In April I wrote an article on the U.S.-launched trade war against China, explaining how it will harm Africa, affecting living conditions in the continent. 

Then later, I watched a video in Kampala, Uganda, circulated by the Western media. The news was fake, purportedly showing Chinese sellers selling eggs in Uganda that had harmful chemical components.  

I have had conversations about the trade war and China-U.S. relations in the course of the Kipchumba Foundation’s webinars on “Agriculture and Food Security in Africa” (November 15), “Poaching and Wildlife Conservation in Africa” (November 29) and “Africa’s Image in the World in the New Era” (December 13). I am nearly certain I will hear similar remarks in the next webinar on “A Reflection on African Union Agenda 2063” on December 27, where I will be a lead participant with Xiao Qijia, a Ph.D. candidate in international development and comparative politics at Tsinghua University, Beijing. 

Despite the recent pause in the trade war after the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I am writing this in light of two significant happenings: the intensified misleading media and elite opinion campaign against China in Africa by the West, and the recent arrest in Canada of Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, the premier Chinese technology company, at the behest of U.S. authorities. Meng has been released on bail.  

The first, targeting China’s work in Africa without offering a tangible substitute, will hasten U.S. decline. The latter sets a bad precedent in international commerce that will boomerang on the U.S. by instilling fear and lack of confidence in business people around the world, especially outside the typical Western bloc.  

One of the participants in the “Africa’s Image in the World in the New Era” webinar said the U.S. has missed the fact that “Internetization” has replaced “CNNization” of the world. Most Africans can access and verify information on their smartphones. 

The U.S. needs to accept the reality that the world has moved on and that the development of China is an acceptable balancing act in global affairs. It has not only restored the hopes of many countries that experienced the cruelty of Western slavery, colonialism and imperialism, but is also a source of learning how to effectively come out of abject poverty from China’s 40 years of reform and opening up from 1978. 

In addition, the West advances the “debt trap” conspiracy theory about the economic infrastructure building activities involving China in Africa. This concept is similar to many other pejorative concepts about Africa concocted by the West and seized by some of Africa’s elite for political expediency. But deep down, the proponents of the “debt trap” theory know that they are wrong about China-Africa relations. Africa needs to take advantage of China’s assistance, learn from the Chinese, and then take the initiative to industrialize.  

Too much rhetoric about China and the West in Africa will not change anything. But if this advice is taken into consideration, then the U.S.-led Western onslaught against China in Africa will be an exercise in futility. 

(Paul Kipchumba, from Kenya, is the founder of the non-profit Kipchumba Foundation that works in education and author of Africa in China’s 21st Century: In Search of a Strategy)