The Biden administration doesn’t want to talk about it, but China’s expanding military activities and economic influence in Africa loom large over a three-day summit with African leaders that the White House is hosting this week.
Although the Pentagon and prominent foreign policy analysts warn of Beijing’s efforts to challenge U.S. interests and allies in Africa, administration officials have avoided even mentioning China ahead of the arrival of 49 leaders from the continent.
The White House has cast the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit this Tuesday through Thursday as a chance to “listen to and meet African aspirations” while focusing on “revitalizing democracies and strengthening the free and open international order.”
Asked about China’s courting of African countries in recent years, the administration has been less than eager to address the summit’s potentially vital significance to President Biden’s oft-touted promise to outcompete Beijing on the world stage.
“This summit is really about our relationship with the continent. It’s not about other countries and their engagement,” said one senior administration official briefing reporters on background.
The official did say that “the summit is really rooted in the recognition that Africa is a key geopolitical player.”
“With one of the world’s fastest-growing populations, largest free trade areas, most diverse ecosystems and one of the largest regional voting groups in the United Nations, African contributions, partnerships and leadership are essential to meeting this era’s defining challenges,” the official told reporters on Thursday.
What remains to be seen is how American hopes square with the reality that China has been outtrading the U.S. in Africa for more than a decade. Even during the briefings last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping received a warm and lavish welcome to Saudi Arabia for bilateral talks and a summit with several other Gulf Arab countries.
“China surpassed the U.S. as Africa’s largest trade partner in 2009, with total bilateral trade reaching more than $254 billion in 2021, a 35% rise [over] 2020,” according to a Chatham House analysis.
During the Trump presidency, U.S. officials openly accused the Chinese communist regime of engaging in predatory lending to saddle developing countries in Africa and elsewhere with debt to gain political influence and drain natural resources.
Beijing rejected the accusations. Chinese officials said the loans left the sovereignty of African nations “unscathed” and that it was Western — not Chinese — institutions that were saddling Africa with debt for political and material gain.
Analysts say infrastructure development should factor into the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, even if U.S. initiatives face uphill battles in the face of China’s entrenchment in Africa.
The congressionally chartered U.S.-China Economic Security and Review Commission warned in 2020 that Beijing’s funding of Africa’s infrastructure projects often included requirements that borrower countries select Chinese suppliers, making it more difficult for the U.S. to participate.
Carolyn Bartholomew, serving as vice chair of the commission, asserted that Beijing “has been able to leverage its engagement in Africa into support on the international stage.”
“China has used its presence in Africa to isolate Taiwan diplomatically,” she said.
Ms. Bartholomew noted that nearly every African country recognized Beijing over Taipei and many African leaders “expressed support for Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and made public statements in support of Beijing during the 2019 protests in Hong Kong.”
Deep competition between the U.S. and China is playing out in countries such as Congo, a vast sub-Saharan nation that is among the world’s top producers of copper, cobalt and coltan. These minerals are vital to the manufacture of advanced technologies, including many promoted by the Biden administration for fighting climate change.
A Brookings Institution report issued ahead of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit warned that “despite such abundance of valuable resources, the U.S. has not sufficiently invested in [the Democratic Republic of Congo] or in the mining sector for these minerals, ceding its influence in this domain to China.”
“The U.S. should accelerate its investment in the DRC and its mining sector by focusing on partnerships based on mutual interests: peace and security, economic diversification and local value,” the report said. “Positioning itself as an alternative to an extractive model — for example, by promoting local and continental value chains in the clean technology sector — will be beneficial.”
Markets and bases
A senior administration official said Thursday that a goal of the summit is to promote “broad-based economic opportunity both in Africa and the United States” that addresses the climate crisis while “harnessing new research and technologies and investing in long-term sources of strength.”
The Pentagon created U.S. Africa Command in 2007 to address evolving security issues and promote more cohesive defense relations with several African nations. The command has grown increasingly wary of China’s defense moves in Africa.
Army Gen. Stephen Townsend warned in May 2021 that Beijing was moving behind the scenes to establish a major naval port on Africa’s west coast to host Chinese submarines and aircraft carriers capable of projecting power directly into the Atlantic.
Gen. Townsend, who headed Africa Command at the time, said Chinese officials had approached countries stretching from Mauritania to south of Namibia in search of a site to position the naval facility. “They’re looking for a place where they can rearm and repair warships,” he told The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, a surge in the number of military coups bringing down democratic governments across Africa can be traced at least in part to China’s rising regional and global influence, analysts say. They also fault successive U.S. administrations for failing to develop more coherent strategies for investing in and bolstering democracy in African nations.
For many African countries, China is a preferred partner because it does not attach political or human rights conditions to deals.
Seven coups and coup attempts over the past two years — the highest rate in more than four decades — have put power-thirsty military cliques in control of resource-rich nations such as Chad, Mali, Sudan, Burkina Faso and Guinea. Coup attempts were unsuccessful in Guinea-Bissau and Niger.
Analysts say root causes include ethnic and sectarian divisions, corruption and mismanagement by civilian governments, and weak or corrupted civil institutions in countries where democracy has struggled.
China’s role shouldn’t be overlooked, said Joseph Sany, who heads the Africa Center at the United States Institute of Peace.
“China has created a permission structure for coup plotters in Africa because plotters know Russia and China will work together to stop any sanctions the United Nations Security Council might try to impose on the plotter as punishment for carrying out a coup,” Mr. Sany told The Washington Times in June.
“China and Russia have veto power on the Security Council, so in this way, they have helped to create a climate of impunity and therefore an opening for any potential coup plotters who may be out there in these African countries,” Mr. Sany said.
After a month of high-profile Asian diplomacy, the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit is expected to be Mr. Biden’s last major foreign policy initiative of the year. In announcing the summit, the president said it will advance peace and security, respond to climate change, promote food security, help foster economic engagement and reinforce a shared commitment to democracy and human rights.
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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