Africa -China Review Africa -China Cooperation and Transformation
Published: December 14,2022
By Gerald Mbanda
Internet Image: AFP / Getty
Several African heads of State arrived in US capital Washington on Tuesday, at the invitation of US president Joe Biden for the US-African Leaders Summit. The first such kind of Summit was started by former US president Barrack Obama on August 4–6, 2014. Leaders from fifty African states attended the three-day summit which focused primarily on trade, investment and security of the continent. Eight years down the road, when you ask African governments what was achieved in the first meeting, they will tell you there is nothing much to celebrate. What then isthe expected outcome this round?
Political analysts believe that the Biden administration wants to achieve two things: One, to show African leaders that America cares about the development of the continent, contrary to the popular perception that the continent is an afterthought in US foreign policy, and two; to force a wedge between African leaders to divorce China which is perceived as an enemy eating the American cake in Africa.
William Jones, a former White House correspondent for Executive Intelligence Review, observes that, “No one in the West was terribly concerned about Africa, until Chinese investment, which had been in Africa since the 1960s, began to actually help lift African countries out of the vicious circle of poverty. Since 2010, China has become the biggest investor in Africa. Particularly since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, China has focused on infrastructure projects, which not only create jobs, but also provide the basis for further economic development.”
The US Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves acknowledged ahead of the Summit that the US had fallen behind as China has surged past American foreign direct investment in Africa. “we took our eye off the ball so to speak, and US investors and companies are having to play catch up,” Don Graves told media. The White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday said that the US would commit to spend $55billion in Africa over the next three years, adding that, “ “If you compare what the United States is committing over the next three years to what any other country is committing, I think we stack up extremely favorably.”
Probably Don Graves deliberately wants to down play the impact of Cooperation between China-AfricaCooperation that has committed more money. Looking alone at the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) on promoting Africa development agenda, in 2018, China committed $60billion and in 2021 gave out more $40 billion to support various development projects in Africa. Out of the $trillion Chinese investment in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), over a period of 20 years, Africa will benefit a great deal of the finances mainly in the energy, telecommunications and transport sectors across the continent. The sectors are critically essential for Africa’s sustainable development.
As US is determined to undermine China’s footprint in Africa without a concrete framework for cooperation, China and African countries have gone a notch higher to establish the 2035 Vision for China-Africa Cooperation, which stands out as the first mid- to long-term cooperation plan jointly developed by China and Africa, to define the overall framework of China-Africa cooperation for the next 15 years. It should be noted that since 2009, China remains the largest trade partner with Africa, a position that the US may not easily reverse.
In August this year, the Chinese government announced debt cancellation of 23 interest free loans for 17 African countries. In 2020, China wrote off $113million, while between 2000 and 2019, more than $3.4billion was written off and another $15 billion of debt in Africa was restructured. Again, China waived tariffs on 98% of taxable imports from nine Africancountries. On the other hand, the US administration uses its tariffs exception with African countries under the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA), as a carrot and stick with pre-conditions that only favor USinterests. For example, in March 2018, the US suspended Rwanda from AGOA simply for refusing to import second hand clothes from the US. Rwanda made it clear that her people needed a more dignified life free from wearing second hand clothes at the expense of developing her own textiles industry.
At the FOCAC Summit in Dakar in 2021, China committed to support the African Union insafeguarding peace and stability and promoting the integration of Africa as well as supporting thedevelopment of the Continental free trade area (AfCFTA).
Commenting on the expected outcome of the US-Africa Leaders former White House correspondentWilliam Jones, said that, “It is not expected that we will see any infrastructure proposals coming out of the Washington conference. The U.S. government is no longer in the business of building railroads. The Joe Biden administration will do everything it can, perhaps, to get private businesses to “step up” and do something for Africa, but they have less influence on that matter than the New York Stock Exchange.” He further observed that there will also be the usual warnings about working with China on infrastructure – or on anything else for that matter. At the same time, there will be a lot of beautiful speeches about the importance of Africa as a “geopolitical player.” But most of the leaders coming to Washington know that this whole arrangement is all about “geopolitics.”
The US seems to be waking up from a deep slumber to counter the firm structured win-win cooperation between China and Africa that has been built over decades. However, the big question, here remains that can the Biden Administration change the arrogant foreign policy of the ‘big brother syndrome’ of lecturing developing countries on how to manage their internal affairs? Times have changed but the US administration is still stuck in the past, without realizing that the African leaders know better what they want, and how they want to get it.
Gerald Mbanda is a researcher and publisher on China-Africa Cooperation.
