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While Ghana’s Governing Elites Call For Deeper Economic Engagement With China, Civil Society Groups Fume

by Eric Olander
The Majority Chief Whip in the Ghanaian parliament, Frank Annoh Dompreh, meeting with Zhu Jing, China's deputy head of mission in Accra. Image via GhanaWeb.

The yawning gap between China’s successful courtship of ruling elites in Africa and Beijing’s difficulties in soothing concerns about debt, environmental sustainability, trade, immigration, and other contentious issues among civil society stakeholders has been on full display in Ghana over the past several weeks.

Two contrasting images have appeared in recent days, one of Ghana’s Majority Chief Whip Frank Annoh Dompreh meeting with Zhu Jing, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the embassy in Accra where the two are happily discussing ways to attract further Chinese investment and economic engagement in Ghana and the other of two Chinese nationals arrested during a military sweep last week against illegal gold mining activities.

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