In the early 21st century, a trend of African summits with non-colonial European countries began, such as Russia and emerging countries China, India and even Turkey, as well as industrial powerhouses that did not have a colonial history on the continent such as Japan and South Korea.

These summits are important to outline a new reality in the world although it is still in the making and there is uncertainty as to what it will eventually create. Will it put South-South cooperation on the right track after decades of failure? Or will the West, especially traditional colonialists, continue to dominate the developing world at the heart of which is Africa?

A new emerging country has risen to become the top trade partner and investor in Africa, but traditional powers (the US and Europe) continue to be the main economic and political players. However, Beijing has become the largest “contractor” of infrastructure projects in Africa and could become the top lender to poor African countries that are struggling with debts from the 1970s and 1980s.

But China is not the sole player in Africa among its emerging peers around the world. India wants to take advantage of its history in Africa to serve its own fast growing economy. Brazil is also trying to take advantage of a common colonial history with some African countries under the Portuguese crown and its fascist republic.

Meanwhile, Russia, which disappeared from the African scene for two decades after the Cold War and dismantling of the Soviet Union, is attempting a comeback by offering African countries loans, weapons and technological capabilities to develop infrastructure.

There is also Japan and South Korea offering investment and loans, and there are serious attempts by Turkey and Iran to penetrate the continent’s markets.

Amid this heated competition, South Africa, the continent’s economic and political giant, was quick to enter markets in southern Africa and plays a key role in the continent’s crises, most notably Sudan.

“But this competition has not undermined Western colonialist economic, security, political and cultural presence,” according to Hamdi Abdel-Rahman, professor of political science and expert on African affairs at Cairo University. “Traditional Western presence is rooted in a long and extensive history of centuries of colonialism, and cultural impact manifesting in the English, French and Portuguese languages.”

Abdel-Rahman adds: “The African cultural elite who are responsible for convincing the people of pivoting to the East are still hostage to the West and its culture. French, English and Portuguese remain the official languages and the language of literature and the press. Just as the US dollar is the currency of trade for countries in the South, English remains the language of communication for South-South cooperation.”

Since the dawn of European civilisation in the 15th century, Europeans mapped their way to Africa and launched relations in the worst possible fashion: Slavery. It is a crime that continued for centuries (16th, 17th, 18th and even 19th), even after Britain banned its ships from transporting slaves in 1807 and the American Civil War which abolished slavery.

European merchant vessels carried between nine to 11 million Africans as slaves to the new world, the US, Brazil, Caribbean republics, where the first Black republic was established in the early 19th century in Haiti.

Slavery was not the only crime of Western colonialism in Africa. It was an occupying force, and altered the culture, religion and language of the people of the continent, as if Europe were creating a continent in its image but Black. At the outbreak of African liberation movements after World War II and the victory of the USSR over European racism in the form of Nazism, some believed the past would change. However, many African countries became independent but suffered what can easily be described as economic, social, cultural and political deformations. Colonial plunder and attrition of human resources rendered the newly independent states farcical, without infrastructure, education or justice. It was not unusual for the majority of African countries to slide into cycles of famines, civil wars, civil and military dictatorships overthrowing each other in coups for decades. Naturally, millions fell victim and the state often collapsed entirely, such as in Somalia, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

MAP OF RIVALRIES: European Union countries remain the top importers of African goods at 28 per cent of trade, while the US and China are at eight per cent and India at six per cent. Meanwhile, 22 per cent of African exports remain on the continent, and 28 per cent to the rest of the world, according to 2014 UNCTAD figures.

Emerging Asian countries (China and India, especially) increased their investments on the continent from $401 billion in 2012 to $465 billion in 2014. Meanwhile, European investments dropped from $401 billion in 2012 to $289 billion in 2014, as did North American investments (the US especially) from $209 billion in 2012 to $146 billion in 2014. Latin American and Caribbean (Brazil with the lion’s share) investment also dropped from $178 billion in 2012 to $159 billion in 2014, according to a 2014 UNCTAD report.

Farag Abdel-Fattah, economics professor at the African Studies Centre at Cairo University, explained, “the retreat in traditional Western investments was caused by the global financial crisis.” He continued: “Asian economies were impacted by the crisis but they used their financial surplus on the one hand and their need for raw materials that they export to Africa to keep their industries going, which were desperate for all natural resources.” At the same time, he added, “there was a great need for making the long-awaited South-South cooperation a success. Africa also adopted a strategy of diversifying trade partners to alleviate Western pressure on issues related to democracy and human rights.”

