United States President Joseph Biden will this month, December 13 – 15, host no fewer than 49 of Africa’s 55 heads of state and government to the second US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington, D.C. The first ever such gathering, also in Washington D.C., was hosted by then President Barack Obama eight years ago in 2014, while Biden was his vice president. Once Obama left office however, Africa fell off America’s foreign policy radar. His successor, Donald Trump, would not bother himself with those ‘shithole’ countries anyway since he had a much bigger fish to fry, such as getting in the good books of Kim Jung-Un, the mercurial dictator of the hermitic North Korea who he expressed great admiration for. One shouldn’t blame him. To be candid, Africa historically had never really been a big item on America’s foreign policy priorities anyway.
Except for Egypt, with its control of access to the Suez Canal, the rest of the African continent has no inherent strategic value, so America never seriously developed any Africa-specific foreign policy thrusts except when it needed to destabilize radical and progressive governments and remove or assassinate leaders it did not like such as Lumumba, Nkrumah and others. It was always comfortable with its principal European sidekicks, especially Britain and France, running the show on behalf of Western Capitalist imperialism and keeping the continent securely out of Communist influence.
But the world is never static. Uncle Sam has just woken up to discover it has in recent years lost considerable grounds and influence to its fellow competitors and even adversaries – China, India, Japan and Turkey, even Russia –who have been relating with Africa as a bloc rather just as individual states alone. Most especially since 2000, the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and India-Africa Forum have become periodic summits always recording large numbers of African leaders in attendance, sometimes surpassing even attendance at AU summits. China has indisputably overtaken the West as the highest aid giver and infrastructure provider in Africa, and even donated a $200 million headquarters secretariat building to the African Union in Addis Ababa. India and Turkey are not far behind, and Russia has lately joined the race with its first summit with African leaders at Sochi in October 2019. Another one is planned for 2023.
America is now learning that it cannot continue to take Africans for granted without consequences, that it cannot snap its fingers and expect that they will obey just like that. Hard lessons it is learning, as its pathetic attempt to corral them into a Western-orchestrated anti-Russia sanctions at the UN backfired spectacularly. So, it now realizes the imperative of dialoguing jointly with African leaders as a single continental bloc rather than continue with its known penchant for picking and choosing according to its ideological whims and political preferences. But this summit is taking place against the backdrop of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and America’s efforts to isolate Russia. Not allowing themselves to be sucked into its anti-Russia hysteria will surely test their diplomatic skills. This piece is a cautionary note to all the African leaders who will attend the Washington summit.
It is evident that America needs Africa now more than it did before, and this is the crucial time for African leaders to let Uncle Sam hear their views unmistakably loud and clear, and bargain in Africa’s collective interest. Issues that matter to, and concern Africa, must be insisted, not just Washington’s narrow selfish wishes. Having done that, the attending African leaders must also be vigilant not to allow the White House summarize the details of the meeting or dictate the contents of the final communique, else they will find themselves unwittingly recruited into Washington’s anti-China and anti-Russia geopolitical amen crowd.
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African leaders must have it at the back of their minds that, apart from gaining and retaining access to the continent’s rich natural resources, America has two other central objectives on the continent. The first, as Biden had made explicitly clear during his campaign for president, is to confront China in Africa. China is a great economic and military power and geopolitical competitor to which Washington had lost grounds in recent decades. So, fear-mongering about China’s seeming imperialist designs on the continent would be surreptitiously introduced into the conversations, and possibly smuggled into the final communique which American officials would draft ahead of the discussions. Second, as has been made clear in a bill before the US Congress, Washington will “counter malign Russian activities in Africa.” Translation: US interest in Africa is entirely selfish and self-serving, and Africa is to be used as a site for hegemonic competition, period!
After making all pious and sentimental speeches that American leaders are reputed for, will any good and concrete thing come out of the summit, or will it be, as Americans love to put it, same old same old! Is America for example willing to spend money in aid of Africa’s development the way it has committed over $50 billion to Ukraine in under one year? Will Washington be genuinely willing to commit resources to assisting Africa with climate change adaption and mitigation without turning same into political conditionalities to force African states to accept Western diktat? Will Africa cease to be in America’s view a mere site of geopolitical competitions with Russia and China?
African leaders must know for certain that Washington’s core objective for this summit is to try to regain the ground it has lost to fellow great power competitor, and not even remotely for Africa’s sake. Washington’s use of sanctions, threats, military muscle, regime destabilization and regime change have turned African states towards the non-preachy and non-sanctimonious China, which is also ready to give aid and loans without attaching the kind of political conditionalities the US and its allies are known for. President Biden recently (September 28 to 29) held a similar summit with leaders of Pacific Island nations which have also increasingly drawn closer to China in the past two decades for assisting them with infrastructural development and upgrade like it has also been doing in Africa. African leaders must not be deluded into thinking that Washington’s latest moves indicate seeking an enduring relationship with the continent, for it does not. Aside for a few European countries, America only maintains purely opportunistic and exploitative relationships with all other countries. Africa with vast natural resources has never been and would not be America’s real friend, only a source of vital resources and avenue for geopolitical competition.
Knowing all these, African leaders are advised to be circumspect with Biden and not allow themselves to be drawn into Washington’s hegemonic rivalries, and not allow him to make Africa the site of his confrontations with China. South Africa is the only one that has boldly taken a public position against being bullied or dictated to. I urge others to follow suit and put America on notice that they would not sheepishly bow to external dictation. Doing this at the outset will also strengthen their hands in bargaining collectively and in resisting being coerced into accepting Western decadent culture such as LGBTQ in the guise of human rights promotion and protection.
- Prof Fawole is of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State.