ABSTRACT
This study was an assessment of Government of Ghana’s anti-galamsey activities on Ghana- China diplomatic relations. The focus of the study was to determine whether anti-galamsey activities of the government have had any strain on the diplomatic relations between the two countries. The study relied on both primary and secondary sources of data for analysis. Widespread damage to Ghana’s environment, water bodies, farmlands and wildlife due to “galamsey”, a local referent for illegal mining, had become a grave concern. While those involved in “galamsey” includes both Ghanaians and foreigners, the introduction of sophisticated equipment and use of dangerous chemicals by Chinese migrants in the extraction of Gold through illegal means had resulted into a “galamsey” narrative directed heavily at the Chinese. With widespread media reportage on the issue mostly highlighting damages to the environment, water bodies, conflicts and deaths, the government was forced to act, hence the decision to combat “galamsey” of which the majority of foreigners involved are Chinese migrants. While this decision was welcomed by many, other experts feared the consequences of this decision on Ghana-China diplomatic relations due to the latter’s economic contribution to the development of Ghana. Findings from the study revealed that Ghana-China diplomatic relations have not been significantly impacted by Government of Ghana’s ‘anti-galamsey’ activities and that these activities have no current or future negative implications on the diplomatic exchanges between Ghana and China and that the current state of Sino-Ghana relations remains friendly.
CHAPTER ONE RESEARCH DESIGN
Background to the Problem Statement
Few years after Ghana’s independence in 1960 marked the beginning of official diplomatic relations between Ghana and China. Subsequently, the two countries signed the Peace Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the climax being the newly appointed Ghana’s ambassador to Beijing moving in to Beijing in 1961 the same year the peace treaty was concluded.1 Since this event, relations between Ghana and China have been consolidated by strong personal relationships between the political elites of the two countries, particularly during the era of Ghana’s first President, “Dr. Nkrumah and Premier Zhou Enlai, and by high-level official visits, including visits by Ghana’s President John Kufuor to China in 2002 and China’s President Hu to Ghana in 2003.”2
Ghana has provided substantial diplomatic support to China such as joining the lobby for China’s reinstatement into the United Nations and supporting China in the Sino-Indian war of 1962.3 China, on the other hand, has reciprocated with material and financial support for Ghana’s development. Consequently, within the last two decades, China has had an overwhelming influence in Ghana, affecting virtually every sector of the national economy. These include trade and investment, participation in the sale and marketing of consumer goods, exploitation of natural resources, infrastructure and agriculture. In agriculture for instance, exchanges have been facilitated in agro-processing, agricultural technology, agricultural infrastructural technology and irrigation.4 According to the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC), Chinese investment
activities in Ghana stretches across a wide variety of sectors such as construction, tourism, manufacturing service, and resource –based sectors.5
During the period, China has also increased development assistance to the Ghanaian economy with significant projects, including the Nsawam stretch of the Accra-Kumasi Road, the office block of the Ministry of Defence, the Complex of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Atuabo Gas project and the Bui hydroelectric dam, one of the biggest Chinese-funded projects in Ghana, and a host of others.6 In 2007, China agreed to write off $25 million of Ghana’s debt, accumulated since 1985.7 Additionally, Ghana also benefited from about $170 million supplier’s credit from the Chinese government to enable the Electricity Company of Ghana extend electrification to about three hundred thousand households in 2009.8 Ghana’s resilient democracy has ensured that Chinese development assistance to the country generally benefits the general population.
Ghana-China cooperation on trade and investment have also increased strongly in the past with no signs of plummeting. “From September, 1994 to June 2013, the Foreign Direct Investment, (FDI) influx into Ghana from China reached $543.5 million, making it the tenth biggest FDI provider for Ghana, with the top five being the UK, South Korea, USA, UAE and Lebanon.” 9 “Of the $543.5 million FDI from China, $254 million went into the manufacturing sector, covering a variety of industries such as iron and steel, food processing, textiles, salt production and fishing while the trade, construction and service sectors attracted $120 million, $96 million, and $48 million respectively.”10 “In terms of the number of projects, China with 645 registered projects, topped the list of investor countries in Ghana.”11 Also trade between Ghana and China
rose to a historic high of $6.6 billion in 2015, representing an 18.2 percent year-on-year increase, ranking Ghana as sixth among China’s Africa trading partners.12 Chinese foreign direct investment in Ghana (FDI) have also provided a host of benefits, such as improving the competitiveness of local industries and contributing to government revenue via taxation as well as creating employment.13
Nonetheless, the growing influence of China on Ghana’s economy has come at a cost. Even though members of the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC) are happy with Chinese involvement in trade, some Ghanaian workers in that sector fear the Chinese may be displacing local businessmen and women. One sector suffering from Chinese business competition is the textile industry. Chinese firms have imported into the country, their “copying” abilities and provided low-priced, but fake, types of African cloth.14 Not only are the Chinese competing in the Ghanaian textile manufacturing sector, but Chinese merchants are also importing into the country large quantities of Chinese textiles, posing a great threat in the form of competition on locally manufactured ones. Additionally, growing numbers of Chinese have disregarded national laws and engaged openly in commercial activities at the threshold reserved for citizens. Others have used Ghanaian front men and women to engage in commercial activities at the level reserved for Ghanaians. Nowhere is the Chinese influence felt as in the illegal mining or “galamsey” sector. “Galamsey” refers to the unregistered and unregulated artisanal gold mining in Ghana.15 The unregulated nature of “galamsey” has had marked consequences on environmental resources as miners resort to practices such as the use of chemicals to blast river bodies and cutting down of trees which degrade Ghana’s vegetative covers as well as water bodies which serve as sources of drinking water. While the presence of Chinese in the illegal
mining sector has been traced to the 1990s, experts have noted that the number of Chinese involved has multiplied in the last 10 years with scores of Chinese immigrants, together with those from other countries and local participants, taking over whole communities for the purposes of illegal mining. The resulting deterioration in the environment as well as violent clashes between Chinese miners and traditional authorities has fueled anti-Chinese sentiments among sections of the Ghanaian public. Consequently, dealing with “galamsey” has featured prominently in the campaign rhetoric of political parties since 2008.
