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Chinese threat should change our foreign policy

Ghana’s long-held foreign has been good neighbourliness with our immediate neighbours – Burkina Faso, Togo and Ivory Coast and friend, Nigeria – mooted by former president Kufour in 2001 when he assumed power. In a broader context, Ghana’s foreign policy has been to pursue a non-aligned policy and seek social and economic cooperation with the world.

Today, Ghana’s foreign policy is to pursue economic diplomacy in every relationship it engages in with other countries.

“The foreign policy of this country has shifted focus from what we call normal diplomacy, that is, good neighbourliness, good relations, making sure that the countries surrounding you, you are very chummy with them and all of that," Mrs Botchwey said during her vetting as the country’s chief diplomat.

She added: "What we have moved to is economic diplomacy and that is to ensure that in every relationship that Ghana engages in, that relationship should end up in promoting and protecting the interest of Ghana and also to ensure that it ends up in giving us positive dividends towards our development economically. So, that is the thrust of our foreign policy right now."

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This new line of diplomacy is informed by the Nana Akufo-Addo administration policy to industrialize the Ghanaian economy in line with the one-district one-factory policy.

Last week, the Chinese Embassy in Accra warned Ghana diplomatic relation between the two countries could hit bottom rock if the clamp down on illegal Chinese miners continues.

The Ambassador, Sun Baohong, claimed that most of the Chinese illegal miners engaged in the destruction of the nation’s water bodies and farm lands are victims of fraud.

In a strongly worded letter to Ghana’s Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Peter Amewu, the Chinese government also asked the Ghanaian government to guide the media in its work and how its portray Chinese leaders in various cartoon publications.

China portrays itself as a developing country. Over the last decades, it has become the second biggest economy in the world behind the USA. What this means is that China is indispensable in the economy of third world economies like Ghana. It has the world’s biggest millionaires and billionaires.

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Trade volumes between Ghana and China reached $5.6 billion at the end of 2014, making Ghana the Asian Country’s single biggest trading partner. It has surged from $100 in 2000 to $5.6 billion. In addition, Ghana’s export to China hit $1.4 billion in the same year.

In the last decades, as its economy booms, and the demand for natural resources increases, Ghana, and many developing countries have borne the brunt of its imperialism. China’s quest for natural resources to feed it factories and industries have been forceful, cozy, and without mercy. It is ruthless.

The attempt to flush out Galamseyers (illegal mines) has ruffled the feathers of the Chinese government prompting the threat from Beijing.  Galamseyers have existed in Ghana for over 50 years since Ghana begun mining gold. It is the introduction of Chinese technology in small-scale mining and galamsey that is causing destruction Ghana’s cocoa lands and river bodies.

The Water Research Institute of the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research has warned that in the next 10 to 20 years, Ghana may import water for domestic use. In addition, cocoa production targets are increasingly under threat because of the technology the Chinese have introduced in our mining history.

Already, the destruction of rivers and other water bodies by the Chinese and their Ghanaian accomplice is affecting diplomatic relations with Ivory Coast. The country last month complained bitterly to the Minister of Science and Technology, Professor Frimpong Boateng, that river pollution in Ghana is affecting the quality of water in Ivory Coast.

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Beijing’s international economic affairs policy lacks principles. It emphasizes on profit and ignoring justice. It gives meager with the left and takes much with the right.

Ghana has become the receiving end of China’s imperialism just like it has over the centuries with Western imperialism.

China does not see our relationship with them as mutual. They see it as a master and a servant relationship. In diplomacy, friends don’t threaten friends.

It is in this light that we have to change our relationship with the Chinese. China needs us just like we need them. They need our raw materials, we also need their investments. They need our market badly, and Chinese diplomats know this fact.

They must end the mining scourge or we call their bluff. We must not succumb to their veiled threat lest we become another colony of exploitation. History must not repeat itself.

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