The International Intervention in Africa “A Comparative Study”

1-    Introduction:

Who controls Africa? Internationally the dramatic increase in Chinese role and presence in the African continent became a topic for debate in the media. Such debate derived from the American- French existence and competition in Africa. Such French American continuous struggles paved the way for china to have a role in the African countries. The following paper is trying to find the real interests of both USA and China in the region, to know whether it is about competition or partnership, opportunity or challenge 

2-    Methodology and conceptual framework :

                 The paper applies mainly the Role theory; with the main assumption that keeping the role perspective in mind; every society shall evince difference expectedly over evaluations, sanctions for the behavior of the members. Thus such paper depends mainly upon the concept of “role conflict”; where the main two sources are the conflicting principles of social relations that are intrinsic in many African societies[1]. This type of role conflict can be referred as endogenous[2]. Another interesting concept is the principle of social relations which are associated with the superimposition of western colonial administrations on indigenous political structures, which is mainly referred as exogenous. Such two concepts represent the relation between universalism and particularism. This is the main dichotomy whish the study is going to depend on.

Regarding the main approach the paper adapts, the comparative approach that to compare the similarities and differences between China and USA in their policies toward Africa. Accordingly; the main hypotheses the paper will check are:

A-  First Hypothesis: there is a positive relationship between the American war on terrorism and the Chinese existence in Africa.

B-   Second Hypothesis: There is strategic partnership relationship between USA and China in African continent.

Regarding the conceptual framework; the paper mainly depends on some concepts like neo colonialism which is defined as the economic and political policies by which a great power indirectly maintains or extends its influence over other areas or people, Another concept is soft power that is a persuasive approach to international relations, typically involving the use of economic or cultural influence; and it is very important especially in analyzing the Chinese role in the continent.

Also strategic partnership is one of the main concepts of the paper that means a long-term interaction between two countries based on political, economic, social and historical factors. Such a partnership manifests itself in a variety of relationships.

3-    Discussion

To answer the main question of the study that is (does the American war on terror led to increase or decrease in the Chinese existence in the region). The paper will be divided into three main sections; the first tries to discuss the Chinese agenda in the region; its interests and goals. Secondly will be the American agenda and mainly focusing upon the 2014 Obama African American summit in Washington. Then, the last section will be comparison between both Chinese and American interests in the region to evaluate to what extent they are sharing common or conflicting interests.

• First section: Chinese Agenda:

Since the exceptional Sino-African summit in 2006; with the participation of 48 countries, there has been changing increase in the relations and re-evaluating for the Chinese policy toward Africa. Africa and China were both victims of colonization by the capitalists and imperialists and faced the same target of national independence; that is the reason behind looking at china to be the model ending the situation of colonialism as both of them are victims and they share the same goals. For some China has no strategy at Africa and to analyze the Sino-African relations we need to know first the goals of Chinese policy and the main elements that characterizes it. There are four main national interests that china tries to satisfy:

1-    Politically; China seeks Africa’s support for the main idea of “One China”, it pushes for democratization of international relations i.e. emphasizing the diversity of countries political systems, the opposition to power politics and unilateralism. Important also the number of the African countries by 54 country and their account for one-quarter of UN member states; therefore China relied upon their support for its political agenda.

Another important political interest is to end the Taiwan diplomatic presence on the continent. For China it is one of the fundamental matters of regime legitimacy as Africa embraces the One China policy and accepts Beijing policy rather than Taipei one. 

2-    Economically; the natural resources that Africa have is considered a market opportunity to fuel Chinese domestic growth. In 2011 China’s then- premier Wen Jiabao proudly stated that “China has selflessly assisted Africa when itself was the poorest. We did not exploit one single drop of oil or extract one single ton of minerals out of Africa”[3], also the ongoing strategy promotes the growth of china’s investment in Africa through concessional loans, commercial loans and regular and preferential export buyers credits. Also, the Belt and Road Initiative which is considered a very important reason of the Chinese existence in Africa in Particular and the World in general.

