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Summit Diplomacy: Should The U.S. Copy China In Africa?

Summit Diplomacy: Should The U.S. Copy China In Africa?

While China, Japan, India, Korea, and even Turkey hold high-level summits in Africa to boost business, the U.S. so far has failed to use summit diplomacy in Africa to handle international relations.

As part of his three-nation African trip, President Barack Obama announced in July during his speech delivered at the University of Cape Town that in 2014 he is going to invite heads of state from across sub-Saharan Africa to a summit in the U.S. to help launch a new chapter in U.S.-African relations.

Some believe this is just the U.S. copying China.

China has been holding the triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) since 2000. This highest-level summitry involves representatives of African states meeting with Chinese officials, and is considered as a major tool of Chinese foreign policy on Africa.

U.S. administrations so far have not developed such an approach; the style of American diplomacy does not include any similar way of managing international relations with the continent.

It is doubtful any U.S.-Africa summit in the future “would be as systemic and long-term as Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, mainly because the U.S. is not ruled by one party in the long-run, and administrations will change,” said  Nicolas Cook, a Congressional Research Service Africa specialist in Washington, D.C.. Cook spoke to AfkInsider.

The White House, however, admitting that the U.S. has never done a summit of top-leaders of this kind, wants to join the “club” of nations that have been fostering African relations with the help of a frequent series of high-level meetings.

Many professionals welcome the idea, but Cook said the summit could only be “a one-up with some sort of follow-up mechanism and address both the topics of the president’s trip and new initiatives (Trade Africa, Power Africa, Young African Leaders Initiative), as well as health/PEPFAR and African crises.”

The summit is “not planned as a one-time show,” said Ambassador Bisa Williams, who is deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Williams spoke Nov. 21 at the 56th annual meeting of the African Studies Association in Baltimore, MD.

The U.S. will not only keep a “humanitarian assistance mindset” toward Africa, but also wants to provide American businesses with more linkages, and therefore more opportunities, Williams said.

Unfortunately, how the U.S. historically has treated Africa does not show a “unified, or even ‘whole of government’ approach,” said Dr. Tibor P. Nagy, former U.S. Ambassador to Guinea and Ethiopia and current vice provost for international affairs at Texas Tech University. This is a mistake, Nagy said.

“I believe that we need to restructure our relations more along the Chinese model,” Nagy told AfkInsider. A strategic policy is needed, he said, which would help American businesses engaging in Africa.

A U.S.-Africa summit has the potential to contribute to more business-oriented American presence across Africa. “That would be one of the key ingredients,” Nagy said, adding, “Without a fully engaged private sector component, the summit would be useless and only kill trees for reports.”

There seems to an debate evolving on whether or not boosting business with Africa is really as crucial for the U.S. as official rhetoric suggests.

Leonardo A. Villalón, professor of African politics at the University of Florida and dean of the International Center, said it is “not very important, compared with the rest of the world. The major exception is for oil, and perhaps some other resources, but that is dealt with through bilateral relations, with, for example, Nigeria or Angola.

“Some amount of business promotion angle does take place, however, through other channels,” Villalón said. He drew attention to the importance of the U.S.-Africa Business Summit hosted by the Corporate Council on Africa in October in Chicago, Ill.

The ninth biennial four-day summit brought together more than 1,000 public and private sector representatives from more than 70 countries to discuss expanding private sector trade and investment between the U.S. and the nations of Africa, according to the summit’s website.

Nicolas Cook said he imagines that “there would be business side-meetings, perhaps by the Corporate Council on Africa, or a part of the forum might include private sector actors. As long as the summit would precede the anticipated 2015 re-authorization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), so that would be on the table.”

The purpose of AGOA is to expand U.S. trade and investment in sub-Saharan Africa, and by that, to stimulate economic growth and help sub-Saharan Africa integrate into the global economy. Nagy said he is sure that AGOA will be renewed, but its next phase has to be conceptually sounder so that the U.S. accomplishes “what AGOA had been intended to accomplish.”

To help American businesses with more engagement in African countries, “a good start would be a U.S. government interagency ‘one-stop shop’ instead of having seven agencies involved,” Nagy said.

With regard to creating more jobs in the U.S. with these increased engagements, “the Congressional jobs/trade with Africa bill is realistic in so much as the level of trade – U.S. and globally – remains low, and just a slight boost may generate large percentile increases in trade, if not a large absolute numbers of U.S. jobs,” according to Cook.

Which African leaders will be invited to such a summit is still a question.

Whether it’s an across-the-board invite, or a more selective approach will be decided at a later stage.

“There is no way, for instance, Robert Mugabe would be invited to the U.S. to meet with President Obama or other high ranking officials,” Villalón predicts. “The U.S. would be clear to distinguish between countries.”

But since “the number of unsavory African leaders is declining,” Nagy said, “there is no problem with precluding the pariahs. In fact, the Africans themselves are theoretically obligated to do this under the peer review mechanism of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).”

Already the Obama plan to host the event in 2014 has raised the attention of many players, and potentially will raise expectations.

Tanzanian Ambassador to the U.S., HE Liberata Mulamula supports the idea of a U.S.-Africa summit.

It “could help the U.S. develop a coherent Africa policy,” she said.

Dr. Istvan Tarrosy was a Fulbright scholar at the Center for African Studies, University of Florida, in 2013. He is assistant professor and director of the Africa Research Center at the University of Pecs, Hungary.