Using Africa as a ploy to attack China futile

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's 27-minute speech at George Mason University, Virginia, on Tuesday before he embarked on a five-nation tour of Africa would have been fine had he cut it a bit short. Instead, he chose to accuse China of encouraging dependency using opaque contracts, predatory loan practices and corrupt deals to mire African countries in debt, undercut their sovereignty, deny them their long-term and self-sustaining growth.

Tillerson had also accused China of being a colonial power before his visit to Latin America a month ago only to be countered by Peruvian Trade and Tourism Minister Eduardo Ferreyros, who praised China as a good trade partner.

The same is true in Africa. After Tillerson landed in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Wednesday on the first leg of his Africa trip, he must have been surprised to see a sparkling light rail built by China Railway Group that has been operating since 2015, the year I visited and covered the African countries with huge economic potential. He should also have been struck by a 759-kilometer modern railway linking Addis Ababa with neighboring Djibouti, which started commercial operations on Jan 1 this year. More than 95 percent of the trade of landlocked Ethiopia passes through Djibouti.