Illegal Chinese Timber Trade Fuels Insurgency in Mozambique

11 Jul, 2024, No comments

The China in Africa Podcast

Officially, Mozambique bans the export of raw timber in an effort to protect what's left of the country's rapidly shrinking forests. But whatever laws are in place are largely disregarded as more than 500,000 tons of timber leave the country each year — 90% of which goes to China, according to a new report by the Environmental Investigation Agency.

This illicit timber trade is also very lucrative, generating more than a billion dollars that helps to fund a deadly insurgency ravaging northern Mozambique.

Alexandra Bloom, a senior trade and policy analyst at EIA, joins Eric & Cobus to discuss EIA's multi-year investigation that uncovered widespread corruption and negligence at every level of the timber supply chain.

It’s not only Israel on trial. South Africa is testing the west’s claim to moral superiority

17 Jan, 2024, No comments

Supporters of Palestine have long been told their position is fringe. But this case gives them legitimacy – and tests the limits of human rights

By Nesrine Malik for The Guardian

It was only a little over six hours of legal argument, but the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel at the international court of justice had decades of history bearing down on it. The specifics dealt with Israel’s assault on Gaza, but at its heart, the case was about something wider: closing the gap between Palestinian reality and how the dominant political forces describe it.

For weeks now, anger at events in Gaza has spilled out on to the streets across Europe. Yet this anger has been resolutely ignored, dismissed, banned, or vilified by political leaders. Public support for a ceasefire, now at more than 70% in the UK, is not reflected in the positions of either the government or the opposition. Globally, condemnation of the violence from human rights organisations, the United Nations and even the pope has yet to translate into meaningful action from political leaders.

A UN resolution calling for a ceasefire was blocked by the US. Even the language of protest has been forensically analysed to render it problematic or ignorant; protesters have been accused of “shoehorning” the conflict into “trendy academic theory”, an indulgent modern preoccupation of “leftists and academics”. The foreign secretary, David Cameron, thinks we should not “bandy about” the charge of genocide. All this does is reflect what supporters of Palestine have been told for years: your position is fringe. It is not based on evidence or morality, but rather on prejudice, radicalism and (more recently) on “wokeness”. In other words, the Israel-Palestine conflict is complicated, best left to the grownups.

This position was always premised on the fact that even if support for Palestine was popular, it was not potent. Rarely did it travel from the streets to the halls of power, and when it did, such sentiment could always be blocked or dispersed. In voicing its condemnation of Israel, Ireland, an ex-colony, is one of the few nations to break with the Anglosphere. It has been predictably portrayed as an outlier, a “weak link” in a chain of consensus, and another member of the scruffy ranks who do not have to shoulder the great responsibility that comes with great power.

The submission to the ICJ challenged that portrayal both in appearances and in substance. It matters to hear things that were not taken seriously enough spelled out at a pitch that matches their graveness. It matters that these things, investigated by media outlets, reported by human rights organisations and narrated by Palestinians on the ground, are collected and listed in one address: 6,000 bombs a week in the first three weeks of the conflict; 2,000lb bombs deployed at least 200 times; 85% of Gazans displaced; 93% of the population facing crisis levels of hunger.

It matters that these claims are linked to the Geneva conventions and human rights law. And it matters that they are spoken in a formal setting, within a legal framework, uttered by lawyers and listened to by judges. Even the sober ritual and choreography of the proceedings was a sort of blessing. The overall effect is of an emphatic enfranchisement of the rights of people in Gaza.

In that sense, it matters less what the final ruling is than that the case was made in the first place. You can agree or disagree on whether the legal hurdle for genocide has been met (or whether it even matters, if Israel and its allies will disregard it anyway), but in making a submission that recognises the seriousness of events – and that the seriousness of those events may amount to genocide – enough is presented to clearly illustrate that the international response has fallen shockingly short.

Vanishing Line

31 Dec, 2023, No comments

How can a Kenyan road unfurl toward the future when it can’t seem to escape the past?

By April Zhu and Theo Aalders

Original illustration by Anne Le Guern

On January 11, 2023, the road was a crime scene. That day, an IED exploded beneath the first car in a convoy of Kenyan engineers and construction workers, killing all four passengers. Only the road witnessed the militants digging the hole to place the device, and the blackened, mangled body of the Toyota Hilux — just innards, no chassis, all four wheels still upright, attached to their axes.

Before the road was witness, before it was a crime scene, it was a wound in the landscape — a raw gash filled in and covered with gravel from quarries along the River Tana, which flows through the arid expanse of northeastern Kenya toward Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline. Before it was a wound, it was negative space, left behind by piles of upturned topsoil, called “overburden,” that were trucked to somewhere else. Before it was negative space, it was a path of uprooted trees and shrubs. Before that, it was a constellation of concrete beacons that looked like gravestones. And before it was a constellation of beacons, before it was any of these other things, the road was a straight line on a map — solid, obvious, and true.

Most other roads in this part of Kenya, a region characterized by infrastructural neglect, don’t have names. They go by numbers, like D568, C81, or A3. But from the moment this one was drawn, it had a name: the Lamu–Garissa Road. That is because this road isn’t just going to Garissa — other roads already do — this road is going into the future.

The Lamu–Garissa Road forms the initial part of the Lamu Port–South Sudan–Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor, which is, in the words of LAPSSET authorities, the “first single gigantic, integrated, transformative, and game-changer infrastructure project.” The place-names in the acronym are a code for the promise of wealth: the project will link the oil fields of South Sudan and of Turkana in northern Kenya through a network of highways, railways, and pipelines to Lamu Port. Other roads and railways fan out into Ethiopia. Through this network, development shall emanate: farms, homes, resort cities, universities, refineries, factories. Lamu, an island off the north coast of Kenya near the border with Somalia, shall be restored to its historical glory as a central node of international trade along East Africa’s Swahili coastline.

The Lamu–Garissa Road begins in Mokowe, on Lamu’s mainland, close to Lamu Port. For fifteen miles, it is tarmacked, glossy, smooth, done. Its designers have big dreams for it: its one-hundred-and-fifty-five-mile body will stretch northward, bending a bit east at the halfway point to run parallel to the River Tana, stopping through the string of towns along that winding desert lifeline. The engineers plan a road with a speed of seventy-five miles per hour and a capacity of thousands of vehicles a day. Nothing out there has ever moved that fast.

But the road isn’t even close to done yet. Not long after departing Mokowe, the tarmac turns to gravel. Farther on, the road ends: black IED scars have stopped it in its tracks. The LAPSSET Corridor is a flagship project of Kenya’s Vision 2030, a plan for “[transforming] the country into a middle-income, industrialized, and sustainable nation by 2030.” The most significant of its many programs are large-scale infrastructure projects; LAPSSET was meant to be the capstone. South Sudan’s independence in 2011 and the discovery of oil by the British firm Tullow Oil in Turkana provided a seductive base of extractive wealth (and thus lucrative justification) for such a corridor. According to the LAPSSET blueprints, at some points, highway, railway, and pipeline will all run in parallel within one 1,650-foot-wide artery along which liquid, cargo, and humans — that is to say, capital — will flow freely. All lines in this project point toward a single vanishing point: modernity.

Modernity reached other parts of Kenya long ago but struggled to make it up this far north. LAPSSET promises to change that, forming the connective tissue that allows capital to flow into northern Kenya’s impoverished, left-behind regions. “By 2030, it will become impossible to refer to any region of our country as ‘remote,’” the plan declares. “The Vision aims to move all Kenyans to the future as one nation.” LAPSSET will stitch the nation together — gone will be the era when the only way to get to Lamu from Nairobi within a day was by air — and also heal it, connecting “problem” regions of the north, long plagued by insecurity, with the prosperous central regions through inclusion in the modern economy. A road can make a promise.

Continue on Guernica

From a “project of the century” to “small is beautiful”: The changing face of the BRI in Africa

3 Dec, 2023, No comments

For the Munk School of Global Affairs and Foreign Policy (University of Toronto), I consider the changing face of the BRI in Africa.

Égalité de genre et survie des enfants de moins de cinq ans en Afrique: Dispositif constitutionnel, réglementaire, institutionnel et son impact

3 Dec, 2023, No comments

L’inégalité entre les hommes et les femmes ainsi que la mortalité élevée chez les enfants de moins de cinq ans restent des préoccupations pour la santé des populations et le développement en Afriqueen général. Un enfant né en Afrique sub-Saharienne a 14 fois plus de risques de mourir avant l’âge de cinq ans qu’un enfant né en Europe et en Amérique du Nord. De même, un enfant né en Afrique sub-Saharienne a 10 fois plus de risques de mourir au cours du premier mois de vie qu’un enfant né dans un pays à revenu élevé. Par ailleurs, à quelques exceptions près, l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes est nettement moins avancée en Afrique qu’ailleurs dans le monde.

Identifier les moyens d’éliminer ces disparités est une tâche centrale en matière de santé publique et de développement pour tout gouvernement dans n’importe quel pays du monde en général et d’Afrique en particulier. Dans cette publication, nous suggérons que même en tenant compte des théories dominantes utilisées pour expliquer les dissimilitudes transnationales et infranationales de la mortalité tout au long de la vie humaine en général et de la mortalité infantile et juvénile en particulier, le « droit à la santé », s’il est inscrit dans la constitution nationale de chaque p a s africain avec suffisamment de dispositions relatives à l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes tout au long du parcours de vie, est très susceptible d’avoir un pouvoir explicatif important pour la santé des populations et le développement durable dans le contexte africain. Cette ligne de pensée s’appuie sur nos expériences de vie d’africains et scientifiques au parfum des réalités et capacités humaines sur le continent, et remet en question la notion de « pays en développement »ainsi qu’une grande partie de la littérature sur la santé et le développement axée essentiellement sur les déterminants biologiques, démographiques, économiques, ou socio-environnementaux de la santé. Ele plaide pour une approche axée sur la place du droit du citoyen dans le domaine de la santé, notamment par une prise en compte de ce « droit à la santé » dans les constitutions nationales et sa mise en œuvre effective dans les institutions nationales. PRAME

Please read the English version here.

From Non-Interference to Adaptative Pragmatism: China’s Security Policy in Africa

3 Jan, 2023, No comments

Article by Mamoudou Gazibo and Abdou Rahim Lema in African Studies Quarterly

ABSTRACT

China’s growing focus on African peace and security has generated discussions on its longstanding foreign policy principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of African countries and most of that growing body of research have argued that China is doing away with its foreign policy principle. Drawing its conclusions from a careful analysis of China’s security engagement with African countries, this paper argues that, forced to deal with various African crises, China has been pragmatically adaptive. This adaptive pragmatism has allowed Beijing to get involved in Africa’s peace and security landscape without overtly compromising its traditional posture on non-interference.

