When China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang arrived in Ethiopia nine days after taking office, he could bank on a warm reception.
With tens of billions in loans, weapons exports and deliveries of armed peacekeepers, China has slowly prised influence on the African continent away from the West and into its own hands.
At today’s meeting with Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian prime minister, Qin announced China’s latest overture — the partial cancellation of Ethiopia’s debt to China, which runs at $13.7 billion. It comes as Beijing puts the finishing touches to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Qin was keen to dispel the notion that a “new cold war” was unfolding in Africa. “Africa should be a big stage for international cooperation, not an arena for major countries’ competition,” he said at a news conference with Moussa Faki, the chairman of the African Union, the body that represents 55 states in the continent.
Nonetheless, the battle for influence rumbles on.
Where the West might pester leaders with talk of democracy and human rights, China speaks in dollars and arms deals, a language which has resonated in many African capitals.
The continent is plastered with Chinese infrastructure, from roads and railways to ports and dams. China recently tore down Zimbabwe’s Westminster-style parliament and built a flashy new one on a hilltop with a circular layout.
Qin’s trip to Ethiopia, Gabon, Angola, Benin and Egypt continues a 30-year tradition of Chinese foreign ministers starting each year by visiting Africa, and demonstrating the importance of China’s “traditional friendship” with the continent, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said. Only in recent years has that friendship become so lucrative and important.
China, the US, France, Britain, Russia, Turkey and Gulf states are all vying for influence on the world’s fastest-growing continent. “The battle for Africa is well underway,” said Stephen Chan, a professor of world politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) in London.
Over the past decade, China has poured tens of billions of dollars into the continent in the form of infrastructure projects and loans, just as US and European influence has begun to wane. Recent weapons exports, the deployment of armed peacekeepers and attempts to mediate in African conflicts suggest Beijing is branching out into matters of war and peace.
In mid-December, President Biden hosted nearly 50 African leaders in Washington in an attempt to reset US-Africa ties with offers of investments worth $55 billion. Biden and Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, have cast the US as a defender of democracy and an equal partner for African countries while accusing China of propping up autocrats and “debt-trap diplomacy”, or handing out loans in order to turn the screw later on.
China landed an easy blow with its retort, saying that the US meddled in internal African affairs, especially human rights. In November Ahmed lashed out at “unwelcome and unlawful acts of interference” in Ethiopian affairs following western calls to end the conflict in the rebellious Tigray region, which has left thousands dead.
Chan said that Washington would struggle to compete with Beijing as long as Chinese generosity “remains at a level that the US cannot match”. A recent survey in 15 countries found Africans aged 18 to 24 viewed China as the foreign country with the biggest positive impact on their lives.
In contrast, signs of the declining influence of the West were on display last year when 22 African countries refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the UN general assembly. While China has flexed its economic muscle, Russia has established a foothold by dispatching mercenaries to prop up unpopular regimes in return for lucrative mining rights.
In recent years China has branched out more. Today its concerns in Africa include its first overseas military base in Djibouti, oil facilities in Sudan and South Sudan and lithium mines in Zimbabwe that promise to power the green transition.
The Biden administration is trying to convince Equatorial Guinea to reject China’s attempts to build a naval base in the west African country, which would give Beijing a foothold in the Atlantic Ocean. Last year Beijing offered to mediate in disputes across the Horn of Africa region, including Ethiopia and South Sudan, in its first regional peace conference.
According to the Rand Corporation, a US think tank, China has stepped up its exports of weapons and private military contractors, who are now protecting mines, ports and railways in about 15 African countries. The continent has also become a testing ground for China’s military in “far seas operations” through peacekeeping and anti-piracy operations. Five countries have received weapons and military contractors from Russia and China, according to Rand: Angola, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Mali and Sudan.
Qin’s trip will take him to Angola, China’s main economic partner on the continent for two decades, and Ethiopia, which experts say has copied China’s political-economic model extensively. Gabon is a key oil producer and Egypt is a key diplomatic force in both Africa and the Middle East.
As well as taking the temperature of relations with the West, Qin, who served as China’s ambassador in Washington, will need to reassure African nations that Chinese generosity will not diminish, despite a turbulent period for the Chinese economy exacerbated by the recently concluded “zero-Covid” policy. High up on the agenda are trade and investment.
“A huge raft of African states are tied to China because of owing debt to its banks,” said Chan. “Basically, China is sitting pretty right now, but you can never cultivate your ‘friends’ too much.”
News culled from thetime.co.uk
