World News

PEOPLES DAILY, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2022 Issues

African people will make the right choice

By Hussaini Garba

Mohammed

AKenyan diplomat once said: When China comes to visit your country, you get a new hospital. When a Western country comes to visit your country, you get a Lecture.

Recently, African countries and peoples have been treated to a new round of lectures, this time from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. During his visit, he said: We will not do anything for the African countries and peoples, but we will do something with African countries and peoples. Ironically, the first thing he decided to do “with” Africa during his visit was to announce funding in The Democratic Republic of the Congo for what he called “election transparency and election management” to intervene in the DRC elections next year. Why the DRC? Yes, because the DRC has a wide range of non-ferrous, rare metals and non-metallic mines. Goldman Sachs recently released a report “Copper is like the new oil”, saying that copper will play a crucial role in the transition to a clean energy economy. U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Robert Mueller said that one of the guiding principles of the U.S. Africa Command is to “protect the free flow of Africa’s natural resources to global markets”. If the U.S. strategy in the DRC is successful, the next step will be to see the world-renowned U.S. “collaboration” of messing with your country and taking your energy and minerals.

In order to fool the African people into accepting their new African strategy, Blinken and the Western media used their usual “carrot and stick” tactics, namely “dollar trap” and “establish and suppress competitors.”

In June, the United States joined with the G7 countries to launch the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, a plan to raise $600 billion in five years to fund infrastructure in developing countries. This initiative looks familiar to their former President Trump, who called Africa a “shithole country”. In December 2018, he approved $60 billion in funding for the New Strategy for a Prosperous Africa, and four years later, it looks like nothing prosperous has ever happened. Before that, the Obama administration had also launched the “Power Africa” initiative, promising to invest 20,000 megawatts of power generation in Africa by 2020, but according to the latest statistics, the actual power generation capacity is less than a quarter of the commitment. In order to portray China as a powerful competitor and then to justifiably suppress it, many Western mainstream media have used the “debt trap” theory to attack China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” and used Sri Lanka’s national bankruptcy as a case study, but they failed to report it is a fact that China only accounts for 10% to 20% of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt and the US, European financial institutions, the IMF and the World Bank have been Sri Lanka’s major creditors since the late 1990s until now. It’s also a fact that the Chinese government recently announced a relief of 23 debts of 17 African countries also effectively refutes the “debt trap” theory. More interestingly, American citizens on social media posted: young teenagers without any financial knowledge were manipulated by the U.S. government into taking out huge loans with high interest rates, and then forced to pay the loans to the point of their bankruptcy - this is the American college loan, the American debt trap.

As many Africans have witnessed, cooperation with China under the Belt and Road Initiative has brought concrete changes to African countries and people, which have not been seen in centuries of cooperation with the West. In the last decade, new railroads, ports, roads, bridges, hospitals, industrial parks, sports grounds, countless Africans have seen with their own eyes and experienced in their daily life of the tangible changes. More importantly, African countries and people have felt real equality and respect in their cooperation with China. Many Chinese have come to Africa to invest, start businesses, create jobs, and become part of the local community by forming families and raising their next generations with local people here.

In 2021 during the 8th Ministerial Conference Forum on China - Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, during the 2 days forum the Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Nigeria, Chu Maoming, stated that the President Xi Jinping, Keynote message to the forum “Uphold the Tradition of Always Standing Together and Jointly Buuild a China-Africa Community with Shared Future in te New Era”, Further explained that China plan to work closely with all African countries to implement programs under the plan of the China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035.

The 2035 Vision for China-Africa Cooperation is aligned with China’s own 2035 Vision for development, and is a clear continuation of the trends, evolution, and adjustments in China’s Africa strategy. However, 14 years is a rather long timeframe, and a striking digression from past commitments.

The target includes the Medical and health program to help the African Union to reach the target, and China will open millions of opportunities for trade promotion programs, especially African agricultural exports to China.

However, he said China will undertake 10 poverty reduction and agricultural projects for Africa, and send 500 agricultural experts to Africa.

Recently, in August, 2022 the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Cui Jianchun, who was interviewed, on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) the Television Station owned by the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Africa’s largest television Network – in their program tittle ‘Good Morning Nigeria’, was speaking on NigeriaChina Relation to mark the 51st anniversary of bilateral relations between the two nations.

He said: “last year, we achieved N25.6 billion trade volume and this year”, Nigeria is the first one to import from China, and number one in the whole continent of Africa. The Chinese Ambassador further expressed his commitment to raise the trade volume to $50 billion.

A Nigerian Professor working at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Abuja. Professor Sheriff Ghali, who stated that, China was succeeding in Africa because of its policy of mutual trust and benefit, unlike the western countries that colonized Africa for over 100 years.

Professor Sheriff Ghali, added that, “If you come to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT-Abuja) there are Educational Centre of learning, well-equipped hospitals that are supported by Chinese”. He noted that Chinese companies were also investing in Nigeria and Africa.

He further stated: “Imagine the quantum of jobs we’re having and the railways, the construction of roads, bridges and airports where our people get engaged. These investments provide opportunities for employment and fighting poverty.

“Look at the Kaduna-Abuja train service, there’s no way a nation can develop without a modern transportation system,” he concluded.

Africa is no longer a weak Africa colonized by the West, and we are capable and have enough wisdom to choose our own partners, whether to bow to the U.S. Africa strategy and accept their military presence, interference in internal affairs, and theft of our natural resources? Or do we work hand in hand with China, which has shared the experience of freedom from colonial rule and poverty? I believe that the African people will make the right choice.

US president, Joe Biden Chinese President, Xi Jinping DRC president, Felix Tshisekedi

Africa is no longer a weak Africa colonized by the West, and we are capable and have enough wisdom to choose our own partners, whether to bow to the U.S.

Written by: Hussaini Garba Mohammed, A writer, Human Right advocator, Data analyst, African, Europe–Asian Commentator, International Peace Advocate, International Election Observer and a widely Traveled Youth Empowerment Professional