3-    Security; the safety of Chinese commercial interests in Africa has led to growing security challenges for china. The different threats that face China in Africa are presented in criminal attacks such as robbery and kidnapping, politically motivated attacks on the Chinese as retaliation for Chinas cooperation with local governments and exploitation of local resources. Also attacks on Chinese projects due to labor disputes and illegal activities by chines companies, the Somali pirate’s attacks. Thus china security interests are mostly defensive and aiming at protecting its economic interests and citizens.  

4-    Ideologically; the idea of “Chinese Model Success” in non-democratic African countries offer indirect support for china’s political ideology and it offers evidence that western democratic countries are not always the model. The main idea in China that it should be the front runner in the developing world against colonialism, imperialism and revisionism.[4]

Generally speaking the Sino-African relations is driven by economic interests and practical political considerations. However in the Chinese security policy ; there are two main strategies ; first concerning instability and conflicts; China relies very much on peacekeeping missions by the UN and the regional institutions, African Union to maintain social order; for china the only legitimate way and form of military intervention is through UN mandate with local government consent. Such policy gave china powerful position as not to intervene in any internal issue of the African Countries but rather the only legal way is through UN.

Interestingly, the growing engagement in African peace and security matters may come into conflict with China long-standing ideological defense of respect for state sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs. Such dilemma made a contradiction in Chinese policy; it highlighted the need for consistent political engagement between China and each individual African country and regional organization. That’s why the key objectives of Sino-African cooperation are[5]

1-      To further strengthen political consultation and strategic dialogue, including through high-level visits and sharing of experiences, and to respect and support each other’s core interests.

2-      To increase the exchanges and cooperation required to make Africa’s Peace and Security Architecture operational, support Africa’s peace and security capabilities, and enhance coordination in multilateral institutions.

3-       To strengthen China’s cooperation with the AU (African Union) and sub-regional organizations in Africa and take joint measures to promote Africa’s unity and regional integration.

4-       To expand mutually beneficial economic cooperation – in trade, investment, poverty reduction, infrastructure, capacity building, human resources, food security, etc. – and handle problems and difficulties arising from this cooperation.

5-       To continue to strengthen people-to-people and cultural exchanges and cooperation between the two sides.

6-       To further strengthen cooperation between the two sides in international affairs and take each other’s legitimate concerns and aspirations fully into account.

    The Chinese African strategy is not free of problems or controversies and these are some challenges that China faces in Africa; china lacks

• Second section: American agenda 

Regarding USA, there are four main interests of USA toward the African Continent;

1-    Security, counterterrorism: it is very important to note that the American war on terror was the main tool for USA to intervene in many directions all over the world. Thus the growing

concern about terrorist activities on the continent, particularly in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel regions. Ironically; that the war on terrorism in Africa started before 9/11 attacks; with the al-Qaeda bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar

-Salaam (Tanzania) in 1998, and has greatly increased since then. The creation of the Africa Command (AFRICOM) in the US Defense Department in 2007 is one of the signs of this growing concern. Since then, the US has become more involved on the continent by providing military intelligence, carrying out joint operations and training exercises with African countries and establishing security cooperation programs. One important element of US military presence in Africa is the base at Camp Lemonier (Djibouti), the busiest drone base outside Afghanistan, which is used to carry out attacks in Somalia and Yemen.[6]

2-    Energy supply; importantly, the American oil companies play an important role in countries such as Nigeria. However; after the production of American shale gas and oil, there has been a decline in oil imports from Africa.[7]

3-    Cooperation on health issues especially fight against HIV/AIDS

4-    Promotion of governance standards; USA is concerned with- as they are always calling- strengthening democratic institutions and the promotion of human rights and civil society.

August 2014 important date for the African- American relations; when president Obama in Washington organized the first US-African summit. They discussed some points to be implemented such as; investing in Africa’s future: to expand the power Africa initiative in 2013, to promote the private sector role, especially discussing the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which presents a cornerstone in the African American commercial relations strategy.

