Wikileaks reveals the US’s monitoring of 'aggressive' China in Africa

A cable from February quotes a senior US official in Nigeria's main city, Lagos, describing China as "aggressive and pernicious".

However, the official says the US does not consider China a military, security or intelligence threat.
Wikileaks has so far released more than 1,100 of 251,000 secret US cables, the latest of which provide impressive insight into Washington's rivalry with Beijing in Africa.

The cable, published by the Guardian newspaper, quotes US assistant secretary for African affairs Johnnie Carson, who described China as "a very aggressive and pernicious economic competitor with no morals". Carson had been meeting oil company representatives in Lagos.

"China is not in Africa for altruistic reasons," he says. "China is in Africa primarily for China."

"A secondary reason for China's presence is to secure votes in the United Nations from African countries," Carson added.

He argues that China is not seen in Washington as a military or security threat at the moment. But he says there are, what he calls "tripwires" in Africa for the US when it comes to China.

"Have they signed military base agreements? Are they training armies? Have they developed intelligence operations? Once these areas start developing then the US will start worrying," he says.

"The United States will continue to push democracy and capitalism while Chinese authoritarian capitalism is politically challenging. The Chinese are dealing with the [Zimbabwean president] Mugabe's and [Sudanese president] Bashir's of the world, which is a contrarian political model."

Wikileaks said it intends to release all the secret US cables in its possession, although it could take months to do so. The move has been strongly condemned by the US and other countries.