ABSTRACT
An enduring quest for energy resources, safeguarding the opportunity to uphold and share the spirit and identity of developing-country status and enhancing the geostrategic national interests across various continents are crucial diplomatic primacies of emerging powers. Africa, as a resource centre and a continent of 54 countries, offers these primacies for many emerging powers, including India and China. The current global geopolitics and evolving course of globalization have made it crucial for the developed as well as developing countries to harness the resource wealth of Africa and factor highly the African continent in their foreign relations strategy.1 India and China, as the two leading Asian powers and emerging economies and two major energy importers, are courting Africa today through a set of bilateral, institutional and multilateral means. This chapter highlights India’s Africa policy vis-à-vis that of China and
argues that New Delhi’s current Africa policy is a narration of its own evolving strategic outlook towards Africa as a key continent that is geopolitically significant to India’s national interest. It further argues that India’s Africa policy may be analogous to China’s Africa policy, but it is not ‘China-centric’: there is no explicit competition between the two countries visible in Africa. There might, however, be a competing presence between the two countries in some sectors in Africa with regard to their national interests, which are quite identical, concerning energy and partnership with the continent. Importing oil and energy is the most visible sector where one does witness a competing presence between China and India. However, neither is India’s Africa policy conditioned by the rising Chinese presence nor is it a reflection of any third party influence. India’s Africa policy is a result of the rising importance of the African continent in New Delhi’s foreign policy, its quest for energy resources and its interest to align politically to promote the spirit of a developing world and a democracy campaign.
