Advertisement
Africa
OpinionComment
Luke Patey
Zhang Chun
Luke PateyandZhang Chun

Opinion | How US-China team effort in Africa could lower tensions and benefit all

  • China and the US need each other if they expect to help Africa overcome its challenges and achieve their respective goals
  • In rejecting an all-or-nothing approach to Africa, they would not only help the continent but ease their own fraught relationship

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
2
Illustration: Craig Stephens
Luke PateyandZhang Chun
Competition is brewing between China and the United States in Africa. After US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to reenergise American engagement last month, the recently concluded Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Senegal spotlighted China’s trade, investment and political ties on the continent.
Advertisement

Coupled with the emotions that China’s presence in Africa often invokes in the West, Africa is sometimes framed as another venue in a new Cold War-style rivalry between Beijing and Washington. But Chinese and American leaders should reject this type of thinking.

China and the US need each other in Africa. The two must work with their African counterparts to grasp common interests in helping Africa overcome some of its most urgent challenges, including Covid-19, conflict and climate change.

Any intense rivalry between China and the US in Africa faces one important hurdle: Africans are not interested in choosing sides. In a speech last year, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta rebuked any return by foreign powers to weaponising African divisions to advance their own interests. Instead, a recent Afrobarometer poll of 18 countries found that most Africans see both China and the US as positive external influencers.

Chinese President Xi Jinping gives a speech via video link at the opening of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Dakar, Senegal, on November 29. Photo: Reuters
Chinese President Xi Jinping gives a speech via video link at the opening of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Dakar, Senegal, on November 29. Photo: Reuters
But competition between China and the US is not inherently detrimental to Africa. Representing a mere 3 per cent of global imports and exports, the continent is hungry for trade and investment. Its bilateral trading relationship with China is consistently Africa’s largest. Two-way trade has already topped US$200 billion this year, rebounding after a pandemic-induced slump in 2020.
Advertisement
Advertisement