Just before the visit of the US Secretary of State, Mr Anthony Blinken, to Africa early last month (August) that took him to South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Washington released its newest strategy towards Sub-Saharan Africa. In a typical imperial patronage, long characteristic of US approach to Africa, Washington’s recent outline of her “strategy toward Sub-Saharan Africa” states that “Open Societies” in Africa, ostensibly modelled in Washington’s vision “would likely attract greater US trade and investments, but importantly “counter harmful activities by the People’s Republic of China, Russia and other actors.”
The characteristic imperial arrogance of the US establishment in unilaterally knowing and defining “harmful activities by the People’s Republic of China, Russia and other actors” in Africa, simply means that nearly five decades after former Nigerian leader, Gen. Murtala Mohammed, famously retorted to the former US President Gerald Ford’s letter, warning him that “Africa has come of age and is no longer under the orbit of any extra continental power,” the current occupiers of the White House seemed to have learnt very little when it comes to engaging with Africa. General Mohammed had then warned that “for too long has it been presumed that Africa needs outside “experts” to tell him who are his friends and who are his enemies,” stressing “the time has come when we should make it clear that we know our interests and how to protect those interests, that we are capable of resolving African problems without presumptuous lessons in ideological dangers which more often than not, have no relevance for us nor for the problem at hand.”
Curiously, the US government has yet to reconcile itself to the integrity of Africa’s institutional memory to process its own historical trajectories and distill the heinous or edifying roles played by extra continental powers in the past and how to engage broadly in the contemporary international system to secure her own interest and protect the law-based international order.
In outlining US national security and interest, China has been defined as a strategic competitor and even an adversary and it appears now that the US heightened interest in Africa is largely as a strategic battleground and its main strategy is mostly to rally African countries to “counter harmful activities by the People’s Republic of China.”
For Africa, a 21st Century partnership cannot be down to just rallying it to counter the “harmful activities” of Washington’s perceived “strategic competitors and adversaries in Africa.”
During the visit of the US secretary of state to South Africa, and in his meeting with his counterpart following the release of the US strategy toward Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa’s foreign minister Ms Naledia Pandar said she has had “very frank discussions, where at times we don’t agree but it has not broken this friendship,” though, she added, “there has been a sense of patronising and bullying.”
However, a strategy designed with the intention to rally the continent to “counter harmful activities of the People’s Republic of China, Russia, and other actors,” cannot but amass a diplomatic offensive that would obviously include “patronising and bullying.”
But a US strategy towards Africa can certainly craft more meaningful and productive engagement if it is less obsessed with countering China in Africa. Curiously, the US Africa’s policy circles have yet to make a pragmatic assessment of China’s cooperation with Africa, because they have been largely driven by ideological bigotry and muscle-flexing.
Africa in the 21st Century seeks a partnership that engages the existential challenges of the continent that clearly revolves around sustainable and inclusive development, considered broadly in Africa as the ultimate guarantor to peace, political stability and social solidarity. The practical contributions to key questions of sustainable and inclusive economic development generally rank among many as the net input to securing Africa’s strategic prosperity. Any meaningful strategic partnership for Africa can be defined only by measurable and tangible contribution of these indices.
In peacekeeping, contribution of strategic mineral resources, deepening and broadening multilateralism, scaling up the frontiers of the fourth industrial revolution, strategically moderating international political temperament and upholding the centrality of the United Nations System, and advancing law-based international order, Africa is holding a balance that is both indispensable and pivoted to the emerging global consensus on building a community of shared future for all humanity and, therefore, not a pushover or a mere strategic accomplice in the pursuit of anyone’s national security interest.
China – Africa relations are not new though they have gained phenomenal traction and global visibility since the turn of the 21st century, especially with massive contributions to the national aggregates of the respective countries in Africa. Clearly, the China – Africa cooperation has responded in practical terms to one of the key historical deficits in the continent’s struggle for integration. The historic challenges of infrastructure connectivity within and among countries in Africa are in practical resolution, with more than 13,000 km of roads, bridges and railways built. Furthermore, 80 large-scale power stations, several sea and airports, 45 sporting venues, over 130 medical facilities and 170 schools with nearly 200,000 personnel trained in addition to parliament buildings, special economic zones, agricultural demonstration centres built in the past twenty years by China through multidimensional cooperation with African countries.
In fact, when the US secretary of state and other top western officials visit Africa, it is most likely they would have landed at China-assisted airports, travelled on China’s supported road networks. It would, therefore, take extreme cynicism to describe China’s engagement with Africa as “harmful activities” that need to be countered.”
If the US Africa policy designers are so “blinkered” by ideological bigotry and big power rivalry to see the actual and practical outcomes of the China-Africa comprehensive partnership, they can tap into the wisdom of their African peers to see. The enabling roles of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) since its founding in 2000 in advancing cooperation at many strategic levels that have considerably boosted Africa’s renaissance have reached new heights.
With Africa as the region with the largest number of countries on the partnership of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the continent’s infrastructural base is on the upswing. Nigeria, Africa’s biggest country and its largest economy, would in a few months have its first ever Deep Seaport go into full operation that would turn the country into a regional maritime hub. The Lekki deep seaport is one of the major harvests of Nigeria-China cooperation under the Belt and Road partnership. It would be a wonder in political salesmanship for US Africa policy crafters to convince Nigerians, among whom over 200,000 persons would get direct jobs from the Deep Seaport, to take seriously the alleged “harmful activities of the People’s Republic of China” in Africa that needs to be countered, let alone the various levels of government in the country that would accruing more than 200 billion US dollars in taxes, royalties and duties from activities of the port.
Africa would certainly welcome a mutually respectful partnership. A vision of US-Africa partnership in the 21st Century, from Africa’s perspective. cannot consist in Washington’s imperial arrogance of defining whose “activities” is harmful in Africa.
Seeking to draw Africa into a battle to “counter harmful activities of the People’s Republic of China, Russia and other actors,” in Africa would be very much unnecessary in a 21st Century strategy for partnership.
- Onunaiju is Director, Centre for China Studies, Abuja
