Quote Originally Posted by KingJaja View Post
he wants a f**king road and he wants it now!
Everybody wants something, and they all want it right now. So what? Why should the US or "the West" want to run around giving everyone what they want?

There's an odd misconception running around that there's some sort of popularity contest going on in Africa that the US or "the West" needs to win, or that there's some sort of competition going on to win the right to invest in Africa or send aid to Africa. Of course that's reinforced by the vague paranoia we here from those who are always worried about the Chinese "getting ahead" in Africa... as if there was a race going on.

Chinese aid to and investment in Africa is no threat at all to the US, and in some ways is rather useful to the US. There's no race or competition that the US needs to worry about losing. How it works out for Africa remains to be seen, but again that's no issue for the US either way.

Of course western aid and investment is always going to be uncoordinated. Aid comes through a multiplicity of governments, NGOs, and multilateral agencies, each putting its own agenda ahead of the interests of aid recipients. Investment is up to the private sector and each company makes its own decisions, it's not coordinated among companies or between private and public sector.

The Chinese are pursuing a long-term neocolonial enterprise through a coordinated aid/investment program. Their "private sector" is of course largely under government control so the whole program is aimed at a goal and coordinated. Of course it will be more effective at pursuing that goal than an uncoordinated program that has no cohesive goal at all. Again, whether that long-term goal will be to Africa's advantage remains to be seen.

Of course the construction of infrastructure is a necessary part of a neocolonial enterprise: have to facilitate the extraction of resources and the distribution of one's own projects. Western aid/investment does not pursue any similar coherent goal, because each of the numerous institutions involved has its own goals.

Any government aid or investment program from any source is designed to advance the interests of the donor or investor... that should be assumed from the start, whether you deal with Chinese, Indian, US, European, anyone.