The 2024 Beijing Summit was the first gathering of Chinese and African leaders since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. It enhances the strategic, all-weather nature of their relationships. The result was a repositioning of relations that will affect how China promote cooperation with African countries in the future.

At second U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December, the American side made a general point of avoiding talk about China, even though the subject came up here and there. African leaders would not likely want to be seen as geopolitical pawns.

It’s up to African country’s themselves to characterize their debt. Borrowing is not bad, per se. Chinese loans are small compared with those of Western creditors, and the debt has mainly been used for infrastructure, not running expenses such as wages or energy costs.

The trip, in both its timing and content, was designed compete with China and expand American influence. Senegal, the U.S. Secretary of State’s last stop, happens to be the host country of the upcoming Eighth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Ministerial Conference. That’s no coincidence.

China’s deepening ties to Africa has shaken up the status quo, with positive and negative outcomes rippling across the planet. What does the rapid development of Africa and China hold for the future?

China’s upward trajectory can be seen most tangibly in its many investments in Africa - home to many of the world’s fastest growing economies. The U.S., fearful of being unseated as the world’s central power, has to play catch up on the continent.

China should be praised, not criticized, for reaching out to poor countries in Africa with lifesaving vaccines. The United States, with all its vast resources and the best vaccines in the world, should follow suit for humanitarian reasons.

In the coming months, some of the worst collateral damage of US tariff wars will occur in sub-Saharan Africa. The adverse impact is likely to be aggravated by US protectionism, which shuns economic integration in Africa.

If your model is truly superior, you don’t need to push it on anyone.