A regulatory framework for international farmland deals in Africa

It would seem that I have inadvertently been placed on Columbia University's Vale Center mailing list. Yet unlike other mailing lists from which I generally unsubscribe as quickly as is humanly possible, I think I'll stick around on this one. The Center's most recent publication is both quite interesting and timely, speaking as it does to the issue of international farmland deals in Africa. An excerpt:

Trends in foreign direct investment in land for agriculture reflect deep global economic and social transformations, with potentially profound implications for the future of world agriculture. The role of food in human consumption makes it fundamentally different from other commodities. In many parts of the world, land is central to identity, livelihoods and food security, and decisions taken today will have major repercussions for many, for decades to come. While bilateral negotiations are unfolding fast, there is a need for vigorous public debate in recipient countries, so as to base decisions on strategic thinking about the future of agriculture, the place of large and small-scale farming within it, and the role and nature of outside investment.

This couldn't be more on the mark. As I've noted in earlier posts (see here and here), 'land grabs' by foreign entities are becoming a growing threat to the (often customary) land rights of citizens, and in many cases fail to provide any benefit to the host communities - economic or otherwise. In light of this, it behooves recipient governments to establish regulatory frameworks governing such transactions. The costs of not doing so are too high.

Well done, Vale Center. I look forward to receiving more updates.

PS. Further to the issue of 'land grabs,' it would appear that Tsvangirai's niece is trying to pull off one of her own ...

Noteworthy…. the aid edition

Via Mo'Modernity Mo'problems the newest 'twinning' aid initiative: toilet aid

Broadband has arrived in East Africa. The 2,790 mile East Africa Marine System underwater cable connected Mombassa with Fujairah in the UAE on 12 June and is expected to become fully operational within three months. A great map of the cable (as well as others) can be found here

Education and ... football for all?

Blood and Milk's Alanna has a great post on what aid workers can learn from missionaries (note: this has nothing to do with converting people!)

China's place in the international aid architecture

Deborah Brautigam has a truly great and thought-provoking article on the ways in which China is challenging the international aid architecture (with significant focus on sub-Saharan Africa). According to Brautigam, it's not as doom and gloom as one might be inclined think:

... unlike the West, which buys oil in places like Angola without much caring how the government uses the revenue generated, Beijing buys Angola's oil while ensuring that the purchase price goes to pay its companies to build infrastructure. This is the essence of "win-win," as proposed by the Chinese in their African engagement.

While China's development program is indubitably flawed in many ways, it appears to be quite right in many others. What's more, Chinese foreign aid - largely in the form of oil-for-infrastructure contracts - is an attractive alternative for recipient states which are in dire need of infrastructure (and likewise tired of the Western ways of doing things). As Brautigam aptly observes, China's development aid reflects, among other things, its understanding and assumptions about the road out of poverty. As such, it stands as a challenge to the traditional aid architecture.

Reading between the lines

It's interesting to observe the varying ways in which the Iranian crisis is depicted in the global news. What aspects are being highlighted? Excluded? Altogether mischaracterized? James Fallows has a worthwhile post outlining several guidelines to bear in mind when reading Chinese (official) responses to the crisis. An obvious though important example:

It is worth remembering that the elements of the Iranian story that give it such drama and importance in much of the world are less automatically resonant in China.

One part of the narrative -- a massed populace standing up against state power -- is obviously anathema to Chinese authorities. And many of the other themes are also less immediate and compelling to ordinary people in China than they would be in North America, Europe, or parts of the Islamic world.

To most Westerners, everything about this story matters. It involves a people's struggle to make their voices heard; it follows other "color revolutions" in former Soviet territories and indeed popular movements for democracy and rule of law in Asia and Latin America from the 1980s onwards; it potentially marks a crucial moment in the evolution of modern Islamic society; it can have war-and-peace implications for US foreign policy and Israeli actions; and so on. Ordinary members of the Western viewing audience feel a connection to these themes. I assert that they seem more distant to ordinary people in China -- even if the themes were featured on the news. People's own problems, and their business problems, and the country's problems, are enough to worry about.

