49244628
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2020-01-15T07:07:11+00:00

China and backsliding

In the elections of 2005, often understood as a watershed moment in Ethiopia’s post-Derg political transition, the EPRDF faced the strongest opposition challenge against its rule. Two opposition coalitions, the CUD and UEDF, actively competed in the election, seizing nearly a third of the seats in parliament. After the election, the two opposition parties alleged voter fraud and organized mass anti-government demonstrations. The EPRDF responded with a violent police crackdown that killed nearly 200 people (BBC News 2006). The European Union (EU), one of Ethiopia’s leading sources of development assistance and trade at the time, issued a report condemning widespread human rights violations in the post-election crackdown and announcing that the election fell short of international standards (Vasagar 2005). Meles Zenawi publicly confronted the EU criticism, stating, ‘We shall in the coming days and weeks see what we can do to expose the pack of lies and innuendoes that characterize the garbage in this report’ (Vasagar 2005). He also went on to question the value of maintaining the country’s relationship with the EU and receiving its development assistance remarking, ‘What the implications of this will be in terms of relations between Ethiopia and the European Union, we will have to wait and see but I don’t think you will be surprised if Ethiopia were to insist that it should not be patronized’ (Vasagar 2005).

While many Western donor states criticized the election violence and symbolically suspended assistance to Ethiopia, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao issued a message of congratulations to Meles shortly after his election victory (Ethiopian Herald 2005). In August 2005, a few months after Ethiopia’s turbulent general election, Chinese Lieutenant General Zhu Wenquan met Prime Minister Meles and announced, ‘Ethiopia and China shall forge mutual cooperation in military training, exchange of military technologies, and peacekeeping missions, among others’ (Cabestan 2012, 54). Beijing also provided equipment and training to help the EPRDF establish a system run by Ethiopia’s Information Network Security Agency to surveil Internet activity for content critical of the regime and jam uncensored TV and radio signals from the independent Ethiopian Satellite Station, Voice of America, and Deutsche Welle (Addis Neger 2010; ESAT 2011). Additionally, China’s Exim Bank extended a US$1.5 billion loan to Ethiopia for the Chinese firm, Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment, to establish a national mobile phone network (Yewondwossen 2008; Bräutigam and Hwang 2017). China’s total trade with Ethiopia also grew from US$543 million in 2005 to US$692 million in 2006 (Simoes and Hidalgo 2017).

This intensification of Ethiopia’s relationship with China alongside the Meles administration’s public defiance against Western partners in the wake of the controversial 2005 election, suggests that China may have served as a ‘black knight’ (Levitsky and Way 2010, 41) in Ethiopia’s political development. By offering Ethiopia growing political and economic support at a time in which it was facing intense scrutiny from Western states for its repression of political opponents, Beijing helped Ethiopia establish leverage against international pressure to adhere to democratic norms of governance and constrain its use of force against opposition actors.

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