Analysis by Ramachandra Byrappa
It seems that everyone wants a piece of the African continent, reviving nightmares of a return to the 19th-century European colonisation of the ‘Dark Continent’. Fears of neo-colonialist expansion by European countries like France, emerging hegemonic contenders like Communist China and revivalist powers like Turkey may be premature or unfounded. The reasons are simple. Africa is gaining real strength to fend off the aforementioned competitors because Africa has powerful new sponsors, some active and some not, who want to sponsor Africa’s genuine development for strategic reasons. Powers such as Russia want to create a “raw materials bloc” in order to establish a real balance in the new world order under construction. It is no longer the “liberal” West against Communist China. There is a new contender on the horizon – the “commodity bloc”, with Africa at its heart.
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