Mrs Clinton's Tour and US Africa Project

Introduction
US Secretary of State, Mrs Hilary Clinton, has embarked on her latest shuttle diplomacy across select African countries. Watchers are serenaded by sense of expectation from the tour that will take her across the west, east and southern sub-regions of the continent. The geography of the trip is instructive; from Dakar, Senegal closes the western seaboard to tottering Juba, South Sudan anchoring the eastern flank and then a quick stopover in  Qunu, South Africa holding the fort off the Cape and finally in Accra, Ghana for state funeral of the immediate deceased President. Quite a quadrilateral encirclement shuttle! It is a signal to Beijing that for Washington DC, Africa is covered in full embrace. Of course this tour is equally ominous for Africans in the chivalrous moves on the geopolitical chessboard. 

However, her comment with regard to the tour offered an insight in the dark arts of diplomacy and US real intentions. In another undiplomatic verbal hemorrhage similar to earlier ones dished out against Russia, this was a clear shot across China's bow. Read BBC report. The comment was directed against China's increasing economic footprint and expanding influence across Africa. 

African Chessboard

On the contrary reality is not lost on Mrs. Clinton on morbid fear of many African on the rolling out of US design on Africa anchored on AFRICOM project which has militarised US diplomacy on Africa while serving as arrowhead of recolonisation of the continent. Under the guise of fighting terrorism which doesn't exist in Africa, US is investing huge resources in destabilising the continent and her peoples who are bystanders and victims in the questionable war against 'words'. It is instructive to Africans that the origin (Saudi Arabia) of the current waves of terrorism is off target-list for retributive military campaign.

DR Congolese citizens will continue to wonder at the silence and endorsement of US of the impunity, rape and annihilation of her peoples and mineral resources by her proxies in Kigali and Kampala. US has consistently refused to condemn Kigali for supporting, arming and encouraging destabilisation of DRC on her eastern frontiers. Somalis for decades now behold strong obstacles toward stability and unification in a complex logjam which endures as proxies in Nairobi and Addis Ababa toe the line.

Many Africans will conclude that US has not fulfilled any legible print of democracy in the continent but rather have sustained a long trail of merchandise in blood for over 5 decades. While democracy possess positive strains for politicking, US has not always supported its full flowering abroad if South America were an example until the last decade. Africans will also nod at US weakness in advancing democracy in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain. 

China Pivot

In any case there is no basis for Africa to deviate or reverse her relationship with Beijing for various reasons. Beijing has refused to treat Africans as simpletons rather advances an impressive credential of recognition in deed. Whether it is in trade, loan negotiation and diplomatic exchange; Beijing has refrained from interfering in internal affairs of countries. China pays for services and mineral resources at world prices. China offers Africa alternative mechanism and processes which US and her western European satraps held so long as tools of imposition, imperialism and neocolonialism. It is on record that China has never invaded any African country or sponsored destabilisation of African peoples. Africans know vividly that China is equally a victim of colonisation. 

Africans are not going to fall for undiplomatic bluster which reveals another strand of instruction on who to deal with or how to deal them. Rather Africans know there is enormous opportunity for US to positively reconstruct her policy on Africa through serious strategies of sustainable engagement, respect, trade and civilian investment. Current US policy under a president conceived from African loins is costly in resources and heavy in African blood. It is a strategic failure that State Department refuse to reconsider the fullness of Africa's maturity in her unreconstructed view that Africa is only a battleground for bloodshed and mineral resource extraction. The tour will be crowned by lightweight soundbits here, few misplaced dollars there and immemorial photoshots to boot.

History is very clear that State Department will not change her counter-productive moves on Africa especially now that her satraps in Paris and London are economically morbid and eviscerated of geopolitical dignity. Of course these satraps will continue to prod their elite that on Africa, remora diplomacy is better than total absence from the shark's proximity. It is a better option following their unwilling surrender of erstwhile patrimonies!

Conclusion

The radical reality after all is said and done is that China needs Africa more than Africa need Beijing, the same applied to Washington DC. There is a saying in (Igbo) Africa, that when the strong pins the weak to ground it only pins oneself down. The lion may be the strongest animal in savanna, it doesn't always kill on every hunt hence increased diversity of species.