PRETORIA
(Reuters) - The United States does not feel threatened by the growth of
trade and investment in Africa by China and other emerging powers, U.S.
President Barack Obama said on Saturday.
Suggestions
that he has allowed China to steal a march over the United States in
doing business with Africa have dogged Obama's three-nation swing
through the continent, but he said the increased Chinese engagement was
beneficial for all. "I don't feel threatened by it. I feel it's a good
thing," Obama told a news conference during a visit to South Africa.
The
more countries invest in Africa, the more the world's least developed
continent can be integrated into the global economy, the first
African-American U.S. president said. "I want everybody playing in
Africa. The more the merrier."
China
has greatly expanded its reach in Africa since the start of the new
century. It overtook the United States as Africa's largest trading
partner in 2009, a February report by the U.S. Government Accountability
Office (GAO) showed.
China's
advantage in trade stems mostly from how much it sells to Africa.
Chinese exports to the continent in 2011 were almost triple the level of
U.S. exports. When it comes to investment flows, however, the picture
is different. Data for 2007-2011 suggest U.S. foreign investment flows
to the region were larger than China's, the GAO said.
"China's
role as an investor, aid donor and financier is not outsized," Johns
Hopkins University China scholar Deborah Brautigam wrote recently.
"Although Western countries fret about China's growing role in Africa,
then United States alone disbursed more official finance to African
countries than China did in 2010."
Still,
China's influence looms large over the continent, partly because it has
been so aggressive in its courtship.Beijing and Washington should be
partners in Africa to foster development and peace, said an official
Chinese commentary after Obama's made his remarks.
Obama's
stops in South Africa and Tanzania mirror a visit in March by then
newly named Chinese President Xi Jinping, which could be seen as rivalry
between the two superpowers on the African continent, state-run news
agency Xinhua said.
"This
mentality belongs to the past. It results from the West's biased
perception of China's role in Africa," Xinhua said. "It also misses the
bigger picture in which Beijing and Washington, instead of being
competitors undermining each other's efforts, can actually work as
partners in promoting Africa's development.
RESTING ON ITS LAURELS?
Obama's
visit to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania will bring to four the
number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa that the U.S. president has
visited in the last four years. He stopped briefly in Ghana in his first
term.
In
contrast, Chinese presidents and vice presidents have visited 30
African countries over the same period, said Mwangi Kimenyi, a senior
fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. There is also a sense
that the United States may be resting on its laurels.
"There
hasn't really been a presence of U.S. companies since 1994, taking
advantage of the new opportunities," Haroon Bhorat, a professor at the
University of Cape Town said recently, speaking of South Africa.
"So,
you've seen new emerging markets entering into other emerging markets
like South Africa and taking advantage of economic opportunities in a
way where the U.S., already with a foothold, arguably hasn't done
enough." Obama's aides have argued that he has had two wars and a deep
economic crisis to deal with since he took office in 2009.
Obama
has also said that U.S. interactions with Africa have included goals of
social and political development, unlike those of China, which he said
were more narrowly focused on commercial benefits. "A lot of people are
pleased that China is involved in Africa," he told reporters travelling
with him on Friday.
"On
the other hand, they recognise that China's primary interest is being
able to obtain access for natural resources in Africa to feed the
manufacturers in export-driven policies of the Chinese economy."
That
relationship makes Africa an exporter of raw materials but does not
create jobs in Africa and is not a sustainable model over the long-term,
he added. In Pretoria on Saturday, Obama urged African nations to be
tougher negotiators in accepting investments from abroad.
"You
produce the raw materials, sold cheap and then all the way up the chain
somebody else is making the money and creating the jobs and the value,"
he said. "Make sure that whoever you're dealing with ... you're getting
a good deal that's benefiting the people here and that can help to spur
on broad-based development."
(Additional
reporting by Terrill Yue Jones in Beijing, Writing by Pascal Fletcher
and Mark Felsenthal, Editing by Gareth Jones and Michael Perry)
Credit: Lukaza Blog
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