Sino-African Relations Essay

How does the strengthening Sino-African tie impacting the Western powers?

It has been claimed that Western countries are becoming increasingly alarmed and uncomfortable by their deterioration of influence within African countries. This stems from the fact that they are aware that they are losing out to Africa’s resource rich opportunities, that are being made use of at large by China, who are progressively making ties with Africa, within a political, trade, infrastructural and natural resource-based context (Kermeliotis, 2011). Facts still remain that Western countries are still heavily connected to African countries, however the deepening Sino-African engagements are creating a “deep nervousness” in the west, says David Shinn, the former U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso and Ethiopia (as cited in Kermiliotis, 2011). The data that backs up this unease show that between 2001 and 2007, trade between Africa and China increased by 681% to reach $73 billion (Rich and Recker, 2012). Furthermore, according to the OECD, when 2009 hit, China overtook the U.S. completely as Africa’s biggest trading partner, whereas, back in the year 2000, the U.S. was three times that of China, (Kermelioltis, 2011) therefore showing the huge scale of the Sino-African relationship and the short time in which it has developed. All this does however raise questions as to how it is regarded and how this impacts Western countries, and their stance as current superpowers. There is an obvious awareness of the Sino-African tie, but what are the consequences of this, and how will things change as a result, specifically in terms of the West? (Glennie, 2012). The main areas of focus to be discussed therefore involve, how and why are Western countries losing out on inv...

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... behind. This is in relation to not only the Sino-African ties, but also the wider emerging markets as a whole. As it has been discussed how BRIC nations, such as India also pose future threats much along the same lines as China in Africa. For Africa however, it reaches a critical historical junction once again, whereby it must chose its alliances carefully in order to continue to gain economic transformation and socio-political stability. The effectiveness that Africa does this will allow them to distinguish the need for the Sino-African tie, and whether or not in the future other preferable options need to be explored (Abebe, 2013). However, it is clear that Africa and China have a deeply rooted history, and any changes to this would result in much controversy, even if the current typical withstanding superpowers, in the West re-grasp their international footing.