China vs US - superpower standoff in Africa
By Peter Huck
5:00 AM Saturday Aug 23, 2014
Demographics alone its 1.1b people will double by 2050 means African
continent cant be ignored
Description: Joint AU-UN special representative Rodolphe Adada greets
Chinese engineering unit members in Nyala. Photo / AP
Joint AU-UN special representative Rodolphe Adada greets Chinese engineering
unit members in Nyala. Photo / AP
As Muammar Gaddafi's regime began to unravel in 2011, amid chaotic fighting
between Libya's military and rebels, foreign nations rushed to withdraw
their citizens. The rescued included about 35,000 Chinese workers in an
evacuation supported by a People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy frigate, the
Xu Zhou, Beijing's first military deployment to Africa.
And when Libya's revolution spilled over to Mali, Beijing sent a PLA unit to
join United Nations peacekeepers, the first appearance of Chinese troops on
the continent.
More recently, Beijing has committed an 850-strong infantry battalion to
South Sudan.
China has a vested interest: protecting South Sudan's huge oil reserves.
Beijing needs energy for its economic growth and wants to safeguard Chinese
workers, along with billions of dollars in investments.
Indeed, most Chinese UN deployments - mainly doctors and engineers - have
been to Africa, to Liberia, Ivory Coast, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of
the Congo and Western Sahara.
There have also been arms shipments, most notoriously in 2008 when a Chinese
vessel carrying military equipment to Zimbabwe was denied entry to a South
African port amid criticism Beijing's hunger for raw materials trumped human
rights. But Beijing prefers soft power, building railways, roads, ports,
telecommunications and other infrastructure in quid pro quo deals for raw
materials.
Trade, facilitated by Beijing's deep public pockets, reciprocal visits by
dignitaries, including Xi Jinping, and the estimated one million Chinese
citizens who have made Africa home since 2001, soared to $200 billion last
year, making China the continent's biggest trading partner.
All of which has set off alarm bells in some Western quarters, with dark
warnings about a new Scramble for Africa. Critics fret the United States -
focused on the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific, the European Union and Russia
- has made a strategic mistake.
They worry that Beijing has exploited a US foreign policy vacuum, grabbing
pole position on a dynamic continent the Economist predicts will host seven
out of 10 of the world's fastest growing economies this decade.
This month the Obama Administration signalled it was belatedly taking a
greater interest in Africa - the world's second-largest and second
most-populous continent - by convening the first US-African Leaders Summit
in Washington, a three-day talkfest that drew 48 African leaders.
"I see Africa as a fundamental part of our interconnected world - partners
with America on behalf of the future we want for all of our children,"
President Barack Obama told his guests, stressing the need to invest in the
next generation and for stronger relations between the US and Africa.
"That partnership must be grounded in mutual responsibility and mutual
respect."
Yet despite Obama Administration hype that the summit was a potential game
changer, any partnership must be grounded in new thinking.
American photographer Peter Beard once remarked that Africa has front-row
seats at the last picture show. He was talking about the end of big game and
environmental collapse, but this apocalyptic tone feeds stereotypes that
Africa is a chaotic, dangerous place, a theme fuelled by the Ebola outbreak,
tribalism, terrorism, official corruption, poor governance and human rights
abuses.
Bad news from Africa is a stumbling block for US business investment and the
Washington summit was directed as much at Obama's domestic audience as it
was at Africans, says John Campbell, a former US ambassador to Nigeria and
now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
"I think part of it [the summit] was to raise Africa's profile within the
US. To make American companies aware of what some of the opportunities might
be," Campbell says. "American companies are often quite timid about pursuing
business overseas, outside of areas where traditionally they have done
business."
Obama took the high ground at the summit, suggesting the US valued the
potential of Africa's people rather than their raw materials, a dig at
China. But the US has also exploited raw materials, chiefly oil exports. The
US-African trade, about $85 billion in 2013, is overwhelmingly one-sided.
America buys more than it sells. Even oil imports from Nigeria are down,
from 1 million to 50,000 barrels a day, as the US taps domestic supplies.
Unlike China, US firms face legal obstacles, such as the Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act. Nonetheless, according to the Brookings Institute, US
investment dwarfs that from China. Demographics alone - Africa's 1.1 billion
people will double by 2050 - means the continent can't be ignored.
Whether market-driven business models, seen as promoting inequality by
critics in the West, are desirable in Africa remains contentious. But few
dispute the need to lift millions from poverty and steer them towards
profitable employment, rather than into the hands of Islamist groups.
It is a tension that fuses the two main 21st century African narratives: in
one the continent is an emerging powerhouse, in the other it is stalked by
jihadis.
The latter threat has seen a steady increase in US military activity.
According to TomDispatch.com this averaged over one mission a day in 2013, a
217 per cent increase in operations since 2008.
The website says US Africa Command has "maintained a veil of secrecy about
much of the command's activities and mission locations, consistently
downplaying the size, scale and scope of its efforts."
So does this indicate a stealth deployment and is China seen as a rival?
Well, yes and no. Campbell says that India and South Korea are also emerging
players on the continent, an involvement that undercuts any Cold War
paradigm of US-Sino rivalry.
Far from trying to contain China, Campbell says the US is trying to
encourage responsible behaviour that is "commensurate with their growing
economic interest".
Campbell says the Pentagon footprint, like economic activity, in Africa is
"extremely small". He cites a military base in French-controlled Djibouti, a
contingent of special forces deployed in Uganda against the Lord's
Resistance Army and the use of surveillance drones to search for the
abducted Nigeria schoolgirls .
But TomDispatch.com says US forces have been used in airstrikes against
militants, night raids to capture terror suspects, assistance to French and
African troops in proxy wars and in evacuations.
The focus seems directed towards terrorists and pirates, able to recruit
from the poor and disenfranchised, not at China.
But there is a sense the Pentagon could ramp up its forces if needed,
fuelling concerns of mission creep and blowback, as fallout from the Arab
Spring roils the Sahel and causes unease further afield.
Last week, the US approved $10 million to help France fight terrorists in
Mali, Niger and Chad, as fears grow of synergy between Islamic radicals in
the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and Nigeria. It remains to be seen if the US
will benefit economically from such heavy lifting and catch up with China.
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in
anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni
katika machafuko"
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