非洲现在到处都能见到中国的痕迹。从公路铁路，到足球场飞机场，中国的建筑公司什么都可以建造。中国的出口产品范围从手机到廉价衬衫，包罗万象。而中国本国工业则要依赖非洲稳定的资源供应：包括南非的铁矿石，赞比亚的铜，尼日利亚、安哥拉和苏丹的石油。
但另外两个知名度低一些的“金砖四国”(Bric)成员——印度和巴西，也正在加深与非洲大陆的联系。
例如，在安哥拉，私人部门第一大雇主是巴西的Odebrecht集团，而不是为数众多的中国建筑企业。
三家印度公司以及巴西淡水河谷(Vale)正在莫桑比克勘探煤矿储备——据信这是自上世纪60年代初以来发现的最大煤矿。
印度的制药企业在非洲也生意兴隆。而尽管巴西一直将贸易重点放在讲葡萄牙语的安哥拉和莫桑比克，但其兴趣范围要广泛得多。例如，世界最大的铁矿石生产商——巴西淡水河谷，最近就向赞比亚一座铜矿投资了4亿美元。
在巴西总统路易斯•伊纳西奥•卢拉•达席尔瓦(Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva)任内，巴西在非洲开设了多处大使馆。自2002年首次当选以来，这位喜好巡视的领导人已数次造访非洲。
南非标准银行(Standard Bank)经济学家最近发布的一份报告显示，这种日渐庞杂的关系网，意味着一种“重大经济”转移。包括该行在内的多家非洲金融机构，目前都在围绕金砖四国制定战略。
2008年，金砖四国和整个非洲之间的贸易总额从2000年的223亿美元激增至1660亿美元，尽管中国要占去其中的三分之二，但巴西和印度在该地区的贸易也正同样快速扩张。
事实上，总体而言，金砖四国在非洲贸易总额中的比例，已从1993年的4.6%提升至2008年的19%。
此外，2008年的金融危机也助涨了这一强劲的长期发展趋势，2009年，中国取代美国成为非洲第一大贸易伙伴国。
上述报告的作者之一杰里米•史蒂文斯(Jeremy Stevens)写道：“事实证明，亚洲对非洲资源的需求基本上未受到衰退的影响。为了确保长期经济增长，金砖四国一直旗帜鲜明地与非洲保持紧密关系。”
这种转移并非没有引发争议。中国一心挺进非洲已引起了非洲国家的警觉。一个著名的例子是，南非前总统塔博•姆贝基(Thabo Mbeki) 3年前曾提醒非洲警惕一种新型殖民主义，促使其政府对中国纺织品实施了短暂的进口配额制度。
人权组织对中国公开支持苏丹和津巴布韦独裁政府的做法予以批评。和中国企业签约的工人往往待遇糟糕，工作环境恶劣。此外，中国企业更愿意雇佣中国劳工，而非当地劳动力，这也不时会引发骚乱。
“令我不安的是，为中国企业工作过的非洲人，没有一个人由此改善了自己的生活，”在不久前一场以中国投资非洲为主题的会议上，一位年轻的加纳企业主如是说。
但另一方面，非洲许多政府都很喜欢这些新的伙伴国。中国和巴西建筑企业都比欧洲竞争对手的要价更低。2008年，中国取代英国成为加纳第一大外资来源地，部分原因就是中国企业承诺以相当于竞争对手报价几分之一的成本来承建公路和其它基础设施。
“中国企业修建三条公路的价钱，相当于德国企业修建一条的要价，”一位加纳官员在同一个会议上表示。
效率是吸引非洲政府的另一方面。在莫桑比克干燥多尘的城市太特(Tete)四周，巴西淡水河谷和Riversdale公司正以惊人的速度开采新煤矿——中国、巴西和印度企业均持有Riversdale的大量股份。
Riversdale董事总经理史蒂夫•马龙(Steve Mallyon)表示，印度8家发电厂和中国3家钢铁企业都“迫切需要我们的产品。而就在12个月前，中国还不在我们的视线范围内。”
与中国、印度和巴西的来往之所以会受欢迎，还由于这三个国家往往会强化非洲政府的意识形态倾向，尤其是那些通过民族解放运动上台的政府。
以监管严格、企业国有化、以及官商关系密切为特点的“大政府”向来是金砖四国成功的要素之一。
这对于那些不信任基于市场经济的正统理念的非洲领导人颇具吸引力——过去二、三十年，这种正统理念一直占据主导。
约翰内斯堡咨询公司 Frontier Strategies首席执行官马丁•戴维斯(Martyn Davies)表示，南非执政党非洲人国民大会(African National Congress)的官员认为，金砖四国经济取得的成功证明，政府应加大而非减少作为才能促进增长。
“南非政府的理解是，在很大程度上，是一种国家资本主义推动了金砖四国的发展,”他说道。
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001034667
China pops up all over Africa these days. Its construction companies build everything from roads and railways to football stadiums and airports. Its exports range from mobile phones to cheap shirts. And its own industry depends on a steady supply of iron ore from South Africa, copper from Zambia, and oil from Nigeria, Angola and Sudan.
