by DANNY HAIPHONG
The US sows hysteria about China because Washington can no longer dictate global affairs without any significant challenge.
“AFRICOM’s growth is aligned with the ‘pivot to Asia’”
The following remarks were given by this writer at a symposium organized by the Black Alliance for Peace on September 24th entitled “Full Spectrum Dominance: From AFRICOM to the Indo-Pacific Command.”
Greetings Comrades,
It is an honor to be speaking at this symposium organized by the Black Alliance for Peace on behalf of the No Cold War campaign. I am also humbled to be a co-coordinator of BAP’s Supporter Network and to assist in whatever capacity possible to strengthen Black and African-led organizations such as BAP working toward peace and liberation.
We have a monumental problem on our hands. The issue of the U.S.’ policy of Full-spectrum Dominance is one that is connected to a host of contradictions afflicting the U.S. imperial order at this time. For nearly a decade, U.S. military power has made an enormous strategic shift to both the Asia Pacific and to Africa. At the center of the transition is the growth of China as an economic world power and the decline of the U.S. as a global hegemon.
China has much to offer Africa and the Global South at this time. China shares a common history of colonialism and imperialist humiliation with Africa. It has the experience of successfully carrying out a struggle for national liberation and defending that struggle from the challenges of a hostile global context. And now, China is in possession of an economic miracle that it is committed to sharing with African nations as well as nations in Latin America and Asia. That miracle comes with advanced infrastructure such as high-speed rail and 5G technology , both of which are a necessity for breaking down some of the barriers to economic sovereignty that colonial underdevelopment has placed on much of the Global South, Africa included.
“U.S. military power has made an enormous strategic shift to both the Asia Pacific and to Africa.”
The “China threat” mentioned so often by U.S. officials in all quarters of Washington D.C. is a different kind of projection of power—a psychological projection of the coming end of the U.S.’ ability to dictate global affairs without any significant challenge. The United States, unlike China, has little to offer Africa or the rest of the Global South. U.S. share in the global economy has shrunk and the economic crisis precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic will only accelerate this trend. Many nations in the Global South, especially African nations, have experienced generation after generation of poverty and underdevelopment under the U.S.-dominated financial arrangements of the IMF and World Bank . U.S. imperialism has deployed much of its military arsenal to Africa and Asia to arrest the possibility of South-South cooperation replacing U.S. and Western domination.
The U.S. ruling class is not in complete agreement over how to carry out the related tasks of containing China and suppressing the self-determination of African nations. Former president Barack Obama expanded the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) to all but a single African country principally to gain political and military influence over African governments and persuade them over time to reject China. AFRICOM’s growth also aligned with the Obama administration’s “Pivot to Asia,” which ultimately laid the basis for the massive militarization of the Asia Pacific that Trump now oversees. China’s containment was primarily regarded as a project of military coercion where nations in Africa and Asia would bow to the dictates of the United States without needing to engage in direct conflict with China.
“The U.S. share in the global economy has shrunk.”
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