Several curious examples of the way in which the story is being played out in China can be found here (a classic example of the 'blame it on the West' theme), here (short and sweet, calling for 'solidarity'), and here (from China Daily). The China Daily story required a bit of digging: it was buried deep within the 'World News' section, after stories covering Berlusconi's 'party girls,' Japan's whaling tradition, the DC metro train crash, and at least a dozen others. Go figure.

Aid for Zimbabwe?

First it was the U.S., with its pledge of $73 million, and today it's the U.K. seemingly following suit with an additional $8 million (£5m), bringing total U.K. aid to Zimbabwe to $98 million (£60m) for this year alone. Now don't get me wrong, I am very much a proponent of assisting countries in need, but I question whether Zimbabwe has reformed itself to such an extent as to warrant such sizable aid packages. Surely the power-sharing government is a step in the right direction, but in my view not enough to merit such generous aid flows. At least not yet.

Indeed, I find myself agreeing with the Guardian's Tom Porteous who aptly observes:

There is much talk of reform in Zimbabwe but, as yet, no concrete action. The process of political change may have started but it is not irreversible. As long as Mugabe's nexus of repression and corruption remains in place, no amount of development assistance will help solve Zimbabwe's huge economic problems. And any economic aid to Harare from the UK or other donors will help to feed the crocodiles, just as surely as the blood-soaked profits of the Marange diamond mines.

Tehran, Tiananmen and elite politics

As protests in Iran continue to unfold, one can't help but wonder where all of this is leading. It's difficult to imagine Iran returning to status quo after such passionate uprisings, even less so given that Iran's most senior panel of election monitors have admitted "errors" in the vote count. Indeed, there doesn't appear to be any way of turning back - and rightly there shouldn't. Yet deciphering what will happen next is tantamount to uncovering the inner workings of the Soviet politburo. Middle East politics are de facto elite politics, with shifting loyalties and political expediency as the name of the game. What happens behind closed doors is anybody's guess.

In an attempt to shed some light on the matter (or to perhaps have something to say at all), scholars and casual observers alike have begun drawing analogies between the situation in Iran and previous pro-democracy movements elsewhere. While there certainly are parallels to be drawn, I often cringe at such comparisons: the domestic situations are quite divergent across cases, rendering such analyses gross - and often useless - generalizations at best.

That being said, I have stumbled upon a rather interesting post (both parts I and II are worth reading) comparing the protests in Tehran to those which took place in Tiananmen in 1989. The post is valuable precisely because it highlights the centrality of elite politics in such revolutionary movements, raising important questions which may prove useful in any analysis of the Iranian situation. In China in 1989, for instance, a split emerged within the Communist Party which limited the state's response and gave the movement political space within which to operate (until a point, obviously). Is such a split beginning to transpire in Iran? Has it already, perhaps? The leaders of the Tiananmen protests were largely inexperienced students, whereas Mousavi is an establishment figure. What difference will this make, if any at all?

While asking such questions will likely not lead to any concrete answers, it will endow us with a better understanding of the goings-on in Iran. For inasmuch as such anti-establishment movements are bottom-up, grassroots phenomena they are likewise played out from the top-down - and within the top itself. The question, I suppose, is what will it take for the current regime to crack? And what will happen if and when it does?

Note: On a somewhat related matter, there is a very interesting opinion piece in The Hindu, India's national newspaper, entitled "Beijing cautions U.S. over Iran." The subtitle reads: "The political class in Washington is clueless about the Byzantine world of Iranian clergy" ....

(Semi-) lighthearted on a Friday

With the sobering (though altogether unsurprising) news in this morning that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, is backing Iran's election results (as is Chavez, apparently) while protests swell, I feel compelled to counteract this bad news with something a bit more cheery. It is Friday, after all!

Before I do that, though, I'd like to bring a few more interesting Iran-related links to your attention:

• Twitter's watchdog site, Twitspam, has compiled a list of possibly fake (i.e. connected to the Iranian security apparatus) Iran election Tweeters
• Interesting Chinese commentary on the situation in Iran, from Shanghaiist
• Ethan Zuckerman on Iran, citizen media, and media attention (the good, the bad, and the ugly)

Right, well enough of that for now. Let's chat photography, travel and music (three of my most favorite things!), shall we? Canadian blogger and world traveler Brendan (aka Cashewman) has compiled a wonderful list of tips for photography in developing countries. At the end of the day it truly comes down to blending in with one's surroundings, though Brendan articulates this infinitely better than I have here.

