Africa, China and the U.S.
Is the US a ‘BENIGN’ option to China’s ‘RAPACIOUS’ conduct?
Respublica Litereria
RL Vol. XII No 388 MMXVIII
Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos,
Lem Ethiopia, the
Environment & Development Society
Abstract
The US has unveiled its new
Africa strategy, a plan focused on furthering US interests and countering the
great power competitors - China & Russia. At the Heritage Foundation in
Washington on Dec. 14, 2018, John Bolton said the US will advance fair trade
and commercial ties with African nations, help fight terrorism and militant
violence and provide aid “efficiently and effectively. The
US intends to ensure that US taxpayer
dollars aren’t used to bolster corrupt leaders and human rights violators. It
will seek to reconfigure or end support for unproductive, unsuccessful &
unaccountable peacekeeping operations
in Africa. A Washington-based expert on China-Africa relations is disputing the
basis of the US new Africa policy, which depicts US practices as a benign
alternative to China’s “predatory” behaviour on. By luring African governments
into debt traps, China is actually aiming to foster dependency relationships as
part of its quest to achieve ‘global dominance’. US officials emphasise the socially positive nature of US spending in
Africa, in contrast to what is presented as China’s indifference to corruption,
environmental and human rights standards and that some nations have worrisome
debt levels to Beijing. However, Dr Brautigam of Johns Hopkins refutes the US’s depiction of China as a
stealthy villain intent on sucking Africa’s blood. On the contrary, she argues,
China does not typically make loans at high interest rates to African countries
that it knows have little chance of making good on their debt. Research
findings indicate that China actually varies its lending rates in accordance
with its assessments of African countries’ repayment resources.
Africa’s GDP growth has surprised even the international financial
Institutions but influential strands of radical scholarship continue to
question whether, Africa in the fringes of an increasingly inter-connected
global economy, could ever hope to bolt out of the dominance of the industrial heartlands
of Asia. Even the mighty US economy has launched a trade war with China in the
global imbalance of trade. Yet the fact that Ethiopia had rapidly moved to
establish itself as one of Africa’s foremost economy means there is explicit
evidence that, not only is rapid economic development possible outside the
established Asian Tigers, but that such a processes might ultimately take on an
African regional character with Africa’s billion people as a consumer base.
Such intoxicating buoyancy about the Ethiopian economy and the emerging ‘Africa
lions’ appears to have a solid experiential foundation, but poignantly, this
highly heralded stance would need to be sublimed with, like the Asian Tigers, a
deluge of exploratory capital from the China and the West. This also shoulders
an invigorating rising tide of probabilities that African nations, given the
reckless nature of their public administration and investment management, will
have the requisite economic governance assets necessary for industrial
advancement. Nevertheless, the nature of the highly domineering authoritarian
party elite is just coming to the surface as what was once viewed as fervent
state is now portrayed by the new Ethiopian administration as egocentric
corrupt centre of power.
Key words: Africa, China bashing, John Bolton, US, aid, loans, Asian Tigers,
corruption, debt
See lecture here or https://www.academia.edu/38042045/Is_the_US_a_BENIGN_option_to_Chinas_RAPACIOUS_conduct_RL_Vol._XII_No_388_MMXVIII
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