Africa the Spectator

As the famous saying goes “No hurry in Africa”, indeed it’s the same thing that’s happening in the continent. A continent with its richness in natural resources is turned out to be a spectator as the titans, US and China clash for their dominance.

As the Chinese make deep inroads into Africa, America is counting on soft power-and the continent’s young people-to stay on top. With the recent explorations of crude oil in Tanzania and other Africa countries, each of the titans are having their own strategy to extract as much as possible before the rest of the economies open their eyes. The best strategy followed by china so far is funding infrastructure development in Africa and extracting valuable minerals.

If we go into statistics, America’s trade with Africa rose from about $30billion in 2001 to just over $100billion 10 yrs later, while china’s grew more dramatically, from $10billion to $130billion over the same period, according to the collated figures from the UN. In reality, there is very little direct competition between Chinese and American firms in Africa. Most of the US firms are involved in the higher end of the market, such as renewable energy, computer software and medical equipment, while Chinese firms dominate the lower, consumer goods category.

The point of confluence is oil, but both the US and China dominate the trade in Africa’s natural resources. A lot of the growth in trade over the past decade has been fuelled by an increase in exports of crude oil from Africa to the two powers. The difference is that China has diversified its appetite for other natural resources and grown its exports to Africa much faster, overtaking the US in this area a decade ago in 2003. Both china and the US are playing a long term game.

Ultimately, however, the battle for Africa is not one for present resources but future potential. The real contest is between China’s hard power and America’s soft power and the real tragedy is that Africans and their governments are largely spectators, rather than contestants, in the battle for the future of the continent.

Far from arguing about which of the two giants is better, it’s time for Africans to get busy and figure out how they can benefit from the “clash of the Titans”.