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Trump's 'shithole' remarks spur international anger | USA News |
Trump's Reported 'Shithole' Slur Will Nudge African Nations Closer To China
As Trump Insults African Countries, China Actively Embraces Them
Macron shares African outrage on Trump's 'shithole countries
Trump's Insults Will Nudge African Nations Closer To China
January 16, 201810:02 AM ET
Chinese construction workers carry reinforcing rods on a building site in Algiers, Algeria.
Last week President Trump reportedly singled out Haiti, El Salvador and African nations as "shithole countries" whose people were not the kind of immigrants the United States wanted. At the time, I happened to be in Serekunda, Gambia's largest urban area, as Trump's slur shocked people across Africa. The anger was palpable.
Trump denied saying it, but the reports led to a cascade of swift condemnation, including a United Nations spokesman describing the president's comments as "racist." The African Union, an organization of 55 nations, expressed "outrage" and said it "strongly believes that there is a huge misunderstanding of the African continent and its people by the current [U.S.] administration."
But as the fallout continues, there is something missing from the conversation: Trump's alleged vulgar insult comes at a time of strategic shift in Africa — toward China. In the past few weeks I have been on the ground in West Africa, and everywhere I have gone I have seen the presence of China.
As America has become an increasingly unwelcoming place for young Africans, they look elsewhere in search of a better life. Last week I visited the Confucius Institute in Dakar, a huge building located on the grounds of Senegal's University of Dakar. I spent time with students from across Africa coming to learn Mandarin as a way to land a dream job in China or take a slice from the growing Chinese presence in every corner of the continent.
Senegalese can study Mandarin at the Confucius Institute in Dakar, at Senegal's University of Dakar.
In the past, they might have sought to study in Europe or the United States. But those places have put up barriers that make it tough to get student visas. Mamadou Fall, the director of the Dakar Confucius Institute, says that the roughly 500 students it teaches find it nearly impossible to get student visas to the U.S. or Europe. But China is happy to oblige them — it now offers Senegalese students free visas and offers 60 of the brightest students from the institute full scholarships to China each year.
China's mammoth investment in infrastructure is a key part of its arsenal. As part of the One Belt, One Road strategy, the Chinese are building roads, ports, dams, railways and other infrastructure across Africa. These include a metro system in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and a vital railway connecting landlocked Ethiopia's 100 million people to Djibouti's Red Sea port, where the Chinese plan to open their first military base outside China. In Kenya, they financed the biggest post-colonial infrastructure project in the country: a nearly $4 billion railway linking Nairobi with the country's main Indian Ocean port in Mombasa. China is also building a major train network in Nigeria.
Attitudes toward the U.S. have changed in Africa since Trump took office, according to a Pew poll in June. Although Trump's strongman act remained popular in Nigeria, the pollster said, "the intensity of positive opinion has waned" in other sub-Saharan countries surveyed, compared with 2015. What's more, Trump's popularity is nowhere near that of previous Republican President George W. Bush.
Trump's comments disparaging Africans, along with his administration's travel ban and the threat to cut aid to African nations that voted in the U.N. against Trump's Jerusalem decision, send a clear message: The United States is retreating from the post-1945 international system it created, taking an "America First" position on global issues. China is stepping into the vacuum created by Trump in Africa — and almost everywhere else.
The danger for the U.S. is that Trump's insulting words make China an even more enticing partner for African nations. This is a moment of opportunity for the Asian giant. Trump's apparent disrespect may push African nations — and the young Africans who represent their future — further into China's arms.
The one area in Africa where America has shown growing interest is the military and counterterrorism front. Trump might be uninterested in Africa's potential, but he has ramped up America's military engagement on the continent. Trump is playing by the usual Africa playbook, which frames the continent as a place of wars, famines and disease rather than a tapestry of nations and cultures. We Africans have long faced the idea of being from an undesirable continent — a place caricatured for centuries for its nightmares and beauty. The Chinese, however, seem to recognize the potential of the fastest-growing continent on the planet.
