Yet the context for this summit is different from that of the previous seven. During the
Trump presidency China’s role in Africa came in for increasing American criticism. In
2020 the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, accused China of offering African countries
little but “empty promises and tired platitudes”. Though the Biden administration is less
likely to use provocative rhetoric, scepticism of Chinese intentions on the continent will
nevertheless endure. So the coming year could prove a tricky one for African
policymakers, who are already grappling with the fallout from the pandemic.
Their aim will be to avoid getting caught up in a zero-sum game. Ken Ofori-Atta, Ghana’s
finance minister, argues that ever since decolonisation, Africa has been a “chessboard”
for great-power contests and that “hasn’t helped us in any way”. Uhuru Kenyatta,
Kenya’s president, has warned that Africa is not a prize to be fought over: “We don’t
want to be forced to choose.” Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, has said that
Africa should not suffer because of America’s “jealousy” of what China can offer the
continent.
Therein lies the rub. For all its carping, and its vast spending in areas such as public
health, America simply does not offer what China does. If you are a leader of an African
country with an urgent need for new roads, bridges or ports, then Chinese finance and
firms are the obvious option. “China still addresses Africa’s hunger for structural
transformation in a way that the West does not,” says Deborah Brautigam of the China
Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University.
The same is true of telecommunications. Huawei, whose projects in Africa are often
subsidised or underwritten by the Chinese state, has not lost any orders on the
continent since America began encouraging countries to boycott its technology. “It is
not a reasonable ask when [America] is not offering a serious alternative,” argues Judd
Devermont of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank in
Washington, DC.
The FOCAC in Dakar is unlikely to see the scale of financial pledges made by China at
earlier forums. In both 2015 and, with some fudging, 2018, President Xi Jinping
announced packages of cheap loans, grants and investments worth $60bn over the
subsequent three years. Few analysts think that tally will be matched; China is too wary
of funding white elephants. But that does not mean it will be any less involved on the
continent.
For a start, China is crucial to African hopes of moving beyond the covid-19 pandemic. It
is the single largest bilateral creditor in Africa and thus often holds the key to unlocking
debt renegotiations. Mr Xi has pledged that African countries will receive priority access
to any Chinese vaccine that is developed.
And even before covid-19, China’s engagement with African countries went way beyond
infrastructure. There are perhaps 10,000 Chinese firms, mostly small businesses,
operating in Africa. More African students study in China than are enrolled in America
and Britain combined. Senior Chinese figures have fostered extensive networks with
their African counterparts, especially in military circles.