The West Is Ceding Africa’s Promise to China’s Exploitation
A continent filled with poverty and corruption is a tricky place to do business, but the US and its democratic allies need to engage.
Making deals: Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Photographer: Andy Wong/Getty Images
Many years ago, on a BBC assignment reporting the Angolan civil war, I was billeted in a warehouse with some of Jonas Savimbi’s Unita guerrillas. In faraway places I liked to carry books that had nothing to do with my assignments. That night, as I ate a Michelin zero-starred supper, I read a history of the English Civil War, its cover painting showing Oliver Cromwell clad in an armored breastplate.
An officer from Zambia, which was supporting Unita’s rebellion, leaned across and gazed curiously at the image. “What is this,” he asked, “is it a robot?” A stab ran through me, not of laughter but of wonder. That soldier’s question reflected not stupidity, but instead the cultural chasm between Africa and the West, which has fascinated me ever since.