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Page added on January 12, 2012
The war is with China, the battleground Africa
When United States President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta appeared together at the press conference at the Pentagon recently to reiterate America’s commitment to the Asia-Pacific region, the subject of Africa did not come up. Sometimes what is avoided can be a clue to what is most important on the agenda.
The obvious intent of the stated focus on the Asia-Pacific region is to remind the rising China that America is still the big dog. Recent arms sales to Taiwan and the agreement with Australia to station American troops there are but two symbolic gestures to that effect. But the real focus of the “focus on Asia-Pacific” is not the Asia-Pacific region at all. It is Africa.
The creation of Africom in 2006 by the US military was a signal that America would not simply lie back and allow the Chinese to become the hegemon for the continent. That signal by itself was not enough, however. By 2009 Chinese trade with Africa surpassed America’s for the first time.
Chinese economic involvement took many forms. Obviously resource development is a priority for the Chinese, as Africa is acknowledged to be the world’s greatest storehouse of precious and rare metals and has vast unexploited oil reserves. While Chinese companies, all proxies for the government of China, compete with western companies for those resources, they also enter into agreements to provide critical infrastructure in the transportation, education and medical fields, all of which provide an advantage when it comes to winning hearts and minds.
The Libya uprising provided America and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies the first opportunity to turn back Chinese influence in Africa. Chinese companies had an estimated US$20 billion in projects underway and had courted Muammar Gaddafi for many years.
As the NATO-enabled rebel tide overwhelmed the Gaddafi forces, 36,000 Chinese engineers, tradesmen, and technicians fled the country. Chinese infrastructure projects and its involvement in Libya’s oil sector lay in disarray.
The years ahead will be rife with African proxy wars between the US and China. The escalating violence in South Sudan is but the latest manifestation of this. Obama and Panetta correctly claimed the Asia Pacific as their next focus after having, in their terms, stabilized the middle east.
But while the focus may be on the Asia-Pacific region, it is in Africa that the bullets will fly and the bombs will drop.
3 Comments on "The war is with China, the battleground Africa"
Rick on Thu, 12th Jan 2012 8:29 pm
Resource wars. Rather than do the right thing, we’ll just kill people for oil, rare earth, water, etc.
DC on Fri, 13th Jan 2012 12:30 am
Finally an article that tacitly acknowledges that the one of the real targets in that war, was China. The US might have shot Ghaddifi, but the real target was China all along, or one of them at least. How many times will the US continue to covertly attack China, Russia and other nations thrught its fake ‘war of terror\WoMD routine’, before they finally say enough is enough?
Last time I checked, neither china nor Russia etc, were formenting regime-change, imposeing sanctions on trading partners undermineing govts or attacking countries where the US and its corporations are firmly entrenched. Id like to think the Chinese are smart enough to see what the US is really doing, but of course, they do not want or seek conflct. Thats the US’s game. But eventually, the US will cross that line and create the global conflict they seem to desperately crave…
BillT on Fri, 13th Jan 2012 1:40 am
DC, I’m afraid you are correct on all fronts. And, from what I read in the Asian news sources, China IS aware of the US’ methods and is countering them by moving away from the holy dollar as an exchange medium. That is what caused Saddam’s and Libya’s problems. An attempt to move away from the dollar. Problem is, China is NOT Iraq and Russia is NOT Libya. Not to mention the other countries moving away from the dollar like Japan, Iran, Etc. They know what Bernanke is doing to the world, and not even using a lube.