At 20, the AU Has a Lot to Be Proud Of—and a Lot of Work to Do

26 Jul, 2022, No comments

By Chris Olaoluwa Ogunmodede for World Politics Review (WPR)

Last week, 13 African heads of state and government attended the African Union’s Mid-Year Coordination Meeting, the principal forum for the AU and Africa’s Regional Economic Communities, or RECs, to align their priorities and coordinate implementation of the continental integration agenda. This year’s meeting, the fourth since the format was launched in 2017 to replace a mid-year leaders’ summit, was focused on issues like the status of regional integration in Africa; the division of labor between the AU, its member states and RECs; a tripartite free trade agreement between the East African Community, The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and the Southern African Development Community; an interregional knowledge-exchange platform on early warning and conflict prevention; Africa’s response to the coronavirus pandemic; and the impact of the Ukraine crisis on the continent.

The gathering took place in Lusaka, Zambia, which had not hosted a continental meeting since 2001. It also came a little over a week after the AU commemorated the 20th anniversary of its founding on July 9. Debates about the AU’s role in Africa’s affairs and its effectiveness at grappling with the issues facing the continent have raged over the past decade, and they have intensified in recent years amid multiple challenges to peace, security and governance across Africa.

How China’s Ambitious Belt and Road Plans for East Africa Came Apart

26 Mar, 2022, No comments

China’s infrastructure projects abroad often suffer from misinterpretations of the local political climate.

By David Skidmore for The Diplomat

As China draws back from large scale infrastructure investments in Africa, it is worth considering why so many major Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in the region, unveiled with great fanfare, have ultimately struggled. A connecting thread across such cases has been China’s inability to manage the political complexities associated with infrastructure development.

Within China itself, the context for infrastructure development is defined by political continuity, deep-pocketed state actors, state-controlled media, and a weak civil society. Authorities can plan and implement projects with few serious impediments.

The BRI was envisioned as an extension of this top-down “China Model” of infrastructure development to other countries. But, of course, the political circumstances familiar to Chinese actors at home are seldom duplicated abroad – despite the fact that, according to Ding Yifan of China’s Development Research Centre of the State Council, Chinese companies often “think other countries are just like China.”

Chinese actors typically approach BRI deals with two contradictory assumptions: First, the political leadership with whom they are dealing is either too weak or too venal to challenge contract terms that decidedly favor China; and, second, these same leaders will be strong enough to fend off resistance to ambitious infrastructure projects by opposition politicians and civil society groups while also mobilizing the financial resources necessary to sustain expensive, long term projects.

In practice, few projects meet the “just right” conditions of this Goldilocks formula. Instead, conditions are “too hot” – strong leaders reject unfavorable terms – or “too cold” – weak leaders cannot defend bad deals against domestic opposition or rescue the projects once they run into trouble.

The three case studies below each illuminate a different path to failure.

A Strong Leader Nixes a Deal: Bagamoyo Port

In March 2013, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed an agreement for a $10 billion port designed to handle 20 million containers a year. China Merchants Holding was contracted to build the port with China’s Export-Import Bank providing the bulk of financing. The port would be connected to a large industrial city and the TAZARA Railway, allowing goods to move to and from central Africa.

Situated in Kiwete’s home district of Bagamoyo, the port was well-positioned to shower benefits upon the president’s supporters. With his term in office ending less than a month later, Kiwete rushed to conclude port construction contracts in October 2015.

In a stunning move, incoming President John Magufuli quickly moved to cancel the contracts. In contrast with Kikweta, Magufuli was an economic nationalist inclined to hard bargaining with foreign investors. Magufuli was also a tough, often authoritarian, leader who brooked little opposition.

After years of further negotiations, Magufuli pulled the plug in October 2019. Declaring Chinese demands “exploitative,” Magufuli complained: “Those investors are coming with tough conditions that can only be accepted by mad people.” Tanzania Ports Authority Chief Executive Deusdedit Kakoko rejected China Merchants Holding International’s five key conditions, which included a 99-year lease, a tax holiday, below market rates for water and electricity, relaxed regulation, and restrictions on Tanzania’s ability to develop competing ports.

Following Magufuli’s death in office, newly installed President Samia Suluhu Hassan announced, in June 2021, the resumption of negotiations with China over the Bagamoyo Port project. Hassan is closely aligned with former President Jakaya Kikwete’s political network within the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Party. Should Hassan prove pliable enough to accept China’s conditions, the port project would risk failure along our other two pathways.

A Weak Leader Results in a White Elephant: Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway

Weak leaders accept terms favoring foreign lenders and investors. But one-sided projects often generate fatal opposition or, if implemented, risk becoming financial white elephants. Two Kenya cases highlight below featured contract terms heavily favoring China. Both projects were negotiated by President Uhuru Kenyatta, widely considered to be a weaker than his predecessors: Uhuru’s father Jomo Kenyatta, a towering anti-colonial figure who served as Kenya’s first post-independence leader, and the autocratic Daniel Toroitich arap Moi, who held the presidency for 22 years.

Despite his family pedigree, Uhuru Kenyatta was soundly defeated in his first bid for the presidency in 2002. He barely survived a court challenge to his 2013 victory. Although initial returns from the August 2017 election showed Kenyatta the winner, the Supreme Court ordered a new election after siding with a challenge mounted by the main opposition candidate. Following months of growing tension, Kenyatta’s challenger withdrew from the October revote, allowing Kenyatta to retain office.

To improve his precarious political position, Kenyatta sought to accelerate Kenyan economic development by attracting foreign capital, especially from China. In 2018, China held close to $10 billion or 73 percent of Kenya’s overall debt, among the highest rates in Africa. Even as Kenyan debt service tripled between 2013 and 2018, Kenyatta defiantly declared: “I will continue to borrow to develop.”

Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project served as the crown jewel of Kenyatta’s ambitious plan. The railway was designed to speed the flow and increase the capacity of goods moving to and from the Kenyan port of Mombasa. Kenya contracted with the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to construct the SGR in three main stages. The plan also envisioned a fourth stage undertaken in cooperation with the government of Uganda, with a line running to the Ugandan capital of Kampala and eventually to the interior of East Africa. The financial viability of the project depended upon the expected volume of goods that an extended rail network would realize.

The bulk of financing for the first stage, from Mombasa to Nairobi, was provided by the China Export-Import Bank in the amount of $3.24 billion. A special purpose vehicle called the Kenyan Railway Corporation (KRC) contracted with CRBC to operate the line. Passenger and freight service were both operational by early 2018.

The terms of the SGR deal heavily favored the Chinese partners. Indeed, a Kenyan appeals court later ruled the original contract invalid due to the lack of competitive and transparent bidding. As collateral, Kenya was required to set up a special reserve account and to waive sovereign immunity for the port of Mombasa, making the latter vulnerable to seizure by Chinese creditors should Kenya default.

The loan for the first stage carried a high interest rate and quick repayment period. Conversely, to finance operations the CRBC borrowed from the KRC at zero interest and a generous grace period. Repayment was made not in cash, but in services. Moreover, CRBC was relieved of liability for operating losses. Contract disputes were managed through arbitration in China under Chinese law.

Revenue from the initial year of operation came to less than half of projections and covered only half of operating costs. A Kenyan government report estimated that without subsidies, freight transport along the new rail line cost twice that via truck. Despite hopes that the rail line would boost exports, the tonnage of goods shipped inland from Mombasa exceeded that shipped to the port by a ratio of almost 8 to 1. While the second stage of the SGR project is nearing completion, China’s Export-Import Bank pulled funding from the third stage due to concerns about financial viability as well as worries that Kenya is “politically unstable.”

In 2020, the SGR lost money at a rate of over $9 million per month, prompting the Kenyan government to require that government agencies and importers ship goods via train rather than truck, a demand resisted by importers and truckers. Kenya Railways defaulted on a $350 million payment to CRBC’s subsidiary Africa Star, which operates the SGR. In July 2020, KRC announced plans to take over management of the SGR from Africa Star, which, in turn, has demanded the full payment of past due debts before the full transfer of operations to KRC.

In sum, Kenyatta’s intended legacy project has become a financial morass while Kenya and China struggle to disentangle themselves from one another.

A Weak Leader Sees a Project Vetoed by Domestic Opponents: Lamu Power Project

In 2014, Kenya’s Ministry of Energy and Petroleum awarded a contract to Amu Power for construction of a $2 billion power plant, East Africa’s first to rely upon coal. Sixty percent of the total estimated project cost was to be financed by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a Chinese state-owned commercial bank. The plant was to be built by state-owned China Huadian Corporation.

From the beginning, the project was bathed in controversy due to the close proximity of the plant to a UNESCO heritage site, Lamu Old Town, which served as the best preserved Swahili cultural settlement in East Africa. There were also worries about the environmental impact of the plant.

Opposition to the project arose within Kenya’s Energy Regulatory Commission before licensing approval was finally given in 2016 by the National Environment Management Authority. These bureaucratic delays allowed time for a coalition of local and international NGOs to coalesce in opposition. An umbrella organization called Save Lamu brought together 40 local civil society groups. Save Lamu received support from national NGOs such as the INUKA Trust Fund and international NGOs, including South Africa-based Natural Justice. From 2016 to 2019, the coalition conducted a campaign of petitions, protests, public meetings and workshops under the “deCOALinize” banner.

Save Lamu repeatedly requested meetings with representatives of ICBC and the Chinese embassy without response. In June 2019, a deCOALinize and Greenpeace march to the Chinese embassy was interrupted by police. This succeeded, however, in securing a subsequent meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Wu Peng, along with representatives of two Chinese firms under contract to construct the plant. No ICBC representative was present.

Acknowledging that it was Kenya’s decision whether to proceed with the plant, Wu expressed reluctance to engage with civil society groups: “You know the problem is who represents your people. As a country, how do we engage bilaterally? We cannot talk to each individual person. It is impossible. You have about 50 million people but you have one administration elected by your people. That is the only way as government to government.”

Save Lamu and other groups sued to halt the project. In 2019, the Kenya National Environmental Tribunal cancelled the license for the Lamu power plant project, ruling that officials had failed to carry out adequate environmental assessments or public consultations. In November 2020, ICBC withdrew from the project, as did General Electric, which had planned an equity investment.

