Great piece on China's Role in Africa

By Robert Rothberg in Boston Globe.

The opening paragraph:

CHINA IS transforming Africa, for good and ill. The United States and other traditional trading and aid partners of Africa need to help Africans craft policies that welcome Chinese investment and trade but condemn the taking of African jobs and the destruction of African industries. Africa and the West also need to dissuade China from supporting Africa's most reviled dictatorships.

China would have to be convinced for security and market reasons it has a better tie in with the West than it does with the dictators. As long as the US is mired in Iraq and fuming at Iran, it's obvious on what side of the equation the Chinese will fall.

Give and take. To coax China out of its isolationism and neo-mercantilism, would require giving them a stake (particularly in the Asian sphere) while at the same time making clear to them that al-Qaeda ideology will spread in Africa and soon China will be the target of Salafi jihadism as it is the big player in Africa and the one who will be blamed for the problems.

But that requires the US giving up this dream of unilateralism and worse a big war with China as some in the Pentagon & Vice President's office want.