Editor's note: Tom Fowdy is a UK-based political analyst. The article reflects the author's views, and not necessarily those of CGTN.
U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton has announced an overhaul of the country's strategy towards Africa, one which is explicitly aimed at attempting to counter China's growing ties with the continent.
Speaking at a press conference on December 13, Bolton accused Beijing of “predatory practices” against its African partners, specifying that Washington's new policy would end “indiscriminate” aid to the region and instead advocate a “transactional approach” wherein recipients must first act in accordance with U.S. preferences in order to obtain support.
Bolton further stated that unconditional U.S. backing for activities such as United Nations (UN) peacekeeping would also come to an end.
Such a given strategy is problematic from the start.
National Security Adviser John Bolton unveils the Trump Administration's Africa Strategy at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, U.S., December 13, 2018. /AP Photo
Rather than actually taking the issues and interests of African nations seriously or offering sincere moral support, it instead could not be more transparent that the only aim and intent of the policy are to compete against China and depict the continent as a strategic battleground in the view of its own hegemony.
In such a patronizing view and dismissal of the continent's perspective, it is, in fact, likely to accelerate than hinder the continent's deepening ties with Beijing.
Why is China accused of malpractice in Africa?
These accusations are an appendage of the wider Western discourse of China-Africa ties, which are in turn derived from the legacy of colonialism itself.
The West believes that it has a moral imperative to help, guide and shape Africa to its own design, implicitly assuming the continent lacks agency or initiative to make decisions in its best interests.
Africa is helpless, vulnerable, weak. It thus ought to “rely” on the instruction and wisdom of the superior and “benevolent” Europeans, because there is only one logical, acceptable and intrinsic pathway to development.
African delegations of FOCAC visit rural Guizhou in southwestern China, learning about local poverty alleviation. /VCG Photo
Consequentially, with this Western attempt to claim the monopoly over the discourses of Africa, such nations are largely deprived of having their own legitimate perspective and in turn, anyone who engages with the continent outside of the Western political sphere becomes suspect, as if to assume the Africans themselves are naive, morally inept and incapable.
Yet, this has laid the foundation for how China-Africa ties are ultimately portrayed throughout the West.
The real reason, however, why African nations have warmed towards China concerns that such has offered them realistic opportunities to secure development and investment outside of the rigid and highly elitist box former European masters have attempted to place them in.
Looking eastwards has offered an alternative, not a trap, for nations which have struggled to find success in replicating neo-liberal ideology, which has in fact acted to hinder than encourage development.
American imposed economic changes, or “structural adjustment programs” on Africa throughout the 1980s, via institutions such as the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), decimated the continent and sharply reduced living standards. It is these very failures which created the foundation for China's economic engagement with it.
The opening ceremony of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, September 3, 2018. /VCG Photo.
Yet, digging deeper, there is also a robust history behind such ties which is also widely ignored. That is a mutual empathy between developing, non-aligned nations, reigniting “global south” relations accumulated long ago in the famous Bandung Conference of 1955.
As a whole, there is empathy, there is a mutual perspective. This cannot be said between Africa its former colonial masters, who are viewed with suspicion.
Contemporary China-Africa relations are not simply apparent in slogans or rhetoric either, surveys of countries throughout the continent view China in a positive light with large majorities. Similarly, growing numbers of Africans are now choosing to study in China, a number which is soaring above any other.
Therefore, when Washington comes marching in attempting to call the shots purely for the intent of attempting to contain China, it offers little credibility.
In configuring a policy which does not hide the fact that it is solely concerned only with U.S. hegemony, it is likely to be perceived to be dismissive and belittling of African interests. It gives the impression such countries are only being conceived as convenient pawns on a chessboard.
In view of this, the policy is not offering a serious alternative to China led development. It moans, it criticizes and it complains, but it does not offer empathy or sincerity towards the African countries themselves.
How does it help them overcome their problems? What incentives does it provide? By cutting aid and making intensive geopolitical demands which do not even consider African interests, it serves to in fact reduce, than to increase American influence.
In summary, because the Trump administration is only treating Africa here as a means to an end, it is a strategy which is bound to be unsuccessful in the long run.
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