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So the UK Now Wants to Compete With China in Africa. Here’s What They’ll Need to Do

by Eric Olander
Visiting African leaders pose with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the family photo at the start of the UK-Africa Investment Summit in London on January 20, 2020. Ben STANSALL / POOL / AFP

15 African heads of state were in London yesterday for the inaugural UK-Africa Investment Summit that was hosted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prince Harry. Like so many other “Africa Summits” in Russia, Japan, Turkey, and India among other places, China, although rarely mentioned, loomed large over the gathering.

“We have no divine right to that business,” said Prime Minister Johnson. “This is a competitive world. You have may suitors,” he added with a subtle admission that Britain has fallen far behind the Chinese in Africa.

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