Former United States diplomat Herman J. Cohen is one of Washington’s foreign policy elder statesmen. Ambassador Cohen served as the U.S. envoy to Gambia and Senegal in the late 1970s and then later as the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the George H.W. Bush administration.

In a webinar last week hosted by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, Ambassador Cohen shared his views on China’s engagement in Africa and the implications for the United States. His view that China’s Africa engagement is more of an African problem than one for the U.S., deviates sharply from much of the conventional thinking in Washington, where Beijing’s presence on the continent is largely seen as a direct challenge to U.S. influence.

The following is a transcript of his remarks: