The Chinese Survival Strategy: Does Ghana Even Have A Clue?

There are common sentiments among many Ghanaians and Africans in general, that China is trying to extend her recent empire claws to swallow Africa. Would you blame them? How can you blame hungry 1.5 billion men and women trying to find food on this rough earth!

It is obvious China needs raw materials for their survival. Wooing sometimes corrupt-minded African leaders with smiles, gifts and offer of loans with MOUs and unspecified contract terms often does the trick! It is not unlike many African contracts with often a handshake and nothing in writing. In the modern days these don't work; but leaders with limited vision often leave office and could care less how much debt burden is left unpaid while $100 Hospitals remain uncompleted and highways half completed! The debt is left for future generations!

Author Howard K. French already has implied and indicated this from the title of his book, "China's New Continent". In the book the opinion is shared by some that the Chinese do not consider Africans as smart as other people, if not outright stupid, and hence easier to take over many of the African nations. True or not, some think all they have to do is give African leaders small gifts as bribes and troublesome Ministers maybe a little more, and a deal is done!

China and America:
So what is this story circulating on the Internet titled "China is Buying Up America"? In the story the author lists major American corporations being bought by the Chinese. These have included the $4.7 billion acquisition of the Smithfield Foods Corporation; the $2.6 Billion purchase of movie theatre chain company AMC Entertainment. There are more!

For leaders of those new nations wondering how a group of mixed-nationality Europeans created America and in 100 years rose to become the greatest and richest nation on earth, please study the culture of America!

America is one of the most open and unrestrictive nations on earth! I have lived with them for almost half a century, as a student, an Engineer, Manager, and a private Businessman. If you have money to invest in America, you are welcome! Hyundai Electronics invested a reported $10 million in early to mid 1980s in Santa Clara, California, and in a few years had learned enough of the Semiconductor technology to open the largest Semiconductor company in the world. Later they will merge and become Samsung, able to compete globally in all spheres of electronics and technology!

Americans do really believe in "open door" policy as they call it! It is their culture! You can take a picture anywhere you like even in the White House, unlike Ghanaians where we like to cover our dealings and paranoid when somebody is taking pictures of our airport! People proud of their dealings with society, and living under enforced rules and laws, should not be afraid to share information and even let others take pictures of their airport!

It is an excellent article to share! And to add to their investment in buying Businesses in America, Chinese individuals have been buying private houses in some of the most affluent areas in California!

And all you Ghanaians who think you are close to the inner circle of power, please if you think we are people of co-equals (as the DCE once said) in intelligence, then let us learn a thing or two about these Asians! Why not buy some American electronics companies!! For half a century I have interacted and been friends from days as students, co-workers, and even close family members through marriage with people from Japan, Korea, Indian, Pakistan, and China, as well as Europe, Mexico and some South American nations, as well as native born black and white Americans!

Let me share a few points about the Chinese:
1. DISCIPLINE: The Chinese are usually disciplined - meaning they don't allow their children to roam about the streets or surf the net or watch TV during time to do homework!

And they can live within their means! They don't borrow money to bury the dead just to claim a good fake image.

We can attribute this possibly to the era of Chairman Mao Tse Tun's rule, and especially the time called the Great Leap Forward, in which an estimated 45 Million died of famine from 1957-1962. Wrong socialist farming experiment!

Our Moslem community in Ghana perhaps exhibit more discipline than the non-Moslems: they fast during Ramadan; but then they feast after that and give all their money away without saving any!(😢) thinking God will provide more later! We Akans borrow money and waste months when somebody dies, to give the dead what we call a "fitting burial". The children's school fees lag behind and often is a problem. And our Christians are in prayer camps instead of managing their businesses!

Today in America Asian immigrants and their children in general, and that includes Indians and Chinese Japanese, get about 40% or more of the admissions to one of the oldest, best and largest University system we have in the US and the Western World, the University of California system with 9 campuses.

2. APPLICATION of Knowledge:
These Asians seem to rely on application of knowledge, while we Ghanaians often seem to think knowledge helps us to find a job in government! Who told us it is government's duty to create jobs? Wrong!!

