Opinion
The story behind the emerging strategic Africa China alliance
Having options means that the contenders in this case China and the West are forced to compromise and come up with fairer deals. In other words China may have inadvertently become the catalyst for better and more transparent strategic involvement in Africa either from a resource, business or political standpoint.
Conventional wisdom would suggest it wiser to deal with the devil you know than the one you don’t. In Africa’s case these days it is becoming more appealing to deal with the unknown devil, China.
Given the current state of affairs the West will be best advised to change their strategic engagement with Africa rather than complain about China. This approach of strategically leveraging relationships for better deals could be the blueprint for other regions such as the Caribbean and South America involved in similar dealings.
Chinese symbiosis seems to be winning over perceived western parasitism and I believe that the apparent success of China in Africa is not going unnoticed by other emerging economy nations such as Brazil, Russia, India, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Emmanuel Musaazi is a college professor based in Toronto, Canada
