re posted from EIR DAILY ALERT SERVICE
The Economist Admits the West Can No Longer Compete with China in Africa
Dec. 7 (EIRNS)—In an article with global ramifications, the imperial proponents behind The Economist have admitted that “the U.S.” can no longer compete with China in Africa. Writing from South Africa, Chief Africa Correspondent John McDermott titles his article, “African Countries Will Remain Best Friends with China: They Will Reject Calls To Loosen Their Ties.”
Calls for African nations to abandon their ties with China, have indeed been made, both publicly, and certainly in private, to the point that Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, in his February 2020 visit to the U.S., warned the geopoliticians at the Atlantic Council that Africa was not a “prize” to be fought for, and that, “We don’t want to be forced to choose,” and emphasizing that, although America has certain strengths, “On the other hand, you have the Chinese who build hospitals in seven days.”
The appearance of this article on Nov. 17 would seem to indicate that that reality may be sinking in for imperial thinkers. “For all its carping,” McDermott writes, “and its vast spending in areas such as public health, America simply does not offer what China does. If you are a leader of an African country with an urgent need for new roads, bridges or ports, then Chinese finance and firms are the obvious option.” Despite the best efforts of the globalizers—including the recent over-hyping of a “racist” scandal involving African migrants and students “trapped” in Guangzhou, China, during their lockdown, and the (still-unproven) charges that China “bugged” an entire building (the African Union headquarters it built in Addis Ababa and donated)—China’s economy is now just too strong, and the imperialists have no counter to it.
McDermott writes: “For a start, China is crucial to African hopes of moving beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the single largest bilateral creditor in Africa and thus often holds the key to unlocking debt renegotiations. Mr. Xi has pledged that African countries will receive priority access to any Chinese vaccine that is developed.”
Far from being an admission of defeat, however, the Empire’s decision to run this article is likely to acknowledge that they have to shift the battleground to an area where they believe they do have control, that of the Malthusianism masked by the Great Green Reset—leaving unspoken the military option—which will be advanced if the operation to install Joe Biden as POTUS is successful.
Source: EIR Daily Alert Service