Sunday, May 12, 2024
Modern Warfare
Monday, December 5, 2022
The US-China Rivalry in Africa
Today I will talk more precisely on the rivalry which
exists between the USA and China, especially in Africa.
Africa is a critical component of China’s strategic objectives for economic growth and hegemony. China’s expansion across the continents has been dramatic, from trade to extraction to manufacturing. Chinese companies are responsible for more than 12 percent of the continent’s industry. During the last one decade, China has become the largest trading partner of Africa. China has significantly expanded African railways, investing in various projects in Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Angola and Nigeria; it has invested in the construction and setting-up of a massive hydroelectric dam in Angola and has built Africa’s longest railway connecting Ethiopia and Djibouti; it has built the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa and the West African regional bloc, i.e. the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja.
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
The Future of Chagos and Agalega
Responding to global shifts in power and the emerging equation with the US in the post-second World War/ Cold War scenario, the UK later through a bilateral agreement, leased the strategic Islands to the United States for establishing its grand military base in the heart of the Indian Ocean- the Diego Garcia Naval Base. Almost in parallel, within a decade (1967-1973), Britain ensured that Chagossian villagers were systematically and stealthily ousted from their homes and lands permanently, without any opportunity of returning to their homeland forever! British national security and strategic interests trumped over the rights of poor and vulnerable islanders. Even as the Big Powers- the United States and the United Kingdom- consolidated their strategic interests and military control of the region, the hapless Chagossian people were left to languish in the wilderness of their own catastrophe- in mainland Mauritius, Seychelles, the UK and elsewhere. No wonder, the British colonial excesses in the region continue to scar the national spirit of the formerly subjugated people, the Chagossians in particular.