For example, the EU demanded that borrowing nations must improve their human rights records, transparency levels and fight corruption, and encouraged regimes to adopt democratic measures. The West also put several African countries under siege because of European and US accusations of repressing and destroying the opposition, or harming Western assets such as in Zimbabwe.

Abdel-Rahman said the majority of cases at the International Criminal Court (ICC) relate to domestic conflicts in several African countries such as Sudan, Uganda, the Central African Republic and others. “This made African media and culture feel the West is targeting the continent,” he said. “Thus, turning to the East and South is a pragmatic solution to solve an impossible problem.”

South Africa and several African nations withdrew from the ICC – a move that undermines the court’s mandate to investigate domestic conflicts especially if more African countries follow suit. “While there is African chatter about the West targeting Africans and the ICC as a tool of targeting, the continent also benefits from the ICC,” according to Nasser Amin, member of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights. “Most notably, decreasing the chances of escaping justice, and thus cutting down the number of crimes on a big scale that had been a key feature of conflicts on the continent.”

The ICC also deflects criticism from democratic regimes in Africa when they succeed dictatorships accused of crimes against humanity. In most African conflicts, there is a fierce battle between justice and peace. The supporters of victims demand justice and the prosecution of criminals, while supporters of the accused threaten a return to war if they are taken to court.

Amin points out, however, the “new players” mostly become strong supporters of African dictatorships. They provide them with infrastructure projects, low interest soft loans and liberate them from Western pressure to improve human rights conditions, transparency and democracy.

NEW PLAYERS: China, the “great builder of Africa” is how Khedr Abdel-Baki, media professor at Kano University in Nigeria, describes Beijing’s role on the continent and in his own country. “They are building dams to generate electricity, thousands of kilometres of railroads and roads, give billions of dollars in soft loans,” he explained. “And they never comment on domestic conditions in African countries. That’s how the Chinese are.”

China built nine dams for generating electricity in several African countries, including Algeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Angola and elsewhere. There are six other dam projects underway. Beijing is also developing railroads connecting the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean between Tanzania and Angola, passing through Zambia. Also, railway lines between Ethiopia and Djibouti, and inside Nigeria.

China also provided $20 billion in soft loans to African countries, and promised $60 billion more at the end of 2015. Today, more than one million Chinese work in Africa as professionals, labourers, small merchants and major investors. Nonetheless, the road for China is not easy sailing amid competition from India, Brazil and Russia.

All these countries have a longer history on the continent than China, but they are all smaller in size and capabilities compared to Beijing. India currently invests around $10 billion on the continent and specialises in the services industry such as communications and banking, by relying on millions of Indian expatriates in Eastern Africa such as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa and others. There are also Indian communities that came with British colonialism to these countries in the mid-19th century to build colonialist railroads and fill local government jobs. New Delhi also relies on geographic proximity.

A 2013 study published by the Indian Centre for Political Studies at Jawaherlal Nehru University in New Delhi revealed that transportation from the coastal city of Mumbai in East India to the Port of Mombasa in Kenya is cheaper than transporting the same goods to Calcutta in the far West of India. This proximity provides African countries with available experts who can arrive quicker than their Chinese counterparts.

Indians also rely on their fluency in English, which is an important common factor with Anglophone African countries, and the legal system in both places are also similar (the Anglo-Saxon system). At the same time, similar wages for Indians and Africans works to the benefit of Indian companies that are not obliged to adjust production to match economic capabilities in Africa.

Indians are also accustomed to working in an environment that lacks major infrastructure, which is very similar to conditions in Africa. It is important for African countries to learn from a model that is very close to their conditions.

But India lacks the capabilities of the Chinese, which have an economy that is five times the size of India’s. Beijing also granted Africans more than 17,000 scholarships to Chinese universities since 2000. India’s weaker capabilities made private Indian companies (unlike the mostly state-owned Chinese companies) focus on Anglophone African countries, despite a good start in Francophone countries in West Africa.

Despite India’s claims that it does not only care about economics and is trying to work in social development, its main focus remains natural resource and raw materials. India imports Nigerian oil and diamonds from South Africa, which are two important commodities for New Delhi. It has also invested $2 billion in coal and iron mines in South Africa to meet its economic growth, which is the fastest among emerging countries.

So far, India has not taken any serious steps in the infrastructure sector compared to its rival China. Although the Indian community is strong in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, these countries did not benefit by developing railroad networks that were built by the British using Indian labour in the 19th century.

Politically, the Indian government was in an embarrassing position in mid-2016 because it hosted Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir who is wanted by the ICC to face charges of crimes against humanity in Darfur. Bashir’s attendance of the Indian-Africa Summit Forum was controversial among Indian activists, media and parliament, the largest democracy in the world and home to more than 700 million eligible voters.

