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Alex Lo

The gaffe at last month’s Aids 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, where a US State Department presentation displayed a map of Africa with every country mislabelled, serves as more than a source of embarrassment. It was a potent symbol of the distance between Washington’s rhetoric and its real stance regarding the African continent.
Earlier this year, Nick Checker, a senior US State Department official, spoke of “resetting” US relations with Africa, pivoting away from dependency and towards mutually beneficial partnerships. Yet, as the mislabelled map suggests, the actual engagement often feels disconnected, chaotic and transactional.
Washington’s policies towards Africa have long been a study in contradiction. While American officials try to put the focus on what they call China’s debt traps, the US often pursues a policy defined by punitive tariffs, restrictive visa policies and selective interventions.
Whether it is feuding with regional powers such as South Africa, intervening in their domestic affairs, or remaining largely silent on humanitarian crises, the US approach usually prioritises strategic utility over genuine partnership.
This pattern echoed throughout the Cold War era. Washington’s support for many brutal and corrupt regimes was often dictated by narrow geopolitical interests rather than the aspirations of African citizens, and this continues to this day.
Contrast this with the recent history of China’s engagement. The results are visible in the roads, railways, ports and telecommunications infrastructure that are reshaping African economies. In Nigeria, struggling farmers are benefiting from a high-yield rice strain called Gawal R1. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Beijing has provided rapid medical aid to contain an Ebola outbreak.


According to a youth survey of 16 countries by the South Africa-based Ichikowitz Family Foundation, 95 per cent of respondents aged 18 to 24 viewed Beijing as an ally. This sentiment is mirrored in Pew Research Centre data, which charts a steady decline in favourable perceptions of the United States alongside an increase in support for China.
This shift is not limited to physical infrastructure. In the digital realm, African tech users are increasingly bypassing American services in favour of Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) models. These systems offer greater customisability and lower costs, supported by Chinese firms that provide the computing power and engineering know-how necessary to integrate with local needs.
By establishing government-focused data centres and international AI pacts, China is securing a technological foothold that American companies, too focused on high-cost, proprietary solutions, have failed to capture.
Economic pragmatism is also driving this divergence. As trade between Africa and China expands, the yuan is rapidly becoming a major trading currency. Financial institutions across the continent are integrating with China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System to facilitate direct settlements, while nations such as Libya explore issuing panda bonds to fund reconstruction.
Large lenders such as Johannesburg-headquartered Standard Bank are moving to reduce reliance on the US dollar, viewing these ties as a necessary strategy to build alternative financial infrastructure and hedge against the volatility of US-led sanctions.


The US has long viewed Chinese activities in Africa through its own neo-imperialist lens. While Washington exploits the continent when necessary and ignores it at other times, Beijing has consistently maintained deep partnership, cooperation and aid, almost since the modern nation’s founding in 1949.
The Asian-African Conference in Indonesia in 1955, better known as the Bandung Conference, marked a major milestone, allowing China to break out of Western isolation and build ties across Asia and Africa. Under Mao Zedong, Beijing gave unequivocal ideological and material support to the decolonisation of Africa, helped unite anti-colonial leaders and advocated for national sovereignty.
Premier Zhou Enlai used the summit to present China as a peaceful, reasonable leader by laying down the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Beijing never looked back. The strong ties forged with newly independent states helped China take its seat from Taiwan at the United Nations in 1971.
The Bandung Conference effectively launched the Non-Aligned Movement of newly independent nations. As China grew wealthy, those developing economies received sustained and continuing support. The US, by contrast, was unmitigatedly active, especially during the Cold War, in attempting to subvert social-democratic governments and movements in Africa, all the while exploiting its natural resources.
Good international relations are built on presence, consistency and tangible results. While the US grapples with mislabelled maps and ideological grandstanding, China has been building the infrastructure of the future in partnership with African nations. It is time for observers to stop asking who African nations align with and start listening when they tell us who they believe their friends truly are.


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Opinion

China Opinion

News

China

Diplomacy

World

China’s sustained engagement across the continent stands in stark contrast to a US approach driven purely by strategic utility


China’s sustained engagement across the continent stands in stark contrast to a US approach driven purely by strategic utility.


China-Africa relations

United States

South Africa

US Department of State

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

As I see it

Africa knows who its true friends are – and they’re not in Washington

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}China’s sustained engagement across the continent stands in stark contrast to a US approach driven purely by strategic utility

China’s sustained engagement across the continent stands in stark contrast to a US approach driven purely by strategic utility