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ABSTRACT
Against the backdrop of the Soviet Union’s 1970s reengagement with Africa through the Indian Ocean, this article investigates the overlapping extensions of aid and technical assistance to the island nation of Mauritius, focusing primarily on the unprecedented 1972 infrastructural development offer by the People’s Republic of China. By analysing the minutes of the Sino-Mauritian Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation’s negotiations as found in the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Colonial Office dossiers, this paper examines Chinese aid diplomacy to Africa in a period which saw its admission to the United Nations, its realignment against the USSR, and the concomitant latticed transformations of its aid diplomacy.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 《周恩来年谱》中卷(北京:中央文献出版社, 1997), 611.
2 ‘对外经济技术援助的八项原则 (一九六四年一月十五日)’,《周恩来外交文选》(北京: 中央文献出版社, 1990), 388–9.
3 Alaba Ogunsanwo, China’s Policy in Africa, 1958–1971 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 291; Jamie Monson, Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese Development Project Changed Lives and Livelihoods in Tanzania (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 35–70.
4 Gregg Brazinsky, Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 348.
5 Bruce D. Larkin, China and Africa, 1949–1970 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 94.
6 Chen Dengde, Mao Zedong + Nixon Zai 1972 (Beijing: Kunlun Press, 1988), 259–60. Quoted in Barbara Barnouin and Changgen Yu, Chinese Foreign Policy during the Cultural Revolution (London: Kegan Paul International, 1998), 65.
7 Deborah Brautigam, The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 310.
8 For the arrival of the Chinese delegation in Port Louis, ‘Minutes of Proceedings of Opening Meeting of Negotiations with the Delegation from the People’s Republic of China held on the 31 May 1972 at 9.40 a.m.’, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 31/1227, National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew (TNA). For Ramgoolam’s visit to Beijing:‘The New Chinese Presence’,《中非关系大事记(1949年10月1日 – 1984年12月)》,中国社会科学院西亚非洲研究所, 158, FCO 31/1227, TNA.
9 ‘Minutes of Proceedings of Meeting between the Mauritian Officials and the Chinese Delegation held on Friday, 2nd June at 2.45 p.m.’ 《周恩来外交活动大事记》(世界知识出版社, 1993), 365–6, FCO 31/1227, TNA.
10 《中非关系大事记》, 157–8.
11 ‘The New Chinese Presence’, FCO 31/1227, TNA.
12 國史館檔案史料文物查詢系統 (Academia Historica Online), 002–050101-00057-296, 12 January 1965, ‘總統蔣中正伉儷接見模里西斯總理藍姑夫婦’; 006–030203-00042-011, 12 May 1970, ‘副總統兼行政院長嚴家淦接見模里西斯外交部長Hon. Charles Gaetan Duval(徐灣)’. ‘The New Chinese Presence’, FCO 31/1227, TNA.
13 ‘The New Chinese Presence’, TNA, FCO 31/1227. By as late as 1960, the Beijing-headquartered All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese made contact with the Chinese-Mauritian community when they allocated a 10,000 RMB relief package in response to a typhoon. 《中非关系大事记》, 157.
14 S.V. Mazov, A Distant Front in the Cold War: The USSR in West Africa and the Congo, 1956–1964 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2010), 258; Alessandro Iandolo, ‘The Rise and Fall of the “Soviet Model of Development” in West Africa, 1957–1964, Cold War History 12, no. 4 (2011), 687.
15 Iandolo, ‘The Rise and Fall of the “Soviet Model of Development” in West Africa’, 685–6.
16 W. Scott Thompson, Ghana’s Foreign Policy, 1957–1966: Diplomacy, Ideology, and the New State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 274; Nkrumah’s Subversion in Africa: Documentary Evidence of Nkrumah’s Interference in the Affairs of Other African States (Accra-Tema: Ministry of Information, 1967); ‘Ghanaian Dissatisfaction with Socialist Aid’, Foreign Office (FO) 1110/1697, TNA.
17 David C. Engerman, The Price of Aid: The Economic Cold War in India (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018), 349, 354–5.
18 Alessandro Iandolo, ‘De-Stalinizing Growth: Decolonization and the Development of Development Economics in the Soviet Union’, in The Development Century: A Global History, ed. Stephen J. Macekura and Erez Manela (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 217–18.
19 Jeremy Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Split and the Third World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 146.
20 Radoslav Yordanov, The Soviet Union and the Horn of Africa During the Cold War: Between Ideology and Pragmatism (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016), 255.