In keeping with the theme of lists, White African has a running list of practical - and at times amusing - travel tips for Africa. If I have the time, I will begin a similar list for China. Until then, do please leave your tips in the comments section of this post!

And finally, I'm quite excited to see Senegalese-born singer and song writer Youssou N'Dour's new documentary film, "I Bring What I Love," this weekend. In the film N'Dour speaks about his life, his faith, his music, and his vision for human rights and tolerance:

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Update: I happened upon a great piece by the FT's Anna Fifield on the mood among the under-30s in Iran. Definitely worth the read!

Kenya's jua kali and Chinese businesses - and a shameless plug

Yours truly has a paper published in the July 2009 issue of the Journal of Eastern African Studies on the nature of Chinese business networks in Kenya. The paper can be found here (subscription required).

The 2009 Iranian revolution: 30 years of the Islamic Republic is enough

I couldn't quite decide whether the post title warrants an exclamation or a question mark at its end...

Alas, I've had little else but Iran on the mind these past few days. Like many others, I am trying to wrap my head around the ongoing situation to somehow get a sense of what is likely to result. Should we compare the Iranian protests to Tiananmen? The Solidarity movement? The Orange Revolution? Some ignorant commentators have even likened the present situation to the Bush/Gore 2004 recount, demonstrating such a dearth of knowledge regarding Middle Eastern politics that one really can't help but cringe.

Admittedly Middle Eastern politics fall beyond my range of expertise. While I do frequently dabble in democratization theory, I don't quite feel that it's my place to proffer any analyses in this case. Rather, I defer to the experts. Here is a list of several blog posts, newspaper articles and Twitter feeds which I have found to be most interesting and insightful:

• From the Tehran Bureau, "The Leaders of Iran's 'Election Coup.'" A truly fascinating piece which sheds insights on the core ideology guiding supporters of Ahmadinejad and further outlines the primary goals of the coup d'état (aside from the obvious)
• Thoughts on why the revolt is so powerful, from Noticed from Northwest
• Iran's Political Structure and its Potential Implications, from Cheap Talk
• Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, on what the West doesn't understand about what's happening in Iran - and about Iranian politics in general, for that matter
• Wikipedia has a rather interesting collection of pre-election polls, the majority of which give the lead to Mousavi
• The FT's Gideon Rachman suggests the election results are most certainly rigged - with evidence to boot!
• The ladies at Wronging Rights have been running a great "Ask an Iranian" series. Both Parts I and II are worth the read, though I am particularly biased towards the insights raised in Part II
• From among the countless Twitter feeds tracking the Iranian election aftermath, two in particular have caught my eye: @iran09 and @StopAhmadi
• An Oxford Iranian student has been arrested at the airport in Tehran. Both his family and St. Antony's College where he is based are silently pushing for his release
• Iran's football team is silently supporting the revolution, while pro-Ahmadinejad rallies appear to be photoshopped. Go figure

Please do feel free to call other interesting links to my attention, and I will likewise do the same when I happen to stumble upon anything worth the read.

Photo credit: Boston.com (the link has a striking collection of photographs from the election aftermath)

Beyond the romance of microfinance

Via Kenyan Pundit I stumbled across an excellent piece by Magatte Wade on the pitfalls of microfinance and the need to develop Africa's manufacturing sector. Wade writes:

Yes, microfinance is a good thing, especially in those parts of the world that lack industry. And yes, industries that pollute and that violate human rights, as take place all too often in China, are a bad thing. That said, as an African it is important to me that Africa develops a manufacturing base that allows Africans to become respected members of the global community who can live comfortable lives and engage in the co-creation of global culture as peers rather than as objects of pity.

A vision of Africa that is limited to tribal villages and rural agriculture is not inspiring to me, even if the tribal villages are "assisted" by the millions of dollars worth of scientific expertise that Jeff Sachs is providing them. Quite aside from the presumption of well-funded scientific experts teaching rural Africans how to farm, I am offended by the implicit notion that Sachs and company have as their highest aspiration for us that we remain cute little tribal peoples growing our crops and producing our crafts. Africa: the eternal land of National Geographic articles complete with charming natives. Why is it that black Africans are not allowed to be full participants in global society?

