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Tichaona Zindoga Senior Political Writer

Some commentators are calling it a mini-Cold War. To the observer, the contest offers a whole spectacle full of action and innuendo.

While the overlooking of Zimbabwe by the United States of America for the US-Africa Summit earlier this month may well have caused some outrage in some circles, there were some glaring ironies that could have escaped both the US and other casual observers. First, it was the fact that President Mugabe of Zimbabwe was at that time the deputy chairperson of both the regional SADC bloc and the African Union and would soon assume the chairmanship of the two bodies, which he has done already in the case of the former.

In a couple of months, he will also become the head of the continental body. Both these posts are important and, judging by what the world saw as President Mugabe set the agenda for SADC in Victoria Falls, the continent could be Mugabe through and through in the coming year.

Suffice to say the chairperson of such significant bodies has considerable influence in terms of ideology and process. Which makes quite an uneasy proposition of how the US, for example, will seek to engage with the two bodies to the exclusion of their chairman.

Or is it all a deliberate ploy to precipitate the break-up of African bodies and brotherhood? That may yet remain to be seen. A second irony. At the time of the US-Africa Summit, it was already known that President Mugabe was headed to China, where he currently is now and signing major deals potentially worth billions of dollars. This brings to the fore just how curious it was that while the US was “snubbing” the chairman of Africa’s next chair, China happily embraced him. It is trite to state here that Africa has become a centre for global on attention and envy because of its endowment with vast natural resources. Expectedly, US and China, the top two economies of the world, are currently embroiled in a race for influence: politically and economically.

Some commentators are calling it a mini-Cold War. To the observer, the contest offers a whole spectacle full of action and innuendo. In 2009, the red dragon of China asserted its phenomenal economic rise by becoming Africa’s largest trading partner, delivering a kiss of life on Africa in an era of sluggish world economy.

According to the August 2013 China-Africa Economic and Trade Cooperation data, “In the following two years (since 2009), the scale of China-Africa trade expanded rapidly. In 2012, the total volume of China-Africa trade reached US$198.49 billion, a year-on-year growth of 19.3 percent. Of this, US$85.319 billion consisted of China’s exports to Africa, up 16.7 percent, and US$113.171 billion was contributed by China’s imports from Africa, up 21.4 percent.”

From 2000 to 2012, China’s exports to Africa rose from 2.02 percent to 4.16 percent while on the African side trade volume increased from 3.82 percent to 16.13 percent. While international FDI to Africa was decreasing since 2009, China’s direct investment in Africa increased from US$1.44 billion to US$2.52 billion, with an annual growth rate of 20.5 percent translating to China’s accumulative direct investment in Africa from US$9.33 billion to US$21.23 billion.

Africa hosts over 2 000 Chinese enterprises in more than 50 African countries in ranging from agriculture, mining and building industry to intensive processing of resource products, industrial manufacturing, finance, commercial logistics and real estate.

Data also indicates that by the end of 2012, China had signed bilateral investment treaties with 32 African countries, and established joint economic commission mechanisms with 45 African countries.  From 2010 to 2012, China helped build 27 hospitals in Ghana, Zimbabwe and other African countries and sent 43 medical teams to 42 African countries and regions, treating over 5.57 million patients.  A Quartz article written at the time of this year’s US-Africa Summit titled, “The US can’t best China’s ambitions in Africa” places the relationship of Africa and the two protagonists into focus. It noted that the US-Africa Summit was “the largest such event ever held in the US, but seems conspicuously late.”

On the figures: “China’s FDI has grown at about 53 percent a year since 2001, compared to 14 percent for the US. Less than 1 percent of US FDI investment goes to Africa, and $14 billion won’t do much to change that. By contrast, China invests 3.4 percent of its worldwide FDI stock in Africa. Its massive investments in infrastructure dwarf US efforts.”

“Last year (2013), the US had about $85 billion in bilateral trade with Africa; China reported more than double that with $210 billion.”
Quartz reports that China also beats the US in commercial envoys with commercial attachés in 54 African countries, compared to the US commerce department’s eight.

Ethiopian Melaku Mulualem says: “While China came to Africa with soft power (Focac) the US came to Africa with hard power [Africom]. The US demands American values (neo-liberalism concepts of democracy, free trade…) to be the value of other countries too. She is trying to implement it by soft or hard power. However, China was and still is not trying to spread her own Communist ideology to other countries.”

From these submissions, it is not hard to see why African countries are leaning more and more towards the old friend China.
America is losing ground to China in Africa and the larger global economy at large. Africa has received a kiss of love from the dragon, which knows when to make a move  — as it did with FOCAC and President Mugabe  — while America plays catch-up.