America's Helping -- and Losing -- Hand in Africa

CITATION: The Daily podcast, "America Has a Problem in Africa: China," The New York Times, 6 April 2023.

I like The Daily a lot and have been listening to it for years, but like the NYT, it suffers this tendency to swallow threat-perceptions unthinkingly. This episode is a great example: it's not really a story about what Africa wants or needs; nor does it really address how China is vastly outperforming the US in providing what Africa wants and needs -- however imperfectly or even exploitatively; nor does it explore why it makes sense, at this point in globalization, for China to be playing that role far more comprehensively than the US has ever bothered to do.

Instead, we are treated with the usual America took its eye off the ball and now China has slipped in -- to our strategic loss!

Some credit for acknowledging that, while China's engagement is very economic/trade/investment/infrastructure-focused (Belt and Road Initiative), the US is basically there for security issues (killing bad guys in a lasting extension and expression of the Global War on Terror). But no real exploration of why it is that US engagement on continent remains so narrow relative to China's and why that gap in effort might logically explain why China "wins" and US "loses" -- realizing that such score-keeping is, in many ways, a supreme expression of how narrowly the US views Africa (i.e., as a place to win or lose in terms of security and politics -- or essentially a strategic pawn without intrinsic value). Rare earth minerals are mentioned, but that's about it in terms of recognized economic value.

The clincher for me, regarding this bias, is the big identified wake-up call that convinced the White House that we're "losing" Africa: namely, a UN vote about condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine and 35 African nations abstaining in a perceived reflection of their desire not to complicate their growing economic ties with Beijing. Again, it's like we see Africa simply as props in a larger drama.

Interesting re-telling of Zambia's experience with China, pointing out the debt-trap issues, but the real reason why that story is highlighted is to note the resulting political change in leadership and how that allows US to maybe swoop in and -- I guess -- access that country's electric-vehicle-related minerals more than China has/will in future.

In speeches (for years), I have joked that Washington's attitude on Africa is that "it is ours -- and ours alone -- to strategically ignore!" So when anybody else displays interest, we naturally see a threat -- not one we truly wish to correct or counter but mostly just get all worked-up about (Send in the Vice President!).

Yes, the podcast points out that America still sends the most aid, and it argues that the US typically views Africa as a burden (bad on us), but it doesn't give China any credit for elevating its ties above that perspective. Relative to the US, China is now the larger trade partner throughout virtually all of Africa. It is the largest provider of infrastructure investment. Does that investment have a lot to do with China's desire to access raw materials? Sure. Would any capitalist expect otherwise? But China also engages in a lot of other activities, like (as the podcast points out) a huge number of educational scholarships for African students.

I'm not here to defend China, and I have plenty of criticism for the Belt and Road Initiative in America's New Map, but the framing of this story really irks me. Africa as a reality is the buried lede, while China-v-US is the entire story. Again, Africa is not something to be valued on its own, or understood on its own, but rather something to be examined solely within the context of the US "losing" and China "winning" -- the Zambia story being a sort of happy ending to the podcast.

Michael Barbaro's summary of Kamala Harris' strategic messaging on her recent trip is particularly narrow: "China is not your friend, we are." I'm not saying that's inaccurate -- just a sad presentation of a sad effort overall.

The podcast, to its credit, hints at this at the end (speaking of African "agency"): citing an unnamed Africa official who speaks of successfully playing off China and the US thusly:

China will come and build the hardware, and the United States will come and build the software. And both of those will compliment each other and then benefit the people of the country.

America's take on Africa has long been: We'd love to really address your North-South concerns but, quite frankly, we're too busy working this or that superpower rivalry and that's going to determine our interactions with you.

That's how we dismissed the 1970s calls for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) during the Cold War; it's how we rationalized the Reagan Doctrine's funneling of arms to insurgencies combatting Soviet-backed Countries of Socialist Orientation in the 1980s (my PhD diss); it's how we framed Africa's utility and strategic importance in the Global War on Terror since 2001 (see my Esquire article "The Americans Have Landed"); and now it's how we're framing Africa within a China-US superpower "Cold War" that gets daily declared across the mainstream media (Why? Because that is the only language that our present political leadership generations understand!).

We may be threatened by the Belt and Road Initiative, but, as I argue in the book ("Thread 33 -- One Belt to Rule Them All, One Road to Find Them, One Initiative to Bring Them All and Infrastructure Bind Them"), the BRI represents the natural progression of China's economic rise: long a target of FDI and now its own profound manufacturing/demand hub within the global economy, it is now China's task to (a) move itself up the production ladder from low-end products to high-end products and services while (b) investing its funds into those regions that now or will eventually attempt to replicate China's demographic-dividend-fueled rise -- to include Africa (on a trajectory that will peak in the 2040s).

The US is in no position to match China's ambitions or efforts in this regard. We have been the global system's primary borrower these past three decades while China has been the system's primary saver. So, we should stop pretending that it is a competition in Africa because it is not. After East Asia works ASEAN's demographic dividend and then they collectively do the same with South Asia's looming demographic dividend, these two great economic hubs will be in the driver's seat regarding Africa's attempted "rise." The US can shape that some from the sidelines, but we are not competing in any real sense -- nor are we logically seeking to derail this process since we offer NOTHING as an serious developmental alternative.

Right now we're watching the usual Northern BS regarding the South's economic concerns: Sorry about the high interest rates exacerbating your debt (hint, hint Beijing!), but we've got this terrible post-COVID/Ukraine inflation going on up here and we've gotta work this first!

The North basically offers the same BS regarding climate change: Love to help you out, but seriously, we've got all this demographic aging and fiscal debt and there's really only so much we can do -- but, for God's sake, don't fall prey to Chinese investment in the meantime!!!!

The US -- and the North in general -- aren't really attempting to compete with China across the Global South, and so we "lose" and feel bad and nervous about our "losing" even as we seem clueless about how we might alter this strategic trajectory.

But let me provide the hint that I sell throughout America's New Map: We can't beat China on money or trade, so we have to offer these nations -- increasingly the center of gravity for the world's majority middle class -- something they desire even more, which is political, economic, and security safe harbor in a world slated to be dramatically stressed out by climate change. That safe harbor will not be accomplished simply by giving them money, or arms, or hectoring advice (which the US specializes in). It will be accomplished by creating, extending, and codifying new forms and structures of North-South integration -- i.e., the "geo-politics of belonging" (Thread 33).

This sort of strategic reorientation won't get done by the next election cycle. It will await leadership generations sufficiently free of past biases to set into motion. I wrote the book primarily to speak to those generations.