To be perfectly honest, I never thought of it this way. Excited by the prospect of providing impoverished entrepreneurs with the capital necessary to run their respective businesses, I failed to realize that doing so inadvertently confines these individuals to the (very limiting) roles they hold: wheat grower; cow herder; etc. While providing capital is indubitably quite valuable and, as Wade rightly notes, necessary in regions without industry, overemphasis on microfinance at the expense of the continent's manufacturing industries is quite damaging. Perhaps the emphasis should be on manufacturing first, microfinance, second. This begins to make all the more sense in light of recent findings that suggest that microfinance comes up short in many areas of human development.

Chinese language newspaper launched in Botswana

The Oriental Post, a Chinese-language newspaper, was launched in Gaborone, Botswana last week.

Man Niles, president of the Oriental Post, said he hopes the newspaper will enable better communication between service providers, product developers and the Chinese community in Botswana. Since "most of the Chinese do not understand English and speak very little Setswana," there presently exists a rather sizable information gap and communications barrier for the Chinese resident in the country. The newspaper is the first attempt aimed at closing this gap.

China is a major actor in both the rural and urban areas in Botswana. Just this April China agreed to establish a major textile industrial park in Phakalane, and is quite eagerly investing in the country's diamond industry.

A global ban on plastic bags?

An idea to ponder:

Single-use plastic bags, a staple of American life, have got to go, the United Nations' top environmental official said Monday.

Although recycling bags is on the rise in the United States, an estimated 90 billion thin bags a year, most used to handle produce and groceries, go unrecycled. They were the second most common form of litter after cigarette butts at the 2008 International Coastal Cleanup Day sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy, a marine environmental group.

"Single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme. His office advises U.N. member states on environmental policies.

Bans on the use of plastic bags are already quite mainstream in other parts of the world. In the UK, for instance, Marks & Spencer charges customers 5p for each plastic bag they use, with the money raised going to an environmental charity. Evidence from China likewise suggests the positive waste-eliminating effects of banning plastic bags. Perhaps it's time for other countries to jump on the BANdwagon, too (sorry, I couldn't resist).

Photo credit: Indigo Shire Council

Raising the bar on corporate social responsibility

In 1995, Nigeria's authorities executed Ken Saro-Wiwa, an environmental activist and a member of the Ogoni ethic group in the Niger Delta, whose land was being targeted and destroyed by the oil extracting activities of Royal Dutch Shell. At the height of his non-violent campaign, Saro-Wiwa was arrested along with nine other anti-oil campaigners. All were tried by a military tribunal and hanged by the Nigerian military government of General Sani Abacha. The charges were entirely politically motivated. 

This devastating human tragedy provoked much outrage and raised many important questions, the most crucial of which had to do with the human rights responsibilities of multinational corporations, especially when working in conjunction with corrupt national governments. In 1996, relatives of the nine executed campaigners brought a case to hold Shell accountable for alleged human rights violations in Nigeria, in Ogoniland in the Niger Delta in particular. The case accused Shell of being complicit in murder, torture and other abuses by Nigeria's former military government against campaigners in the region.

While the case was set to go to trial at the beginning of this month, Shell on Monday agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle the case. Shell continues to deny any wrongdoing, touting the settlement as a "humanitarian gesture" meant to compensate the plaintiffs for their loss and to cover a portion of their legal fees and costs. Regardless, the settlement indubitably brings a long-awaited peace to the families of the victims. Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., son of the executed activist, had a moving piece in yesterday's Guardian in which he wrote: 

Nothing about this has come or will ever come easy. Every word, every phrase and every comma has been weighed, scrutinised and debated. These are life and death matters. Head versus heart. The case has been freighted with all kinds of agendas that it cannot possibly satisfy. In the end a settlement is a compromise; both parties agree to settle their differences by meeting in a so-called middle. That middle is a matter of perspective of course. To some this must be bewildering. To others it was too long in coming. In the end it is only those who are intimately involved, who have everything to lose and everything to gain that have to make a decision that will not satisfy everyone.

History will show that this was a landmark case. Multinationals now know that a precedent has been set, that it is possible to be sued for human rights violations in foreign jurisdictions.

