China’s African Strategy and Its Implications for U.S. Interests

With the foreign policy focus of United States policymakers and media trained primarily on events in the Greater Middle East, especially those directly connected to America’s ‘‘global war on terror,’’ short shift tends to be made of Africa, the continent getting even less attention than it usually receives despite its growing strategic significance. Consequently, the increasing economic and political engagement of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) across the continent has gone largely unnoticed. Yet apart from the Central Eurasian region on its own northwestern frontier, perhaps no other foreign region rivals Africa as the object of sustained Chinese strategic interest in recent years, culminating in the publication earlier this year, in coincidence with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing’s tour to six African countries, of the first official government paper elaborating the PRC’s policy toward Africa. Those analysts who have followed these developments have largely ascribed them to China’s need to secure access to energy resources. Although demand for oil is certainly an important factor driving the PRC’s relations with some African states, it would be remarkably shortsighted to view all of China’s interests on the continent through this singular optic. Before assessing the implications of China’s growing presence in Africa on the interests of the United States in the region, it is necessary first to understand the contours of Sino–African relations as well as the complex dynamics driving the parties to forge the ties being developed.