The United States and China: Strategic Rivalry in Africa.

• Author: Conteh-Morgan, Earl
• Position: COMMENTARY - Essay

Rivalry between the worlds two most powerful economic entities has become a reality in Africa underlined largely by the two giants' clashing worldviews. China's extensive economic investments, intense political and cultural interactions, and ongoing peacekeeping and peace building activities in Africa have sparked insecurity for the U.S., while the U.S., still considered the worlds hegemon, has naturally always had a "Missionary Complex" and is therefore trying to contain China's ongoing expansive and pervasive engagement in Africa. (1) One positive outcome, at least for Africa, is that the U.S.-China rivalry has diminished to some extent the marginalization that the continent had suffered, especially during the immediate post-Cold War era of the early 1990s. The focus of this analysis is to examine U.S.-China rivalry in Africa by analyzing: (i) the differences in worldview between the two nations; (ii) their competition for energy sources in Africa; and (iii) the strategies utilized by both powers in their rivalry on the continent.

The competition between China and the U.S. in Africa began as mild rivalry during the Clinton Administration, progressed to moderate rivalry during the George W. Bush Administration and became intense during the Obama Administration. The question to examine is, what ignited insecurity on the part of the United States as a result of China's expansive and deepening engagement in Africa? The overall reason lies in the reality of competing worldviews between the two great nations, one a rising hegemon perceived as threatening the preeminent position of the United States. China's worldview, mostly based on non-adherence to universal human rights, its "communist capitalism" and refusal to embrace some key rules and regulations that guide aid, trade, investment, and political interactions in a largely neoliberal political economic international system led by the Unites States, stands in sharp contrast to the American worldview, based on respect for universal human rights, deliberate promotion of liberal democratic values, and support for the rules and regulations that uphold global economic governance embodied in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank institutions.

Many of China's activities are challenging to U.S. foreign policy interests in Africa: these include its extensive involvement in Africa's economies through aid, trade and investments, its deepening bilateral and multilateral political ties with African states, and its vigorous introduction of Chinese culture though Confucius Institutes. While China may not be threatening to the U.S.' military defensive power, it is nonetheless using its enormous economic "soft" power of four trillion dollars in reserves to consolidate its influence and become politically attractive on the African continent. The Sino-American competition in Africa is largely based on the use of diplomatic and economic instruments of foreign policy towards Africa. China as the rising hegemon provokes the rivalry, while the United States tries to counterbalance it by giving a little more attention to the continent. With the transition to economic competition from Cold War ideological rivalry, China's economic power has enabled it to project its influence in partnership with Africa via the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), particularly with the BRICS nations of which South Africa, an anchor state in Africa, is a member. China has put the United States on the defensive, and has created both the perception and the reality of challenging U.S. dominance in Africa.

Strategic Resource Rivalry

The current dominant narrative explaining China's heavy engagement in Africa argues that it is there solely to extract Africa's oil and other strategic minerals found in resource-rich countries such as Angola, the Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Algeria, and Zimbabwe. The reality is that the scope of China's energy/oil engagement in Africa is so expansive and so deep that it has provoked insecurity in the West, in particular on the part of the United States. China's oil companies, many of which are state-owned and state-financed, are involved in the exploitation and production of oil and other strategic minerals and the construction of pipelines, ports, and infrastructure to facilitate the extraction and transportation of oil. Since oil is considered a geostrategic resource, in realist terms, China's extensive oil investments in Africa are perceived as a threat, especially by the United States. In 2005, China's determined efforts to control a larger share of access to African oil ignited an American national security debate; James Woolsey, then Director of the CIA, considered the move a "national security issue," arguing that China's goal and geostrategy is to dominate energy markets including those in Africa. (2) In 2005 and 2006 this objective by China was considered such a key national security matter that then President George W. Bush discussed it with then Chinese President Hu Jintao during his April 2006 visit to the White House. The matter was also underscored in the U.S.' 2006 National Security Strategy. (3) Since that time, the U.S. has remained concerned about China's aggressive competition for Africa's critical resources.

In addition to energy sources like oil and natural gas, Africa is home to critical and rare minerals like vanadium, uranium, and titanium that are useful in space and nuclear industries, a further source of rivalry between the U.S. and China. Strategic minerals ranging from aluminum to zirconium are essential to China; as a manufacturing power it needs these minerals to continue producing military jets and other high technology and luxury products. China accordingly endeavors to cement its ties with countries in Africa that are endowed with these strategic minerals. (4) China has developed a "catch all" strategy to make sure it gets open access to the minerals of each African country, as the acquisition of strategic minerals and other resources is a priority in its foreign policy. To ensure access to these key resources, it offers "gifts" or economic incentives in the form of stadiums, new roads, and hospitals, etc., to generate appreciation in sealing economic deals.

While the Cold War ideological rivalry that prevailed between China and the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s may have ended in countries like Angola, Guinea, and Zimbabwe, it has been replaced by a geo-economic and strategic mineral competition between the two great powers. In the area of energy/oil resources, Nigeria, Sao Thome and Principe are major oil suppliers to the U.S. The current military presence of the U.S. on the continent and its engagement with the African states aims to help dampen the level of violence and to ensure the uninterrupted flow of oil and minerals of geostrategic value to the U.S.' industrial development and national security. The extensive presence of China in Africa, along with U.S. concerns over this new strategic threat, has made the African continent --once considered non-strategic--now central in the geostrategic rivalry of the two largest economic powers in the world.

China poses both an economic and a security problem for the U.S. in Africa because its objective is not merely to extract oil and mineral resources...