Just looking for better options, no hard feelings

By Tewedage Sintayehu

Ever since the end of the Cold War one thing that has been evident inarguably is the dominance of the United States in the international system. The US has attained and exercised more power than any other country in the world. Its influence in regional and international matters has grown higher than ever to determine and even alter the policies of various countries around the world. With its tremendous economic power matched by a military presence all around the world, it has been using both of those attributes to ensure the promotion of its national interests.
Though the collapse of the USSR and the consequent rise of the US as the only major power in the world leads one to think that the international system is unipolar, with a single super power, the defining nature of such a system shows that it is not so. For an international system to be unipolar, the single world power in it needs to have the structure of the UN with much stronger power. That definitely is not the case with the US, proving that the system is not unipolar.
It is no longer bipolar though, leaving us with the option of it being multipolar. As hard as that is to believe, the world these days seems more of the latter. With Europe standing in unison as a very significant power and China rising non-stop getting closer to its western rivals, the world is a place where regional powers exercise their might within a scope of their own while the US still remains the strongest of all – though not in other regional powers’ sphere of influence.
The 21st century has witnessed the rise of China as a potential superpower. The swift economic growth witnessed in the country over the last three decades had made it the fourth biggest economy in the world. With a very large market and production forces, the country has proved to be a power to contend with for all the western powers that have been dominating world trade and politics.
Though Europe has also strengthened itself through integration into something that is more of a unit, it can not be considered as an option to counter the US to become the other side in a bipolar system because of its similarities in political and economic ideologies. However, the case is quite different with China as its ideology is a mix of Communism and Capitalism. Especially the political side of it is an exact opposite of the western ideology based on plural Capitalism.
With the current trend in the international system, the re-emergence of a bipolar system seems a possible scenario. That would definitely change the way the world operates but the current trends that might eventually lead to the creation of such a system seem to be changing the attention that Africa has been accorded.
Once gloomily called the Dark Continent, Africa has not been given much attention by the globalizing world up until recently. It is probably the continent that has been left out of the highly increased interaction between states in other parts of the world. The abolition of the bipolar international system has greatly damaged the continent’s strategic importance.
The U.S dominated system that has come after has not accorded the continent much attention. The Rwandan genocide, the tragic conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia and the current crisis in Darfur have all been neglected by the present international order that paradoxically does not give much room for non interference in the internal affairs of states in cases it deems important.
Though Africa hasn’t still got the attention it deserves, the trends seem to be changing as a result of the intense Chinese involvement in the continent in recent years. The fact that China’s total trade volume has increased five fold in the last five years, according to European Union officials, denotes that point. Recent Chinese military involvement in Darfur also adds to this fact.
It is widely perceived that the western view of their relationship with Africa is that of a donor-recipient context. However, that does not seem to be the case with China as expert opinion indicates that it views Africa as a central part of its strategic plan, most notably for its oil reserves and for its markets for manufactured goods. Experts of this opinion contend that the Chinese perceive American influence in Africa to be less entrenched than it is in the rest of the world, thus offering unique opportunities for China to pursue its economic interests.
They go on to explain, “what makes the Chinese different from the Americans is that they are willing to do business virtually anywhere and with anyone. On the one hand, that is a positive. The Chinese are more willing to invest in post-conflict countries and to open businesses or broker trade deals in environments that many American or European companies would deem too risky.”
Jennifer Brea wrote in 2006 that it is for the first time since the end of colonial rule that a major power sees in Africa not a charity case, a landscape of endless need, but an exceptional strategic and business opportunity.
Considering the fact that Africa offers the highest rate of return on FDI year after year than any other region in the world, the Chinese motive could be considered rational. On the other hand, American businesses have focused almost exclusively on extractive industries, shying away from other sectors due to the perceived risk of political volatility.
One sound argument in the current Chinese and Western approaches to Africa is that while the latter’s aid has emphasized food aid, education, health and human rights, the former is fulfilling a crucial untapped need for something that, from an economic perspective, may be even more basic: infrastructure. Much of Africa’s infrastructure has been left to rot since independence. China’s bids for oil and mining rights come with offers of hydroelectric power dams, railroads, roads and fiber-optic cables, which have the potential to benefit ordinary people, no matter how corrupt the regime under which they live.
It could be said that most African leaders welcome Chinese involvement, considering the fact that they have tremendously increased trade with the latter. That also seems to be a very rational move as China offers governments an alternative to American and European hegemony and the prescriptions of Western-run institutions like the IMF and the World Bank.
Some academics argue that the cause for Chinese intense involvement in Africa is similar to Europe’s colonization of Africa, US imperialism in Latin America and Japan’s occupations of China and Korea – huge demand for raw materials and new markets. Though that might be the case, competition may give African governments more bargaining power over donor governments and perhaps force some to see Africa’s economic development as part of their own self-interest.