In retrospect, ICBC and the other Chinese entities were hampered by their discomfort and unfamiliarity in navigating the political complexities posed by operating in a country with democratic institutions, an independent judiciary, and a vibrant, transnationally-connected civil society. Director of the Green Belt and Road Initiative Center Christoph Nedopil Wang observes that foreign companies have little choice but to consult with civil society since “agreements between businesses and government are insufficient to ensure the implementation of a project.”

Environmental journalist Shi Yi writes: “State-owned enterprises rarely speak to the Chinese media or public and generally do so only for self-promotion. The same approach is often followed overseas. Any public communication may need approval from the headquarters in China, and Chinese companies often discourage their employees from interacting with local people. This means company leaders may not be aware of investment risks in time.”

Conclusion

The evident bargaining advantages that Chinese state-owned firms enjoy in relation to many host states often produce one-sided contracts favoring China, but do not endow Chinese agents with sufficient control over the political variables necessary to project success. One-sided deals may be rejected once a strong leader assumes office, fall prey to domestic opposition, or prove financially unviable. The political Goldilocks solution sought by Chinese actors – a host country leadership too weak to drive a hard bargain but strong enough to push a project to successful conclusion against domestic opposition and financial constraints – is elusive at best. These considerations suggest limits on the possibility of projecting a “China Model” via the BRI. When it comes to Chinese infrastructure investment, perhaps Dorothy put it best: “There’s no place like home!”

Connecting Beijing’s Global Infrastructure: The PEACE Cable in the Middle East and North Africa

8 Mar, 2022, No comments

By Thomas Blaubach for The Middle East Institute

Photo by AMELIE HERENSTEIN/AFP via Getty Images

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As an ambitious and rapidly growing superpower, China has quickly distinguished itself in emerging technology. The country has long leveraged its ubiquitous tech sector for diplomatic and political advantage. China’s technological outreach encompasses its international infrastructure mega-project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to reorient the global economy toward Beijing through infrastructure deals with over 60 countries. Perhaps the BRI’s most consequential component will be the Digital Silk Road (DSR). Led by companies like Huawei, the DSR seeks to connect the global economy through emerging technologies that are set to revolutionize global networks, such as fiber-optic cables and 5G-supported communications. While these projects come to fruition, China’s ambitions are becoming integral to the Middle East’s economy. As a case in point, Beijing has found a way to assert itself and challenge the U.S. geopolitically through the expansion of next generation fiber-optic cables.

One of the most ambitious elements of the DSR is the Pakistan & East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) fiber-optic cable. China has long expressed its ambition to connect the greater Middle East, Africa, and Europe with Chinese fiber optics in order to expand its presence in the region. Beijing now boasts strategic infrastructure assets in geopolitical hotspots. For example, the Pakistani port of Gwadar is now under Beijing’s influence as the foreign port’s operator via a Chinese corporate entity — the China Overseas Ports Holding Company¹ — and serves as a landing station for the PEACE fiber-optic cable. In Djibouti City, meanwhile, China has built its first overseas military installation as well as landing stations for the PEACE Cable. Chinese involvement at these and other critical locations of the PEACE cable illustrates the geopolitical importance of undersea fiber-optic cables.

Undersea Fiber-Optic Cables & PEACE

Connecting the world’s internet through fiber-optic cables is increasingly important to global communications and economics. The world’s seabed fiber-optic lines currently carry about 95% of intercontinental data traffic.² Approximately 380 submarine fiber-optic cables transmit data across the globe by means of about 1,000 coastal landing stations.³ Given the relatively small number of sea cables linking to a multitude of land-based stations, vulnerable and secure, states strive to build capacities in this critical area of digital infrastructure. China, notably through a Huawei subsidiary, now provides fiber-optic cables for global use. U.S. firm SubCom and firms of several U.S. allies have traditionally dominated the field of fiber optics,⁴ but in recent years Huawei Marine has become the fourth-largest player in the industry.⁵

As with other international digital infrastructure, such as 5G networks, questions surround the security of fiber-optic cables and the responsibility of public and private actors to protect privacy on an enormous scale. A common concern among policymakers in the U.S. and elsewhere is the potential use of network management software to “cut, disrupt, divert, or monitor'' information.⁶ Information is carried and switched among different cables based primarily on available capacity and agreements between cable operators.⁷ Thus, users usually cannot choose which cables carry their information. With growing tensions pitting the U.S. and its allies against China in a fight for global ascendancy, the construction and maintenance of fiber-optic cables have stoked a geostrategic competition and the technology’s vulnerabilities have raised concerns about national and regional security.

A New Space In Geopolitics

Exacerbating these concerns is the build-out of Huawei Marine’s cables across geographic nodes that are crucial to global communication and U.S. interests. Forming the shortest route between Asia and Africa,⁸ the PEACE Cable originates in Karachi and the Chinese-built port of Gwadar and proceeds to points in East Africa, Egypt, and Europe before terminating in Marseille.⁹ The cable will connect the future digital economy through Chinese infrastructure, and help Beijing reach its “Made in 2025” Initiative target of taking a 60% share in the global fiber-optic market.¹⁰ For PEACE, China and Huawei purposefully chose countries with geostrategic value as intermediary landing points. Clearly, Chinese policymakers are thinking about more than just business when it comes to fiber optics.

A Global Cable: The PEACE Cable is set to connect the Middle East, East Africa, and Europe. PriMetrica, Inc. “Submarine Cable Map. PEACE Cable.” TeleGeography, https://www.submarinecablemap.com/ — A Global Cable: The PEACE Cable is set to connect the Middle East, East Africa, and Europe. PriMetrica, Inc. “Submarine Cable Map. PEACE Cable.” TeleGeography, **https://www.submarinecablemap.com/**

Pakistan

Located at the intersection between the Arabian Sea, Central Asia, and the Middle East, Pakistan has been identified by the Chinese as a point of access to build infrastructure. Beijing’s investments in Pakistan will be critical for China’s capacity to become a primary tech infrastructure supplier to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia (EMEA). The PEACE Cable and other projects in Pakistan under the larger program known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) already play a crucial role in China’s global digital infrastructure ambitions.

Pakistan has worked with China on expanding its use of emerging technology in governance and economics. Recently, for example, Pakistan entered into agreements on major DSR initiatives, including “smart cities.” Still in their early years, these projects have yet to reach their full impact. Nonetheless, they will certainly further Sino-Pakistani tech cooperation and hasten Islamabad’s adoption of Chinese technology and norms.

Repurposing Gwadar

The PEACE Cable’s easternmost endpoints are located on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast. Karachi has become a major landing station for undersea cables. Unlike the fiber-optic cable hub of Karachi, the second Pakistani landing station for the PEACE Cable, located in Gwadar, demonstrates China’s deeper interest in Pakistan as a convenient regional hub for its global infrastructure ambitions. The Chinese have invested heavily in Gwadar, a centerpiece of the CPEC relationship — a partnership involving projects with an estimated total price tag ranging from $27 billion to as much as $62 billion — to transform it into a major port. Chinese investment in Gwadar to broaden global internet infrastructure is stimulated by PEACE’s status as the city’s only fiber-optic cable.¹¹

China’s heavy investment in Pakistan, however, has raised concerns about debt stress in the country. According to the Center for Global Development, Pakistan has “high” risk of debt stress, largely because of its inability to repay BRI loans.¹² In its latest Article IV report on the country, the IMF put Pakistan’s total debt to China at $18.43 billion as of the end of FY 2020/21 — a significant share of its total external debt of $91.77 billion. The inability to repay China for much-needed infrastructure projects could give Beijing influence over Islamabad’s finances, economy, and politics. Debt for equity swaps, like the 2016 agreement between Sri Lanka and China, could give China control over Pakistan’s infrastructure, particularly as Islamabad faces pressure to modernize. Meanwhile, the country’s social safety net and equity of economic opportunity continue to suffer.

Djibouti

Also designated as a “high” risk country for BRI debt,¹³ Djibouti plays a strategic role in both China’s overall BRI-DSR initiative and the strategic PEACE Cable component. Located at a critical junction bordering the Bab el-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden, Djibouti is well situated to handle communications and trade between the Indian Ocean and the Red and Mediterranean seas. The states bordering the Gulf of Aden and the entrance to the Red Sea have become a natural place for landing stations for information traveling through EMEA. Their strategic placement has given Yemen¹⁴ and Somalia — states on the verge of failure — a surprising role in the global fiber-optic infrastructure. The PEACE Cable has greatly increased the cable traffic transiting Somalia¹⁵ Yet the largest fiber-optic hub in the region and closest to the vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait is Djibouti. Djibouti City and the coastal town of Haramous host the most land stations for fiber-optic cables crossing the strategic strait.¹⁶ Drawn in by the potential profits, local players like Djibouti Telecom have partnered with Huawei.¹⁷

China has prioritized Djibouti because of the country’s role in securing free movement of its trade and promoting its political interests. China established its first overseas military base in Djibouti’s capital, Djibouti City, in 2017.¹⁸ Djibouti’s indebtedness to China (China’s almost $1.4 billion in funding equals 75% of the East African nation’s GDP)¹⁹ and geostrategic value, demonstrated by the Chinese military installation, have made it a safe bet as a focal point for the BRI-DSR’s PEACE Cable.

Egypt

Home to some of the last landing stations before cables reach Europe,²⁰ Egypt is key to Beijing’s PEACE Cable and broader global digital infrastructure. The Suez Canal Zone, already a major transit point for international commerce, has become pivotal for international communications through fiber-optic cables. Eight landing stations provide for 34 midpoints for cables in the Suez Canal Zone and the Alexandria-Nile region.²¹ Egypt now has among the largest number of landing stations for fiber optic-cables in MENA.²² Egypt’s biggest trading partner, China invests heavily in the country, a strategic ally and linchpin for its larger global initiatives.²³ Located between Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean and Red seas, Egypt is vital to trade and transportation between Eurasia and Africa. Egypt’s location serves a major objective of Beijing’s BRI investment in North Africa –– securing transport of its goods to the European market via the Mediterranean. China has invested heavily in the Suez Canal’s economic zone — the last stretch of the PEACE Cable before Europe — as well as the construction of the New Administrative Capital outside Cairo.²⁴ It has also invested in Egypt’s technology infrastructure and Egyptians’ technical skills. Huawei has trained over 5,000 Egyptian information and communication technology (ICT) professionals at four different centers, built the first “OpenLab” — an Internet of Things platform — in Cairo, and introduced ICT smart city solutions. These are all important first steps for turning Egypt into a next-generation technology hub.²⁵ Beijing’s initiative to train Egypt’s next generation of ICT professionals complements its efforts to influence the country’s digital infrastructure and develop its economy, helping to alleviate staggering levels of youth unemployment. With a leading role in Egypt’s digital infrastructure, China looks to instill its ICT norms and shape the North African country’s future.

