Europe and the United States they consider it above all a trouble. China, on the other hand, believes it an opportunity. L’Africa, an immense continent on the doorstep of the Italian territory, will be a crucial field for the commercial, geopolitical and technological dispute between the West and Beijing. But the benefit accumulated by China will not be easy to reduce. The United States is very late realizing its importance, not only in terms of diplomatic weight (when you vote at the United Nations, each country is worth one, and having the 54 African countries can shift the balance), but also and above all in terms of trade and mineral resources.
CHINA-AFRICA, 60 BILLION IN INVESTMENTS
The plastic demonstration of China’s advantage came in 2018, when Donald Trump wonders why the United States should have welcomed immigrants from “shithole countries“. A few weeks later, Xi Jinping would instead receive full honors in Beijing 53 leader and representatives of African states, excluding the king of eSwatini (the only state on the continent that has maintained relations with Taiwan and therefore has no diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic). On that occasion, Xi Jinping announced 60 billion dollars of investment in Africa between infrastructure projects, loans, special funds. A figure monster which is the culmination of a policy carried out for years and which has made Beijing a key player for the future of the continent. Projects then only partially downsized by the coronavirus pandemic.
Source: ChinAfrica Journey by Lorenzo Riccardi
AFRICA, THE ADVANTAGE OF CHINA BUILT OVER DECADES: THE RED WIRE BETWEEN MAO AND XI
The Chinese advantage has indeed been built over the decades. Already Mao Zedong’s Third World China is betting on collaboration with Africa, for its declared goal of putting itself at the head of the so-called “third world”. In June 1965 he arrives in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, the prime minister Zhou Enlai. The then president of Tanzania Julius Nyerere opens the doors of Africa to Maoist China. Almost 50 years later, on March 24, 2013, he arrives in the same city Xi Jinping, recently appointed president. They were welcomed by the President of Tanzania, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, and a crowd with flags. After the visit to Russia in the previous days, it is Xi’s first international trip, which immediately clarifies the focus on the Chinese presence in the continent.