China-Africa Relations As Seen From The United States
Вставка
- Опубліковано 15 жов 2024
- As Chinese engagement in Africa steadily increased over the past twenty-five years, the U.S. has struggled to respond. Africa has consistently been a low priority in U.S. foreign policy, even with China's growing presence on the continent, and that's especially true today as events in the Middle East, Russia, and the South China Sea dominate the agenda.
For the past two weeks, Eric, Cobus & Géraud crisscrossed the U.S. capital to meet with scholars, analysts, diplomats, and policymakers to get firsthand perspectives on how the China-Africa relationship in 2024 is seen from Washington. These discussions took place at a critical time when the political momentum shifted in Donald Trump's favor and one month before Chinese President Xi Jinping will host an African leaders summit in Beijing.
JOIN THE DISCUSSION:
X: @ChinaGSProject | @stadenesque | @christiangeraud
Facebook: ChinaAfricaProject
UA-cam: / @chinaglobalsouth
FOLLOW CAP IN FRENCH AND ARABIC:
Français: www.projetafriquechine.com | @AfrikChine
Arabic: عربي: www.alsin-alsharqalawsat.com | @SinSharqAwsat
JOIN US ON PATREON!
Become a CAP Patreon member and get all sorts of cool stuff, including our Week in Review report, an invitation to join monthly Zoom calls with Eric & Cobus, and even an awesome new CAP Podcast mug! www.patreon.com/chinaglobalsouth
For further insights on our time in Washington D.C., check out the analyses by Cobus and Geraud:
Geraud's article: The Narrowing Space for Democracy - chinaglobalsouth.com/analysis/letter-from-washington-the-narrowing-space-for-democracy/
Cobus' piece: Is Africa Holding Itself Back? - chinaglobalsouth.com/analysis/letter-from-dc-is-africa-holding-itself-back/
All African people must remember all these and Africa history.
When the Chinese explorer admiral Zheng arrived in the African continent more than 800 years ago long before any European. There were still no Europeans who had stepped on African continent soil before.
But the Chinese Admiral Zheng with his fleet of many wooden ships and thousands of troops did not colonize any African countries. He was in Africa for building diplomatic relations and trades.
When the Europeans came to the African continent with their troops and saw Africans are weak and easy to bully. They started to colonize African countries, looted Africa resources and enslaved the humble poor African people.
Rather interesting to see some parts of the Washington beltway are now aware of the seemingly insurmountable gulf between what China has done and gained in Africa compared to America. That said Africa is just not on the agenda owing to other concerns, only so much bandwidth in the Blob.
An excellent episode and some great analyses by Cobus and Geraud. Will never get those sorts of insights from Washington.
The leopard never changes it’s spots!
On South Africa, South African politicians spend a lot of their time politically posturing on the international stage on issues that are not of direct concern to their country's economic well-being. The activist instincts of a generation of members of the ruling party in South Africa seems to overwhelmingly dictate the country's international posturing. It also serves as a means of distraction, from the backdrop of dismal economic performance and their lack of a coherent economic policy agenda, to agitate the popular liberationist vein in the body politic to maintain popular support.
A more competent economically focused government would have leveraged AGOA as a means to attract direct investment from China - seeking to offshore manufacturing for exports to the US and EU through a 3rd country. As indeed many countries from Mexico to Bangladesh, Vietnam, and even Ethiopia have done. As to South African concern about AGOA renewal, I say fear not, the US knows (or should be informed) that the main beneficiaries of AGOA are the 'white' controlled South African agricultural industry. Undermining this would fall heavily on 'white' farmers, who of course have the alternative of redirecting exports to China.
Politicians (of the left) in South Africa are self-satisfied and seek to highlight issues about the distribution of income for votes rather than implement policies that raise aggregate incomes. Simple solutions, like leveraging on China's manufacturing capacity to build prefab homes to replace township shanties, escape the imagination of South Africa's ruling politicians.
This is an African failure not unique to South Africa, political elites across the continent capture the treasury and gorge to their material satisfaction while distracting their populace with slogans - doing little to substantially grow their economies.
The only defense of the African political class I can summon, for their economic negligence, is that they believe and hold a pragmatic and maybe realistic view (known only to the political cognoscenti), that there are publicly unrevealed arcane hard constraints outside their purview and power (i.e. Western) that prevent any actionable program for economic progress
If Africa likes bricks members, let them do, is therr opinion so let them, but no funds from the West 😢😢😢