Advancing peace and regional stability is one of the key targets for USA in the African region, the 2014 summit concerned mainly with knowing the causes for conflicts and how they shall face threats. This can happen through two main initiatives; the African Peacekeeping rapid response partnership and the New Security Governance Initiative.[8] Another goal is governing for the next generation, effective, efficient and transparent governance as well as the protection of human rights.

Women and Young issues were great part of the summit agenda        , as calling for more full participation in government, business and civil society. Also enhancing research centers, technology and innovation skills in the sort of initiatives like Young African Leaders Initiative.

As previously mentioned each country from USA and China has its own agenda of interests that do differ through time, however, there are some common interests between both countries and there are also competing conflicting agendas, next section is going to compare both agendas and whether both are having partnership or competition.

• Third Section: Common versus conflicting interests

Conflict, cooperation or interest, this section is going to present the main common goals both USA and China share in the region, it also discusses the competing goals and to what extent it is neither common nor competition but rather about the national interest of each state. Thus this section will try to answer such question with first analyzing common interests then the conflicting one.

 On one hand, there are some common interests both countries share in their policies toward Africa. The first fundamental interest both share is the stability of African states, such stability is considered a prerequisite for the economic benefits they seek to achieve in Africa. Also the need for diplomatic support from stable countries make it urgent demand for having stable countries, so one of the common interests is to defeat violent extremism and cross border criminal networks.

Similarly, both states seek the growth of African economies and improving the infrastructure to facilitate trade and investment. This interest is strongly correlated with the previous one as the more stable countries, the more availability of having economic relations.[9] It is important to notice here that both USA and China need win-win economic situation presented in more trade and investment.

 On the other hand, both USA and China have competing commercial and diplomatic interests in Africa. Both countries are sharing the same desire in African petroleum and natural resources which make it of competitive desire not common one.

Despite both China and USA -previously mentioned- share the interest of having relations with stable countries in secure and peaceful environment; the mechanisms in confronting terrorism vary from country to the other. For example; China unlike USA has not so far been closely involved in any African peace and security matters. Although, as a permanent member of the

UN Security Council (UNSC), China has not been able to abstain entirely from these debates, the country has largely maintained a policy of nonintervention and respect for state sovereignty while it is not the same policy of USA that does not care about nonintervention but rather the benefit behind its policy. [10]  

Additionally, the US military involvement in Africa shall be taken into consideration as; the American aid to Africa is observed to be increasingly militarized.[11] Such American involvement includes four main fields; * Sales of arms,* Military training and advice,*Establishment of security commands and intelligence and * Joint overt and covert military operations with selected security allies.

Economically, China not only continues to expand its aid package to Africa,

but the character of this aid is also changing. Chinese aid responds to a

different logic from that of the US, emphasizing, for example, the principle of ‘mutual benefit”. This concept is very important as it is translated in practice into the requirement, when receiving aid, to use a part of it to purchase Chinese goods and services (a practice known as ‘tied aid’ which the US and the EU have largely reduced or eliminated in line with aid effectiveness principles). Chinese aid also has an important component (around one half of the total) of concessional loans, not grants.[12]

Commercially, China uses practices that disadvantage US companies, for example, China will combine a bid for oil or mineral concessions with promises of some aid projects, a practice which USA is forbidden to do under rules of the development Advisory committee of the OECD, to which China does not belong.

USA emphasizes Free market mechanisms, that by constitution; constrain democratic governance, cultivation of civil society, and adherence to international human rights norms. From American perspective, China’s politicized economic ties to Africa have undermined good governance. It contributed in authoritarianism and delayed African political development.[13]

So the role of the state in economic development was another field of difference between both countries, as China is calling for economic development but with more non-interventionist policy; while it is the opposite of USA which is adapting more interventionist policy from economic perspective.

