The latest US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington was of great importance because it signaled the determination of US President Barack Obama’s administration to re-engage the continent after a decade of antiterrorism efforts focused on Central Asia and the Middle East.
As the US considers China to be a strategic competitor in geopolitics, it sets out to propagate the Euro-American ideas of democratization and technology-driven economic development.
Over the past two decades, many leaders in Africa have been drawn to China’s principles of non-intervention and development through labor.
First, China’s century-long experience of anti-imperialist struggle and nation-building, wherein the country started its modernization from a position inferior to that of the West and Meiji Japan, attests to its successful modernization as an only recent phenomenon.
Hence, African states can model themselves on Chinese labor-intensive economic development, with the painful process of governance change a positive result of, not a wishful precondition for, development.
Second, with Chinese contributions to technology transfer, including not only upgrades of infrastructure projects previously funded by Mao Zedong (毛澤東) but also recently the creation of development zones and agro-technical centers, African nations can generate employment opportunities and improve their formal economic sectors.
For example, the China-Africa Development Fund, with a budget of US$5 billion, is designed to finance joint ventures.
In contrast with the West’s continual emphasis on democratization, poverty reduction and individual empowerment, China’s macro-level development approach has been hailed as a successful model of rapid economic growth and relative political stability because it puts collective interests ahead of any hasty impulse to liberalize the country.
Several years ago, US diplomatic cables revealed by WikiLeaks indicated heavy pressure from China to poach the remaining allies of Taiwan.
China’s economic clout and international prestige presented an irresistible attraction to Taiwan’s few allies in Africa and Latin America.
From 2005 to last year, African countries such as Senegal, Chad, Malawi and the Gambia severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan and established normal relations with China.
China handed out huge amounts of financial assistance that Taiwan simply could not match.
By 2012, bilateral trade between China and Malawi had reached US$297 million, between Senegal and China it was US$845 million and between China and Costa Rica it totaled US$6.17 billion.
However, with a vast array of possible allies in Africa all is not lost for Taiwan.
The recent US pivot toward Africa presents Taiwan an opportunity to position itself as a model of democratic transformation and technology-driven modernization for the developing world and gives the nation the autonomy to reset its international agenda.
There is no doubt, given the results of China’s relentless actions, and the recent US movements to re-engage, that Africa offers great opportunities for Taiwan to boost its growing economy through investment.
It is now time for Taiwan to expand economic aid and cultural exchange programs on the African continent and forge new alliances against a rising China.
Joseph Lee is professor of history and co-director of Global Asia studies program at Pace University in New York.
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