You will need a little more than half an hour (or, if you are like me a tad longer as you pause the video and scribble down notes) to view Dr. Tom Barnett’s recent Wikistrat simulation on the strategic implications of China’s engagement with, and policy towards, Africa.  Wikistrat is an innovative cloud based platform that brings together subject matter experts in a collaborative fashion to pull apart a particular strategic question.  The video shows the results from one such engagement.

The presentation notes that while China’s trade with Africa still only amounts to 1/3 of the EU’s overall trade with Africa, China-Africa trade already is greater than US-Africa trade.  The reasons for China’s growing presence in China have been written about most recently by the Economist, as well as in the superb book China Safari.  Most important are Africa’s natural resources (oil in particular, but a host of materials vital for China’s building boom as well), and the potential to increase Africa’s agricultural output as a way of addressing China’s mid-term inability to feed itself.  But Africa is also growing in importance as a potential market for FMCG, pharma, and other non-natural resource based businesses.  In particular, Chinese firms see in Africa a consumer market that in many ways looks more like their own, a realization which is causing many Chinese consumer products and small appliance companies to get serious about developing Africa as a potential market for their products.

Dr. Barnett several years ago made a prediction that I imagine some rolled their eyes at, if for no other reason than it seemed outlandish at the time.  He suggested that as China’s presence in Africa grew, they would be greeted as a new colonial power, admittedly different in form and context, but none-the-less viewed as an outside power interested only in extracting resources from lowly Africa.  This would ultimately, as he saw it, create situations where African extremists would target Chinese operations in Africa, kidnap workers, etc.  It is worth noting this is precisely what has been happening, with a handful of other people asking the question, as Stan Abrams did earlier this week, what the world would think if China were to drop its equivalent of a Navy SEAL Team into Africa to get its people out.

            The video presentation of the Wikistrat analysis shows that for now at least, the areas of Africa where there are minerals and oils do not overlap with the high conflict areas; however, Dr. Barnett believes this is only a matter of time and is something that will need to be taken into consideration when projecting how China’s influence in Africa will evolve.

One additional point that I very much agree with:  given the wide availability of very low priced labor in other parts of Southeast Asia, the Wikistrat simulation suggests that it is unlikely Africa will become a source for low-cost labor led by Chinese firms moving production from China to the African continent.  I whole-heartedly agree, absent the question of whether China finds it politically problematic to facilitate the transfer of low-wage production into Southeast Asia and instead views Africa as an easier venue for its companies.  Absent this possibility, which I grant is a long-shot, the conclusion one comes to about Africa’s future is that the onus is on this generation of Africa’s political leadership to use the boom brought to them by China’s push for natural resources as a vehicle for building sustainable political institutions, reforming and modernizing their educational systems, and choosing smart infrastructure investments.  Each of these has been absent in past generations of Africa’s leadership, something that has kept Africa’s potential divorced from reality.