Statement of the Research Problem
Concerns over the possible escalation of conflict over competition for valuable resources, especially in the context of a high invasion of foreign miners into a sector “reserved for Ghanaians” were heightened by cases of local conflicts.16 Crawford et al cite instances of local conflicts such as those that occurred at the alluvial small-scale mining in Southern Ghana and in Talensi in Northern Ghana where violent disturbances between local villagers and illegal miners were reported from mid-2012 onwards. In the gold-rich Ashanti region, violent disturbances between local villages and Chinese miners were reported from mid-2012 onwards, including incidents, where Chinese miners were armed with weapons. These violence were marked with deaths and serious injuries on not only locals and illegal miners but also rival Ghanaian and Chinese miners.17
Following pressure from a coalition of civil society organizations in response to the deteriorating situation with regard to both local conflicts and wanton environmental destruction and in fulfilment of campaign pledges, the Government of Ghana, beginning from 2013,
launched a full scale offensive against “galamsey” operations in the country which culminated in the arrest and deportation of several Chinese migrants. However, concerns have been raised by experts that the fight against foreigners in illegal mining activities in which Chinese migrants are the worst culprits can harm Ghana-China long standing relations. With huge numbers of Chinese engaged in the industry, the narrative of the “galamsey” fight has focused on the Chinese. This appears to be threatening Ghana-China relations. On April 8, 2017 for instance, a news report from Citi FM, a local radio station in Accra reported a statement from the Chinese embassy that served a “strong caution” to the government of Ghana that “it will be extremely harmful to the bilateral relations” between Ghana and China should there be cases of casualty during the arrest of Chinese involved in illegal mining in Ghana.18 This warning from the Embassy followed an incident reported in the BBC news of October 15, 2012 captured in Crawford et al in which a police raid on illegal miners in 2012, led to the death of a Chinese boy. Subsequently, the Chinese Foreign Ministry demanded an investigation from the government of Ghana, drawing international attention to the issue of “galamsey”.19
Similarly, on May 1, 2017, Financial Times online, in its news report on the crackdown on illegal mining, quoted the Chinese ambassador, Sun Baohong, as urging the Ghanaian government to “guide the media” to cover the issue of Chinese involvement in “galamsey” more “objectively”, or risk damaging the “environment for further development of our bilateral exchanges and cooperation”.20 This caution from the Embassy was due to the fact that as cited in Crawford et al, reporting of the issue of illegal Chinese miners in the Ghanaian media had always been entirely negative; with Chinese migrant miners often referred to as “illegal”, “undesirable migrants”, “deviants”, “aliens”, and their presence and involvement in small scale
gold mining labeled as an “invasion”, a “menace”, “threat to lives of indigenous people” in mass media outlets, for instance, the Daily Graphic and some web portals such as modern Ghana.21 Assurances from government officials have however, indicated that relations with China will not be strained. In a 2013 interview with Reuters (Accra), Xuejun Qiu, a Director at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Beijing, noted that “China is determined that its relations with Ghana will not be undermined by the arrest of some Chinese illegal gold miners.” 22
Notwithstanding the assurances, some media reports appear to suggest evidence of some strain in the relationship such as the one captured in Aidoo and Hess which revealed that the mass deportation of Chinese nationals seem to have triggered some vengeance from Beijing in the form of the “tightening of visa requirements for Ghanaians travelling to China as well as delaying the payment of a 3 billion USD China Development Bank loan to Ghana.”23 In the absence of concrete studies, the implication of the “anti-galamsey” policies on Ghana-China relations, remains inconclusive. This is the research problem.
Research Questions
To address the research problem, the study seeks answers to the following questions:
- What is the current state of Ghana-China relations?
- What strategy (ies) is the government of Ghana using in its fight against illegal mining in Ghana?
- What are the implications of Government’s “anti-galamsey” activities on Ghana-China relations?
Research Objectives
- To examine the current state of Ghana-China relations
- To ascertain the strategy (ies) that government of Ghana is using in its fight against illegal mining in Ghana.
- To examine the implications of Government’s “anti-galamsey” activities on Ghana-China relations.