But India is not the only country vying with China. Brazil has historic ties to Africa and is connected to Angola, Mozambique and Equatorial Guinea through the Portuguese language that they all inherited from extended Portuguese occupation. Brazil is also home to the largest African expatriate community overseas, even more than the US, who arrived on European ships during the criminal years of slavery.

This advantage allowed Brazil to enter these markets that have immense oil wealth and can fund giant projects that Brazilian companies may want to carry out. Brazil began granting scholarships at the end of the 1990s and when Labour President Lula da Silva came to power and visited 29 African countries. It was a landmark shift for Brazil. Brasilia launched economic partnerships with these countries, and $500 million were earmarked in grants and loans to African countries.

Trade between Brazil and Africa rose from $4.3 billion in 2000 to $28.5 billion by 2013, and more loans were given for developmental projects worth some $3 billion from the Brazilian National Bank for Development. Brazil’s specialty was contributing to agricultural projects, such as Cotton 4 + Togo, which includes Mali, Chad, Togo, Burkina Faso and Benin. Brazil also offered its expertise in biofuel to Angola, Mozambique and Nigeria.

It did not, however, offer infrastructure projects like China. Like others, it relies on investing in oil and raw materials needed for industry. Africa’s raw materials sector is paramount. Even countries such as Russia, which is rich in natural resources, have returned to the African continent after a two-decade hiatus. Russia, an old partner of Africa’s during the independence era of the 1950s and 1980s, returned to provide the continent with technological expertise that is more advanced than China, advanced weapons and military training, elite universities and relations that go beyond the approach of former colonialists.

But Moscow has not entered any major projects yet and the price of its weapons is higher than what many African countries can afford, despite its strong partnerships with Algeria, Angola, South Africa, Sudan and Libya under Gaddafi. Africans yearn for mega Soviet development projects such as dams for electricity, railroads and studies at prominent Russian universities. This nostalgia dominates countries such as Angola, Ethiopia and Benin which were all close to the USSR. Its successor, Russia, did not give them any grants or bounty, and instead became an economic partner rather than a generous benefactor.

Sami Qamhawi, an Egyptian journalist and expert on Chinese affairs, believes China has an advantage over most of its rivals because it presents itself as a developing country like African countries, and wants to gain from them and benefit them in return.

“The pace of Chinese economic action is faster,” Qamhawi explains. “Their capabilities are greater and so is their impact. We can see this in Sudan and Zimbabwe.” Zimbabwe heavily relies on Chinese investments that have become a pillar of the country’s economy after it was destroyed following decisions early this century.

President Robert Mugabe ordered the confiscation of farms owned by white settlers until Britain and the US put the country under economic siege, and inflation shot up to 1,000 per cent. Once Chinese investments arrived, conditions began to improve without Beijing making any political demands on Harare in terms of democracy, human rights or transparency.

The same applies to Sudan that has been under siege by the West for the past two decades and its president pursued by the ICC. China relies on oil in Sudan and South Sudan, which account for five per cent of its imports from Africa. Chinese companies completed building the Merowe Dam in North Sudan and China is working on the Kajbar Dam north of the first reservoir.

Beijing did not make any political demands on Khartoum, but Mugabe and Bashir are in precarious positions. Their regimes could be toppled if more pressure is placed on them, according to Al-Hajj Warraq, editor-in-chief of the digital newspaper Horreyat (Freedoms). “Chinese investments will not prevent the collapse of any regime,” says Warraq. “Bashir’s regime is facing wide scale civil disobedience and failed to undermine the armed revolution in the Blue Nile region and Nubian Mountains” close to South Sudan.

He adds, Chinese investments cannot be an alternative to improving living and political conditions for the people.

Meanwhile, traditional Western powers remain active in development in Africa. French companies are constructing a new railroad in Western Africa crossing five countries, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Togo – all former French colonies.

In Eastern Africa, European companies are working on improving an old colonial railway line that connects countries in that region. Overall, African elites remain more interested in the West because of historic ties. At the first opportunity of choosing between former colonial powers and emerging countries, the African intellectual will choose his “former European master”, says Warraq.

“The best students are sent to the West,” he explained. “Those who go to China, India or Brazil are ones who apply for themselves. African intellectuals prefer to go to Europe, not Asia. African countries resorted to China to escape EU and US pressure.”

South-South cooperation, or what is known in Africa as “Turning to the east”, is embryonic and has not yet evolved into a reality that offsets Western prominence. But perhaps the future has something else in store.