Secretary of State Anthony Blinken started the new year with a sensible, and productive, visit to Africa. In late January, he traveled to Cabo Verde, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Angola. The purpose is to pursue long-term strategic ties with African nations, with emphasis on partnership and economic development.

For many years, China has devoted sustained attention to that continent. When the Sino-Soviet split occurred in the late 1950s, Beijing made the strategic decision to focus on poor non-white nations. Prominence of China today in Africa is in part a legacy of the fundamental split more than a half century ago between the two principal communist powers during the Cold War.

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Arthur I. Cyr is author of “After the Cold War – American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia” (NYU Press and Palgrave/Macmillan). Contact acyr@carthage.edu

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