Indeed, the significance of the settlement lies precisely in the fact that the bar for corporate social responsibility has been firmly set, sending multinationals a clear signal that their activities vis-a-vis local populations in the regions in which they work will be under close scrutiny. Surely a step in the right direction.

Noteworthy….

How professors think: inside the curious world of academic judgement

In its 2009 annual report, The State of the World's Human Rights, Amnesty International notes that it now considers poverty a human rights violation. Unfortunately, such a rights based approach is setting up new aid programs for failure.

Arguably the least welcome convert. Ever.

China is up to its old tricks again...

... while intern season has officially begun in Washington D.C. Oh dear.

North Korea is going too far.... even for China

Until recent days China has rebuffed all U.S. and Japanese calls for more stringent sanctions against North Korea, in part weary of the consequences of a destabilized regime in Pyongyang. Perhaps even further to the point, China has in many ways been supportive of North Korea's missile testing, as suggested by Anne Applebaum in her recent op-ed:

Despite the risks, though, there are good reasons for the Chinese to prod Kim Jong Il to keep those missiles coming. By permitting North Korea to rattle its sabers, the Chinese can monitor President Obama's reaction to a military threat -- without having to deploy a threat themselves. They can see how serious the new American administration is about controlling the spread of nuclear weapons -- without having to risk sanctions or international condemnation of their own nuclear industry. They can distract and disturb the new administration -- without harming Chinese American economic relations, which are crucial to their own regime's stability. And if the game goes badly, they can call it off altogether.

While the Chinese are not quite yet willing to call if off altogether, there is reason to believe that they are growing increasingly frustrated by Kim's behavior. Not so much because it stands in clear defiance of attempted (though - if we're going to be perfectly honest - altogether meaningless) U.N. resolutions, but because an increasingly active North Korea will likely signal rapid military buildup in Japan, threatening stability in the region. North Korea's missile tests have also begun to step on the toes of the increasingly disgruntled Chinese leadership, leading one to believe that a change in Chinese policy may be nigh.

Zhu Feng's recent piece is the first sliver of evidence suggesting such a shift (or at the very least the possibility of one). The piece is significant not only for what it says, but also because of who is saying it: Zhu is a top dog in Beijing, serving as he does as the Deputy Director of the Center for International & Strategic Studies at Peking University. China, he writes, has long been of the opinion that North Korea's nuclear efforts was a negotiable item:

As long as its regime security and economic demands could be met, Pyongyang might be willing to give up its “nuclear car”. For the time being, it seems to me that all evidence points in the opposite direction. In fact, the recent nuclear testing by DPRK is not merely a slap in the Chinese face, but a sobering wake-up call for Chinese leadership to face up to the malign nature of their N. Korean counterparts.

This slap in the face may well "bring about the fundamental change of China's long-time policy of DPRK quickly." What this change will look like and what it will entail are not yet known. While I doubt that China will engage in measures such as the cutting off of oil and coal supplies, which would indubitably cripple the North Korean economy, it will find other ways to take a hard stand against North Korea's behavior. (Hopefully) it's just a matter of time. 

Note to China: sooner would be better than later.

Tiananmen twenty years on

Reporting from Beijing today James Fallows observes the scene in Tiananmen Square:

[...] There are always plenty of security forces around -- soldiers in green uniforms, various kinds of police in blue uniforms, and "plainclothes" forces who are pretty easy to pick out, like strapping young men in buzz cuts all wearing similar-looking "leisure" clothes. But I have not seen before anything like the situation at the moment. 

There are more representatives in all categories -- soldiers, police, obvious plainclothesmen -- than I recall seeing even during the Tibet violence in early 2008 or through the Olympic games. Also many people whom you would normally classify as fruit vendors, tourists from the Chinese provinces, youngish white collar workers male and female, and skateboarder-looking characters wearing cargo shorts and with fauxhawk haircuts, were last night walking up and down the sidewalks with their eyes constantly on visitors and drifting up next to people who were holding conversations.

The way to avoid their attention is keep moving briskly along the sidewalk rather than stopping as if you think there is something particular to look at in the square today. The way to draw it is to stop and look around, to pay attention to the security forces themselves, or to have a camera in your hand. 

