Tanzania - a new regional power house for East Africa - 坦桑尼亚

 

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, 坦桑尼亚

China is playing a significant role in helping Tanzania to become the regional economic power house of East Africa by providing financial support in development of major infrastructure projects. 

Tanzania's 坦桑尼亚 economic fortunes have been boosted by the discovery of vast natural gas reserves in the southern regions of Mtwara and Lindi, but it is China's investment that is helping to bring the new gas resources on stream as it is financing the major energy and infrastructure projects .

China 中国is financing a US$1.2 billion gas pipeline project from Mtwara to Dar es Salaam, which is expected to be completed later this year. Once completed, Tanzania will start to export its power to its East African neighbours in 2015.

In addition, China 中国 is also financing two mega-power projects at Kinyerezi area in Dar es Salaam, the Kinyerezi I and II which are expected to boost electricity generation for domestic consumption and export.

The Asian economic power house will also finance construction of a port, special economic zone and a railway network at the historical town of Bagamoyo on the coast in a project estimated to involve more than US$10 billion. 

 

Map of Tanzania 坦桑尼亚, Bagamoyo where the new port will be built

It is against this backdrop that Tanzania is on course to become the East African regional economic power. Tanzania is soon likely to have the potential  to become the regional centre for trade, manufacturing, logistics and IT upon completion of the major gas pipeline project and other mega electricity projects as well as the envisaged construction of Bagamoyo port.

 

Tanzania also has the potential to become the regional centre of tourism due to its tourists attractions including two out of seven wonders of the world. Tanzania is home to Mt. Kilimanjaro which at 5985m it is Africa's highest peak and the world's tallest freestanding mountain.

It is also home to the Serengeti National Park, famous for its annual migration of over 1.5 million white bearded wildebeest and 250,000 zebra. China is also working with Tanzania to improve tourist infrastructure such as hotels and transport services to make it an even more desirable tourist destination.

The Indian Sub-Continent – marked by geography and hinduism

Map of the land mass of the Indian Sub-Continent

It is interesting to note that Indian Sub-Continent has remained, very nearly, the land bordered by the Himalayas to the north, the Indian Ocean to the south and the great rivers the Indus and the Ganges on either side. Many of the modern maps of the Indian Sub-Continent area came from traders travelling to the Moghul empire in the early 16th century. Traders sketched small-scale maps of the India Intra Gangem—the land between the Indus and Ganges rivers as the map below shows along with the earliest civilizations around the Indus River. 

Natural Geographical Features of India

But mapping the Indian Sub-Continent has not been limited to the natural geographical features of the land, in fact, many earlier maps exist of the Indian Sub-Continent were made to mark the lay out of the routes to popular pilgrimage centres known as dhams from as early as the 8th century AD. These maps provide an interesting lens through which to view the Indian Sub-Continent by combining the natural features that delimit the geographical area of the Sub-Continent with the marks that Hinduism has made on the land.

Hinduism in the Indian Sub-Continent

Many of the Hindu pilgrimages have been around for centuries. This point is illustrated by the fact that the land is filled with holy places. There are seven sacred rivers, including the Ganges. On its banks is Varanasi, one of seven holy cities, which itself is guarded by 56 shrines to Ganesha, the popular elephant-headed god. The body of Sati, a goddess, is said to be scattered at 108 sites throughout India. And 12 places across the country claim to have one of Shiva’s jyotirlingas—an immeasurable column of the Hindu god’s light.

Interestingly the word "Hindu" is derived from the name of the river Indus, which flows through northern India. In ancient times the river was called the 'Sindhu', but the Persians who migrated to India called the river 'Hindu', the land 'Hindustan' and its inhabitants 'Hindus'. Hence the religion followed by the Hindus came to be known as 'Hinduism'. According to historians, the origin of Hinduism dates back more than 5000 years. Hinduism is commonly thought to be the oldest religion in the history of human civilization.

 

It is generally believed that the basic tenets of Hinduism were brought to India by the Aryans who settled along the banks of the Indus river about 2000 BC. Hinduism does not have any one founder or any one core doctrine that is used to resolve controversies. Furthermore, it does not require its adherents to accept any one idea. It is marked by an attitude which is able to accommodate many different religious and cultural perspectives other than ones own. It is also characterised by a rich variety of ideas and practices resulting in what appears as a multiplicity of religions under one term 'Hinduism'. 

Perhaps one of the most important legacies of Hinduism is to allow the geographical area of the Indian Sub-Continent with its immense ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity to be joined together.  

中国China - 缅甸Myanmar, a new route to the sea?

Map of China and Myanmar - Bay of Bengal and Straits of Malacca

China's geography is such that sea routes between Asia and Europe are currently limited to starting in the China Sea. Commercial trade ships then navigate South from China's ports to travel through the Malacca Straits bordered by the Malay peninsula with Singapore at the tip, to gain access to the Indian Ocean and on to Europe. The above map illustrates that China's land mass extends well into Eurasia bordering India and several of the Central Asian Republics like Kazakhastan and Kyrgyzstan. Yet China is hemmed in along its southern border by a plethora of countries including Pakistan, India and Myanmar.

