US dilemma vs Sino-African opportunities

Many misappropriate the phrase "all politics is local" in our ever-globalizing society. They prioritize the significance of what happens on the home front above the events unfolding on the world stage and, for a variety of reasons, cannot be blamed for it.

But when it pertains to our nations' leaders, it becomes a different story. Today this is applicable more than any country to the United States, whose foreign policy stewards acknowledge China's increasingly important role in the economic development and political affairs of Africa but continue to disregard it. Opportunities for mutual benefit in the African continent are being squandered in the West and bearing fruit in the East.

When US President Barack Obama begins his trip to Africa later this month, one of the few undertaken during his two-term presidency which has called for dynamic "resets" and "pivots" elsewhere, the US will be under scrutiny for exhibiting complacency in the face of African pragmatism.

We have seen the US cite improperly yet near uniformly China's "no strings attached" integration policy into Africa as the root of American investment trepidation. Conversely and due in part to China's potentially stepped-up role under President Xi Jinping's leadership, a reality is emerging from across the developing world, one so eloquently stated by Brookings Institute's visiting fellow Yun Sun, who said: The US "is being increasingly edged out of the African continent both politically and economically", and there is less and less it can do about it.

Take Nigeria, for example, where the SLOK Group, the shipping corporation I chair, serves as one of the largest West African transporters of oil and gas to China. Despite the predicaments hindering our domestic trajectory, Nigeria has enjoyed a particularly rich history of cooperation with Chinese multinational enterprises, one that continues to be fostered and mutually cultivated.

Trade volume between Nigeria and China in 1994 was $90 million, and more than doubled to $210 million in 1995. In late April of this year alone, 20 Chinese companies indicated their interest in establishing manufacturing bases and offices in Nigeria, further cementing the nation's position as China's largest trading partner in Africa. To compete with China's ongoing presence in Nigeria, the US must become more engaged, implementing and promoting effective, mutually beneficial and social responsibility driven strategies in oil and non-oil sectors alike.

Stephen Hayes, president and CEO of the Corporate Council on Africa, was quoted recently as having said: " given all of this activity, it should not be alarming that the US market share in Africa is significantly declining. What should be of great concern is that US investment is not increasing at a faster rate, failing to keep up with much of the rest of the world."

Scott Eisner, vice-president of African affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce, has said that the US " probably has a small window in the next couple of years before China, India and Brazil take over all of the ownership on the continent and trade relations are theirs to own".

The "pivot to Asia" policy of the US has created a controversy, not simply because it denotes a theme of containing China as opposed to capitalizing on the opportunities offered by the developing world, but also because by allowing such two-way relationships in Africa to flourish without offering significant competition, the US has fundamentally missed the mark in asserting such control.

The World Bank ranks 11 African countries higher than Russia for doing business, which in itself speaks volumes of the opportunities offered by the continent. One can live a secluded life only for so long, shying away from unprecedented access to emerging markets, and ignoring the potential to foster new business models and integrate and flourish investment opportunities. We believe that today politics is "malleable enough to facilitate growth abroad and on the home front".

It is fair to say that China has set a benchmark in African integration for the world to follow. It was Napoleon Bonaparte who warned: " let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world". But no one assumed his prediction would work out so productively.

The author is an entrepreneur and politician in Nigeria. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 06/28/2013 page10)