安哥拉，中非之恋正在降温。富含石油的安哥拉获得了中国至少85亿美元的基础设施贷款协议，已成为中国非洲战略的一个符号。但两国关系正在显现嫌隙，同时中国已经在对其他地区显示出新的兴趣，特别是西方国家不愿前去做生意的地区。
人权维护人士说，中国工人和企业已成为暴力袭击的特别对象。与此同时，反政府武装也已经把中国工作人员和厂房设施当成他们的目标。
一 个中心问题在于当地人一种越来越强烈的憎恨情绪。他们认为，中资公司在引进他们自己的中国籍工人，而不是雇用安哥拉本地人来重建这个经历了27年内战的国 家。据安哥拉政府估计，在安哥拉工作的中国人有70,000人，从起重机和推土机司机，到技术水平更高的铁路工程师，所涉工种不一而足。
为中资公司走进非洲提供咨询的香港咨询师梁建邦(Andrew Leung)说，中国公司输入自己的劳动力，因此不能与当地人和谐相处。
在某些项目中，多数工作人员都是中国人。例如据当地官方媒体安哥拉新闻社(Angola Press)报道，在安哥拉南部复建505公里长木萨米迪什铁路(Mocamedes Railway)的工程，就雇有中国工人160名，安哥拉工人仅60人。
伦 敦大学东方与非洲研究学院(School of Oriental and African Studies)亚非中心研究助理科金(Lucy Corkin)说，问题在于，在安哥拉和在非洲其他地方一样，中国公司和当地政界都是严重依赖于高层政治关系，而不是依靠在充足信息基础上进行的风险分析 与研究，所以他们在面对底层状况时，准备十分不足。
据去年发表在安哥拉媒体上的葡萄牙 文声明，中国驻安哥拉大使馆坚称中卢关系是“卓越”的。但在中国商务部网站刊登的中文文章里，商务部坦白地谈到了在安哥拉运营的困难。商务部说，中资公司 面临着当地政府机关滥用职权，司法制度不完美，专断独行，海关费用高，当地商人不讲诚信等问题。
安哥拉首都罗安达一个树木葱茏的地区聚集了很多中资公司。去年12月这里发生的一件事情，就看得出中国工人面临着什么样的敌意。
当 时有一大群安哥拉人聚集在一家中资建筑工程公司的办公楼外，愤怒地叫喊，原因是一位当地人在驾驶机动自行车时撞上了一只从这家中资公司楼内跑出来的狗，造 成车辆受损，他们要求中资公司赔偿损失。一位穿着T恤衫和牛仔裤的年轻中国人赶紧跑来和愤怒的人群商量，他说，中国人在安哥拉的日子过得越来越难了。
罗安达人权协调中心(Center for Human Rights Coordination)执行秘书通加(Francisco Tunga)同意这一说法，他说，当地对中国人存在歧视，他们常常遭到毒打和绑架。
伦敦咨询公司Datamonitor能源与公用事业研究分析部总监阿特金森(Neil Atkinson)说，中国人容易引起注意，是因为他们带了自己的人过来，在来自其他国家的外资承包商往往只带很少同胞过来的时候，这样做显得很扎眼。
来 自中国农村地区的贫困工人来安哥拉工作，是为了给家里人存钱，相比国内，他们在安哥拉挣的钱要多得多。但据曾经在中资公司工作的人讲，相比其他驻安哥拉外 资公司的工人，中国工人的工资要少三分之一，并且每天工作11个小时，每周工作六天。据国际劳工组织(International Labor Organization)的数据，安哥拉其他民营企业的员工每周平均工作44个小时。
罗安达人权协调中心人权活动人士玛赞达(Silvano Mazunda)指出，引入中国人是与安哥拉政府之间协议的一部分，而人们害怕政府，所以他们转而向中国人抗议。
批 评安哥拉政府的人士常常被控犯有“危害国家安全罪”而入狱。据人权组织大赦国际(Amnesty International)说，这项法律含糊不清，令人无法事先知道某个具体的行为是否是非法的。它基本上意味着，任何被当局称为犯罪的行为都是犯罪， 即使在行为发生时法律并没有相关规定。
安哥拉内阁负责人权事务的部长本贝(Bento Bembe)拒绝就该法律置评。
2009 年底，中国驻安哥拉大使馆前所未有地在其网站上发布了一份中文公告，对中国籍人士面临的不断上升的安全危险提出了警告。公告说，武装抢劫案的激增尤以中国 人为目标；公告举例说一位商人被数十名武装分子抢走了价值18万美元的货物，在罗安达一家公司发生的抢劫案中，一名员工遭枪击受伤而死。安哥拉政府通常不 公布犯罪统计数据，不过罗安达负责社会事务的副省长伊姆佩雷尔(Juvelina Imperial)2月份承认，安哥拉首都罗安达的犯罪率令人担心。
此后，中国和安哥拉政府都一直否认存在特别针对中国公民的犯罪或暴力活动。中国驻安哥拉大使张伯伦在接受《华尔街日报》采访时说，过去几年来，犯罪是一个大问题，不过他也说，中国人并没有因为其国籍而成为特别的目标。