Geostrategic Implications for US Foreign Policy

The PEACE Cable and the larger DSR initiative directly challenge the influence and authority of the U.S. in regions where it previously enjoyed hegemony. China now contests geostrategic locations like Suez and Djibouti both economically and, in the latter example, militarily. These critical “chokepoints” in geopolitics could be used to threaten American, Chinese, or global economic interests — both physical and digital.

Pakistan was an important ally to the U.S. in the Cold War and, although at times double dealing, in the War on Terror. China’s influence over Pakistan through financing and trade could realign Islamabad amid the new era of strategic competition. Tensions over Pakistan’s conduct during the War on Terror and Washington’s warming relations with both China’s and Pakistan’s adversary, India, have further stressed Pakistan-U.S. relations, giving Beijing an opportunity to strengthen its ties with its South Asian neighbor.

Great power competition in Africa is nowhere more visible than in Djibouti. In its capital city, the East African nation hosts both the first foreign Chinese base and the American Camp Leonnier with 4,000 stationed troops in addition to the Chabelley Airfield with drone-deployment capabilities.²⁶ Djibouti’s massive debts to China from BRI could move the strategically located country into China’s sphere of influence and compromise the U.S. military posture in the region.

In Egypt, ties between Cairo and Beijing challenge the U.S. relationship with an ally that has been a pillar of its foreign policy and remains the fourth-biggest recipient of U.S. foreign aid. China, as Egypt’s largest trading partner and a major infrastructure investor, competes for influence against the U.S.’s military and political alliance. The close relationship between the el-Sisi regime and Beijing could further push Cairo into Beijing’s orbit, as evidenced by the Egyptian president’s six visits to China.²⁷Beijing’s laxity on human rights further encourages Cairo to strengthen its ties with Beijing over Washington to maintain the authoritarian status quo.

Chinese investment in digital infrastructure like fiber-optic cables, business, and technical skills in these critical countries will increase Beijing’s influence as they develop into digitally based economies. China’s growing economic and soft-power leverage through infrastructure and digital outreach could eventually push the U.S. out of its traditional commanding role in these countries. A U.S. looking to “pivot” from MENA to the Indo-Pacific will continue to push countries like Pakistan, Djibouti, and Egypt, along with their critical waterways and digital nodes, into China’s orbit.

Rethinking the Securitization of Public Health in Africa: A Frame of Reference

7 Jan, 2022, No comments

This is a new publication in Afsol Journal I co-authored with Lukmon Akintola

Drawing from the growing literature on the securitisation of public health in general and, in particular, that of infectious diseases in Africa, this paper explores the process through which certain health issues are perceived as security and existential threats. It uses securitisation theory as its theoretical and conceptual foundation to offer a critical analysis of the securitisation of public health in the African continent and its implications before presenting a frame of reference, a better and more constructive way of strengthening health systems in the continent.

The real reason China is pushing “digital sovereignty” in Africa

4 Jan, 2022, No comments

By YINKA ADEGOKE for Rest of World

As the Chinese “tech stack” leads from undersea cables to smartphones and fintech apps, concerns grow for the digital future of ordinary Africans.

This June, Senegal’s president, Macky Sall, proudly commissioned the construction of the Diamniadio National Datacenter, about 30 kilometers outside the capital city, Dakar. Sall said the West African country would move all government data and digital platforms from foreign servers abroad to the new center, in a move to boost Senegal’s digital sovereignity. The 506- square-meter facility, which cost 46 billion CFA francs ($18.2 million), was underwritten by a Chinese loan and built by Huawei, which is providing equipment and technical support.

For some observers, declaring Sengalese digital sovereignty, enabled and funded by China, can sound like a contradiction in terms. But it’s really just one facet of a wider issue captured by the deepening tech-telecoms relationship between China and nearly every African country over the past two decades and, crucially, what it portends for the economic future of the continent.

This week, those debates were front of mind for analysts, diplomats, and tech leaders with Dakar as the backdrop for the triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), the most important engagement platform between Chinese and African leaders. Dakar’s roads were lined with billboards featuring images of president Sall and Chinese president Xi Jinping, welcoming dignitaries from China and across Africa, though Xi, who has not left the country since the beginning of the pandemic, will not be there this year.

In 2018, FOCAC culminated in a total $60 billion promise by the Chinese to back numerous major infrastructure projects across Africa, with a mix of loans and grants underwritten by Chinese financial institutions, including the Export-Import Bank of China. It was all seen under the auspices of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to build roads, bridges, and ports across the world, fully connecting China to the global economy via a modern-day Silk Road.

But it is the evolution of the “Digital Silk Road,” a term coined by Xi in a 2015 state white paper, that has quietly become a contentious topic for China-Africa watchers. The Digital Silk Road (DSR) includes everything from cross-border e-commerce, smart cities, and fintech apps through to big data, internet of things, smartphones, and undersea cables. These projects don’t grab headlines like shiny new Chinese-built airports and railways or spark panicked fears of China’s “debt trap diplomacy.” But the unfettered influence of Chinese firms developing every step of the digital ecosystem in nearly all African countries has become a growing point of concern, particularly for China’s rivals in the United States.

As Motolani Agbebi, a researcher at Tampere University in Finland, told Rest of World, significant Chinese involvement in Africa’s telecoms sector actually predates DSR. Between 1999 and 2001, Huawei and ZTE first started working consistently on the continent, supported by China’s “go out policy,” which promoted the internationalization of Chinese companies.

But the ongoing pandemic, which has forced African governments and their citizens online to participate in remote work, schooling, and delivery of government services, has underscored Africa’s dependence on Chinese tech. “There’s no doubt that technology infrastructure and the broader Digital Silk Road initiative are far more important to China today in regions like Africa than they were even just a few years ago,” said Eric Olander, managing editor of The China Africa Project.

Meanwhile, big physical infrastructure projects, such as railways and airports, enabled by huge government debt, are coming under increased scrutiny both at home and abroad.

“Many of China’s partners in Africa are encountering financial difficulties to borrow more for the types of large transport and energy projects we saw in BRI’s first phase,” Jonathan Hillman, author of The Digital Silk Road: China’s Quest to Wire the World and Win the Future, told Rest of World. “The digital projects are a little bit more affordable.”

Agbebi added that digital projects can often seem more politically neutral. “These digital projects can often pay for themselves, unlike roads and bridges, where there’s often a debate over how much they cost,” he said.

Analysts say playing an essential role in Africa’s digital transformation gives China a stronger footing in global affairs and creates new economic opportunities for Chinese firms. “For China, there is a bigger political agenda at play, where they’re keen to use further expansion in Africa as part of their drive to set next-generation technology standards,” said Olander.

In a white paper published by the Chinese state council two days before FOCAC, titled China and Africa in the New Era: A Partnership of Equals, the Chinese government as usual emphasized its “friendship” and “win-win” cooperation with Africa. But it also laid out its tech track record in Africa with an unusual clarity, according to Hannah Wanjie Ryder, a long-time China-Africa watcher and the CEO of Development Reimagined.

Among data points, the paper notes include building “more than half of the continent’s wireless sites and high-speed mobile broadband networks; laying “more than 200,000 km of optical fiber;” and “giving broadband Internet access to 6 million households.” It also noted that 29 African countries have picked smart government service solutions from Chinese companies.

Despite the long list, many of these projects haven’t been coordinated by the Chinese government under a grand DSR vision, but that doesn’t mean it is not able to do so after the fact, said Ovigwe Eguegu, a policy analyst at Development Reimagined. Many projects were led by Chinese companies and entrepreneurs, and the government got involved later, with loan support from the Export-Import Bank, for example. “Private Chinese companies, like Transsion and OPay, have shown what can be achieved in Africa,” said Eguegu. Shenzhen-based Transsion sold nearly half of all smartphones in Africa last year, while three-year-old Nigeria-based fintech startup OPay, owned by Chinese billionaire Zhou Yahui, has racked up millions of users and is already valued at more than $2 billion.

The continent is still woefully underserved when it comes to the digital transformation of local economies — that means there are still huge opportunities for well-funded businesses. Africa has less than 1% of total available global data center capacity, according to Xalam Analytics, and about 17% of the world’s population.

There’s been a lot more talk about the “digital sovereignty,” that Senegalese president Sall suggested back in June. And the Chinese have been keen to support these plans, said Hillman. But digital sovereignty can also be an empty buzzword. “This feeds into the myth that storing data locally makes it more secure, even if the whole technical and support package is provided by foreign firms.” The U.S. has supported similar plans, with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation investing $300 million in South Africa–based Liquid Telecom’s Africa Data Centres last December.

In the coming years, Chinese investment will focus on tech in African countries and other emerging markets, according to Olander. “The world is becoming a lot smaller for companies like Huawei that are being pushed out of Global North countries,” he said. “So regions like Africa, even though nowhere near as lucrative, have become much more important.”

It’ll be up to African policymakers and governments to ensure they don’t completely give Chinese companies full control of their digital ecosystems. While this caution should apply to any foreign partner, the depth of Chinese tech firms’ relationships on the continent could put China in an unusually powerful position to push their government’s geopolitical influence.

African governments should learn from China’s own experience, said Development Reimagined’s Ryder. Instead of simply allowing Chinese partners to bring in technical experts who leave after building digital platforms, these governments should ensure there is significant knowledge transfer, retention of corporate control, and sharing of IP. “We should be requiring joint ventures with Chinese tech companies, as China did with the likes of IBM and others in the 1980s,” said Ryder.

The Case for Chinese Foreign Aid

22 Nov, 2021, 2 comments

By NANCY QIAN for Project Syndicate

Critics have long accused China of using foreign aid to advance its geopolitical goals, rather than to help the world’s poor. But recent studies suggest that Chinese development assistance is a rare example of aid that systematically and meaningfully benefits recipient countries.

Since 2000, China has spent $843 billion on bilateral aid. That is around $39.5 billion per year, similar to the amount provided by the United States, the world’s largest donor of foreign aid. Although the two countries’ definitions of foreign aid differ, no one disputes the fact that China – which in the past two decades has financed 13,427 bilateral aid projects in 165 countries – is the biggest new player in this domain. Moreover, recent research is challenging outside observers’ often negative view of the country’s overseas development schemes.

