When 2025 drew to a close, one conclusion stood with increasing clarity: the global center of gravity has shifted, not through rupture or spectacle, but through the steady accumulation of deliberate choices made across the Global South. Africa, in particular, has spent this year doing something both quiet and consequential—comparing partners by outcomes rather than promises. In that comparison, the contrast between US and Chinese foreign policy has hardened into a practical judgment about relevance.

This was the year multipolarity ceased to be theoretical. It became operational.

For much of the post-Cold War era, US engagement with Africa rested on a familiar architecture: aid conditionality, security cooperation, and values-driven diplomacy. In 2025, that architecture showed unmistakable strain. Policy remained episodic, filtered through domestic political cycles, and increasingly securitized. Engagement was reactive—responding to instability, coups, or geopolitical anxiety—rather than anchored in long-term economic transformation. Trade initiatives lacked scale. Infrastructure financing remained tentative. Sanctions continued to substitute for strategy.

China's posture followed a different logic altogether. Its engagement was structural, not episodic; cumulative, not declaratory. Production, connectivity, and growth formed the organizing principles. Roads, railways, power stations, industrial parks, digital networks, and logistics corridors expanded steadily across Africa. These were not symbolic commitments unveiled at summits and abandoned to press releases. They were advancing or completed projects that reduced transport costs, expanded productive capacity, and strengthened state balance sheets.

The philosophical divide is decisive. US policy continues to assume that political alignment must precede economic cooperation. China operates on the opposite premise: development produces stability; stability creates the space for political evolution. For African states confronting infrastructure gaps, fiscal constraint, and demographic pressure, the latter assumption has proven not merely attractive, but workable.

The year also exposed the limits of the single-world-order mindset. US diplomacy still behaves as though it presides over a neutral, rules-based system that it alone defines and enforces. In 2025, that premise lost credibility. Selective enforcement, extraterritorial sanctions, and the abuse of the US dollar's hegemony—reinforced through the SWIFT system—have steadily eroded confidence. Across Africa, these instruments are no longer widely viewed as safeguards of order; they are increasingly recognized as tools of coercion.

China's appeal lies precisely in what it does not demand. Its foreign policy remains anchored in sovereignty, non-interference, and mutual benefit. These principles resonate deeply in societies shaped by colonial intrusion and post-independence tutelage. African governments did not deepen engagement with Beijing in 2025 out of ideological alignment. They did so because China treats statehood as a given—not as a concession to be earned or withdrawn.

The economic evidence reinforced this shift. Infrastructure investment, long dismissed in some Western policy circles as inefficient or politically risky, once again proved decisive. Power generation unlocked manufacturing. Transport corridors integrated fragmented markets. Ports expanded export capacity. Digital systems lowered transaction costs. These were not abstract gains or statistical artefacts; they were growth mechanics. By year-end, the most resilient economies were those that prioritized productive capacity over perpetual austerity.

Zimbabwe offers a clear illustration. While its engagement with the West in 2025 remained dominated by sanctions discourse and political conditionality, its partnership with China continued to translate into tangible assets: expanded energy capacity, industrial investment, agricultural modernization, and transport infrastructure. Whatever one's political interpretation, the developmental arithmetic is unambiguous. Economies recover on electricity, capital, and logistics—not on statements.

Security dynamics further clarified the divergence. US engagement remains heavily weighted toward military cooperation and counterterrorism frameworks. Yet 2025 reaffirmed a basic truth: Africa's insecurity is primarily economic and social before it is military.

China's emphasis on economic security—employment, food systems, energy reliability—addresses the upstream drivers of instability. This approach generates less spectacle, but produces more durable outcomes.

Narrative power shifted as well. For decades, Western institutions defined legitimacy, progress, and reform. That authority weakened further in the past year. African publics increasingly assessed partnerships through lived experience: roads driven, power supplied, and jobs created. Communication has become outcome-based rather than declarative. Credibility now accumulates through delivery.

Looking ahead, the predictive signals are unmistakable. China's ascent is not dependent on rhetoric, moral posturing, or force projection. It is underpinned by alignment with the material priorities of the majority world. Respect for sovereignty reduces friction. Strategic patience enables long-term planning. A development-first logic matches the realities of late industrialization.

The United States will remain an important power. But 2025 confirmed that it is no longer the uncontested reference point for global leadership. Influence now accrues to those who build, finance, and remain present. The Global South has adjusted accordingly.

History is likely to record 2025 as the year Africa stopped debating multipolarity and began operating within it. In that recalibrated order, China is not merely participating. It is shaping outcomes — through the steady accumulation of trust, infrastructure, and shared growth.

Dereck Goto is a Harare-based political commentator.

The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

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