Writing in the WSJ's China Journal, Loretta Chao elaborates further:

Most local residents seemed not to know what the commotion was about. One man asked if there was something going on because Malaysia’s Prime Minister arrived in the capital yesterday. Before he could continue talking, several officers swooped in and told him to leave the area.

The man offered minor resistance, then left. But as he walked away, a camera-toting cop followed him, recording the man’s departure. Not realizing that the camera cop, who was wearing a white T-shirt and no badge, was with the authorities, the man demanded to be left alone, splashed his bottled drink on the camera cop’s face, then threw the empty bottle at his head before walking off. “Why are you following me?” he yelled. “What’s wrong with you?”

Rather surreal and eerily ironic images stand to commemorate the June 4 incident. But has the West been mischaracterizing it for all these years? Should we speak louder about the abuses that occurred - and continue to occur - in China, or is this best left for discussions behind closed doors?

The "Great firewall of China" rages on

Every so often I check this blog's statistics: it's a fun exercise to discover where in the world the readers are, how they got here, and what posts are of most interest to them. In recent days I've noticed a startling shift in readership demographics: where there previously was a rather sizable readership from China, there is now none. My guess is that this has something (or indeed everything) to do with China's 'internet blackout' ahead of the Tiananmen anniversary tomorrow.

Western sites like Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, Wordpress, YouTube, Blogger and (just one day after its launch) Microsoft Bing have all been censored. Moreover, government agencies are banning delivery of foreign newspapers, and disrupting satellite news broadcasts. Access to Taiwanese news outlets, which have become quite open in recent years, has also been restricted. The Chinese media blog Danwei posted a link to this spreadsheet of currently unaccessible or otherwise blocked Chinese sites, to which one can no doubt add countless others. Even Tiananmen Square itself is closed to the public today and blocked by armed police (a chillingly ironic image, if you ask me). The 'blackout' is aimed at eliminating every possible reference to the 1989 pro-democracy student movement, which the PLA suppressed on June 4 of that year.

Unfortunately, such memory control has been quite successful in China, with the result being that only few young Chinese know anything about the so-called "June 4 Incident" other than the fact that it happened (and some don't even know that much). Hiding a nation's history from its own people is utterly repulsive and, indeed, cowardly. A stark juxtaposition to what is arguably one of the most powerful images of raw human courage in history:

Noteworthy….

The trouble with resuming aid to Zimbabwe

Tax deductible cycling: soon coming to an American city near you

Full-text of Timothy Geithner's speech at Peking University, which was seemingly well received by all in attendance

Gitmo: the video game (really? really?!)

For anyone wishing to brush up on their readings on Africa and development, this list should keep you perfectly busy for the next little while...

mHealth data from the Humanitarian Technology Challenge

Via UN Dispatch, Matthew Cordell writes:

Ken Banks, the brilliant creator of FrontlineSMS is now delivering a Lawrence-Lessig-style presentation at the Humanitarian Tech Challenge.  It's all interesting and worth comment, but right now he's talking about a friend of his who took "a laptop and 100 used cell phones" to St. Gabriel's Hospital in Malawi.

That small amount of equipment served 250,000 people, saved $3500 in fuel costs and saved 1,000 hours in travel time. Incredible.

The Humanitarian Technology Challenge is a partnership between the IEEE and the UN Foundation & Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, and seeks to define and develop sustainable solutions to humanitarian challenges in the developing world. These solutions should be able to be implemented locally and "within the environment, cultural, structural, political, and socio-economic conditions where they will be developed."

New research on Sino-Timorese relations

A new report on China's relations with East Timor by Loro Horta has recently been published by France's Institut de Recherche sur l'Asie du Sud-Est Contemporaine (Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia). The report traces the alleged successes and limitations of China's strategy in East Timor and hopes to:

[...] shed some light not only on the intricacies of relations between the two countries, but also on China’s relations with other small, poor but resource rich countries like Timor-Leste. Finally it is the hoped by the author that the current article may give a modest contribution to the study of China’s foreign relations and its diplomacy in the developing world.

The report is written from quite an IR realist perspective, though does well to highlight several consistencies in China's "go out" policy and the nature of its bilateral relations with developing states, particularly insofar as its oil and energy, infrastructure, and technology investments are concerned.