US Competes with China in Africa

China General Television Network America ran a half hour podcast on 18 July 2018 titled "The Heat: US Competes with China in Africa." The participants included Ken Gichinga, Mentoria Economics, Sanusha Naidu, Institute for Global Dialogue, Victor Gao, Center for China and Globalization, and myself.

The discussion focused on the new US strategy towards Africa as it competes with China. The focus was on trade, aid, investment and the different approaches towards Africa by the United States and China. I had hoped to respond to Victor Gao's claim that China provides more grant aid to Africa than the United States, which is inaccurate. Over the last decade, the United States has provided about $8 billion annually to Africa in OECD-equivalent aid, nearly all of it grant aid. While it is difficult to obtain reliable numbers for China's aid to Africa, most experts who have studied the matter put China's annual OECD-equivalent aid to Africa at about $2.5 billion.