21 ‘Ruling of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Arbitral Tribunal about the Chagos Marine Protected Area’, 18 March 2015, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Vol. XXI, Near East Region, ed. Nina Davis Howland and David S. Patterson (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 2000); Document 38, ‘Letter From the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (McNaughton) to Secretary of Defense MacNamara’; ‘Chiefs of Staff Meeting on 7 October, 1969, FCO 31/391, TNA.
22 L.F. Il’ichev, SSSR i strany Afriki: Dokumenty I materialy, 1963–1970 gg.: V dvukh chastyakh. Chast’ 2 (1967–1970 gg.) (Politizdat: Moscow, 1982), 99, 175; K.A. Wolverton’s 3 March 1969 letter; 17 March 1969 Letter from the Embassy of the Soviet Union copied from the Prime Minister’s Office; ‘Russian Requests for Facilities in Mauritius’; 16 April 1969 Letter from the Academy of Sciences of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics copied from the Prime Minister’s Office; ‘Soviet Facilities in Mauritius’; ‘Chiefs of Staff Meeting on 7 October, 1969, FCO 31/391, TNA.
23 5 December 1969 British High Commission Letter to Ramgoolam; ‘Record of a Meeting between Representatives of Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Ministry of Defence Departments’; 17 March 1969 Letter from the Embassy of the Soviet Union copied from the Prime Minister’s Office; ‘Russian Requests for Facilities in Mauritius’; FCO 31/917, TNA, ‘Aeroflot’; ‘The Indian Ocean Area – Soviet and Chinese Capabilities, Intentions and Opportunities’, 1, LOC-HAK-10-5-16-7, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA-FOIA). FCO 31/391, TNA.
24 ‘The Indian Ocean Area – Soviet and Chinese Capabilities, Intentions and Opportunities’, 1, LOC-HAK-10-5-16-7, CIA-FOIA.
25 ‘Record of a Meeting between Representatives of Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Ministry of Defence Departments’; ‘The Records of Maintaining Diplomatic Relations with the Soviet Union’; ‘Russian Activities in Mauritius’; 17 December 1969 Telegram from Stewart; 5 December 1969 British High Commission Letter to Ramgoolam; FCO 31/917, TNA, 5 October 1971 cable from P.A. Carter. FCO 31/391, TNA.
26 FCO 31/917, TNA, ‘Air Transport Agreement with USSR’; ‘Air Services Agreement with the USSR Government: Memorandum by the Prime Minister’.
27 ‘The New Chinese Presence’, FCO 31/1227, TNA; The World Bank, Mauritius – Transport Sector Memorandum (English) (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1985), 30.
28 FCO 31/1227, TNA, ‘Minutes of Proceedings of Meeting between the Mauritian Officials and the Chinese Delegation held on Friday, 2nd June at 2.45 p.m.’; ‘The New Chinese Presence’; ‘Terms of Sino-Mauritian Agreement’.
29 FCO 31/1227, TNA, ‘Minutes of Proceedings of Opening Meeting of Negotiations with the Delegation from the People’s Republic of China held on the 31 May 1972 at 9.40 a.m.’; ‘Minutes of Proceedings of the Meeting between the Mauritian Officials and the Chinese Delegation held on 31 May 1972 at 10.45 a.m.’
30 FCO 31/1227, TNA, ‘Minutes of Proceedings of Preliminary Meeting with the Chinese Delegation on 30 May 1972 at 11.30 a.m.’; ‘Minutes of Proceedings of the Meeting between the Mauritian Officials and the Chinese Delegation held on 6 June 1972 at 2 p.m.’
31 Ibid.
32 FCO 31/1227, TNA, ‘Minutes of Proceedings of the Meeting between the Mauritian Officials and the Chinese Delegation held on 31 May 1972 at 10.45 a.m.’
33 FCO 31/1227, TNA, ‘Minutes of Proceedings of Meeting between the Mauritian Officials and the Chinese Delegation held on Friday, 2nd June at 2.45 p.m.’
34 Ibid.
35 FCO 31/1227, TNA, ‘Minutes of Proceedings of the 7th Meeting between the Mauritian Officials and the Chinese Delegation held in the Financial Secretary’s Office at 10.00 am on 19th June, 1972ʹ.
36 FCO 31/1227, TNA, ‘Minutes of Proceedings of the 8th Meeting between the Mauritian Officials and the Chinese Delegation held on Friday 23 June 1972 at 2.30 p.m.’; ‘Minutes of Proceedings of the 9th Meeting between the Mauritian Officials and the Chinese Delegation held on Wednesday 12 July 1972 at 4 p.m.’