In purely Geo-Trade terms, Myanmar represents the shortest distance to the sea from the Chinese border with the added advantage that it is also located fairly close to to the east of China where most of China's industrial hubs are located.

Myanmar, a little known country in the 21st Century

Myanmar is not a small country, it covers an area bigger than France and it has a population of around 60m people. It's most recent history is characterized firstly by a military dictatorship under General Ne Win who seized power in 1962 and erected a virtual wall around the country, sealing it off from almost all outside influence for several decades. In 1988, he was suceeded by a Junta after nationwide protests. The Junta has since maintained the country almost as isolated as the General despite some attempts to open the country up.

Access to the Bay of Bengal for China

China's dream of having access to the Indian Ocean, it seems is about to come true. China and Myanmar have been working together on building a new port, oil and gas pipelines, and roads which are already under construction in Myanmar, giving China, for the first time direct access to the Bay of Bengal, and a new route for an estimated 20pc of its oil imports.

Dams are also springing up on Myanmar's rivers to generate hydropower to provide power to the 云南Yunnan province, in the South of China too.

China has at last found a solution to the trade bottleneck through the Malacca straits and at the same time has resolved a key Geo-Trade challenge, by opening up access to the Indian Ocean on its Southern flank, through a newly formed strategic alliance with Myanmar, uniting both their futures, inextricably together.

Piracy on the high seas in the 21st Century – Somalia the new pirate base

Pirate Ship on the high seas

Far from the one-eyed barbarians and the Long John Silvers of folklore and fiction, pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries tended to come from highly skilled sailors who rebelled against the tyranny of their imperial masters. Once they had procured their own ship, articles were drawn up governing the conduct of the pirates. These articles were remarkably egalitarian. The captain of the ship was elected by the sailors and a quartermaster was elected to administer booty and to act as a counterweight in order to keep the captain’s power in check. Profits from shipping raids were distributed equally among all the sailors. When a pirate misbehaved, a meeting of all the sailors was called to determine the appropriate punishment. The pirates of the 17th and 18th centuries developed their own unique form of distributive justice.

New pirate base in Somalia in 21st century

Over the last decade Somalia has become synonymous with piracy. In 2010, alone nearly 1,200 people were taken hostage in the waters of Somalia. Rather than the more conventional 17th and 18th century "robbery at sea" piracy, Somali piracy takes the form of hijacking and extortion. This pattern evolved from so called "defensive" piracy that began early in the last decade as a response by local Somali tribal fishermen to unlicensed foreign trawlers and the dumping of toxic waste. These outsiders exploited the absence of a functioning Somali state capable of protecting its coastal waters.

The way the pirates operate is to take the commercial vessels usually by only firing warning shots before boarding the vessel. The goal is then to extract the highest possible cash ransom and to return the ship, its cargo and its crew in decent condition. So far this business model has proved very lucrative. It is estimated that Somali pirates may have earned around $238m last year alone.



Somali Pirate on board a hijacked commercial trade ship
know as a "mothership"

In 2008, almost all the attacks were in the Gulf of Aden – a passage for 20pc of the world's commercial shipping between Asia and Europe. But when international anti-piracy navy ships began to patrol these waters, the pirates modified their strategy to roam farther by using "mother ships" seized earlier as floating bases in the Indian Ocean. The below map sourced from The Economist shows the increased area of pirate operation in recent years:



Map of Somali Pirate Areas of Operation from 2008-2010


Piracy and ‘lawlessness’ in Somalia

A new study published in February 2011 shows that state failure is not necessarily a significant predictor of piracy. The study shows that for countries with very poor levels of governance, small improvements in such things as law enforcement, stability and security can actually lead to more piracy. 

Truly well-governed countries produce few pirates. However within Somalia– a so called "failed state", the report points out, most pirates originate from the relatively stable Puntland rather than the truly anarchic south and piracy is reduced when violent territorial conflict intensifies. The report argues that this is no coincidence: a basic level of law and order is necessary for pirates to ply their illegal trade.

The implications of this report are that Governments and multilateral organisations working on initiatives against Somali piracy in the region ought to focus on assisting Somalia and other neighbouring countries to truly enforce the rule of law. So far the EU has launched Operation Atalanta in 2008 and the UK has provided the Royal Navy's UK Maritime Trade Operations office in Dubai as a reporting hub for pirate activity. But much more needs to be done along the lines of Article 100 in the preamble to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea:

"All states shall cooperate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy on the high seas or in any place outside the jurisdiction of any state".

Until this happens, it is highly likely that the Somali pirates will continue with their devastatingly effective business model.