安 哥拉犯罪调查部(Criminal Investigation Department)负责人塞凯拉(Eduardo Cerqueira)承认，在安哥拉，我们有一些罪案，但并不比其他国家严重。他说，中国人可能是犯罪案件的受害者，比如那些有货物的商人，但他说，并没 有特别针对中国人。他说，各个国家的人都受到了影响。
在安哥拉石油储量最丰富的卡宾达省(Cabinda)，对寻求独立的分裂叛乱分子来 说，中国承包商已经成为政府的代表。除1月份针对多哥国家足球队的暴力袭击外，过去12个月以来，卡宾达飞地解放阵线(Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda)一直仅针对中国项目和工人。
卡宾达飞地解放阵线内一个派系的发言人明加斯(Rodrigues Mingas)说，受袭的外国人都是中国人。他们不是我们的客人。他们为安哥拉政府工作。
该 组织已声称对三起已证实的中国工人被袭事件负责。去年11月，该组织伏击了中国石油天然气集团公司旗下承包商中国石油东方地球物理公司(BGP Inc.)的中国工人，致使在这个北部地区持续了数月的首次勘探石油工作中断。卡宾达飞地解放阵线和安哥拉政府对伤亡人数说法不一。
安哥 拉石油产量有近三分之一来自卡宾达的海上油井，预计陆地石油储量丰富，因此该地区对安哥拉依赖石油的经济至关重要。伦敦大学东方与非洲研究学院的科金说， 尽管尚未有任何陆地石油生产，马隆格(Malongo)的雪佛龙(Chevron)基地和卡宾达的服务枢纽地位使之成为安哥拉石油经济的一个重要部分。
双方对付款也存在争论。一些公司直接从中资银行获得资金，而其他公司则由安哥拉政府用中国贷款带来的收益来付款。
中国大使张伯伦说，去年以来，由于全球危机令安哥拉的石油和钻石收入下滑、付款延期，在安哥拉的一些中国项目中断或陷入完全停滞。不过他说，尽管全球经济开始复苏，很多中国公司仍面临安哥拉政府的巨额到期未付款项，他还指出，其他外国公司也面临拖延付款。
例 如，据张伯伦说，中铁二十局集团公司(China Railway 20th Bureau Group Co.)被欠接近8亿美元的账款。二十局集团正在复建一条铁路中的一段，这条铁路连接刚果民主共和国产铜地带和安哥拉大西洋沿岸，全长1,300千米。母 公司中国铁建股份有限公司(China Railway Construction Corp.)拒绝置评。
而由于公司不能发工资，一些 工人被迫回国。例如，一位在安哥拉南部为某中资建筑公司工作的翻译，由于去年公司底没有收到账款，不得不回到国内。这是她的一位同胞在罗安达接受采访时说 的。她这位同为翻译的朋友以匿名为条件说，由于公司收不到款了，她就只好打包回家，我很多朋友都遇到过这种情况。
在驻安哥拉中资公司Hywai3月份发表的一份声明里，张伯伦暗示他曾与安哥拉总统桑托斯(Eduardo Dos Santos)讨论过工程款问题。张伯伦在声明里说，我曾与总统先生就在建工程和工程款问题进行过一次深入讨论。
安哥拉经济部一位发言人建议采访财政部一位代表，这位代表没有回应置评请求。
与此同时，安哥拉政府对中国人承建新的基础设施项目已经没有原来的热情。
在2005年到2008年签署一连串合同过后，两年以来，安哥拉没有同中国达成任何有实质意义的协议。
据 中国对外承包工程商会(China International Contractors Association)，安哥拉曾是中资公司合同的三大甲方之一，去年它经落在了伊朗和委内瑞拉的后面，印度仍然排在前三。中国国家统计局数据显 示，2009年，中国与安哥拉的双边贸易总额为170亿美元，同比下降33%，和石油价格的跌幅一致。
去年年底，安哥拉国有石油公司 Sonangol阻止了中国海洋石油(Cnooc Ltd.)和中石化(Sinopec)购买Marathon Oil Corp.所持20%股份的交易，因为它想自己购买这批股份。过后Sonangol又签署了一份扩大同印度之间已有合作的协议。
专家说， 安哥拉对华方针变冷，是它同西方投资者关系迅速发展的结果。去年11月份，国际货币基金组织(IMF)决定恢复对安哥拉的贷款，但要求安哥拉削减赤字。不 久，安哥拉在历史上第一次得到了国际评级机构的信用评级，为它于今年晚些时候在欧洲和美国出售一批20亿美元主权债券疏通了道路。
美国通过国务卿克林顿(Hillary Clinton)去年的一次访问，也已经承诺提高它在安哥拉石油与农业项目中的投资。
专 家说，中国因此也在冷处理它同安哥拉的关系，同时又在那些西方人不愿前往投资的国度增加投资。去年在伊朗，中石油集团签署了一份帮助开发某天然气油田、价 值47亿美元的协议。此前，法国道达尔(Total SA)拒绝对这个项目进行投入。另外在过去18个月中，中石油集团还拿出超过27亿美元的资金在叙利亚开展收购活动。
