Looks like we may now need to add the AU to the list.
Its very much alive. Except in case of actual WW3 (in which case all bets are off), globalism and the integration of the global economy is proceeding at an unprecedented pace. There is a reason why tariffs are only temporary and there is no legislation to enshrine them into law.
The biggest economic winners in the past 70 years or so have been economies which have integrated their supply chains with the global one in some way or the other. Its the golden goose that keeps giving (although what the countries end up doing with that wealth, whether they distribute it well, is another question).
The goal of the AU is to build better efficiencies within the African continent to the benefit of African economies. This may e.g. make African manufactured goods more competitive than the ones imported from abroad. It allows for easier building of supply chains within the continent itself.
As the article points out though, the main roadblocks are
> Poor roads and railway lines, violence-hit areas, strict border controls and rampant corruption are some of the obstacles to an effective continental free-trade zone.
These are all very serious (but not insurmountable) problems. The best outcome I can imagine is that as the AU supply chains are built and bring economic efficiencies, they can tap into the global supply chain to really supercharge them, make other AU countries realize free trade makes economic sense and encourage it. But I am being wayy too optimistic, seeing the history of the continent...
Consider for e.g. the ancient silk roads. The owners of the territory over which the trade route ran realized its economic importance and invested a lot in making it a conflict-free and protected zone.
Africa faces far bigger challenges than simply infrastructure and corruption.
1) There's massive cultural, ethnic, and economic diversity. The continent spans countries which are middle income to the lowest in the world. Unity and cohesiveness are difficult regionally, less across the entire continent. Looking at Europe's issues as a proxy, it's hard to see anyone agreeing on much.
2) Manufacturing, traditionally the ladder that countries climb to prosperity is being automated at an unprecedented rate. It's uncertain how Africa will pull itself up without this.
You could replace Africa with India / EU / China / US the same properties exist.
Who created the borders of African countries ?
Most African if asked the question.
"Are you African ?" would answer yes.
So please give African some credit ?
> Manufacturing, traditionally the ladder that countries climb to prosperity is being automated at an unprecedented rate.
Hold your smartphone right there. Most of this narrative is driven by media in the West to placate their population, so that they dont form labour union.
Travel anywhere in the world with the labour part of the supply chain. Most manufacturing still requires 100s of million of workers. You just cant see it in the West due to ships bringing it to them.
Humans are cheap - much more than robots. You can keep humans alive in the developing world for 100 dollars / months (its not starving wage for them ). For 100 dollars / month you are getting the most advanced robot any company can build.
Total factor productivity has been declining for a while, regardless of how much automation you bring to the table you cannot solve for human entropy ( death catches up with everyone eventually, even the most advanced human roboticist dies eventually or has to retire ).
A massive existing concern is job-losses due to automation. In Africa, right now.
My kids still need a lot of manual human labor to be educated ( services ).
You still need a lot of manual labor to create roads, bridges and apartments.
People were talking about flying cars 50 years ago, all those flying car investors must be billionares ?
On the ground things haven't progressed much, regardless of how much you would like to believe it.
Cape Town literally ran out of water !
If you mean automation for producing cheap plastic toys for Westerns ? If I was African why should I care about being exploited for white skinned consumers ?
China pulled a fast one, with selling cheap plastic goods to move up the value chain, steal technology and create Huawei.
African countries should do the same. If the US/EU imposes tariffs due to to currency devaluation. Africans should band together and only sell their natural resources in a new currency. Lets see how long the EU/US lasts when the most resource rich continent pulls a King Faisal.
If you're a thieving dictator, that's money up front with costs never.
Only they won't. When I was at Halliburton you could see the insidious brilliance of the Chinese strategy in Africa. Sure, there is support for rail everywhere. Support for roads everywhere. Factories everywhere. Resource extraction. Etc.
But ask yourself this, where does it all go? Follow the map of their rails and roads and you'll see that a lot of them just go to ports. I mean, you can't even complain about it, because, of course, where else would it go?
But I have a final question for you, will Africans own the freighters?
My boss at Halliburton was a brilliant strategic thinker. Was basically 100% sure that by 2100 there'd be so much freight traffic that you'd be able to walk from East African ports, to Shanghai, via the Indian Ocean, without getting your feet wet.
So the Chinese are effectively giving the Africans loans and whatnot in name only. Really it's a trap. Only the trap is not monetary, it's a physical logistics trap. They don't care if you pay for the roads or not, they only care that the roads go to the port. That's the evil of it, if the roads go to the port, you've probably already paid for them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African_countries_by_G...
