Why Cheap-Shot Diplomacy in Africa Won't Work

Charles Kenny

Bloomberg Business Week
August 12, 2012

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton returned from a seven-nation tour of Africa last week, leaving controversy in her wake over veiled references to China’s engagement on the continent being self interested and value-subtracting. For all that this may sometimes be the case, U.S. engagement in the region is hardly driven primarily by the noblest of humanitarian interests and if Africa is to move from charity to economic partnership, it will be hard to do without engaging the world’s fastest growing economy—something Clinton should understand from looking at America’s own balance sheet.

Clinton rounded off her travels by attending the funeral of Ghana’s President John Atta Mills, who died in office last month. The orderly transfer of power after his death is the kind of democratic stability that the Secretary of State’s visit was meant to promote. But Clinton’s tour had clear economic motives as well. She was accompanied by a large business delegation, including representatives of Boeing (BA) and General Electric (GE), and she highlighted trade and investment links between the U.S. and the region. That fits a broader realignment of U.S. engagement in Africa toward economic partnership, including the administration’s “Doing Business in Africa” campaign designed to encourage U.S. foreign direct investment in the continent and a proposal for a U.S.-East African Community trade and investment partnership.

The part of the trip that generated the most heat straddled both issues. In remarks in Senegal, Clinton suggested that the U.S. wanted a partnership with Africa “that adds value, rather than subtracts it” and suggested America would “stand up for democracy … even when it might be easier to look the other way and keep the resources flowing.” That was widely interpreted as a swipe at China—not least by the Chinese themselves. The official Xinhua news agency fired back at Clinton’s “cheap shots” and suggested she was either “ignorant of the facts on the ground or chose to disregard them.”

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