Focus has of late been put on the new cold War between China and the United States, a war which some have called one between the west and the East.
What is being masked as between the two is a struggle between the colonial industrialised countries and the once colonised suppliers of slave labour and raw materials.
Discouraging and fighting against industrialisation in the global south
The industrialised world feels it must maintain its position by keeping the status quo. In their eyes the Global South must not attain technological advancement and all advanced manufacturing industries with high value employment must remain in the west. This is what explains the blockade on China’s semiconductor industry.
China has engaged in a behaviour of democratising and demystifying technology, from the telephone to now the automobile. When China gets its hands in technology, it turns what was once a luxury good for a few rich to a good for the masses. Whether this will perpetually go on or not is something to keep an eye on.
Africa and Asia Benefiting from China’s Strength and Industrialisation
The rapid development in China has been shared by its neighbours, it can further be explained that the rise of the so-called Asian Tigers can somehow be explained by the strengthening of China by the Chinese Communist Party. On one side it can be said that capitalist countries wanted to entice the neighbouring countries not to take the Chinese route, so they flooded them with capital, either way China’s rise contributed greatly.
China’s Humanistic approach vs Western Savagery, Plunder and Destruction
Africa too has also benefited from this trend though not satisfactorily. China’s industries need a lot of raw materials and a lot of these come from Africa, these materials have been bought at a much better price compared to the west, in fact to paraphrase a former Greece finance minister, he said “They (China) are far more humanistic than the United States (west) ever was”. The west has been accustomed to plundering what belongs to Africa and giving nothing back but the creation states of perpetual dependence and vulnerability.
The attack on China’s industry is affecting Africa because the demand for its commodities is slowing down with the slowdown of Chinese industry and manufacturing. We have seen this affect countries like Ghana, Ethiopia, Zambia, South Africa etc. It is reflected in their economic turmoil.
Continued Colonial Exploitation of Africa
Africa’s relationship with the rest of the world has been unsatisfactory because it has not resulted in rapid Industrialisation of the continent, this on one way can be attributed to the uncoordinated policies and poor leadership on the continent but also on the western coordinated capital which looks at Africa as a place to be justifiably and perpetually exploited to sustain their industries and economies. From Labour to raw materials as of the case for the sending of over 200,000 Workers to Germany by Kenya, farm workers to Israel by Malawi the continued extraction of Africa’s raw materials using the Lobito Railway Corridor.
Africa has had some of the fastest growing economies in the world because of this association with China, and the Chinese borrowing which has helped it build a lot of infrastructure which of course have pushed the economic growth upwards.
Syphoning off Africa’s Growth Through Neocolonial Institutions
In its recent approach, the west looks determined to syphon out all the growth that has happened in Africa for the past 20 years. How? We see the aggressive re-emergence of the IMF and World bank in Africa, institutions which were architects in dismantling Africa’s industries built after independence with their wrong policies such as structural adjustment programs which were rejected elsewhere in the world. It is these same institutions that some African heads of state have complained about for giving loans to rich countries at 2-3% and African countries at 7-9% interest rate. It is a business for the continued exploitation of the global south by western capital. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah originally pointed out the use of these institutions to sabotage Africa’s development in his work “Neocolonialism the Last Stage of Imperialism.”
Discouraging and Sabotaging Africa’s Industrialisation Ambitions
There is another tactic being used to discourage fostering of Industrialisation in Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambian presidents have at least in words expressed their desire to have Africa as part of the manufacturing value chain of the electric car batteries and their electric engines. The US and its allies have continued to employ tactics of stopping this process, an example is an MOU which was signed between DRC, Zambia, and the USA at the 2022 US-Africa summit for the United States to support the development of Lithium batteries in the two countries.
Western Exploitation of Africa through a Web of Tax Havens
What is so shocking is that a clause was put in the MOU stating that the MOU was not legally binding, meaning the United States is not committing itself to what is it and therefore cannot be held accountable. To affirm this clause, the US and the European union moved in the opposite direction by financing the Lobito Railway corridor to the tune of 550 million through a tax haven company in Singapore called Trafigura. This was followed up by awarding acquisition of 1555 wagons and 35 locomotives to Mota-Engil a Portuguese construction company which is going to be responsible for the rehabilitation and supply of the said wagons and locomotives.
A shocking aspect is that this colonial project meant for the exploitation and export of Africa’s raw materials of copper, Cobalt, and Lithium with the 1555 wagons and is to be operated by Trafigura for 30 years as they transport Africa’s materials all the way to the Atlantic through what is being paraded as a great infrastructure contribution to Africa under the US regime program of partnership for infrastructure initiative. It is being marketed to look like this project is going to benefit Africa as if Africans travel in wagons instead passenger trains, this is the level of insult the western world has for Africans.
A New Approach For Africa
In his Approach to the reconstruction of Africa Dr. Kwame Nkrumah mentioned that capitalism was too complicated a system for newly independent African nations to engage in, not because he did not know the importance of private enterprise but because he understood how the political structure in the imperialist countries led by the United States is integrated with finance capital, corporations, media, military, intelligence services etc. and how they are all working to keep Africa and the Global south exploited. For his contemporaries and also today’s heads of state, this understanding has eluded them, or they are so cowardly to understand this.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s approach and advise in order to combat this carefully organised exploitation is the formation of a united front within the African continent. It can confidently be stated that this is the only way, it has worked for China, Russia, and India. Finance Capital cannot be totally tamed to the achievement of Sovereignty by weak states in an isolated manner as is currently being done in Africa.
Dr. Nkrumah prescribed a unified political party to which all Africans must belong in order for us to stop this imperialist interference, exploitation, and humiliation. He proposed the All-African People Revolutionary Party as a vehicle for total African liberation (AAPRP). The party was formed by Kwame Ture (Stockley Carmichael) who ran it until his resting.
There has been a need to resurrect and redefine its objectives and this is the approach that the ACUP-African Continental Unity Party has taken.
To find out how the ACUP is carrying out this historical mission please follow www.africanacup.org.
©Kwame Gonza