Although the sentiments expressed by one of Washington, D.C.’s most experienced and well-regarded former diplomats, Herman Cohen, are widely held in the U.S. capital, they’re nonetheless ill-informed:
1) As has been noted repeatedly by scholars at Johns Hopkins University, Boston University, and countless other institutions that track Chinese lending practices around the world, China does not have a “stranglehold over African governments” because the vast majority of African governments don’t actually borrow that much from China.
Rather, the bulk of Chinese lending on the continent is to just a half-dozen or so countries.
2) The notion that it’s up to the United States and “western donors” to “solve this problem” for Africa, well, seems rather out-dated, to put it mildly.