Datamonitor的阿特金森说，中国人对委内瑞拉和巴西也有了更多的兴趣，这两个国家的能源要丰富得多。
5月下旬，中国突然第一次对巴西的海洋石油项目发起大规模收购。当时中化集团同意作价31亿美元，从挪威国家石油公司(Statoil ASA)手中收购一处重油油田40%的股份。
今年一季度，中国每天从巴西进口石油约16万桶，增长幅度超过60%，而中国最大炼油企业中石化预计，明年它从巴西进口石油的数量将提高43%。中国甚至还在对它的炼油设施进行升级改造，用来加工重度更高、处理更难的原油。
阿特金森说，中国同安哥拉的关系已进入平台期，他们在安哥拉的作为空间有限，因为当地人对他们存在一定程度的不满。
Here, the love affair between China and Africa is on the wane. Oil-rich Angola, the recipient of at least $8.5 billion in infrastructure loan agreements from China, has become a symbol of the Asian nation's strategy in Africa. But cracks are showing in the relationship between the two countries, at a time when China is already showing a new interest in other regions -- notably, ones where Western nations are reluctant to do business.
Human-rights activists say Chinese workers and companies have been singled out for physical attacks. Meanwhile, staff and facilities have been targeted by antigovernment forces.
A central issue is growing resentment that companies are importing their own Chinese workers rather than employing Angolans to rebuild the country after its 27-year civil war. According to the Angolan government, 70,000 Chinese people work in Angola, ranging from crane and bulldozer operators to more-skilled railway technicians.
China importing 'its own labor . . . does not sit comfortably with locals,' says Andrew Leung, a Hong-Kong-based consultant advising Chinese companies moving to Africa.
On some projects, the majority of staff is Chinese. For instance, the work restoring the 505-kilometer Mocamedes Railway in southern Angola employs 160 Chinese workers and 60 Angolans, according to state news agency Angola Press.
Lucy Corkin, a research associate at the Africa-Asia Centre of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, says the trouble is that, in Angola, as elsewhere in Africa, 'Chinese companies and politicians collectively have leaned heavily on high-level political relations rather than informed risk analysis and research,' meaning they are ill-prepared for the conditions on the ground.
