eBusiness Weekly
Alfred M. Mthimkhulu
One of Kwame Nkrumah’s famous quote is “We face neither East nor West; We face forward.” In reality, we are a lot like Lot’s wife inclined to look back and become prisoners of our pasts.
Now and then, we leverage on an anniversary or a new year to make resolutions we struggle to fulfil. As 2020 rolls away, I note that the only resolution I have almost lived up to is to read a bit more outside my core interests. I chose Asia.
I picked a few books one of which was “The Dawn of Eurasia” by Bruno Maçães, a 46-year old researcher and former Portuguese Cabinet Minister.
His book builds on the shift of global power, (economic, political and cultural), to the East. He argues that it is in fact not a shift because that influence long resided in the East but drifted West in the past few centuries and is now reverting.
It is not his argument that fascinated me the most in the book but a comment he got from Professor Wang Wen of Chongyang Institute for Financial Services at Renmin University in China after a presentation.
“We already knew what your ideas were and we disagree,” Wang Wen told him. As a novice in Asian affairs, I took the comment as subtle advice to be cautious in being quick to extrapolate lessons from economies we know little about.
His comment came to mind as I read my next book, ‘The Asian Aspiration: why and how Africa should emulate Asia’.
The book has four authors: Greg Mills and Emily van der Merwe at The Brenthurst Foundation, Nigeria’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Ethiopia’s former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.
It comes with lots of accolades one of which is from then designated MDC President Nelson Chamisa who describes it as “a toolkit and manual for development”.
The Foreword is by Kenya’s former Prime Minister Raila Odinga who opens thus: “It seems extraordinary today that in the 1960s Singapore looked to Africa for insights on growing its economy.”
The four authors’ first lines are “Asia has lifted one billion people out of poverty in a single generation … Can Africa be the next Asia? Yes, but only if the continent’s leaders commit to making very difficult policy and governance choices … it requires being sensitive to human rights, democracy and the environment.”
Even with my little knowledge of Asia, I wondered how they were going to substantiate such statements.
The important section in publications that offer policy recommendations is the methodology.
The authors base their initial review of Africa on a survey by The Brenthurst Foundation. The survey sought to determine development models preferred by Africans, in other words did Africans prefer emulating Europe, Asia etc.
The authors then selected 10 Asian countries and tracked their political and economic development paths. The countries are Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, The Philippines. Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, China and Vietnam. Each country has a dedicated chapter after which is an integrated discussion.
The authors took on too much in this book. Making sense of just one country is daunting. They had 10 and a further 54 in Africa to dovetail to discussions in the 10.
In taking on so much, the book overlooks some fundamental growth stimulants in Asia. It is for instance unlikely that if the capital contribution of the US through military arrangements in some Asian countries during the Cold War were to be quantified and stripped-out, the residual would still be a sizzling growth story.
We must thus be careful in attributing some of the countries’ growth solely to domestic resources and policies.
Equally tricky is the authors’ view that democracy comes before economic growth. This view proves difficult to sustain.
Thailand for instance ranked below Zimbabwe on political freedom. In Indonesia, the authors search for silver linings: “Suharto was a mixed bag.
Yet for all his excesses, he dramatically improved matters … his legacy of the twin problem of corruption and big-man rule continue to bedevil the country.” In Taiwan they note that the country “democratised in the 1990s”, well after the growth momentum was in motion.
It is after these inconsistencies to democracy-first that the authors use the word ‘pragmatism’ more.
When China enters the discussion, part of the conclusion is that “culture, specifically Confucianism and commitment to hard work and education explain the rapid growth not only in China but across that region”.
Should Africa pursue democracy or pragmatism? That’s difficult to answer because the authors say “one reason why Africa has not followed the Asian development story may be its preoccupation until now with the Western model, whether with admiration or dismay”.
But with the African now aware of an alternative thanks to the book, it is not clear from the countries the book reviewed which ideology the African should aspire to. It cannot be the “pragmatism” in China because, the authors say, “the Chinese development experience does not offer a perfect model for African governance … the vast majority of Africans prefer democracy to autocracy”.
In a webby sort of way, this points the African back to the Western model as the authors perhaps intended from the very beginning.
The book will enjoy a wide circulation in Africa. It is easy to read. It is pioneering. Because it is pioneering, its weaknesses are in-your-face but do not blur its contribution to policy debates.
Furthermore, the book offers other researchers a broad foundation to undertake detailed analyses on specific policies it mentions in passing, policies that are likely to have been key growth stimulants to the Asian tigers e.g., special economic zones.
Africa has few economists whose core region of study is not Africa. This means that our students’ curiosity about other regions is rarely whet.
As an academic, I find it very strange that students from elsewhere often research on Africa but rarely ever is it the other way round.
How can we progress when all we know is our backyard? Yet we love drawing lessons from the likes of Singapore, a commendable obsession.
But, as we do so, we must heed what we heard at Renmin University hence the need for research institutes dedicated to study other regions. With such in place, it may become easier to face forward.
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