But less well known is the fact that India and Brazil, two of China’s fellow Bric nations, are deepening their ties with the continent as well.
In Angola, for example, Odebrecht of Brazil rather than any of the many Chinese construction companies is the biggest private-sector employer.
Three Indian companies as well as Brazil’s Vale are exploiting coal reserves in Mozambique considered to be the biggest discovered since the early 1960s.
Indian pharmaceutical companies are doing a roaring trade in the region and although Brazil has focused its efforts on Portuguese-speaking Angola and Mozambique, its interest is much wider. Vale, the world’s biggest iron ore miner, recently made a $400m investment in a Zambian copper mine, for example.
Under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil has opened many embassies in Africa and the peripatetic leader has visited the continent several times since he was first elected in 2002.
This growing web of ties amounts to a “seismic economic” shift, according to a recent report by economists at South Africa’s Standard Bank, one of the many continental financial institutions orienting their strategies around the Brics.
Trade between the Brics and Africa as a whole soared from $22.3bn in 2000 to $166bn in 2008 and, although China accounts for two-thirds of that amount, Brazilian and Indian commerce in the region is expanding equally quickly.
Indeed, overall, the Bric countries’ share of Africa’s total trade rose from 4.6 per cent in 1993 to 19 per cent in 2008.
What is more, the strong secular trend has been reinforced by the financial crisis of 2008, with China replacing the US as Africa’s biggest trading partner in 2009.
“Asia’s demand for Africa’s resources has proved, in large part, recession-proof,” wrote Jeremy Stevens, an author of the Standard Bank report. “The Brics have unequivocally attached themselves to Africa to ensure long-term economic growth.”
This shift has not been uncontroversial. The single-mindedness of the Chinese drive into Africa has raised hackles. Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, famously warned three years ago about a new form of colonialism, prompting his government briefly to impose quotas on imports of Chinese textiles.
Human rights groups have criticised the way in which China has backed openly repressive governments in Sudan and Zimbabwe. Workers contracted by Chinese companies tend to be badly paid and work in poor conditions, and the Chinese tendency to employ Chinese workers rather than local labour has occasionally caused uproar.
“What bothers me is that no African has ever worked with a Chinese company and seen his life improve,” said one young Ghanaian entrepreneur at a recent conference on Chinese investment in Africa.
On the other hand, many governments like their new partners. Chinese and Brazilian construction companies can be cheaper than European rivals. In 2008, China overtook the UK as the biggest source of foreign investment in Ghana, partly because Chinese groups committed to build roads and other infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of competitors.
“The Chinese build three roads for the same price that the Germans would charge to build one,” said one Ghanaian official at the same conference.
Speed is another attraction for African government. In Mozambique, new coal deposits around the dry and dusty city of Tete have been developed phenomenally quickly by Brazil’s Vale and Riversdale, a company in which Chinese, Brazilian and Indian companies all have significant stakes.
Steve Mallyon, managing director of Riversdale, says eight power plants in India and three steel factories in China are “screaming for product. Twelve months ago, China wasn’t even on our horizon.”
Connections with China, India and Brazil are also sought-after because they tend to reinforce the ideological predispositions of African governments, especially those formed by what were national liberation movements.
Big government – featuring strong regulation, nationalised companies and close links between political and business elites – has been one of the features of the Brics’ success.
That is appealing to those African leaders who are distrustful of the market-based orthodoxy that has prevailed for the past two to three decades.
Martyn Davies, chief executive of Johannesburg-based Frontier Strategies, says officials from South Africa’s governing African National Congress regard the success of the Bric economies as proof that the state should be doing more, not less, to nurture growth.
“Pretoria’s interpretation of what’s driving Brics is that it’s very much a state-capitalist approach,” he says.
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