Page 4 - AfrElec Week 29

AfrElec COMMENTARY AfrElec
Russia joins China in developing new ties with Africa
Russia is joining China in offering alternatives to the Western infrastructure development model. At stake are political in uence and new trading routes, writes Richard Lockhart
AFRICA
WHAT:
China and Russia are strengthening their engagement with Africa.
WHY:
China is offering an alternative to Western in uence, while Russia needs new international trading options as sanctions bite.
WHAT NEXT:
Beijing rejects Western criticism of Belt and Road, and will continue to promote a sophisticated development model that African governments nd attractive.
CHINA and Russia are paying serious attention to Africa and are using energy, infrastructure and security to raise their economic and political pro les across the continent.
Africa is now a well-established destination for Chinese capital and technology, while Bei- jing’s diplomatic o ensive in the continent in recent years has forged closed relations with most African governments.
Compared to China, Russia’s presence in Africa is less well-developed, although Moscow is also making security and infrastructure o ers to African governments in competition with the US and Europe.
Competition for in uence in Africa comes as the US government led by Donald Trump has lowered the US’ pro le on the continent, especially in comparison to Obama, who had focused the administration’s close attention on the region.
European investors, while keen to invest in green energy and sustainable development, also concentrate on transparency, poverty reduction and human rights.
ese di ering concerns mean that China and Russia, both keen to bang the anti-Western drum in so many areas of global geopolitics from human rights to political engagement to infor- mation wars, are creating new opportunities for alternative sources of economic and political support for African governments.
China
In mid-July, China held the rst China-Africa Peace and Security Forum, where Beijing hosted 50 o cials from African governments and the African Union to discuss security co-operation. Beijing’s already has its own military base in Djibouti.
The meeting’s official statement was posi- tive. “In the face of new situations, the common languages, aspirations and interests of China and Africa in the peace and security eld have been increasing,” Major-General Song Yanchao, deputy director of the Chinese Defence Minis- try’s O ce for International Military Cooper- ation, said. He added that closer co-operation meant embracing “new and precious historical opportunities.”
This is just the latest of many diplomatic offences, with the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) forming the backbone.
At the G20 meeting in Osaka in June, Chi- nese President Xi Jinping hosted a China-Africa leaders’ meeting, where he stressed the three main points of Beijing’s strategy: China-Africa co-operation; supporting the development of Africa and the work of the United Nations; and safeguarding multilateralism.
e focus on multilateralism and the UN is a key concept, and means watering down Western in uence in Africa through US and European development nance institutions (DFIs) and the multilateral developments banks (MDBs).
Xi said that China wanted to pioneer win- win development to bene t more Chinese and African people, again an explicit alternative to Western investment.
With institutions and programmes such as FOCAC and BRI, Beijing now intends to make $60bn of new investment and loans available to Africa in the next few years.
In the power sector, China has backed 12 GW of new capacity additions, 30% of the continent’s total, between 2010 and 2020, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
A total of 39 of Africa’s 54 governments have signed up to BRI, including the economic giants South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt.
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 29 24•July•2019