Washington kicked off the first ever U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit on August 4-6. Nearly 50 African state leaders traveled to the U.S. capital for the summit. He Wenping, Senior Researcher of the Charhar Institute and Researcher of Institute of West-Asian and African Studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told ChinAfrica that the summit focus indicates that U.S. President Barack Obama's new Africa strategy will center on economy and security. But He Wenping believes the jury is still out on whether or not the United States can actually establish equal partnerships with African countries. Excerpts of her thoughts follow:

The news that African-American Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States in November 2008 aroused greater enthusiasm in Africa than in America, with numerous eulogies hitting the headlines of African newspapers and websites. African leaders immediately extended their congratulations to him. In Kenya, where Obama's father was born, the government even announced a national holiday to celebrate Obama's win. There were opinions that the huge political enthusiasm aroused by Obama winning the U.S. presidential election could be on a par with that brought by Nelson Mandela walking out of the prison in the early 1990s. African people hoped the "son of Africa" could push a new chapter in U.S.-African relations, so that Africa could get rid of poverty and realize development by establishing partnerships with the world power in a real sense.

However, in the five years after Obama became the U.S. president, Africans found that the "son of Africa" basically has no time to care about Africa. Besides his quick visits to Africa in July 2009 and June 2013, Obama's Africa policy has made no progress. Compared with the African Growth and Opportunity Act in the Clinton's administration and Millennium Challenge Corporation and President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in George W. Bush's administration, Obama only made some "breakthroughs" in military deployment in Africa in his first term, and made no progress in the economic sector that can promote African development.

As the first African-American U.S. president, Obama does not want to end up with "the U.S. president with African blood who cared nothing about Africa" tag. He needs to do something for his African origin and African-American voters. In this sense, the first U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit can be seen as a clear "African mark" in Obama's diplomacy, and can be an important political legacy for him going forward.

Catching up

Despite the fact that Africa is still the continent with the largest number of developing countries, it has become a target for Western powers and emerging countries because of its abundant natural resources and huge potential market with 54 countries, more than 1 billion people, about 6 percent annual economic growth in the past decade and increasing middle-class consumers.

With huge economic growth potential, Obama's administration believes that Africa is a continent with increasing opportunities and hopes and the next example of great economic success will be from Africa. Thus, the United States needs to promote and encourage its enterprises to actively participate in the process of African renewal and development. For this purpose, Obama stressed the importance of African development at the press conference in the White House on August 1, noting that Africa is one of the continents with the fastest economic development. Of the world's 10 fastest developing economies in recent years, six are in Africa.

In addition, with the release of Africa's economic development potential and the continent's increasingly closer economic relations with China and other emerging countries in the past decade, voices in the United States calling for the government to strengthen economic relations with Africa keep getting louder.

In 2009, China surpassed the United States as the largest trade partner of Africa, while in recent years, the United States' trade and investment in Africa keeps reducing. Furthermore, Chinese leaders frequently visit African countries and put forward cooperation plans with the continent in various areas. All these have stimulated the United States to pay more attention to Africa.

China factor

In order to make up the lost time and opportunities and intensify its presence and influences in Africa, the United States promoted "upgraded cooperation" in economy and security at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.

Economically, the White House announced a cooperation plan, worth $33 billion, on August 5, involving construction, clean energy, banking and information technology projects. Of the amount, $14 billion will be contributed by various American businesses and $12 billion will be provided by private-sector partners, the World Bank and Swedish Government involved in the U.S. Power Africa Initiative. Only $7 billion is a finance guarantee of the U.S. Government. While meeting American and African business leaders during the summit, Obama noted that only 1 percent of the U.S. exports to the world goes to Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States needs to do better. He hoped Africans would buy more American goods, from iPads to Boeing aircraft, and more American people would buy African goods.

Compared with Sino-African trade volume, which surged from nearly $100 billion in 2009 to more than $210 billion in 2013, the United States' trade with African countries dropped from more than $100 billion in 2008 to some $60 billion in 2013. Against this background, it is natural for the United States to accelerate its pace in Africa. During the summit, Obama also announced a plan to establish an advisory committee focusing on business activities in Africa.

Strengthening the military presence in Africa under the name of maintaining peace and security was the main part of Obama's policy to Africa in his first term. Since Obama became president, the United States has been increasing its military and security operations in Africa, compared with the Bush administration. So far, the U.S. armed forces have established an intelligence network consisting of more than 10 air bases and a rapid response team in Africa. Taking advantage of the new changes in security situations in Africa, the United States restarted the work of selecting a new site for its Africa Command on the continent. Currently, Africa Command has liaison offices in the African Union and Economic Community of West African States. In addition, the United States has maintained anti-terrorism cooperation with 35 African countries, about 3,000 U.S. military advisors are working in Africa, and U.S. drones can take off at any time from Djibouti, Ethiopia and Niger.

It seems that the United States is not satisfied with its input in the security sector and military presence in Africa. Meanwhile, security and military sectors are the most prominent areas of the United States with comparative advantage. On the last day of the summit, Obama declared that the United States will increase its input to peacekeeping actions in Africa and help African countries improve their peacekeeping and rapid response capacity. The United States plans to annually invest $110 million to help African countries develop their peacekeeping forces in the coming three to five years. The plan will be first launched in Ghana, Senegal, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda, countries with sound peacekeeping records in recent years.

In general, African countries and the international community applauded the first U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. After all, it is good that more countries care about Africa. But lacking sufficient impetus for economic growth itself, the United States cannot afford to send more economic resources to Africa. In this sense, the summit is more of a symbolic significance. There is no declaration or action plan released and Obama did not have bilateral talks with his African counterparts. This may disappoint some African countries that had high expectations of the summit. It still needs time to see whether or not the United States could really establish equal partnerships with African countries.