It feels like treating Africa as a single unit is the issue here. More than likely, an "economic cold war" is the future of Africa, with North and Western African nations being Western aligned and Eastern African nations being Chinese aligned, with some variance and side flipping being inevitable. Similar to how the cold war was fought.
Consider this, how you gonna move resources from Central Africa to North Africa without enormous investment in infrastructure? Crossing the Sahara at scale will not be cheap.
Same issue with sudan and somalia. They will be non players. Kenya is just better situated for extraction ports geographically speaking. What logistics expert is going to build roads or rail from central african resources to somalia, when they have to traverse kenya to get there? They'll just make kenya the extract point. Really it doesn't even have anything to do with security, or politics, or ideology, or what not all. It's just cheaper. Simple as that.
Of course, this all makes sense until China makes a navy for the Indian Ocean.
Africa doesn't care, it's roads and railways they wouldn't have otherwise. As an added bonus, they get linked into the global supply chain. Which really gets their economies going. It's probably a fair trade?
I'm just pointing out that the Chinese are not doing what they are doing because they want to make 1.8% on some infrastructure loan to Africans. They have a plan. An insidious and evil plan, breathtaking in its scope, to link themselves to Africa in a way that is not easily de-linked.
It's not some monetary link that they are going after here.
They don't even try for a monetary link, likely because Africans are already trapped in a monetary link to us. So they flank us, and secure the logistics link. It's all very Chinese.
"To be certain you take what you attack, attack only that which is undefended."
- 孫子
It's evil in its intent to freeze the West out of Africa. Or rather, not to freeze us out, but to push us out of the the driver's seat so to speak. At the end of the Chinese strategic vision, is an Africa independent of the West. With either Africans in the driver's seat, or Chinese in the driver's seat. Or both. But no one else.
Now reasonable people can debate if we deserve to lose that seat. There certainly are good arguments that we do. But the irony, and the insidiousness here, is that the Chinese are being every bit as colonial as we were, they're just being a bit less greedy. Colonialism is not only evil when the West practices it, it's evil when China practices it as well.
Of course that sounds self serving coming from a Westerner at this point, and maybe it is a bit? But it's just how I see it.
I have to disagree with the first part of this following sentence:
> the Chinese are being every bit as colonial as we were, they're just being a bit less greedy. Colonialism is not only evil when the West practices it, it's evil when China practices it as well.
In my opinion, the problem with this view (and it's a very common view in the West) is that it downplays the ability of Africans to make a good deal for themselves. I think they are perfectly capable of understanding their own needs and forming strategic partnerships that are in their own best interests.
What China is offering is a simple business proposition: You need infrastructure, we need resources -let's make a deal if you find the terms palatable. They are free to take the deal or not. They are free to choose amongst any other creditor willing to loan to them. In fact, studies have found that China's leverage in trade negotiations is actually very limited due to the fact that most of these countries have access to alternative sources of financing and can (and do) demand the renegotiation of deals all the time with outcomes more favourable for themselves (for example when there is a change in government) [1].
I very much doubt that it is China's evil intent to freeze the West out of Africa, though that would probably be a nice bonus for them if it were to happen. China can't freeze the West out anymore than it can impose its own will upon Africa. It's Africa's choice. For the first time probably in history, Africa is in the driver's seat.
China's intentions are very simple and straightforward: to facilitate energy and resource security for themselves, and perhaps to build a manufacturing base for the future once it transitions into a consumption-driven economy. All of these intentions are rooted in mutually beneficial arrangements, not exploitative ones. Here's another tangible benefit besides infrastructure: in a survey by Mckinsey, they found that 89% of employees of Chinese firms in Africa were local, amounting to nearly 300,000 African jobs with 66% of them receiving skills training [2]. If this holds true of the 10,000 Chinese firms operating in Africa, that’s several million jobs created and workers provided with skills and apprenticeships.
I'm not trying to paint too rosy a picture here because obviously no relationship is ever perfect. There will always be some bad actors on both sides trying to get the upper hand. But from my point of view, this could not be more different from the colonialism practiced by western powers / corporations in Africa over the past few decades.
[1] https://rhg.com/research/new-data-on-the-debt-trap-question/
[2] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/middle-east-and-a...
Capitalism implies competition. "The West" should just offer them a better deal.
Honestly, I doubt it.
The more interesting question is: Who is Russia going to align with? No country can rule the world that does not rule Russia, the heartland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_Hist...
PS: Thanks for downvoting. Please show that you are not familiar with major concepts that shaped many of the last conflicts we have seen. Take this as a start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard
I am not Russian by the way.