Critics accuse China of using aid to advance geopolitical goals, rather than to help the world’s poor, and they highlight the harm this assistance may cause in recipient countries. Such criticisms are leveled at all foreign aid. But at first glance, China’s variety looks particularly unpromising, even by aid skeptics’ standards.

For starters, the fact that more than 300 Chinese government institutions and state-owned enterprises financed the country’s 13,000-plus projects, with little involvement from private entities, supports suspicions that the Chinese state is using aid as a political tool. And, unlike other large donors, China does not condition its development aid on recipient countries’ institutions or politics. This further increases the concern that Chinese assistance will be misdirected and fail to fulfill foreign aid’s nominal purpose of promoting sustainable economic development in poor countries.

The mode of Chinese aid delivery also is unusual. China typically provides development finance in the form of loans, at either highly subsidized or market interest rates, for large infrastructure projects. The contracts generally stipulate that the recipient country must spend a large share of the money with a given Chinese firm, which provides all materials and labor needed to complete the project.

Not surprisingly, recipient countries worry about their growing debt to China. Meanwhile, critics contend, the benefits of Chinese aid are unclear. Importing Chinese workers to realize projects may limit capacity-building within recipient countries, and even put downward pressure on the wages of local workers.

But recent studies show that while there is some truth in these concerns, appearances can be deceiving. To be sure, political motives do underpin Chinese overseas aid, but they relate more to easing domestic problems than to achieving foreign domination. One recent study documents how the Chinese government’s desire to quell political unrest at home drives a large proportion of the country’s overseas aid. For example, when Chinese workers protest, the central government often allocates foreign-aid contracts to large state-owned firms in the area. These companies then hire additional employees and send labor and materials to recipient countries for several years to build roads, ports, or cell-phone towers.

Politically, therefore, aid is a win-win for China. Aid money helps to reduce domestic unemployment, which presumably eases social tensions, and the recipient country is grateful for the financial assistance. US food aid operates on a similar principle: the US government buys up wheat in boom production years to provide a secure price floor for American farmers, and then sends the excess food to poor countries as bilateral aid.

But the most important revelation from recent economic studies is that Chinese aid increases GDP growth, household consumption, and employment in recipient countries. So, contrary to conventional wisdom, the benefits of Chinese foreign aid spill over to ordinary citizens.

In fact, as difficult as it may be for many to accept these findings, they are not surprising. Most economists, as well as officials at institutions such as the World Bank, agree that modern infrastructure is key to promoting economic growth in poor countries. Yet, the countries that are most in need of such infrastructure are frequently the ones with the most dysfunctional institutions, which is often the reason why these countries are poor and have been unable to build their own infrastructure in the first place.

In such cases, Chinese aid can provide a neat solution. Because Chinese firms bring in their own workers and materials and do not rely on local supply chains, they are largely insulated from local graft and corruption.

Moreover, the infrastructure that China builds can have wide-ranging benefits even if the recipient country’s government is uninterested in its citizens’ welfare. A new road connecting a mine to a port also provides access to transportation for the people who live along it, encouraging development there. Telecom towers built for government purposes can increase information flow and market access for farmers. Electric power lines along a road or railway can also provide lighting that allows local children to learn to read.

Chinese aid’s undoubted flaws will come into sharper focus as researchers devote more attention to the subject. But China’s political motivations are not necessarily bad. The fact that aid can sometimes benefit the poor despite selfish motivations is a promising fact for recipient countries. After all, no donor country commits such large amounts of assistance for entirely altruistic reasons.

Based on what researchers know, Chinese aid seems to be a rare example of development assistance that systematically benefits recipient countries in a meaningful way. Taking a closer look may prove useful to policymakers in other countries who are interested in improving the efficacy of foreign aid.

FOCAC 2021: China and Africa need each other more than ever

21 Nov, 2021, No comments

by Hannah Ryder for African Business

The factors that drove China to commit $60bn to African countries at the last FOCAC in 2018 remain as strong as ever, but the outcomes of this year's forum remain uncertain.

This time three years ago, I was in Beijing, China, receiving queries from journalists about whether China would be lending more finance to African countries at the seventh summit of the then 18-year-old Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

As one journalist put it: “Dozens of African countries have accumulated billions in Chinese debt with some said to be in debt distress. Is Beijing likely to cut back on lending to African countries?”

At the time, I was circumspect of both this framing as well as the accusations that China was enticing countries into “debt traps”. Nevertheless, I was not about to take bets. The only point I was sure of was that more finance pledged would be a positive outcome for meeting Africa’s infrastructure deficit gaps, not a negative one.

In the end, at the 2018 meeting China recommitted to a total of $60bn of loans, grants and investment to the continent over the coming three years, the same amount it had committed to at the previous summit in 2015.

Fast forward to three years later and I am having a feeling of déjà vu. I am receiving very similar queries from journalists and others, with some slight shifts in emphasis.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa (L) shakes hands with China’s President Xi Jinping during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on September 3, 2018. (Photo: Andy Wong / POOL / AFP)

Today, the debt trap language is no longer used – having been thoroughly dissected by leading experts such as Deborah Brautigam. Instead, journalists now bring to the fore the language of African debt distress, particularly given that many African countries have faced significant fiscal challenges from the health and economic impacts of Covid-19.

In addition, a new concern is expressed that China’s economy may be slowing down due to post-Covid internal reforms. Yet China’s growth in 2020 was unexpectedly high, due to the country’s quick Covid recovery.

Others ask whether China’s appetite for loans is decreasing, presenting figures that show China’s estimated loan disbursements to Africa reducing since 2016, often not realising that 2016 was an outlier due to a very large commitment to one country – Angola. Some commentators even suggest that China is now “realising” just how “difficult” and “risky” it is to provide finance to African and other developing countries.

Those of you who read my op-eds will know I find these arguments somewhat specious. There is evidence of unjustified Africa risk premiums in credit ratings and bond issuance, and I have explained in previous columns how debt distress analysis – by design – can exaggerate perceptions of African risk.

Fortunately for African countries in need of both concessional and commercial loans, Chinese stakeholders do not primarily use these ratings to determine their financial decisions. As I have said before in these columns, it is crucial to focus on the quality of what African governments use loans for.

If loans are used for infrastructure that enables citizens to raise their productivity and create new business markets or models – infrastructure such as rail, industrial energy or internet cables – rather than recurrent expenditure, and interest rates are kept low, China and others can expect to get their loans back.

How much will China commit this year?

So what will determine whether China commits another $60bn, less, or more at the forthcoming FOCAC conference, due to be hosted in Senegal in November? Will China make any such commitment at all?

The fact is, FOCAC is quite unique among so-called “Africa plus one” summits. It has generated some of the largest ever financial commitments to African countries on the part of a single country.

It is also unique within similar “China plus others” forums – most others have never involved financial commitments, even though other developing countries do aim to get Chinese loans. While there are other lessons and policy areas to borrow from the other forums, it will be perceived by Africans as a significant negative shift from China if this unique commitment were to now be done away with.

Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, the factors that drove China to commit $60bn to African countries remain just as persuasive now, if not more so. The Chinese government is aware that African countries aim to become middle income countries, to eradicate poverty, and industrialise. While China currently imports primarily natural resources from African countries, China does not think this development will compete with its long-term economic interests.

China in many ways needs Africa to become the world’s largest manufacturing hub. Wages in China continue to rise, meaning the incentives to offshore labour-intensive manufacturing to cheaper destinations remain. With a growing youth population, providing concessional loans to African governments for the logistical infrastructure to make the Africa hub a reality doesn’t feel like aid, it feels like a good business investment. China’s new 2035 strategy does not imply any change from this view.

Added to this, from an African perspective, infrastructure gaps have unfortunately widened since Covid-19. Digital trade, e-learning and local supply chains are all new needs revealed by Covid-19, all of which require more infrastructure not less. Economic recovery for African countries through strengthened trade and logistics is urgent. And an appropriate climate response also requires investing now in more green and resilient power and transport infrastructure, not less.

All outcomes are up for grabs

Finally, I am circumspect about arguments that China will significantly reduce loan sizes, or shift from lending to direct investment, including by focusing on Public Private Partnerships.

Yes, China is becoming more confident with international PPPs, building on its domestic experience, but many African countries are rightly cautious about applying these to certain sectors due to negative experience from 1980s and 1990s privatisation, and PPPs do take time to design appropriately. China knows from its own growth model that private finance or equity is not a substitute for public debt – it is a complement.

Three years ago, though circumspect, I refused to take bets, which means I will still avoid bets today. But if the past is anything to go by, all outcomes are up for grabs in Dakar. Let’s watch this space together.

‘Everywhere and Nowhere to be Seen’: How China’s role in the GERD dispute challenges Beijing’s non-interference principle

31 Oct, 2021, No comments

By Lisa Klaassen in LSE

China has played a key role in paving the road for the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), changing the historical balance of forces between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.
The ongoing dispute and mutual distrust between the riparian states is placing increasing pressure on China’s international diplomacy, and in particular its non-interference policy.
Contrary to Beijing’s rhetoric, China’s strategic diplomatic, political, economic and security engagement suggests that it is evolving towards increasingly proactive geopolitical intervention.

China’s growing economic, political and diplomatic foothold in Africa is often told in alarming terms of natural resource extraction, debt traps and neo-colonialist land grabs. Amidst local African instabilities and conflicts, Beijing has continued to publicly pledge its non-interference policy, presenting itself as a neutral ‘no strings attached’ alternative to the political conditionality of the West. Yet perhaps China’s most consequential participation in Africa’s evolving political economy is one which has rarely been scrutinised. In the last decade, Chinese actors have been instrumental in financing and constructing ambitious hydro-infrastructure projects across Africa, fuelling the continent’s unprecedented ‘dam boom’. Moreover, China’s entanglement in the intrastate dispute over the construction of Africa’s largest hydropower plant, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), suggests that Beijing’s non-interference principle is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

In the 1980s and 1990s, when the World Bank ceased funding major hydroelectric projects in the developing world, African dams appeared destined to become a historical relic, associated with cost overruns, human displacement, and extensive environmental damage such as the flooding of fertile land. The game changer for Africa’s energy infrastructure, observes Prof Harry Verhoeven of Columbia University and convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network (OUCAN), was China. Beijing was consequential for the Nile basin in two fundamental ways: (1) it emerged as an alternative funder of large-scale development projects, and (2) Chinese actors had the technical expertise, political support and proven domestic track record to build hugely ambitious dam programmes.

