Chinese FAO chief 'threatened African leaders he could remove them from office'

  ROME – The FAO Director General Qu Dongyu while travelling in Africa boasted to heads of state and government that he has the power “as a Chinese official” to have them removed from office and referred disparagingly to Western donors to the Food and Agriculture Organization as “Father Christmases” whose views don’t have to be taken into consideration, diplomatic sources say.

 Qu also told one Western diplomat that he relies only on state-controlled Chinese media for keeping informed on world events, saying there is no point his reading newspapers from other countries as he believes their media are all state controlled as well.  The remarks, quoted by a senior diplomatic source with frequent access to Qu, underlined what many Rome-based observers see as the arrogant approach adopted by the director general after he was elected unopposed to a second term of office at the helm of the troubled UN agency.

 “He told African heads of government that he had the power to remove them from office in his capacity as a senior Chinese official, suggesting that he regards his primary loyalty as being to Beijing rather than to the United Nations,” the outraged source said.

 Qu also referred to Western donors to the FAO as so many “father Christmases,” indicating that he is unruffled by criticism from Western donors for what they see as his pro-Russian stance on the Ukraine War and for the FAO’s involvement in data collection considered to be a sinister departure from the FAO’s mission to combat hunger and poverty.

 His quoted remarks to African heads of government are further evidence of how China has used the FAO for narrow national interests, observers say. A number of developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America have become heavily indebted to China and are beholden to Beijing as a result in a new form of colonialism.

 While Qu is a member of the Chinese Communist party he is believed to be outranked in the party hierarchy by both the Chinese Ambassador to the FAO and by one of his divisional directors at the FAO who he appointed, taking instructions from both men.

 The United States supported Qu’s second term as a quid pro quo for China endorsing the appointment of Cindy McCain as Executive Director at the World Food Programme, diplomatic sources say.

 While the United States remains the largest donor to both the FAO and WFP, Washington has become increasingly aligned with Chinese policy at FAO since Ms McCain’s predecessor as U.S. ambassador to the FAO, Kip Tom, a Trump administration nominee and himself owner of a large agribusiness, encouraged Qu to start unprecedented collaboration with big multinational agribusiness and fertliliser companies such as Monsanto grouped in the CropLife corporation, a move seen by many NGOs as having compromised the independence of the FAO.

 China deployed its financial muscle to ensure Qu's election to his first term at FAO, persuading a rival candidate to Qu from Cameroon to stand down in return for Beijing paying the foreign debt of Cameroon, widely seen as effectively a Chinese vassal state.

 Qu was in Kenya this week leading a team of high-ranking officials from FAO headquarters in Rome. It is his first visit to Kenya since he took up office as the director-general of the FAO on Aug. 1, 2019.

 jf