In statements made in Portuguese to the Angolan media last year, the Chinese embassy in Luanda insisted relations with the African nation are 'excellent.' But in the Mandarin section of the Chinese Commerce Ministry's website, the ministry speaks frankly about the difficulties of operating in Angola. Chinese companies are facing 'abuse from government agencies and bureaucracy, an imperfect legal system, arbitrary, high customs fees and local businessmen don't speak in good faith,' the ministry says.
An incident witnessed in December in a leafy neighborhood of the capital, Luanda, where many Chinese companies are based, shows the hostility Chinese workers face.
A crowd of Angolans gathered outside the offices of a Chinese engineering and construction company. They shouted angrily, demanding compensation for a moped driver whose vehicle was damaged when he collided with a dog that had escaped from the Chinese company's building. 'It's getting harder and harder' for the Chinese community in Angola, says a young Chinese man in T-shirt and jeans as he rushes to talk to the angry crowd.
Francisco Tunga, executive secretary of the Center for Human Rights Coordination in Luanda, concurs, saying there is 'discrimination against the Chinese. They are regularly beaten up or kidnapped.'
Neil Atkinson, director of energy and utilities research and analysis at consultancy Datamonitor in London, says the Chinese 'are high-profile because they bring down their own people. It's a sore thumb,' as foreign contractors from other countries tend to bring in very few expatriates.
Poor workers from rural China are attracted to jobs in Angola as a way of saving up money for their families -- a Chinese worker earns considerably more in Angola than back home. Nonetheless, they are paid one-third less than workers at other foreign companies in Angola, and work 11 hours a day, six days a week, according to people who have worked for Chinese companies. Employees at other private businesses in Angola work an average of 44 hours a week, according to data from the International Labor Organization.
Silvano Mazunda, a human-rights activist who works under the umbrella of Luanda's Center for Human Rights Coordination, points out that 'bringing the Chinese was part of the contract with the [Angolan] government. But people fear the government, so they protest against the Chinese instead.'
Critics of the Angolan government are routinely jailed under the charge of 'crimes against the security of the state.' According to human-rights group Amnesty International, this law 'is vague and does not enable individuals to foresee whether a particular action is unlawful. It basically means that any act which the authorities say is a crime will be a crime even if this was not stated in law at the time the act was committed.'
Bento Bembe, secretary of state in charge of human rights in the Angolan cabinet, declined to comment on the law.
In late 2009, the Chinese embassy in Angola took the unprecedented step of issuing a Chinese-language warning on its website on the mounting security risks faced by its nationals. It said a rise in armed robberies is targeting 'Chinese people in particular,' citing a case in which a businessman was robbed of $180,000 worth of goods by a dozen armed men, and another robbery on a company in Luanda in which one employee died of gunshot wounds. The Angolan government doesn't publish crime statistics, but Luanda's deputy governor for social affairs, Juvelina Imperial, admitted in February that crime rates in the capital are worrying.
Since then, both the Chinese and Angolan governments have denied there is crime or violence specifically targeting Chinese citizens. China's ambassador to Angola, Zhang Bolun, told The Wall Street Journal that 'over the past few years, crime was a major problem,' but, he argues, Chinese people aren't being targeted because of their nationality.
Eduardo Cerqueira, the director of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Angolan government, acknowledges that 'in Angola, we have some criminality but not worse than in other countries.' He says that Chinese people may be victims of crime -- for instance, merchants with goods -- but, he says, Chinese people aren't being singled out. 'Every nationality is affected,' he says.
In Cabinda, the province of Angola with the most oil, Chinese contractors have become a proxy for the government for separatist rebels seeking independence for the enclave. With the exception of a deadly attack on the Togolese national football team in January, the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda, or FLEC, has exclusively targeted Chinese projects and workers in the past 12 months.
'They [the foreigners attacked] were all Chinese,' says Rodrigues Mingas, a spokesman for an FLEC faction. 'They are not our guests. They work for the Angolan government.'
The group has claimed responsibility for three confirmed attacks on Chinese workers. In November, an ambush on Chinese workers at seismic contractor BGP Inc., a unit of China National Petroleum Corp., interrupted the first effort to search for oil for several months in the north of the enclave. FLEC and the Angolan government disagree on the number of casualties.
