By ZHANG Qiaowen
CCS Affiliate
Centre for Chinese Studies
Stellenbosch University
With the gradual deepening of China-Africa economic and trade relations in recent years, the international community has tended to overlook improvements in Chinese policy toward Africa. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of Chinese enterprises in Africa is one area upon which doubt is frequently cast. Chinese enterprises have nevertheless achieved numerous advances in CSR in recent years. This shift fits into China’s official vision of sustainable development and offers companies an opportunity to enhance their responsible competitiveness.
Perceptions vs reality
Taking advantage of vast natural resources and market potential, many African countries are successfully attracting capital flows from developed and emerging economies with numerous enterprises, Chinese enterprises included, expanding their business on the continent. As an indispensable soft power, CSR has become essential in terms of corporate strategy for numerous enterprises. While western critics have frequently pointed to China’s lack of CSR awareness, Chinese enterprises breakneck speed economic context in which China has been embedded.
CSR in China
In response to a series of negative side effects of China’s rapid economic growth, for example the impact on the environment, labour, community and so forth, China released a number of regulations promoting CSR practices. One of these is the 2006 Chinese Company Law which requires companies to “undertake social responsibility”. Partly due to government regulations, international pressures and the rising enterprises’ own awareness; besides economic factors, other factors such as environmental-, social- and governance factors (ESG) are also becoming key considerations for many Chinese enterprises. Subsequently, socially responsible investment funds and social enterprises are constantly being established and a growing amount of CSR-related information is disclosed. For instance, there were 1,526 CSR reports published in 2014, many of which adopted internationally recognized GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) or Global Impact Frameworks.
Report submission is not without its problems: some submissions tend to be cosmetic – with companies only reporting good news. Additionally, a number of the reports tended to focus more on charities and communities, with less information on the environment, suggesting that CSR information disclosure for Chinese enterprises is still not at a completely satisfactory level.
It is likely that there is still a lot of work to be done to improve CSR in China. At the same time, it should be noted that certain foreign enterprises that operate in China (some of which are Fortune Global 500
have actually focused on CSR practices for some time already. Chinese investors, for example the China-Africa Development Fund (CADFund) has implemented strict responsible investment policies. Similarly, in recent years, Chinese enterprises such as Sino-Steel and Sinopec have started disclosing more CSR information by regularly releasing responsibility reports on Africa. Though more needs to be done to promote CSR awareness on the continent (especially in the case of Chinese small enterprises) China deserves some credit for the changes that have already been made –
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