As a continent that is unfortunately suffering late development, Africa is a highly engaged region of the globe with interventions in trade, politics, and culture from the different global powers. We can taxonomize the divide of global powers intervening in Africa today under two categories; the West and China (East). How Africa benefits or loses and sometimes even suffers from its relations with these players, fundamentally depends on the ideological persuasions or prejudices which inform the policy makers designing each block’s foreign policy in Africa. These foundations of ideology are age-old in some instances. Over time, they have even been watered down and bastardised into “neo-isms” that are a vulgarised form of the original ideologies. Let us examine them.
The West’s ideological system can be described as liberal democratic capitalism. It has been over time been characterised by self-righteousness and religious universalism. Western elites who propagate this ideology sincerely believe that it is not just the best system of political-economic organisation in their countries but that it is really universal and can be transplanted onto any part of the world and superimposed on any society or culture. These elites/policymakers and implementers do not consider the importance of the differences and uniqueness of any country or society from theirs. They blindly believe that their systems of governance are the best across history, time and geography. This is not to say that there is overarching evidence that liberal democracy did not protect native Americans from genocide, black Americans from slavery or blacks across the West from racism. In fact, liberal democracy did not impede colonialism and apartheid.
These Western foreign policy elites perceive their ideology and intentions as benign. Like their colonialist great-grandparents, they see themselves as good people on a civilisation mission trying to save Africa from poverty and bad governance. They are very honestly deluded that no amount of criticism even from academics and philosophers in their own countries can impact their ideological views about Africa and how to deal with it. They are therefore unable to see Africa in the eyes of Africans and think about themselves in ways Africans would perceive them. Their self-righteousness only responds to the opinions of African elites who regurgitate their internal biases about Africa. Those are the Africans they award for championing change on the continent, offer sponsorships and provide funding.
On the other hand, China’s relationship with Africa is different from the West’s because they are informed by a different ideology. But there are commonalities which I want to address first.
Both the West and China’s foreign policies in Africa are fundamentally meant to promote their interests as well. As the saying goes, there is no free lunch in the world. China’s aid to Africa, just like the West’s are partly an economic instrument to support their national firms’ exports. Both their development finance to African countries also comes with expectations of some political alignment with them. This means that both their aid and loans are not only a tool to promote trade and development, but also a means to support their foreign policies. What should be emphasised is that while interests play a major role on how the two sides conduct their international relations, for China, there is overwhelming evidence their relations with Africa are guided by the principle of win-win cooperation with emphasis on sincerity, real results, cooperation, amity and good faith.
However, unlike the West, China stands in the shoes of other countries and tries to see things from their vantage point. That is why China faces much less friction while dealing with Africa. China has diplomatic relations with 179 United Nations member states and maintains embassies in 174 of those countries. It also has the largest diplomatic network of any country in the world. This global reach and appeal has been streamlined because of their ideological position on international relations which is based on win-win cooperation, mutual respect and equality. The Chinese government’s foreign policy is informed by the five principles of peaceful coexistence. These include; mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and cooperation for mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence. These principles are a strict interpretation of the Westphalian norms of state sovereignty. China’s relations with Africa are also driven by the concept of “harmony without uniformity”, which encourages diplomatic relations between states despite ideological differences.
This difference in ideology between the two competing global powers in Africa has left a practical footprint on how we respond to each of them, i.e. we are growing more aligned with China than the West. To avoid the dangers of political conflicts on the continent with foreign intervention, it is important for the West to also make policies that anticipate the perceptions of African leaders when dealing with foreign governments. Our leaders govern small countries but they are nevertheless sovereign. So, our leaders deserve to be respected when dealing with any global power’s leader. Our countries have contradictions and challenges but we want to deal with them organically and internally without taking contemptuous lectures from self-assuming paragons of virtuous governance.
The writer is a Lawyer and Research Fellow at the Development Watch Center.
