The Australian
THE Chinese public is expressing growing concern about the number of attacks on the rapidly increasing Chinese workforce in Africa, as Beijing's success in the global war for access to oil and other key commodities comes at a growing price in lives.
Last Tuesday, nine Chinese and 65 Ethiopian workers were killed, and seven Chinese kidnapped, in a pre-dawn attack by the Ogaden National Liberation Front, ethnic Somalis fighting for independence since 1984, on an oil exploration camp in eastern Ethiopia.
The attack provoked a strong response inside China, which last year became Ethiopia's biggest single trading partner, involving $682million, and has signed up for $2billion projects there.
A blogger on leading internet site Sohu.com said: "China should send the army in to wipe out this separatist organisation. If the army is not going to defend China's interests, why do we still have it"
Another said: "China should withdraw its promise not to deploy its army overseas. The pledge is already out of date."
These posts were swiftly removed from the site as Beijing insisted it would continue to play an expanding role in the continent, the source of valuable resources fuelling China's double-digit economic growth.
More measured but still concerned responses have come from academics and officials.
Liu Naiya, an African studies expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "These frequent tragedies remind us that China has to take real steps to overcome the challenges arising out of its expanding foreign trade involvements."
He said companies seeking to invest overseas should seriously evaluate the security risks before deciding to do business.
Zhang Zhixin, a professor at the Capital University of Economic and Business in Beijing, urged: "Diplomatic staff stationed in foreign countries should do regular assessments of the regional security situation and work out plans, and make them available to Chinese nationals at home and abroad."
In 2006, about 32million Chinese travelled overseas, for tourism, work or study.
Professor Zhang said the Ethiopian killings were the sixth time Chinese workers had been attacked recently overseas - some of the incidents involving "revenge against the Chinese" over conflict with local interests.
He said: "We should be more cautious, especially in Africa, where China has long-term friendships." He proposed that the Government should move away from its former concern about being perceived to interfere in other countries' domestic issues, and step up its security co-operation with other countries that have an international military presence, such as the US.
Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, a division of the state-owned giant China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec), the employer of the killed and kidnapped workers in Ethiopia, issued a warning to its 3000 staff overseas to be more security-conscious.
The company also announced that it insured the lives of each of its staff for 250,000 yuan (about $42,000), payable to the closest relatives. It planned to fly the bodies back to Beijing, in a chartered plane, over the weekend. All came from Henan province, where the company is based.
A Zhongyuan manager, Yang Bo, told the state news agency Xinhua: "In dealing with terrorist violence, we mainly depend on the proprietor and local government to establish good relations with local military forces."
Sixteen Chinese oil workers have been kidnapped in Nigeria, in three separate incidents, already this year. And a Chinese engineer was killed and another worker injured, in an attack on a Chinese stone-materials plant in Mombasa, Kenya, in February.
The biggest Chinese investment in Africa is in the oil industry in Sudan, where the conflict in the Darfur region has become such a cause of international concern that it has provoked calls for a boycott of next year's Olympic Games in Beijing.
Xu Dingming, director-general of the energy bureau at China's National Development and Reform Commission, said: "The sources of China's oil imports are excessively concentrated in geo-politically complex and changeable regions."
Zha Daojiong, an expert on energy diplomacy at the People's University of China in Beijing, told Reuters about China's commercial thrust: "As late-comers, we go to places where other multinationals won't go, and sometimes end up in a place prematurely, before conditions are settled."
But Chinese commentators have strongly rebuffed criticism over the country's involvement in Sudan.
After American actor Mia Farrow used a column in The Wall Street Journal to call for a Beijing Olympic boycott over China's stance on Darfur, Wang Weinan, a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, had this to say: "Let's treat her remarks as if she were trying to return to her former profession by putting on a show."
China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said: "China supports its enterprises in conducting economic co-operation based on equality and mutual benefits in other countries, including those in Africa.
"This is our set policy, and it will not change."
Wenran Jiang, an expert on China's role in Africa at the University of Alberta in Canada, said: "Chinese energy companies are mostly profitable in their ventures in Africa, including many places where Western firms cannot make a profit. They have good technologies.
"Some use Chinese labour, others local labour, and yet others, both. There is no single model. But there is clear-cut economic logic for using Chinese labour. It is cheap, disciplined, well-trained, and easy to manage.
"China has a cutthroat capitalistic market economy. Don't expect Chinese companies to do much charity work. But if they want to be there for the long run, they need to have local support."
"They are no more evil than other multinationals which have operated there for much longer, and have done little to benefit the Africans."