With close to a third of Angola's oil output coming from Cabinda's offshore wells, and expectations of significant reserves onshore, the enclave is vital to the country's oil-dependent economy. Though there isn't yet any onshore production, 'the Chevron [Corp.] base in Malongo and the services hub that Cabinda has become . . . make it an important part of the [Angolan] oil economy,' says Ms. Corkin of SOAS.
There have also been disputes over pay. While some companies receive direct funding from Chinese banks, others are paid by the Angolan government with the proceeds of loans from China.
Some Chinese projects in Angola have been interrupted or come to a complete standstill since last year because of payment delays after Angola's oil and diamond revenue fell amid a global crisis, the Chinese ambassador, Mr. Zhang, says. But despite the global economic recovery, many Chinese companies are still facing huge overdue payments from the Angolan government, he says, while noting that other foreign companies are also facing delays.
For example, China Railway 20th Bureau Group Co., or CR-20, is owed nearly $800 million, according to Mr. Zhang. CR-20 is working to restore a stretch of the 1,300-kilometer railroad that links the copper belt of the Democratic Republic of Congo to Angola's Atlantic coast. CR-20's parent company, China Railway Construction Corp., declined to comment.
And with companies unable to pay their employees, some workers have been forced to return to China. For example, a translator working in Southern Angola for a Chinese construction company had to go home after the company for which she was working wasn't paid late last year, according to a compatriot interviewed in Luanda. 'Her company stopped being paid. She had to go back home. It happened to many of my friends,' the friend, a fellow translator, said, speaking on the condition her name wouldn't be disclosed.
In a statement released in March by Hywai, a Chinese company operating in Angola, Mr. Zhang hinted he had discussed the payment problem with Angolan President Eduardo Dos Santos. 'I had a deep discussion with Mr. President with regards to the ongoing projects and projects payment,' he said, according to the statement.
A spokesman for the Angolan economy ministry referred calls to a finance ministry representative, who didn't return a request for comment.
Meanwhile, the Angolan government's enthusiasm for new Chinese-run infrastructure projects has cooled.
After signing a raft of contracts between 2005 and 2008, it hasn't finalized any significant deal with China in two years.
According to the China International Contractors Association, Angola -- previously in the top-three biggest buyers of Chinese contracts -- was outpaced by Iran and Venezuela last year, with India remaining in the top three. Total bilateral trade between China and Angola was $17 billion in 2009, down 33% on the year, in line with a drop in oil prices, according to China's bureau of statistics.
Late last year, Angolan state oil company Sonangol blocked the $1.3 billion sale of a 20% stake held by Marathon Oil Corp. to China's Cnooc Ltd. and Sinopec because it wanted to buy it itself, and subsequently signed a deal to boost its existing cooperation with India.
Experts say Angola's cooler approach to China is the result of its burgeoning relationship with Western investors. In November, the IMF decided to resume lending to Angola, but asked the country to cut its deficit. This was followed swiftly by its first ever credit rating from international agencies, easing the way for a $2 billion sovereign bond sale in Europe and the U.S. later this year.
The U.S. -- through a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last year -- has also promised to ramp up investment in both oil and agricultural projects.
As a result, experts say, China is also cooling on Angola, even as it is increasing investment in countries with which Western investors are reluctant to do business. In Iran, China National Petroleum Corp. signed a $4.7 billion deal to help develop a natural-gas field last year after Total SA of France refused to commit to the project. And it has plowed more than $2.7 billion into acquisitions in Syria over the past 18 months.
The Chinese are also 'more interested in Venezuela and Brazil, where energy resources are so much bigger,' Mr. Atkinson of Datamonitor adds.
In late May, China made its first sizeable foray into Brazil's offshore when Sinochem agreed to buy a 40% stake in a heavy oil field from Norway's Statoil ASA for $3.1 billion.
China's oil imports from Brazil rose by more than 60% to about 160,000 barrels a day during the first quarter, and the country's largest refiner, Sinopec, expects a 43% rise in oil imports from Brazil next year. The Asian nation is even upgrading its refineries to process its heavier, harder-to-process crude.
'China's relationship with Angola has plateaued,' says Mr. Atkinson of Datamonitor. 'There is a limit to how much they can do in Angola, because there is a degree of resentment against them' from the local population.