Such conflicting views upon norms are most acute on issues surrounding the so called pariah African states. As the Sino- American disagreements over international norms in Africa reflects countries’ domestic political structures, histories, and guiding philosophies. USA perspective is that economic development without political liberalization brings social instability, which contradicts the CCP’s domestic political vision of continuing to expand the economy while tightly controlling china’s political life. Even if policy makers accept these ideals as normatively correct, it is unrealistically to expect Beijing to spread international human rights norms in Africa that it does not embrace at home. Next section will discuss the limitations that faced the paper and the main concluding remarks that resulted from the previous discussion.

4-    Limitations and concluding remarks

The imitations of the study include its conceptual nature; the ambiguity and bias in define concepts like; universalism – intervention – neo colonialism...Etc., and the qualitative type of the study as; most of the literature reviews addressed Africa at the macro level rather than on a country by country basis. However; each African country has a unique important history and culture (cultures) that is very difficult to be combined in one research.

In concluding the paper, it is very important to distinguish between China as being a dominant force in Africa or it is only considered a major player in the African continent. Is it a new player as many studies consider or it is an old player but with only new techniques and new strategy.

The main two arguments here that China is old player with new tools, is that firstly; the main guiding principles of Chinese foreign policy is the same since 1954[14]. Here important to note that the main concept behind the Chinese policy is mutual respect and mutual non- interference, which is very different from the American concept that aiming for interference for the sake of democracy and good governance.

The second argument is that China has only added some tools for new interference in Africa under the name of Soft Power concept, as recently China become more interested in culture promotion and it became a key concept in the Chinese international relations. It expanded People-to-People, cultural exchange programs. This was considered by President XI Jinping an important pillar for such new strategy, and component of a strategic partnership between China and Africa. Educational and training programs, initiatives are also on the Chinese policy agenda like, the initiative linked to the China-Africa Think Tank Forum[15].

In sum this papers’ main hypothesis was to know the relation between American War on terrorism and the existence of China in Africa, surprisingly; there is no relation between both variables as China in Africa since 1950’s, however the American interventionist policy let China change its’ tools in the region to use more soft power in dealing with Africa to gain more mutual benefits. Also, both China and USA are considered threats to Africa because in their policies toward African countries they depend mainly upon the concept of interest to have win-win game especially in economics, peace and security fields.

Interestingly, foreign intervention is mare hypocrisy. The west always deal with Africa as being the source of row materials, so the concept of mutual benefit is only slogans but in fact USA and china are only playing different roles in the international world game. It is the time for African countries to get the best use of its’ resources, it is the time for African countries to have their own model of governance away from the American dreams and slogans, that is mainly derived from the African culture and the African privacy. We shall build more think tanks to have more focus on the educational exchange initiatives and to make more researches on how to get benefit from each other. It is the time for having win-win game, not zero-sum game in the relation with any other power. Finally, neither USA nor China is intervening in Africa for the sake of African interest but rather it is their agendas in the region politically, economically and socially. We need to replace the concept of benefit by true mutual benefit between each country and both USA and China.

List of Abbreviations

List of attachments

No (1) 

             Guiding principles of China’s foreign policy China’s Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence(1954): 

1.mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty;

2.mutual non-aggression;

3. Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs;

4. Equality and cooperation for mutual benefit;

5. Peaceful co-existence.

        China’s Eight Principles for Economic Aid and Technical Assistance (1963)

1. Respect the principle of equality and mutual benefits;

2. Respect the sovereignty of recipient countries and never attach any conditions or ask for any privileges;

3. Provide economic aid in the form of interest-free or low-interest loans and extend the time limit for the repayment when necessary;

4. Help recipient countries embark step by step on the road of self-reliance and independent economic development;

5. Help recipient countries to complete projects which require less investment but yield quick results;

6. Provide the best-quality equipment and materials manufactured by China at international market prices;

7. Ensure that the personnel of the recipient country fully master the technology

being transferred;

8. Ensure that Chinese experts have the same standard of living as the experts

of the recipient country