“China’s return to the region changed the balance of forces between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia,” Verhoeven says. Despite being a downstream country, Egypt has historically been the ‘hydro-hegemon’ of the Nile — the state with the largest population, wealthiest economy, strongest military forces, and closest ties with great powers like the United Kingdom (until the 1950s), the Soviet Union (until the 1970s), and currently the United States. For most of the twentieth century, the Blue Nile was dominated by Cairo, and, to a lesser extent, Khartoum, as was legally established by the controversial 1929 and 1959 ‘Nile Agreement’ treaties. But in the wake of Egypt’s destabilising Arab Spring, Ethiopia’s 2011 launch of the GERD radically altered the region’s hydropower dynamics, aiming to catapult the country’s economy from aid dependency to an African hegemon.

While Addis Ababa has financed much of the project domestically, Beijing has provided significant funds for related infrastructure. “China sees the building of infrastructure, usually at a profit for Chinese state-owned companies, as a way to increase influence within African governments,” says Dr David Shinn, former American ambassador to Ethiopia and professor at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. In 2013, China granted US $1.2 billion in loans to build power transmission lines between the dam and local towns and cities. Following a 2019 visit of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to Beijing, China promised an additional US $1.8 billion to advance the expansion of Ethiopia’s renewable energy sector. Chinese companies — including Sinohydro, the Gezhouba Group, Voith Hydro Shanghai and the state-owned China International Water and Electricity Corporation — have also been central to the construction of the dam. Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) contracted China’s Gezhouba Group for US $40.1 million in 2019, expecting them to “work aggressively in partnership with other companies” to finalise the GERD on schedule.

It is a common misconception, Shinn observes, that Chinese infrastructure projects in Africa are altruistic “investments” rather than profit-led “commercial deals”. “Most Africans are not aware that this is how it works,” Shinn says. “They assume incorrectly that it is a gift from China or an “investment” by China. It is an investment by the African government because it must eventually pay the bill.” In 2011, Ethiopia’s late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi remarked that “China has been playing an irreplaceable role in our economy. It has unparalleled contribution toward funding infrastructure activities.” Hailemariam Desalegn, who was deputy prime minister at the time, emphasised the comparative advantage of Chinese loans to Washington Consensus-style reforms: “We like the Chinese way of doing things, because they don’t say ‘do this, don’t do that’ — there are no preconditions.”

But the absence of political preconditions has become increasingly unsustainable for Beijing. Whereas China has historically fostered diplomatic and economic partnerships with Sudan and Ethiopia, the last 10 years have evinced a growing intensification of Chinese interest in Egypt, who perceives the GERD as an “existential threat” to the country’s water security. By the end of 2021, 80% of the dam is projected to be complete, with an approximate timeline of seven years to fill the basin. Egyptian authorities have demanded Ethiopia to decelerate in order to reduce the strain on Egypt’s water supplies and prevent the further loss of arable land.

Following Ethiopia’s rejection, Omar Semeida, head of Egypt’s Conference Party, called on China to “exercise more diplomatic pressure on the Ethiopian government in a bid to spare the entire region any risk of instability, and to sign a legally binding agreement with the downstream countries”. But because of China’s desire to maintain its three bilateral relationships, it has been reluctant to exert pressure on any of the riparian states beyond generic statements. “What is driving this is China’s own insecurities,” suggests Verhoeven, “the fear of being caught in a negotiation or context that [Beijing] doesn’t fully understand or cannot control.” When it comes to the Nile infrastructure, Verhoeven adds, “China is everywhere. Yet when it comes to the crux of the issue, it’s nowhere to be seen.”

In the last 15 to 20 years, China’s strategic geopolitical position has evolved from a complete system of non-intervention to having extensive military presence in Mali, South Sudan and Djibouti. “China’s involvement in Sudan and South Sudan, where it has significant oil interests, is arguably a case where China has interfered in African internal affairs,” says Shinn. Beijing’s dilemma is that the natural resources required to sustain domestic economic growth are frequently located in territories threatened by political instability and armed conflicts. Incidents of Chinese workers being targeted, rebel attacks on Chinese-operated oil facilities in Sudan, and protests following the failure of Chinese-constructed dams to meet basic environmental standards indicate the growing risks underlying Sino-Africa relations. Beijing’s advance towards proactive mediation and conflict resolution can be perceived within a larger trend of great powers taking opportunities to expand influence abroad. “As the engagement matures,” notes Verhoeven, “the perception of opportunity shifts to that of risk, from an offensive strategy to a defensive strategy. The tendency of great powers is to increasingly translate that risk into political influence. Soft power becomes translated into something harder.”

Domestically, the non-interference principle has remained part of Beijing’s rhetoric that promotes “building a community with shared future for mankind”. In July 2021, Zhang Jun, permanent representative of China to the UN, called for the resumption of negotiations between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, emphasising that “China sincerely hopes that the three countries, in the spirit of friendly cooperation, will resume dialogue and consultation as soon as possible”. Yet China’s reluctance to intervene with the Nile dam conflict, Verhoeven suggests, has little to do with the non-interference policy: “it has everything to do with China’s growing exposure to Egypt and its uncertainty about how to manage a multilateral, transboundary River Basin context – much more than any principle developed in 1949.” With so much at stake in the construction of the GERD, China is being increasingly pressured to assume a more active role in the dispute. If Beijing continues to cite the non-interference policy, it risks undermining the relationships fostered with both Addis Ababa and Cairo, and jeopardising future partnerships.

The confrontation between Africa’s riparian states illustrates how dynamic, complex and contradictory the evolving politics of water security are at local, regional and global levels. As the climate crisis is putting unprecedented pressure on water and food supplies, the management of transboundary resources is more pertinent to global peace and security agendas than ever before. While resource scarcity can precipitate mutual distrust and intrastate conflict, it could also be used to encourage regional and international cooperation. Inger Anderson, Executive Director of UNEP, observed that the Nile has sustained livelihoods in Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan for thousands of years. “Well-planned hydraulic infrastructure on a shared river course can be a source of enhanced collaboration, and need not be a zero-sum game,” she noted.

Similarly, the Nile conflict could offer a unique opportunity for collaboration between great powers like China, the U.S. and Russia, who have traditionally been locked in a geopolitical power competition. Amidst growing concern about a New Cold War, Beijing and Washington could use their respective water diplomacy with the Nile States as a stimulus to resolve bilateral tensions. Particularly as we draw closer to the “biggest threat modern humans have ever faced” – inevitable and imminent climate change – building trust, finding compromises and concentrating on mutual interests has never been more crucial.

The Plague of Military Coups and the African Union’s Peace and Security Dilemma

8 Sep, 2021, No comments

“A French-trained special forces officer, a disoriented and shaken 83-year-old president bundled out of the [presidential] palace and into a car, and promises of a new constitution and a new order.” So run the headlines about the latest military coup in Guinea that toppled the “disoriented and shaken 83-year-old” Alpha Condé. African countries are no strangers to military (and bloody) takeover. It is, after all, estimated that African countries have recorded no less than 200 coups since the years of independence, counting both successful and failed coup attempts.

In West Africa alone, Guinea is the third country to experience a violent transfer of power in the past five months. In April, Chad went through a “covert coup” that brought Mahamat Idriss Deby to power, following the sudden death of his father, Idris Deby, who spent more than three decades in power and was one of Africa's longest-serving presidents. In May, Mali experienced a second coup in just nine months, after the transitional government was overthrown by the military. But had the attempted coup on the night of March 30-31 in Niger succeeded, the unwanted statistics could have been even more staggering. Undoubtedly, this poses enormous challenges to Africa’s broader peace and security environment and, especially, to the African Union (AU)’s ambitious goal of silencing the guns across the continent and achieving sustainable peace and security.

The Need for Proactiveness, Consistency, and Boldness

Despite the complexity and distinctiveness of each case of the military takeover, one can make the case that more proactiveness and consistency from both the AU and its regional bodies (Regional Economic Communities, RECs) could reduce such growing occurrences. Just like Mali and Chad, Guinea has a long history of instability and military takeovers. Yet not enough was done to prevent Alpha Condé from extending his rule to a controversial and highly contested third term. In 2010, he became the first democratically elected leader in Guinea since its independence. But after completing the constitutionally mandated two term-limit, he amended the constitution to stay in power. Unsurprisingly, the move sparked widespread protests that were met with force and brutality. Thus, the coup came in the context of simmering and growing discontent in the country, which the military successfully took advantage of. When the authority and the legitimacy of a government are widely contested, it finds no ground to stand on when or if tested. We saw that in Afghanistan before Condé's fall, where the United States and its allies thought to have built a functioning state during the 20 years of occupation. But the people on the ground (especially the Afghan army) knew too well that they had no leadership to defend. A bold and proactive African Union and its West African regional body could have surely seen this coming.

The lack of consistency is another major faux pas for the continental body. The African Union is built on a set of common and shared values, norms, and principles, as stipulated in its various legal documents, most notable the Constitutive Act but also the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance and the Lomé Declaration on unconstitutional changes of governments. A major and most recent example of inconsistency in relation to the topic at hand is the open endorsement of what was clearly an unconstitutional change of government in Chad following the death of its former president Idriss Déby. By designating Déby’s son, the military power grab clearly violated Article 81 of the Chadian constitution, which states that the president of the National Assembly would act as interim president in such circumstances and calls for elections to be held within 45–90 days. Instead, the military quickly dissolved the National Assembly and the government and suspended the constitution. It set itself to assume total power over the 18-month transition period, with the possibility of further extending it. The inconsistent decision-making on such issues will surely help erode the AU’s authority.

The good news, however, is that it is not too late for the continental body to prove its relevance. And perhaps Guinea could serve as a wakeup call that will finally awaken it from the functional and institutional ineptness. That is, while the AU has worked hard to disincentivize coups and other forms of unconstitutional changes of government, it has not done enough to eradicate their root causes, which include election tampering, constitutional amendments by incumbents to stay in power, failed governance, etc.

Good to Know: The decision on Chad contrasts sharply with its previous decisions that almost applied membership suspension of the concerned country and various sanctions of the soldiers involved. Thus, the AU has suspended any state where the military or armed groups have clearly grabbed power over the past 20 years (as shown below).

