Hillman (2021) provides a good narration: Using China’s massive market as bait, Chinese firms copied and gained control over Western technology. They broke agreements and filed for patents using confidential information. They benefited from generous government subsidies. They stole secrets from their competitors’ labs, showrooms, and computers, contributing to what General Keith Alexander, former head of the US National Security Agency, once called ‘the single greatest transfer of wealth in history.’ But even more shocking is how many of China’s shortcuts were legal and overt. Chinese firms imported Western technology, partnered with Western firms through joint ventures in China, adopted their management practices, and hired the brightest minds. (Chapter 2, para. 6-7)
Some of the reservations that the West now have about China do not apply to Africa. In fact, the winds are not only favourable for more symbiotic economic relationships between African countries and the West, there are exigent imperatives that leave the West with little choice in the matter. Asia is already aging. New frontiers of consumption will be in Africa in the coming decades.
But without African governments and citizens seizing the initiative, there is a significant risk that the fading but still palpable colonialist political economy on the continent during the second wave of globalisation may enjoy a resurgence in the third wave
In fact, “the United States and its partners must prepare for a world that could look dramatically different by century’s end,” writes Hillman, as “Europe and Asia will recede, demographic trends suggest, while Africa and the Arab world would rise.” A poor Africa will not be able to afford as much consumption as there would be global goods and services.
Automation and artificial intelligence technologies will almost certainly make it difficult for Africa to leverage on its burgeoning population for labour. The capital and know-how that Africa will need has to come from developed nations. But without African governments and citizens seizing the initiative, there is a significant risk that the fading but still palpable colonialist political economy on the continent during the second wave of globalisation may enjoy a resurgence in the third wave: a new colonialism or so-called neocolonialism.
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Emerging technologies, from electric vehicles (EV) to solar panels, are still reliant on minerals richly found on the African continent. Without a deliberate push, the unfair colonialist economic arrangements with the West and lately with China, where Africa’s utility remains largely limited to the extraction phase, will become entrenched. There is evidence of this realisation, with some African governments, lately that of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia, where key EV minerals are mined, calling for renegotiations of mining contracts to allow for more beneficiation in situ. This is not novel. Besides, these revisions have historically been motivated more by revenue needs or corruption than a desire for long-term economic development.
Over and over again, a selfish African elite has always put its narrow pecuniary interests over those of the continent’s commonwealth. African kings facilitated the slavery of their populations and those of opponents and rivals. A European-educated African elite enabled the entrenchment of colonialism, and thereafter was in cahoots with the West in the continued suboptimal exploitation of the continent’s mineral resources. The effects continue to be damaging to Africa’s prospects.
One understated consequence of slavery in particular is the little social trust between the peoples of the continent ever since. “The political scientist Nathan Nunn and his associate Leonard Wantchekon have shown a strong correlation between the intensity and duration of the slave trade in various parts of Africa and the lasting erosion of social trust (French, 2021).”
As African kings and elites were complicit in the slave trade, deploying their wealth, the powers of their offices, and even their many wives, in the endeavour of entrapment and many other means of chicanery to capture new slaves for sale, political leaders have generally been mistrusted by the populace over generations, a sentiment that sadly has repeatedly been vindicated over the years. In fact, some of the continent’s colonial legacies continue to endure owing to greater trust in their palpably more efficient systems.
The root of this long-running aversion to local agency is cultural, as it owes more to the historical viciousness of African forebears towards their kin than to the notorious inhumanity of the West towards the continent. Barring a genuine commitment by Africa’s leaders towards long-term sustainable prosperity, one that ensures that the continent’s peoples benefit more amply from the global value chains around its vital resources, Africa’s place in the third wave of globalisation may yet again be characterised by another sad narrative.
