In the waning days of the Trump administration, the State Department's policy planning staff just released a 72-page document titled "The Elements of the China Challenge."
A relatively sober document, it argues that meeting the China challenge requires the United States to return to fundamentals. To secure freedom, America must refashion its foreign policy in light of ten tasks. The tasks are reasonable and even include non-Trumpian goals such as the need to "strengthen its alliance system" and look "for opportunities to cooperate with Beijing subject to norms of fairness and reciprocity."
The document devotes only a half page to Africa. It emphasizes negative issues such as China's interest in acquiring Africa's mineral wealth while disadvantaging American companies, contributing to Africa's debt problems, failing to meet reasonable international standards of sustainability and transparency, and engaging in racism and discrimination against Africans in China.
The complete document is available in the Axios summary.
