A relação entre a China e os Países Africanos da Língua Oficial Portuguesa (PALOP) 2000-2020: uma análise sobre as trocas comerciais e investimentos

Abstract

This Phd thesis is one of International Relations field, which central study object is the relations between China and the African Portuguese Speaking Countries (PALOP, in portuguese), namely: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. Its main objective is to analyze, based on approaches and interpretations of the process of capital accumulation and exportation, the trade exchanges and investments of China in these countries, focusing on Angola and Mozambique, the largest and richest of these countries. China's relationship with this African group of countries, as well as with Africa in general, started from the period of struggles for political independence. The Macau Forum, a mechanism articulated in 2003 by the Chinese government to strengthen and intensify economic and commercial relations with portuguese speaking countries, including the PALOP, boosted and renewed the Asian giant's relations with these nations. Since the creation of the aforementioned Forum in 2003, in which China uses the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) as a platform for cooperation with Portuguese speaking countries, once it was a former portuguese former colony, there has been a considerable and regular increase in both trade exchanges and investments made by Beijing in these countries. To understand the reasons for this increase, the theoretical framework used was the different Marxist interpretations those analyze and explain the dynamics of capital accumulation and exportation, including Marx himself, Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin, Harvey and others. Despite having a socialistic system backround since its founding in 1949 revolution led by Mao Zedong, the Asian giant has vigorously emerged into the contemporary global capitalist system, especially since the implementation of structural economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping administration, who replaced Mao after the revolutionary leader death. With the reforms, Beijing promoted profound changes in its foreign policy doctrine and opened itself up to global capital, attracting several players interested in its domestic market, including multinational and international corporations, obtaining from them, with the strategic implementation of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) – the know-how and necessary capital to develop its own economic and productive capacities. After achieving this goal, by accumulating a lot of capital and developing industrial capacity, Beijing adopted, in the late 1990s, the “Going Out” policy, encouraging Chinese companies and capital to find new markets in order to sell their production as well as to open up the possibilities of import facilitation of raw materials, mainly energetic one, to sustain the accelerated economic development process which the country came to experiment. Africa, including the PALOP, rich in raw materials and natural resources and which experienced a period of economic revitalization since the beginning of the millennium, became main target for the fulfillment of this strategy. These and other perceptions corroborate the thesis defended in this work, that China's relationship with the PALOP, particularly Angola and Mozambique, despite contemplating other interests, is essentially limited to meeting these challenges faced by the Asian giant. For the collection and analysis of the data that led to these conclusions, the work used the exploratory-qualitative methodology, making use essentially of bibliographic, documentary and explanatory techniques, both for the collection and for the analysis of the data/findings (primary and secondary) used.