Ultimately, though, the only way to defeat poverty and graduate from aid is greatly to increase Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) - of which there is a vast potential reservoir in the world looking for the right destination, writes Peter Fabricius from the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
The recent visit of the US secretary of state to Nigeria, Kenya and Senegal appears driven by the fear of China’s inroads in Africa as well as the need to mend diplomatic fences.
In his bid for the US presidency in 2020, President Joe Biden campaigned on a restorationist agenda towards “rescuing US foreign policy” from his predecessor Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ approach. Under the Trump presidency, that approach had devolved into ‘America Alone’ on the back of the open derision of Washington underwriting the security of its allies. In Asia, however, Trump’s ‘America First’ impulses stood tempered in view of his administration’s sustained confrontational posture against China and an emergent US bipartisan consensus on addressing the strategic threat posed by Beijing’s rising influence in the region. Under the aegis of his administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, which interlinked the destinies of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, Trump built on Barack Obama’s ‘Pivot/Rebalance to Asia’ policy.