Africa -China Review Africa -China Cooperation and Transformation
By Gerald Mbanda
100th anniversary of the founding of CPC celebrated on 1st July 2021
On 1st July, China celebrated one hundred years of the founding of the ruling party – The Communist Party of China (CPC). It was a great milestone in the history of the country, the leadership and the people of China, coming at a time when China has overcome abject poverty, realizing the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The event was marked by spectacular performances, Military aircraft fly over at Tian’anmen Square, high degree of order, the high spirit and joy of the Chinese people, and above all, the great speech of the century by president Xi Jinping. I realized one impressive thing that the celebration showed a country that is at harmony with itself, united for a common purpose, full of confidence for the present and hope for a better future.
The reflection on the celebration and the speech by president Xi Jinping made me ask myself, what does the US think about China as it celebrates 100 years of peace, stability and unprecedented development in human history?
In mid-June, the US president Joe Biden while attending a summit for the world’s wealthy countries (G7) in London, he argued the countries to clip the wings of China’s growing economic and security influence. One of the ways proposed by the US president to counter China influence is to offer developing nations financing for infrastructure development that would frustrate China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Although the White House did not make any financial commitments, some of the G7 members expressed sharp disagreed with the US proposal on how to respond to China’s rising global influence.
In the same period President Biden attended a NATO meeting in Brussels where he again echoed US intentions to isolate China and also called Russia a threat to European and Atlantic security. The communiqué after the NATO meeting said that, “China’s growing influence and international policies can present challenges that we need to address together as an alliance.” NATO also expressed concerns over China’s nuclear development and military cooperation with Russia. International relations experts see US behavior towards China and Russia as taking the world back to the cold war era.
Biden and his policy makers appear to be in denial that the rise of China is systematically eclipsing US dominance and hegemony on the global stage bringing to an end the “America first” mantra. The Belt and Road Initiative is believed to be greater by far than the US Marshal Plan to rebuild Europe after WWII and US finds itself lost without significant developmental policies to keep close to developing countries that provide market and raw materials for western economies. The US avoids facing facts to consider China as a fierce competitor requiring appropriate measures to maintain a healthy competition but rather resorts to tarnishing the image of China as a global security threat.
Expressing fears of China’s nuclear development, the US just like on other issues of democracy and human rights simply makes an “Accusation in a mirror.” According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), by May 2021, China had an estimated 350 nuclear warheads compared to 5,550 possessed by US! Since China first tested its first nuclear weapons on 16th October 1964, there has been no nuclear threat by China to attack other countries. To the contrary, the US tested the first nuclear weapon on 16th July 1945 over Japan during WWII, and the US remains the only country in the world to have used nuclear weapons in war, killing around 140,000 people at Hiroshima and 70,000 at Nagasaki according to 1977 revised figures. The US nuclear weapon dropped on Japanese cities was nicknamed “Trinity” after being developed in cooperation with United Kingdom and Canada as part of the “Manhattan project” against Nazi Germany.
The world can judge by itself who to fear most with nuclear weapons. Again when the US and its allies possess more of the world’s estimated total of around 13,400 nuclear warheads , how can the cooperation between China and Russia be viewed as more of a threat to global security than the US and its allies?
In his speech to mark 100th anniversary of the CPC, which fits as ‘the speech of the century’ the Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out that China does not carry aggressive or hegemonic traits in its genes, but reminded that a strong country must have a strong military to guarantee the security of the nation. “We will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us. Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4billion Chinese people,” Xi, warned.
As much as capitalism delivered development for US and other western nations, Socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era has delivered unprecedented development to the Chinese people. Developing nations are free to borrow a leaf from any of the two development models without bias based on domestic contextual needs and realities. The proposal to counter China’s Belt and Road initiative is another step backwards meant to force developing countries to choose sides between the US and allies or China and the eastern bloc. The good thing is that developing countries have gone beyond this kind of politicking.
The rise of China is like a river flowing fast down a high mountain making it difficult for anyone who wants to change its course as there is a risk of that person being swept by the forceful water current. In the same way, the US and its allies will never manage to stop the rise of China. They can only sabotage it for a while. China is aiming at becoming a moderately developed economy by 2035. The world needs global cooperation for human progress and positive competition rather than sabotage and confrontation.
Gerald Mbanda is a publisher and researcher on China-Africa relations