Country	Nature of the change in power	Date	PSC decision
The Central African Republic	François Bozizé, with the help of mercenaries, overthrows president André Kolingba	March 2003	Immediate suspension
Togo	At the death of Gnassingbé Eyadema, Faure Gnassingbé comes to power with the support of the military and after a controversial revision of the constitution	February 2005	Immediate suspension (Prior to the PSC decision, Togo was suspended by ECOWAS, which also imposed sanctions on Togolese authorities)
Togo		February 2005
Mauritania	A military junta led by Colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall overthrows president Maaouiya Ould Taya	August 2005	Immediate suspension
Mauritania	Sidi Ould Cheick Abdallahi is overthrown by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, head of the presidential guard	August 2008	Immediate suspension
Guinea	Captain Moussa Dadis Camara takes power following the death of Lansana Conté	December 2008	Suspension within five days at a second meeting of the PSC on Guinea
Madagascar	Part of the army overthrows president Marc Ravalomanana and brings Andry Rajoelina to power	March 2009	Immediate suspension
Niger	Mamadou Tandja is overthrown by soldiers	February 2010	Immediate suspension
Mali	Soldiers overthrow president Amani Toumani Touré	March 2012	Immediate suspension
Guinea-Bissau	Soldiers overthrow the interim president Raimundo Pereira	April 2012	Immediate suspension
The Central African Republic	Rebels overthrow president François Bozizé	March 2013	Immediate suspension and sanctions
Egypt	Soldiers led by Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi overthrew President Mohamed Morsi	July 2013	Immediate suspension
Burkina Faso	General Gilbert Diendéré and elements under his command briefly overthrow transitional president Michel Kafando	September 2015	Immediate suspension and sanctions
Sudan	The military deposes president Omar al-Bashir following months of public protests against the regime	April 2019	Delayed suspension:
Sudan		April 2019	the PSC initially gave the military two weeks to hand over power to civilians. The deadline was subsequently extended to 60 days. Following protests and the killing of civilians, the PSC suspended Sudan about three weeks before the new deadline.
Mali	Soldiers depose president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta following several weeks of public protests against the regime	August 2020	Immediate suspension
Mali	Soldiers toppled the transitional government to now take over complete control	June 2021	Immediate suspension

Africa's Fallen Stars

10 Aug, 2021, No comments

Western democracies should learn that the key to establishing liberal values in Africa lies with institutions, not individuals

By Carine Kaneza Nantulya for Persuasion

Western democracies should have learned an important foreign policy lesson by now: Placing trust in individual leaders rather than in democratic institutions often leads to disaster. This has happened all over the world, with depressing frequency. Ethiopia’s recent descent into authoritarianism and armed conflict—a mere two years after its prime minister accepted the Nobel Peace Prize at Oslo’s City Hall—is an astonishing example of the all-too-familiar story.

These leaders come into office promising to lift their countries out of crisis by safeguarding human rights, building new democratic institutions, and securing the rule of law. For a while, their countries seem to make strides, and the West holds them up as models for reform. In time, however, these once-promising leaders abandon their early commitments and fall from grace as their countries slip back into crisis.

Here are some of Africa’s fallen stars: countries and leaders at first welcomed wholeheartedly by Western democratic governments, now failing to live up to their promises.

Ethiopia

Abiy Ahmed Ali rose to power in 2018 following widespread, popular protests and his promises to democratize Ethiopia. After decades of repression under the Ethiopia People’s Democratic Revolutionary Front, Abiy projected an ambitious reformist agenda hailed as a political breakthrough for the country. He continued to release political prisoners, a process initiated by his predecessor; invited exiles back; and implemented a number of legal reforms. For negotiating a peace agreement with Ethiopia’s arch-rival, Eritrea, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

Domestically, however, the authorities were cracking down on dissent. Government security agents carried out abusive operations against individuals and armed groups in the regional state of Oromia. Intercommunal violence and attacks against minority communities escalated in several regions, leading to killings, displacement, and property damage.

Then, in November 2020, Abiy ordered military operations against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the dominant party in the former ruling coalition. Under Abiy’s watch, the Ethiopian military and regional forces have both committed their own atrocities and failed to prevent serious abuses by Eritrean forces operating inside Ethiopian borders in the Tigray region. Over 90 percent of the Tigray population now requires emergency food aid, according to the World Food Program.

Abiy’s fall from grace, from a darling of the international community to the subject of widespread condemnation, was swift but, to closer observers, perhaps unsurprising. A former soldier and founder of Ethiopia’s repressive surveillance and security agency, Abiy apparently never fully outgrew his military roots.

Chad

On taking power in 1990 after the brutal eight-year rule of Hissene Habre, the late Chadian president, Idriss Déby Itno promised to create a new society founded on democracy. His government convened a national conference to draw up a new constitution, one that assured fundamental freedoms and basic human rights. But the promise did not last long. Chad’s first elections, in 1996, were marred by allegations of fraud, a pattern that has repeated itself ever since.

By the mid-2000s, Déby’s Patriotic Salvation Movement had abandoned its reformist agenda and focused on entrenching its leader in power indefinitely. Déby rolled back the reforms introduced in the 1990s and steadily militarized the state and key institutions. The more Déby entrenched himself, the more members of his inner circle broke away and joined rebel groups.

There was hardly any effort by international actors to step in. Déby positioned himself as a staunch security ally of major Western powers such as France and the U.S. in a region wracked by armed insurgencies and instability, and his excesses were overlooked. When Déby died on the battlefield in April, days before starting his sixth term, he left a government with a long track record of cracking down on fundamental freedoms. His son, General Mahamat Idris Déby, has replaced him. Thirty years after the promise of democracy, Chad’s government is instead ruled by dynastic succession.

Uganda

Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986, castigating leaders who cling to power and overstay their welcome. Yet he is still in power 35 years later. In 2017, his government removed presidential term and age limits from the constitution, effectively setting him up to be president for life. The most recent elections, in January, were marred by violence and intimidation. Security forces killed protesters; carried out enforced disappearances, with some of the victims turning up dead or severely tortured; and arrested members of political opposition parties and presidential candidates.

Opposition politicians have petitioned the International Criminal Court to investigate Museveni’s alleged human rights abuses. Western powers, though, have regarded him as a guarantor of stability in the region. He committed Uganda to the Global War on Terrorism; sent forces to Somalia to fight an armed group linked to Al-Qaeda; and even allowed private firms to recruit Ugandan manpower to protect U.S. embassies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. once famously hailed Museveni as part of “a new breed of African leaders,” and he was described as second in stature only to Nelson Mandela. Oxford University started a scholarship in his name to support Africans pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy. Although he has far from lived up to these accolades, he has leveraged his reputation as a Western ally to shore up his power and international image.

South Sudan

When South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, the international community had high hopes, believing that the new country would emerge as an example for democracy, religious freedom, and national unity. It had, after all, come about following a 22-year armed struggle by the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement against the repressive rule of Sudan’s Islamist government.

When Salva Kiir became president of the new nation, he promised to create a democratic, peaceful, and united South Sudan. But the stability and optimism wouldn't last long. In mid-December of 2013, a vicious civil war triggered by a power struggle between President Kiir and his then-deputy, Riek Machar, and other senior SPLM leaders threw the country into chaos. The war was marked by horrific cruelty and violence. Civilians bore the brunt of war, with all sides targeting them for abuse.

In their rush to support the newest state on the international stage, world leaders had ignored signs of this impending crisis. The region that would become South Sudan had suffered two brutal civil wars during the last half-century. As a result, in 2011, the new leadership inherited a country plagued by corruption, neglect, ethnic and regional tension, and displacement; millions remain refugees both within and outside of the country. The international community’s optimism had blinded it to the instability beneath South Sudan’s promising exterior.

Consequently, a decade into independence, and despite the ongoing implementation of a 2018 peace agreement between President Kiir and rebel factions, the promised dividends of statehood—including stability, basic freedoms, and economic development—remain elusive.

What should the international community learn from these examples?

First, institutions, not individuals, are the best predictors of long-term reform. That is the case no matter how capable the leaders are and how much they profess their democratic credentials. Too often, the international community has feted promising leaders in its search for success stories, first ignoring warning signs and then under-investing in strengthening institutions.

Second, sacrificing the rule of law, human rights, and democracy in the name of stability has tragic consequences, both for the people of authoritarian regimes and for the future prospects for democracy across Africa. Moreover, each of the countries highlighted remains deeply unstable—a sign that sacrificing democracy in the name of stability is rarely successful.

Authoritarian world powers, including China and Russia, often design their foreign policy with an overriding focus on stability. When Western democracies do the same, they strengthen the argument that there is little fundamental difference between authoritarian government calculations and democratic ones. Instead, the international community of liberal democracies must distinguish itself and encourage the hard work of building institutions devoted to liberal and democratic values.

Carine Kaneza Nantulya is Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

China and Russia Both Cooperating and Competing in Africa

18 Jul, 2021, No comments

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 18 Issue: 103

By: Paul Goble

Russia and China are typically lumped together as the two new challengers to the role of Western countries in Africa. They are certainly that, but they are pursuing rather differing strategies and, thus, are virtually certain to find themselves at odds in the future. Moscow has sought short-term advantage, by which it hopes to profit from Western neglect. But as a result, the Russian side is likely to fall even further behind China, which is pursuing a much longer-term approach that involves integrating sub-Saharan Africa into Beijing’s One Belt, One Road program (also known as the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI). For the present, these two approaches may not be completely at odds; however, in the longer term, they are prone to be, with Russia having to accept a role subordinate to China in Africa or give up its current relationships with African countries. That is not something President Vladimir Putin is likely to be happy about and may even become an increasing source of conflict between Moscow and Beijing.

Russia’s outreach to Africa had heretofore been defined by an almost exclusive focus on what might be called “targets of opportunity”: weak countries with governments threatened by unrest and lacking outside support from the West or from China but that have important raw materials reserves, such as gold and diamonds, that the Russian regime might profit from (see EDM, April 23, 2020, April 29, 2020, January 20, 2021). Indeed, in the words of one Moscow-based commentator, Aleksandr Golts, Putin has acted in Africa on the assumption that when he does intervene there, Russia will be the strongest or even the only outside player that matters. The problem with this Kremlin-perceived “Jurassic Park world,” as Golts terms it, is that it diverges from the reality on the ground. And in fact, other powers, including a rising China, act in ways that preclude Russia from achieving its goals there because others—China included—are willing to invest into further developing the continent and not just exploiting the status quo (Ej.ru, October 29, 2019).

China approaches Africa as it does most parts of the world, with longer-term objectives in mind. In Africa, this has meant inter alia building east-west rail lines to link the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic together, thus creating yet another avenue for the expansion of trade and influence between this continent and the Asia-Pacific region (see China Brief, July 22, 2010 and April 9, 2018). To make that happen, China has invested heavily in countries along this route, something that wins it more friends than does Russia’s siloviki (security services) driven and heavy-handed exploitation of their resources. As China’s BRI project continues to expand, the conflict between Beijing’s and Moscow’s rival approaches in Africa—and more generally—is becoming clearer. And at least some in the Russian capital are beginning to take notice.

