Gyude Moore on Why Africa Must Steer Clear of Any U.S.-China Conflict

W. Gyude Moore, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. and the former minister of public works in Liberia, wrote another provocative article on U.S.-China-Africa relations that ricocheted across the internet over the weekend.

As U.S.-China relations rapidly deteriorate, seemingly by the day, Moore is emerging as a forceful voice calling on African governments “to chart a new course” and avoid becoming entangled in this latest great power rivalry.

What sets Moore’s analysis apart from that of other analysts in Washington and Beijing, is that’s he willing to bluntly say what others won’t, sharply criticizing both sides for policies that undermine African economic growth and political agency. “Both China and the West benefit from a global system that confines Africa’s role to being a source of unprocessed natural resources and a market for finished products,” he wrote in the column published on the South African news site Mail & Guardian.

Moore warns that if African governments do choose to take a side between the U.S. and China, the continent’s relative weakness, especially in the COVID-19 era, “will deliver sub-optimal outcomes for Africans.”

Key Highlights From Gyude Moore’s Latest Essay on U.S.-China-Africa Relations

• U.S./EU CRIES OVER CHINESE DEBT TRAPS “RING HOLLOW”: “The Western argument of Chinese debt-trap diplomacy, inferior loan terms and an insidious, covert campaign to seize African national infrastructure assets rings hollow in the absence of a like-for-like Western alternative.”

• INEQUITY IN THE CHINA-AFRICA RELATIONSHIP: “Although China has no racist colonial past in Africa, the experience of Africans in Guangzhou during the COVID-19 outbreak there does not bode well for our long-term relationship. China now hosts the largest number of Africans studying outside the continent but has not created legal means for any of those Africans to make their home in China. Meanwhile, about one million Chinese now live on the continent, engaging in trade and commerce freely.”

Moore concludes by calling on African governments to chart their own course and “sit out the coming Cold War” but he doesn’t articulate what exactly that entails. This won’t be easy for most African countries, given their relative weakness, so it’ll be interesting to hear how Moore and other analysts frame an African agenda (either at the national, regional, or continental levels) that simultaneously asserts agency while not alienating one or both of these feuding great powers.

SUGGESTED READING:

• Mail & Guardian: A new Cold War is coming. Africa should not pick sides by W. Gyude Moore
• Twitter thread: Africa’s position in the New “Cold War” by W. Gyude Moore
• Twitter thread: Why China is not Africa’s partner of choice by W. Gyude Moore

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The post Gyude Moore on Why Africa Must Steer Clear of Any U.S.-China Conflict appeared first on The China Africa Project.

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