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UPDATED: August 1, 2014 NO. 32 AUGUST 7, 2014
Soft-Power Safari
Focus of U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit on cooperation, not competition, with China
By Dane Erickson
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Nevertheless, there is a persistent misperception that individual American companies are losing out to Chinese firms, despite clear evidence to the contrary. A 2013 Government Accountability Office report on Chinese and American economic activities in Africa showed that there is relatively little direct competition between Chinese and U.S. firms due to different areas of focus and technical capacities. American firms have advantages in technology and therefore focus on more advanced products and services. Generally speaking, Chinese companies concentrate on less expensive products that take advantage of their lower manufacturing costs. For the same reasons, U.S. companies actually compete more with European than Chinese companies in Africa.

Furthermore, Chinese investments in Africa can actually benefit U.S. interests. Successful foreign investments can provide valuable lessons for American companies. And while more transparency is needed in government-backed deals, the many Chinese infrastructure investments—on a continent in dire need of more roads, bridges, and ports to support growing economies and populations—can benefit Africans, Americans, and other foreign investors. It is becoming increasingly difficult for an international executive to do business in Africa today without driving on a Chinese-constructed road, meeting in a Chinese-built conference center, or shipping materials on a Chinese-made railway.

Shared security

While security issues have long been a source of woes for the many African countries that achieved independence 50 years ago, potential threats to stability on the continent have begun to garner more serious attention among policymakers in Washington, D.C. and Beijing in recent years. On the U.S. side, Islamists with regional political aims in the Sahel and East Africa have sounded alarm bells: Their growing links with Al Qaeda-affiliated groups across the continent are a concern. On China's side, a long-standing policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries has been tested, and its growing global footprint has earned it a seat at the table in many local squabbles. With a state-centric foreign policy and its own terrorism problems in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China is a natural partner against the emerging terrorist threats on the continent.

For the most part, the United States and China employ similar strategies for promoting stability on the continent: Both prefer to address security concerns multilaterally, providing support and expertise to regional and local partners. While the Obama administration has gone to great lengths to support multilateral security efforts in Mali, Somalia, and Sudan, the Chinese provide more troops to UN peacekeeping operations than all the other permanent members of the UN Security Council combined. In Mali, the Chinese recently provided military and financial assistance to the African Union to support its efforts in combating the spread of Al Qaeda affiliates.

The recent international attention in Nigeria provides another specific example of overlapping interests and approaches. In the wake of the schoolgirl kidnapping by Boko Haram, both the United States and China (with far less security capacity) offered to share intelligence with the Nigerian Government and provided teams of experts to assist the government in its search. Though all parties might be slow to admit this publicly, Nigeria is clearly a case where African, American, and Chinese interests align against a common enemy.

Focusing on Africa

The recent China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue in July provides a reminder that the United States and China—the established power and the newcomer to the global stage—undoubtedly have areas of potential conflict: territorial tensions in the East China Sea and the South China Sea as well as cyber-espionage and currency manipulation accusations among them. But in Africa, though both countries are attempting to enhance their soft power and there are clear differences on democratization, by and large, critical economic and security interests are in alignment.

As attention to the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit picks up in the coming weeks, observers and participants should curb the talk about competition with China and instead focus on the important African issues at hand. The United States has growing, legitimate national interests in Africa, including counter-terrorism, emerging economic opportunities, and international health and development challenges. But if the United States overemphasizes competition with China, it risks missing a rare and important opportunity to cooperate on key issues and, more importantly, to work with African leaders on the challenges and opportunities on the continent.

The author is a lecturer at the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado and a former visiting scholar at the Center for African Studies at Peking University. This article was first published by The American Interest magazine on July 24

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