The Chinese government and most Asians see nothing wrong to take (or steal of they have to) knowledge and technology and duplicate it and apply it; and despite mistakes, they learn fast and keep on building and renovating. After millions of Chinese died within our own lifetime during the Mao Tse Tsung communist revolution, one can see why such a people would not waste too much time on formalities, funerals and traditions!

Contrast that to our culture where one failure may mean a whole family will never venture in that arena again! As said, we also can waste months and even years on funerals, especially on those considered royal, and get crippled, not accomplishing much of value due to the grief and lost time.

3. WORKING in COLLABORATION: It seems to me from the little I have seen, that these Chinese understand collaborative work better than people from our culture do. The Ghanaian rich are all sole proprietors!! Chinese small teams can borrow money and ship gold mining equipment to Ghana and make money.

In Ghana Banks want 39% or more interest, and partly due to risk of identification and collection. To date our leaders have failed to simply have real property or houses numbered logically and all street names completed for proper identification! High credit risk exists when people have no clear personal and property identification.

In addition it appears Chinese contracts are more enforceable than Ghanaian ones. Why do Euro-Americans trust Lawyers and accountants and the rule of law, and invest their money together to become global giants while we in Ghana often die with our wealth scattered!

4. FINANCING: the Chinese and Indians believe in and do Finance their small and medium and even large corporations at reasonable interest rates.

One can argue because they have the cash, but how did they get there? There are many honest hard working wealthy people in Ghana but government keep making the bar higher for small lenders.

In Ghana government fail to understand the power of venture financing small and medium businesses. They rather spend $200 million claiming they are providing jobs! The new President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo Addo, now is committing $600 million of the taxes they collect from our people, sometimes 50-100% on cars and private property at the ports, to pay College graduates for 3 years (beyond the next election cycle?) to come and learn how to love their country and ?? (I really don't understand the logic behind that program. If somebody can help me!).

It seems to be a total lack of understanding of financing as an incentive for entrepreneurs and job creation. It is a shame the Finance Minister also seem to think Bond Financing to refinance old debts alone is enough! No! We have to create from within and you do that by providing the financial incentive for the few with creative survival ideas, who then can employ two or three or even ten. And it multiplies!

5. OPENNESS TO TAKE ADVICE:
Lee Kuan Yew mentions in his book "From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965-2000", how he was invited to China and in his conversations with the Chinese leadership, they did take his advice and learned from him and Singapore on the strategies used by Lee to woo American and foreign investors! In Ghana we seem to prefer to learn from the Euro-American former colonisers, but negatively brainwashed not to even consult with our own men sent overseas to study the Sciences and Engineering in the last half a century!

Our Ghanaian leaders seem to like the talk, the travel and conferences and nothing comes out. Whatever happened to the Ghana Luxury Resort conference under the NDC2? (Was it Senkyi? )

The only people hired by the NDC1 and 2 and NPP1 and 2 are mostly the ones who stood out in their political parties overseas and most had little or no STEM backgrounds!

With the above five characteristics, why the hypocrisy for those in government singing tunes of STEM, IT, Diaspora welcome mats, and other jargons they fail to understand and appreciate. How do you create the total Human Resource even needed to train a 100,000 graduates when you have shunned your fellow Ghanaians, mostly STEM retirees, for decades?

The Akans have a proverb that if you go hunting you kill some before you drive others away. The lack of sincerity of purpose (personal hypocrisy) in our government manifests in many ways:

- the high duties and taxes imposed on goods, vehicles and even equipment shipped by Ghanaians overseas;

- arbitrary imposed limits on vehicles age irrespective of condition and use;

- taxes on money remittances, to
- sheer refusal to even consider ideas and proposals and to give courtesy acknowledgement or receipt as done in all Western governments.

Anyway enough for my morning preaching. The Chinese have tasted of death through abject poverty, famine and death; today they exhibit discipline and character.

- Are Ghanaians learning any lessons in discipline, moderation, self restraint, living within our means especially those managing the taxpayer funds and buying expensive V8 vehicles for government work!

- Do we have love for our fellow Ghanaians, be humble to serve when elected or appointed and called Honorable?

- Are we able to work together and collaborate?
- Can we learn to punish criminals and impose discipline so our collective whole can stand as one nation?

God bless Ghana our motherland.
From my humble resort in Kumasi, Ghana
Dr. K. Danso Tue. May 22, 2018