I felt the sting of the president's words last week. I am from Somalia — one of the "shithole countries." But being on the ground in Africa the past few days, I also felt something else, something that may one day be understood as a turning point. Years from now, when you ask Africans when they lost faith in America, don't be surprised if they tell you it was the day a U.S. president labeled their country a "shithole."
Ismail Einashe (@IsmailEinashe) is a British-Somali freelance journalist.
Editor's note: NPR has decided in this case to spell out the vulgar word that the president reportedly used because it meets our standard for use of offensive language: It is "absolutely integral to the meaning and spirit of the story being told."
As Trump Insults African Countries, China Actively Embraces Them
China’s foreign minister visited four African countries ahead of the upcoming Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).
By Charlotte Gao January 17, 2018
https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/as-trump-insults-african-countries-china-actively-embraces-them/
Last week U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly insulted Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations by asking “Why do we want all these people from ‘shithole countries’ coming here?” at a meeting on the U.S. immigration policy. Although Trump later denied having used such vulgar terms — tweeting “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used” — the incident deeply irritated African nations.
So far, Botswana, Senegal, South Africa, and Ghana have reportedly summoned U.S. diplomats to express their concerns. South Africa even issued a rare diplomatic protest to the United States.
Trump’s remarks, like a godsend from Beijing’s perspective, will effectively push African countries closer to China’s side. Beijing has been actively embracing Africa and trying to include the continent in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign policy.
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From January 12 to 16 — just as Trump’s insulting incident hit headlines — Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited four African countries: Rwanda, Angola, Gabon, and São Tomé and Príncipe.*
During his visit, Wang urged all African countries to join China’s BRI, claiming that “the African continent was part of the ancient maritime silk road.”
“China has already started to explore cooperation opportunities with a number of African countries, especially those on the eastern coast of Africa and has achieved positive progress in this regard,” said Wang during his visit in Madagascar.
During a joint interview with Chinese media, Wang explained China’s vision for the African continent, as well as the whole community of developing countries, using much more pleasant language than Trump’s remarks.
“Many African countries appreciate and support the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, and China hopes to inject new impetus into cooperation with Africa through jointly building the initiative,” Wang said.
“As a natural and historical extension of the Belt and Road, Africa should not be absent in the co-building process, nor should it be left behind in the mutual development of China and the world,” he added.
While Trump’s administration was hurriedly mending relations after Trump’s remarks, Wang further said that “Africa is always a priority in China’s diplomacy” during his visit in Rwanda on January 13. As proof, Wang noted that it is a tradition for China’s foreign minister to make the first trip of the new year to African countries. “The tradition has been kept for 28 years till now,” he pointed out.
This year will be an especially important one for China’s relationships with African countries, as Beijing is set to host FOCAC, a set of ministerial conferences between China and the African countries held every three years. The first one was held in 2000 in Beijing, and the latest in 2015 in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2015, China announced a $60 billion package plan for the China-Africa cooperation.
This year, to demonstrate that China highly values the relationship with Africa, Beijing decided to upgrade the 2018 FOCAC to a summit, according to China’s Foreign Ministry.
*A previous version of this article mistakenly included additional countries on Wang Yi’s itinerary.
特朗普喷非洲是烂国 美媒：把非洲推向中国怀抱
转自多维新闻网 2018-01-21 22:40:50
http://www.dwnews.com...1516598545034...
