New AU HQ - A Tribute to China-Africa Relations

by Antoine Roger Lokongo

In her article Chika Ezeanya reckons that it is an insult to the AU and to every African that a building as symbolic as the AU headquarters (HQ) is designed, built and maintained by a foreign country [China].

My initial reaction as a journalist was to get the information right. First of all, the new AU HQ was inaugurated by Jia Qinglin, Chairman of China's political advisory body, not by President Hu Jintao. Second, the project cost $200 million in total, not $124 million as Chika Ezeanya reports. Third, a team of up to 1,2 00 Chinese and Ethiopian workers labored around the clock in two or three shifts to finish it on schedule. The project coordinator is an African himself. If the new project was coordinated by an African, it becomes factually untrue to say that the building was fully designed, built and will be maintained by the Chinese without African input.

But [for Chika Ezeanya] to suggest that the Chinese, like the crafty Odysseus, have devised a plan through the new AU HQ that ultimately will doom Africans is venal thinking. Chika Ezeanya can be as much averse to the new AU HQ edifice as she likes, but evoking the construction of American embassies all over the world as underlying America's geo-strategic interests and attributing the same intentions to China is conspiracy theory at its worst. So, how come an African like Chika Ezeanya sees the new AU HQ only as an insult, a discredit or an act of descending to a new low by African leaders when Americans, Greeks, British, Spanish, Portuguese, in short our colonial masters who now borrow money from China and benefit from Chinese investments, do not? For Chika Ezeanya's information, in the United States the new 2,050 ft-long bridge that will connect San Francisco to Oakland on the other side of the bay is being built in China.

What have we Africans got to show for staying with the West for centuries? We should have "looked east" a long time ago. The relationship between China and Africa has always been one of mutual support and Africa's support to China has been invaluable. This is what young Chinese and young Africans must be taught and reminded of. China has never come to Africa as a colonizer and has never enslaved African people. Perhaps Chika Ezeanya has a problem with "China's gift to Africa" as the new AU HQ is termed. She sees in the new AU HQ only as a "poisoned or poisonous gift." However, in the Chinese culture, gift giving is a way to express your friendship, gratitude, loyalty or hospitality to one another. China has built "Friendship Hospitals" and "Friendship Schools" in almost every African country. Would Chika Ezeanya then suggest that we close them because they were designed, built and maintained by the Chinese?

(The article has been edited for space. For details, see www.chinafrica.cn)