With every one of President Barack Obama’s trips toAfrica, he has seemed keen to make a historicstatement. His debut, a visit to Cairo , was meant to start a new phase in US-Arab relationsafter the grave misunderstandings seen during the presidency of George W Bush. The visit toGhana soon afterwards was no less significant — the nation became in 1957 the first sub-Saharan African country to gain its independence, and is the most stable democracy in westAfrica. Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa followed in 2013.
每次访问非洲时,美国总统巴拉克攠巴马(Barack Obama)似乎都热衷于发表一份历史性的声明。他初次访问非洲去了开罗,当时的用意是开启美国和阿拉伯关系的新篇章,以弥合乔治圠布什(George W Bush)总统任期内出现的严重误解。不久之后他对加纳的访问意义也很重大。加纳于1957年成为第一个独立的撒哈拉以南非洲国家,也是西非最稳定的民主国家。接着,奥巴马又在2013年访问了塞内加尔、坦桑尼亚和南非。
Mr Obama’s fourth visit to Africa, in July, was the first time a serving US president would visiteither Kenya or Ethiopia. With Kenya, there was the added significance of a homecoming: hisfather was born in the country and died there. Indeed, in one of the president’s speeches there,he described himself as “the first Kenyan-American to be president of the United States”.
China has been paying attention; along with the US, it is a frontrunner in the race for economicand diplomatic influence on the continent. It overtook America as Africa’s largest tradingpartner in Mr Obama’s first year in office. That might have been on Hillary Clinton’s mind when,in Senegal as secretary of state in 2012, she said: “The days of having outsiders come and ex琀爀愀挀琀 the wealth of Africa for themselves, leaving nothing or very little behind, should be overin the 21st century”. Today it is Beijing being snarky, with state news agency Xinhua deridingMr Obama for “playing the family card”.
Perhaps Chinese ire is a measure of the success of Mr Obama’s attempt to make up for theindifference of his first term. He has unveiled partnerships in infrastructure and trade, and aMandela Washington Fellowship targeting young African leaders. Yet the upper hand remainswith Beijing. The number of Chinese people in Africa is now estimated at more than 1m . MrObama’s final speech on the continent was delivered in the African Union’s imposing new AddisAbaba headquarters, a gift from the Chinese government.
中方的郁闷也许说明了奥巴马弥补第一任期内冷落非洲的企图取得成功。奥巴马宣布了美国与非洲在基建和贸易上的合作项目,以及面向非洲青年领袖的曼德拉华盛顿奖学金(Mandela Washington Fellowship)项目。然而,北京在非洲依然处于优势地位。目前在非洲的中国人估计已超过了100万。奥巴马在非洲大陆的最后一通演说,是在非洲联盟(African Union)的新总部大楼发表的,而这栋位于亚的斯亚贝巴的气势宏伟的大楼是来自中国政府的礼物。
Preaching to Africa is one thing America has done better than any imperial overlord, and a USpresidential trip would not have been complete without it. In Kenya, Mr Obama spoke againstwidespread homophobia. Many Africans perceive this as an attempt to im瀀漀猀攀 an alienculture. In Ethiopia, he was scathing in his assessment of African rulers’ penchant for tenureextension. (Unlike the homosexuality point, this was extremely well received.)
The pulpiteering had an air of hypocrisy. Mr Obama described the Ethiopian government, whichtook 100 per cent of the vote in May, as “democratically elected”. Yet Burundi’s July poll, inwhich the opposition took more than a quarter of the vote, was “not credible”.
Hanging over this Africa trip — as with Mr Obama’s previous ones — is the conundrum: “Whynot Nigeria?” It is Africa’s most populous country, and its largest economy; the US is its biggestinvestor and until last year the leading importer of its crude oil.
Before now, Mr Obama’s apparent reluctance to visit might have been explained by strainedrelations between the two countries, with the US alleging that Nigeria’s military has been guiltyof large-scale human rights abuses and that the central government has been too tolerant ofcorruption.
Yet days before Mr Obama travelled to Kenya he treated Muhammadu Buhari, the new presidentelected on an anti-graft platform, to a lavish reception in Washington. Mr Buhari was asked inan interview by Christiane Amanpour of CNN if he was “disappointed” that the US leader hadyet again left out of his nation. “I wouldn’t say I was disappointed, but how I wished he’dchange his mind and go to Nigeria,” said Mr Buhari, adding that he planned to “send a formalinvitation”.