近日，特朗普将海地、萨尔瓦多和一些非洲国家称为“烂国”，认为这些国家的人不是美国想要的移民。这一争议性言论遭到了媒体的狂轰滥炸，美媒认为这一行为无疑是将非洲推向了中国的怀抱。
综合媒体1月22日报道称，自特朗普（Donald Trump）上任以来，非洲对美国的态度发生了转变。 特朗普称非洲国家为“烂国家”，联合国54个非洲成员罕见地一致要求他收回不当言论（图源：VCG）
美国全国广播公司（NPR）16日在题为《特朗普侮辱性言论把非洲向中国推近了》评论文章指出，特朗普的侮辱言辞让中国成为对非洲国家更具诱惑力的伙伴，让中国与非洲走得更近了。 文章指出，特朗普的侮辱性言论令全非洲人民震惊。一位联合国发言人都称特朗普的言论是“种族主义的”，非洲联盟表达了“愤怒”，称“美国政府对非洲大陆及其人民有着巨大的误解”。
文章称，随着事件的持续发酵，这些对话忽略了一件事情：特朗普的侮辱言辞是在非洲在战略上转向中国之际出现的。在西非，处处皆能看到中国的存在。
文章称，对非洲年轻人来说，美国已经成为越来越不受欢迎的国家，他们开始到别处寻找更好的生活。有记者访问了塞内加尔达喀尔大学孔子学院。来这里学习汉语的非洲学生们希望通过这种方式在中国找到理想工作，或者在遍布非洲大陆的中国存在中分一杯羹。
中国在基础设施方面进行了巨大的投资。作为“一带一路”倡议的内容之一，中国人在非洲建设公路、港口、大坝、铁路和其他基础设施。其中包括埃塞俄比亚首都亚的斯亚贝巴的轻轨系统和连接埃塞俄比亚与吉布提的重要铁路。在肯尼亚，中国投资建设了该国独立以来最大的基础设施项目——造价近40亿美元的蒙内铁路，将内罗毕与该国主要的印度洋港口蒙巴萨连接起来。中国还在尼日利亚建设一个大规模铁路网。
皮尤研究中心2017年6月的一份民调显示，自特朗普上任以来，非洲对美国的态度发生了转变。调查显示，尽管特朗普的强人行为在尼日利亚受到欢迎，但相比2015年，其他受访的撒哈拉以南非洲国家的“积极观点有所减退”。
文章称，特朗普的侮辱言辞让中国成为对非洲国家更具诱惑力的伙伴。对这个亚洲巨人来说，这是一个机会。特朗普明显不尊重的态度或许会将非洲国家——以及代表非洲未来的年轻人——进一步推向中国的怀抱。
文章称，特朗普还在按照老皇历行事，将非洲视为一个充满战争、饥荒和疾病的大陆，而不是一个由各个国家和各种文化组成的大陆。但是，中国人似乎认识到了这个地球上发展最快的大陆的潜力。
文章称，从现在起的几年里，当你问非洲人他们何时对美国失去了信心，如果他们回答从一位美国总统把他们的国家列为“烂国（shithole countries）”的那一天，请不要感到奇怪。
法国资讯网站21日报道，法国总统马克龙（Emmanuel Macron）在接受英国广播公司（BBC）采访时，就特朗普评价非洲国家与海地为“烂国家”的言论表示，自己真心认为“我们应该尊重所有国家”。
马克龙说道，这（指“烂国家”）当然不是一个该用到的词。他认为如今很多中东和非洲的问题，都源于过去的失望与羞辱，人们必须明白这一点。马克龙呼吁尊重这些国家，他表示，应该给予这些国家尊重，“这更为有效”。
特朗普喷非洲国家“烂国” 马克龙：应尊重所有国家
【环球网报道 记者 王莉兰】美国当地时间1月11日，在白宫举行的一次关于移民问题的会议上，美国总统特朗普称，“为什么这些烂国家的人要来美国？”据与会人士透露，特朗普此番言论尤其指向非洲国家，以及海地与萨尔瓦多。
据“法国资讯”1月21日报道，法国当地时间1月21日，法国总统马克龙在接受英国广播公司(BBC)采访时，就特朗普评价非洲国家与海地为“烂国家”的言论表示，自己真心认为“我们应该尊重所有国家”。
马克龙说道，这(指“烂国家”)当然不是一个该用到的词。他认为如今很多中东和非洲的问题，都源于过去的失望与羞辱，人们必须明白这一点。马克龙呼吁尊重这些国家，他表示，应该给予这些国家尊重，“这更为有效”。
不过，报道称，马克龙同时表示，特朗普不是一名传统的政界人士，并称“我们关系很好”。马克龙指出，尽管在一些议题上存在分歧，但自己希望与特朗普携手共事，“我们已经建立紧密的联系”。
对于特朗普的推文，马克龙认为这是“个人反应与政治反应的混合物”，作为如同美国这类国家的总统时，这是“不可行的”。
