China Takes the Lead in Africa: Sometimes big geopolitical news gets tucked away in a mere clause. We can see this phenomenon in, for example, a recent AFP story on the Nigerian terror-kidnaping: “World powers, including the United States and China, have joined in the search for the more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram Islamists.”
It’s not really news that the US is involved in the search for those unfortunate girls. (It’s also not news that the Obama administration dithered for years in declaring Boko Haram to be a terrorist group, nor is it news that the most significant American action to date has been Michelle Obama’s holding up a sign declaring “#BringBackOurGirls.”)
No, the big news is that China is involved at all. As the AFP story noted, “China promised to supply ‘any useful information acquired by its satellites and intelligence services.’” Such a commitment might not seem like that big a deal, but, actually, it is.
See original work for more on this and other stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Spamming will be removed.
Due to spamming. Comments need to be moderated. Your post will appear after moderated regardless of your views as long as they are not abusive in nature. Consistent abusive posters will not be viewed but deleted.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.