37 Ibid.
38 FCO 31/1227, TNA, ‘Minutes of Proceedings of the 8th Meeting between the Mauritian Officials and the Chinese Delegation held on Friday 23 June 1972 at 2.30 p.m.’ Emphasis my own.
39 FCO 31/1227, TNA, Cable from P.A. Carter sent 10 August 1972; ‘The New Chinese Presence’.
40 ‘Chinese Aid to Mauritius’, FCO 31/1227, TNA.
41 For reference, today, Mauritius’s GDP is US$14.2 billion and its International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) debt is US$15.3 million. World Bank Open Data, web retrieved on 24 March 2020 from https://data.worldbank.org.
42 ‘The New Chinese Presence’, FCO 31/1227, TNA.
43 FCO 31/1227, TNA, ‘Chinese Aid to Mauritius’; ‘Chinese Activities in Mauritius’; ‘Ramgoolam’s Mission to Peking’; ‘The New Chinese Presence’.
44 Ibid. For reference, this was at a time when the number of Chinese technicians in Africa was estimated to be around 18,000 with many working on the other major Sino-African infrastructural project of the time, the TANZAM railway. ‘Chinese Aid in the Third World’, 3, CIA-RDP08S02113R000100090001-9, CIA-FOIA.
45 ‘Ramgoolam’s Mission to Peking’, FCO 31/1227, TNA.
46 The World Bank, Mauritius – Transport Sector Memorandum, 15, 57; 《中非关系大事记》, 159.
47 Monson, Africa’s Freedom Railway, 24–40.
48 After the agreement was signed in Beijing on 22 September 1961, notes were passed between the Malian and Chinese government until at least 8 December 1964.
49 Nkrumah’s Subversion in Africa, 6.
50 See Deborah Brautigam, ‘A Critical Look at Chinese “Debt-Trap Diplomacy”: The Rise of a Meme’, Area Development and Policy 5, no. 1 (2020): 1–14.
51 In the case of the Chinese military advisors dispatched to Ghana, the Chinese side required that the advisors be furnished with a vehicle and driver to make weekly reports from their clandestine training camps in the Ghanaian countryside to the Chinese embassy in Accra. Nkrumah’s Subversion in Africa, 6–8.
52 Mauritius is given its own entry in internally circulated economic reports as at least as early as 1959. 《非洲经济贸易参改资料》, 对外贸易部行情研究所, 1959年9月.
53 FCO 31/1227, TNA: ‘The New Chinese Presence’; ‘Chinese Aid to Mauritius’.
54 See 蒋华杰, ‘农技援非(1971–1983):中国援非模式与成效的个案研究’, 《外交评论》2013年01期第30-49页.
55 FCO 31/1227, TNA: ‘The New Chinese Presence’; ‘Chinese Aid to Mauritius’.
56 Indeed, this is its motto.
57 FCO 31/1227, TNA: ‘The New Chinese Presence’; ‘Chinese Activities in Mauritius’; ‘Chinese Aid to Mauritius’.
58 Li Danhui, Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, 1959–1973: A New History (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2018), 93.
59 Barnouin and Yu, Chinese Foreign Policy during the Cultural Revolution, 139.
60 Li, Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, 260–1.
61 After the expiry of the temporary air agreement, special provision had to be made for Aeroflot to able to convey fishery personnel to Port Louis. Il’ichev, SSSR i strany Afriki: Chast’ 1, 245–58.
62 ‘Indian Ocean: Reaction to Soviet Initiatives’, 1–2, CIA-RDP85T01184R000200850001-1, CIA-FOIA.
63 The World Bank, Mauritius – Transport Sector Memorandum, 10.
64 Alaba Ogunsanwo, China’s Policy in Africa 1958–1971 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 201.
65 Larkin, China and Africa, 98.
66 George T. Yu, China’s African Policy: A Study of Tanzania (New York: Praeger, 1975).
67 ‘Chinese Activities in Mauritius’, FCO 31/1227, TNA.
68 Friedman, Shadow Cold War, 218.
69 ‘中国建筑承建的毛里求斯新机场首航成功’,《中国建筑》,2013年3月19日accessed 27 January 2020 http://www.cscec.com/zgjz_new/xwzx_new/gsyw_new/201303/2761675.html. ‘习近平抵达毛里求斯共和国过境并进行友好访问’,《新华网》, 2018年7月28日, accessed on 24 March 2020 from http://www.xinhuanet.com/world/2018-07/28/c_1123188371.htm.