China-Africa Symposium Highlights Left-wing Cold War Terminology

 The Review of African Political Economy posted on 24 July 2024 a commentary titled "Africa and China: Counter-Hegemonic Narratives --An Introduction" by Ying Chen and Corinna Mullin.

This piece is a summary of a symposium that took place in December 2023 at The New School titled "The African Continent and China: Counter-Hegemonic Narratives."  It assesses "the reductionist, orientalist and often racist depictions that dominate mainstream media and scholarly spaces on China-Africa relations."  It attributes African underdevelopment to "policies imposed by western dominated multilateral institutions like the IMF and World Bank under the neoliberal 'Washington Consensus'."

Comment:  Much of the jargon used in the symposium took me back to my African study days in the 1960s and 1970s when Cold War terminology was the predominate rhetoric.  The summary suggests that the presentations were quick to praise China's positive activities in Africa and gloss over or even ignore the negative ones.  While it is useful to assess accurately China's limited role in Africa's debt crisis, was there any discussion of China's mercantilist trade policy toward the continent where it sells almost entirely finished goods and buys almost exclusively natural resources?  And in recent years, China has consistently had a large trade surplus!

After reading this summary, it is all smiles in Beijing, and Moscow.  

China, Europe, and Climate Collaboration in Africa

 Megatrends Afrika published in February 2024 a study titled "Climate Collaboration in Multipolar Times: The European Union and China as Energy Transition Partners to African Countries" by Cobus van Staden.  

The study concludes that China is increasingly promoting its own environmental, social, and governance norms while trying to reshape the global regulatory environment to be friendlier towards Chinese companies.  China's strongest tool in Africa remains less about any direct challenge to European influence, and more about its legacy as an alternative set of options that fractures Euro-American hegemony in African development.  A more fundamental challenge for the EU is how willing it is to adapt its African engagement to growing global multipolarity.  

Russia's Growing Footprint in Africa

 The Council on Foreign Relations published on 28 December 2023 a backgrounder titled "Russia's Growing Footprint in Africa" by Mariel Ferragamo.

The author concluded that Russia is increasingly tapping into anti-Western sentiment to bolster its influence in Africa and gain support for a multipolar world.  The fallout from the war in Ukraine has, however, revealed diplomatic fault lines.  

How Significant Are the BRICS?

World Politics Review (WPR) published on 19 October 2016 a commentary titled "The Decline of the BRICS Is Proof of America's Resilience in a Multipolar World" by Judah Grunstein, editor-in-chief of WPR.

The BRICS include China, India, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa. The author writes that the core countries--Russia, China and India--welcome cooperation to advance their broader goals. But there are natural limits to the partnerships, both bilateral and collective, that have always constrained the BRICS' potential to take on anything more than symbolic significance.