The well-connected Moscow-based analytical portal Real Tribune draws on Chinese reporting to suggest that China is stealing a march on all other outside powers because of its long-term Africa strategy and because it has invested more in the countries along the railway routes it is building across the content. In other words, the piece argues, China is offering more than simply exploiting the economic resources of these countries, as European colonial powers did in the past or as Russia, in many respects, is doing now (Real Tribune, South China Morning Post, June 27).

According to the Real Tribune analysts, “China is building railways in Africa in support of the local economies.” As a result, “over the last decade, Beijing has strengthened its position as the most important contractor and sponsor of infrastructure in Africa,” building not only railroads but ports and supporting facilities that naturally help China, while also promoting the development of the national economies. For that reason, and bolstered by the fact that China is also non-white, Beijing has outcompeted European powers, which have cut back their investments or had a legacy of exploiting their former colonies. By that same token, Chinese activities have outmatched Russia’s, with the latter country not in a position, economically, to invest anything close to what China is spending—some $1.3 billion in the past several years alone (Real Tribune, June 27).

Moreover, China is active across the continent and not just in troubled countries, building transcontinental railways rather than simply tracks from the interiors of some countries to coastal ports, as other powers have done. At present, Real Tribune notes, Beijing is working both west to east in Nigeria and east to west in Tanzania. And these plans—which the Chinese loudly promote and Africans appreciate—mean that China may very well be on its way to becoming the dominant outside power on the continent. In that event, Moscow will be forced to recalculate its own strategy given that there is now a real outside power in Africa, not the power vacuum Putin has counted on in the past.

And Chinese outlets are playing up something else. They are pointing to the fact that what China is doing presently builds on past actions. It is not a short-term policy that Beijing can and will change overnight—a sharp contrast to Moscow’s activities in sub-Saharan Africa, where the Russian approach has been on-again, off-again. Even now, the Chinese are citing former Communist leader Mao Zedong’s observation in 1965 to Julius Nyerere, who was then the president of Tanzania: “In the past, foreigners built railroads in Africa to steal Africa’s wealth. The Chinese are doing so with an entirely different goal,” he said. “They are building them to help us both in the development of our national economies” (Real Tribune, June 27).

Up to now and perhaps for a few years more, China’s new railroads in Africa may help Russia achieve some of its goals; but beyond that, Chinese railways there will have a quite different impact, one that will work against Russian interests and the current tactics Moscow is using to promote them.

Reflecting On the Challenges of Studying “Africa” Objectively

10 Jul, 2021, No comments

“Africa” is a common knowledge, through daily news and pseudo-scientific publications. That is, in addition to being watched from afar, it is constantly talked about and heard of, but usually for the wrong reasons: If it is not much about a military coup in Mali (again), it would be about the intractable civil war in Libya, or the repeated terrorist attacks across the continent. Corruption is another trademark plaguing the continent, not unlike the "third termism", extreme poverty, widespread (youth) unemployment, etc. Thus, very "few objects are indeed as loaded with ordinary knowledge as this continent which appears daily in street discussions, in newspapers and on television screens" (Gazibo, 2010).

Yet, behind this “ordinary” and generalized knowledge about Africa, there is an inherent risk, especially for any observer who wants to take a lucid look at this continent that the imagination wants to be as distant as it is mysterious. That is a major challenge confronting any attempt to have an objective look at the continent. Faced with such a risk, there is a need to resort to scientific methodological approach, anchored on a neutral view of the observer and oriented towards the search for objectivity. Thus, the widespread calls for respecting “a certain number of methodological precautions” aims to prevent endeavors that claim to be scientific from being nothing other than a prop cliché or an equally damaging “angelism with a redemptive aim”, a kind of defensive posture devoid of critical self-reflection.

If the first is the product of a long and cruel history based on slavery and colonization, the second is intended to be defensive against that historical encroachment. The problem, however, is that reproducing these engrained clichés completely disregards the basic methodological principle about not making value judgments. But the uncritical “angelism” equally contravenes methodological principles about keeping objective distance and an impassionate engagement with the subject matter. But here, I’m digressing.

What is of particular interest to me here is a reflection on the conditions of production of (scientific) knowledge on Africa. As mentioned, the origin of the prejudices on Africa, of the crystallization of the negative image associated with this continent as well as the consequent obstacles to the neutrality of research on this subject matter, “Africa”, could be traced back to slavery and then colonization. In fact, according to Gazibo (2010), among other, these two phenomena were crucial moments for strengthening the distorted vision developed on Africa. Unfortunately, that logic still nourishes many works devoted to the continent. Yet, the ultimate and critical task that should preoccupy us all is for these endeavors to be faithful in their analyses of the subject of study. In order words, depicting the continent as it is with its complexity and in its ups and downs.

China’s Role in Regional Integration in Africa: The Case of East African Community

26 Oct, 2020, No comments

This article, published in Stanford International Policy Review, is a recent analysis I co-authored. It mainly deals with China's engagement with regional integration in Africa. We dwell on the East African Community (EAC) as a case study, mainly focusing on China's role in infrastructure development in the region and its trade policy toward the regional bloc.

The analysis suggests that while Beijing's role in infrastructure development has the potential of boosting the EAC's regional integration prospect, its current trade practices are proving to be a stumbling block for the regional bloc. Find out more about the analysis and its conclusions.

Africa’s Peace and Prosperity Begin at Home

14 Sep, 2020, No comments

For too long, Africa has been a strategic plaything of world powers. By bolstering its internal cohesion and economic integration, the continent can become a strong geopolitical force with an independent and unified voice on important global issues.

Africans must take responsibility for our continent’s affairs. We have all the ingredients we need to succeed, starting with a growing population – including a large and increasingly educated cohort of young people – and a favorable trade and investment environment. And now, determined to usher in an era of African peace and prosperity, we have a mature institutional platform through which to forge, articulate, assert, and defend our common interests under an independent, unified African foreign policy.

At a time when protectionist beggar-thy-neighbor policies are on the rise globally, Africa is poised to implement a single common market in the form of the African Continental Free Trade Area. This pact will lay new foundations for continent-wide economic growth: the World Bank recently forecast that AfCFTA could boost Africa’s income by $450 billion by 2035 and lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty. In addition, closer economic integration within the region will inevitably make every country a stakeholder in its neighbors’ security, thereby advancing the greater cause of continental peace.

As Africa integrates, it is increasingly setting its own development agenda and foreign-policy priorities freely and independently of other powers. This represents a sharp break with Africa’s historical role as a geopolitical plaything of world powers.

But dangers remain, not least in the Horn of Africa – a historically volatile region that suddenly has become the epicenter of a global scramble for strategic influence. Powerful adversaries have established military bases in the Horn that are too close to each other for comfort. Many have invested in the region’s seaports, and some have gone further inland in search of water and arable land to produce their food abroad.

The heightened interest partly stems from the region’s locational advantages as both the bridge that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and a vital entry point to the wider African market. Left unchecked, this unhealthy rivalry and competition in our backyard will likely end up sucking all of us into yet another fratricidal proxy war. Competing visions and rival loyalties to outside forces risk creating fragile states and power vacuums, turning us into easy fodder for others.

Africa’s ability to become a strong geopolitical force hinges on its own internal cohesion and economic integration. An Africa that increasingly trades with itself will create an internal market large enough for its producers to benefit from economies of scale. By investing in value-added activities, these firms can help to ensure that the continent is no longer merely a supplier of raw materials and a market for other countries’ goods and services.

An integrated Africa will also be in a better position to safeguard its policies and preferences from external interference, selective sanctions, and unreliable transactional diplomacy that erodes our mutual trust and threatens our countries’ national security. Realizing this ambition will depend on our resolve to define and conduct a truly independent external policy. And for Africa to project its interests internationally, it first needs to put its own house in order.

Sound foreign policy always begins at home, and the conditions for just and enduring peace and prosperity on the continent are closely intertwined. The key question is what core ideas an integrated African external policy might embody.

Fortunately, the African Union has already articulated many of them. Above all, we must remain true to the enduring pan-African vision of “an integrated, prosperous, and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the international arena.”

Our lofty aspirations, enshrined in the AU’s Agenda 2063, are ambitious but long overdue, challenging but achievable, and remote but within reach. There can be no alternative to a prosperous, inclusive, and integrated Africa. We cannot move forward without silenced guns and good governance on the continent. We must nurture, teach, and theorize our rich cultural identity and common heritage. Finally, Africa must exercise international leadership and influence proportionate to its size and its global economic and social contribution. All this and more is clear, urgent, and inevitable.

Our struggle as a continent is one of implementation. As the 2017 Kagame report on AU reforms emphasized, we have a history of not following through on our own decisions, causing our citizens to doubt our resolve.

This is where we need to focus. It is in every African country’s interest to strengthen continental institutions. We need to bolster home-grown and African-owned dispute-management mechanisms in order to address our differences swiftly, amicably, and impartially – and without intervention by non-African actors.

Similarly, our efforts to establish new international relationships should be devoid of hostility and driven by the vision of a single African brotherhood and a peaceful and prosperous future. We should not permit ourselves to be tempted by narrow self-interest to the detriment of our close neighbors. In our independent dealings with other countries, we should not barter our core beliefs for short-term advantage, and we must always take full account of all vital African considerations.

Finally, Africa must speak out courageously, openly, and honestly on major global issues, and say bluntly what is right and wrong. Let us not deny our ideals or sacrifice our right to champion the poor and the oppressed everywhere. The acts by which we live, and the attitudes by which we act, must be unquestionably clear.

We know the odds are stacked against us here more than elsewhere. Nothing terrifies Africa’s adversaries more than its determination to set and implement a coherent, independent, and continentally integrated foreign policy.

But the world can no longer afford to be without an independent and unified African voice on important global issues. Africans know what it means to be divided, conquered, enslaved, looted, discriminated against, and dehumanized. A strong and united Africa would be a powerful advocate for reason, justice, equality, and dignity for all, regardless of gender, color, or creed. Such a vision is right for Africans and necessary for the world.

This piece by Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, appeared in Project Syndicate

ABSTRACT

As the Chinese “tech stack” leads from undersea cables to smartphones and fintech apps, concerns grow for the digital future of ordinary Africans.

How much will China commit this year?

All outcomes are up for grabs

Western democracies should learn that the key to establishing liberal values in Africa lies with institutions, not individuals

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 18 Issue: 103

By: Paul Goble

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