06
Oct
LONDON — African leaders have seen quite a lot of one another in Western capitals in the past 12 months. They were invited to Paris for a France-Africa summit last December, Brussels for a European Union-Africa gathering in April and Washington for the first US-Africa summit in August.
The United States has been a late convert to this kind of Africa-wide exercise, seeking to reaffirm its standing in a region where it and Europe face ever-increasing competition. Rapid expansion of other interests across the continent — Chinese, above all, but also Indian, Brazilian and others — has done much to make Africa’s traditional partners refocus their approach.
“It has forced Europe and the US not to take Africa for granted,” said Mr Nick Westcott, the EU’s top Africa diplomat.
China emphasised its rise as an economic power and financier in Africa with a landmark Beijing summit eight years ago. Since then, it has almost quadrupled its African trade, overtaking first France, then the US.
Long-standing spheres of influence have eroded. Tanzania, for example, still relies on US, British and other European aid, but it has turned to Beijing for roads, power plants, a gas pipeline and a huge new port. India and China have become leading investors and the country’s top trading partners, selling everything from medicines to motorcycles.
Have Europe and the US lost Africa? Dr Mzukisi Qobo, who teaches international political economy at the University of Pretoria, said they still carried weight. “It is just that they have not paid as much attention as was the case before,” he said. “The vacuum has been filled by China.”
While attracting their own portion of resentment, the Chinese are widely regarded as being more attuned to poor-country needs and less inclined to interfere in the domestic arrangements of countries. African governments, chafing at the perceived high-handedness of Western donors and international institutions, are often adept at playing partners off against one another.
Dr Qobo also noted a shift in emphasis by both the US and Europe “from political rhetoric to commercial diplomacy”. For Europe, Africa continues to matter because of its proximity, migration, the impact of instability and, of course, the chance to cash in on African growth. And Africa still looks largely to Europe for aid and markets. While China has surged ahead as Africa’s largest single commercial partner, registering US$210 billion (S$269 billion) in two-way trade last year, this was only half as much as EU countries.
However, after growing unevenly over the past decade, EU members’ trade with Africa still represented less than 4 per cent of their worldwide trade last year, Eurostat figures showed. For the US, the share is even smaller, barely 2 per cent last year and declining, said the US Census Bureau.
Despite its heavy investment in Africa, security is one of the areas in which China’s involvement has been low key compared with the US and Europe, which have given precedence to the issue in its engagement with the continent. Other than being an arms provider to client regimes, China has joined United Nations peacekeeping missions and deployed warships on anti-piracy patrols.
Meanwhile, the US, which maintains an operational hub at a former French Foreign Legion base in Djibouti along with a scattering of drone bases, has been generally content to let France play the military lead role, concentrating more on counterterrorism support and training.
After years of questioning about its military role, France undertook interventions last year in Mali and the Central African Republic. With forces stationed in eight former African colonies, it recently launched a wider operation to combat Islamist extremists across the Sahel zone. The EU has also taken responsibility for a follow-up mission in the Central African Republic, its seventh African military operation since 2003.
Source: http://www.todayonline.com/chinaindia/china/us-europe-fight-back-chinas-influence-grows-africa