It has been reported that China was looking to divest in the MENA region, and with the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya may expedite the process. "North Africa’s unrest and Libya’s situation in particular are testing China’s ‘go out’ strategy," says Wang Jinyan, research fellow at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. "This will have a definite impact on the future direction of our overseas investment."
However, China has made it known that most of the country’s overseas expeditions will be in new emerging economies. "The political risk aside, investment in Africa is no longer what it used to be," the Economic Observer quoted an unnamed official from the ministry in May.
And with these reports, information seems skewed as political tension has never seemed to bother China before. China invests heavily in Sudan and each year there is the China-African forum held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt which encourages Chinese investors to venture into the continent. The Asian superpower also became Africa’s largest trading partner in 2010, and its presence is growing.
Yet according to figures from the Ministry of Commerce, new Chinese contracts in North African countries in Q1 2011 have dropped dramatically, by 70.8% in Algeria and by 46.9% in Libya over the same period of last year. At a working conference in Shanghai in May, Sinosure, China’s official export credit insurance agency, revealed that in the first three months of 2011 its reported loss claims from MENA have risen by 167% over the same period of last year."You may not see the Chinese but you can see the stadiums and the roads and everything they have built," says Lawrence Brahm, a Beijing-based political columnist. "The jury on their role in Africa’s development is out. I still think that the great game between China and the West will be played out in Africa."
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