by Victor Vasiliev
[REGNUM] The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which took place in Beijing in early September, caused a wave of inspiration in African countries and criticism in Western media, which has not subsided to this day. In Russia, opinions were divided regarding this significant event for the Black Continent.
On the one hand, China is our strategic ally in the context of global confrontation with the West. On the other hand, real achievements and growth points of the Chinese presence in African countries are often realized through direct competition with Russia.
Of course, China is an ally of Russia in a number of international organizations – BRICS, SCO, and also acts as our permanent ally on most controversial issues in the UN Security Council.
Beijing and Moscow have reached a significant understanding in a number of joint and border zones of influence, primarily in Central Asia, partly in the South Caucasus and Eastern Europe. There is even talk of mutual complementarity of the two states' strategies in these regions. This would have been unimaginable three years ago.
It would be natural to assume that in other areas, relations between China and Russia remain just as friendly and mutually interested. And in this sense, China's strategy in Africa unpleasantly surprises Russia. Not only does China not need anyone's help or coordination of efforts on the Black Continent, but it is also ready to take into account only its own interests.
Including achieving new successes in cooperation with African countries, becoming our direct competitor in certain areas. In particular, this is how things stand in the area of arms sales.
THREE REASONS TO CHOOSE CHINESE WEAPONS
China has become the largest arms supplier to sub-Saharan Africa, surpassing Russia for the first time. Russian arms sales fell by 44% between 2019 and 2023, while China is increasing its presence. In effect, China is looking for new markets where Russia is weakening.
The fact is that both Russian and Chinese weapons are in approximately the same price segment with a generally similar range. Yes, the quality and reliability of Russian weapons is still higher, but China takes it in a different way.
Firstly, Beijing has the potential for significant dumping. Secondly, Chinese manufacturers offer interesting purchasing mechanisms (loans for the purchase of weapons), related services for equipment maintenance and training of armed forces. That is, we are not talking about just selling weapons, but about a whole package deal, the terms of which are quite advantageous for the African side.
Third, and just as important, Beijing often uses military contracts as a nice bonus for major investment and trade deals with African countries.
Thus, China is realizing its primary interest in Africa - increasing its influence, and in the medium term it may sacrifice its own earnings.
One of the factors complicating Russia's competition is the sanctions pressure from Western countries, which is having a painful impact on the prospects of the Russian military-industrial complex. This, in particular, is something our traditional partner Egypt is very concerned about.
In general, the Celestial Empire is doing excellently in Africa on its own; it does not need Russia as an ally. Even in the most successful area for us, the security sector, China gives preference exclusively to its own private security structures and PMCs.
Moreover, it was in Africa that China built its first military base abroad in 2017. We are talking about the logistics base for the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy in the small but strategically important for the entire East African coast African state of Djibouti.
In any other areas - from the extraction of natural resources to the construction of nuclear power plants - Russia in Africa is of no interest to China as an ally or a side complementing its strategy. Quite the contrary.
China has been implementing its own African strategy for decades. It called itself the leader of the third world, meaning Africa, back in the days of Mao Zedong, competing with the USSR in the 1970s. And, unlike the latter, it has never left the Black Continent.
Therefore, from the Chinese point of view, it is not they who have come to our potential territory, but we who have come to their fiefdom. Another thing is that there will be no open confrontation between our countries anywhere in the near future.
FOSSIL CONTROL
In 2023, according to the International Trade Center (ITC), China's trade turnover with African countries amounted to $283 billion (it has grown more than 20-fold since 2000). China is Africa's second-largest trading partner after the European Union. In 2009, it surpassed the United States in this indicator. More than 10,000 Chinese companies and enterprises operate on the continent.
China mainly imports minerals from Africa, and this is the key point. It turns out that for the entire ten years since the announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative, China has been rapidly and at the same time painstakingly moving towards its goal - establishing control over some strategically important minerals and stable and safe logistics from Africa to Asia for their further processing in China.
The proposal to merge the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road projects was first put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia in the fall of 2013.
However, this initiative was most successfully implemented in Africa, which is relatively far away from China. 44 African countries were involved in this initiative, receiving large infrastructure projects implemented on their territory. Chinese-African cooperation with the launch of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative in 2013, according to China Daily, led to the construction of 6,000 km of railways, 6,000 km of highways and 20 ports in Africa.
At first glance, the situation is paradoxical: China’s priorities in foreign economic activity are not in the border countries of Central Asia or Southeast Asia, but in Africa.
The goal-setting becomes clearer if we analyze the structure of the current economic confrontation between Beijing and Washington, in which Chinese companies are currently winning. And this is happening due to the presence of indisputable advantages in the form of control and access to the raw materials base in Africa.
THE AMERICANS ARE TRYING TO FIGHT BACK
For example, the struggle between the US and China in such a key area as the electric car market is based on access to metals mined in Africa. Leading American expert on this continent Peter Pham shares an interesting analysis of the current confrontation between the US and China on the pages of the conservative international relations magazine The National Interest.
Due to the commitments made by Western countries to limit their impact on the environment, the production and operation of electric vehicles is acquiring strategic importance.
The Biden administration has used formal and informal measures to regulate the auto market to ensure that two-thirds of cars and trucks sold in the United States, the world's largest market, will be electric or hybrid by 2032.
However, the artificial increase in demand for electric cars primarily had a beneficial effect on the Chinese auto industry. It turned out that the Chinese hybrid Yuan Plus is several times cheaper than its analogues from the American manufacturer Ford.
Faced with such a problem, the State Department took an unprecedented step on May 14, 2024: it raised the tariff rate on foreign-made electric vehicles from 25% to 100% (a classic example of trade wars and protectionism). However, this did not help: China still retains its dominance.
American and European electric vehicle manufacturers are almost entirely dependent on supplies of batteries used in new cars, as well as the materials and metals used to create the low-carbon energy systems so essential to a “green economy.”
The International Energy Agency estimates that the net-zero emissions target by 2050, set out in the European Union's climate law and President Joe Biden's December 2021 executive order, will increase demand for lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel by a factor of thirty over the next twenty years.
Here again, much depends on Africa. The Dark Continent contains about a third of the world's mineral resources, including more than half of the world's cobalt, manganese and platinum.
Only China has reliable access to supplies of the necessary strategic materials. Beijing has achieved this through years of investment in African mining and supply chains.
Today, China produces enough batteries to supply all EV manufacturers in the world. In fact, one Chinese firm, CATL, controls more than 30% of the global EV battery market and has been the leading manufacturer for seven years in a row.
For example, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) accounts for just under three-quarters of all cobalt produced in the world. And almost all of the metal is then exported to China, which processes about 90% of the world's cobalt and rare earth element production, concentrating in its hands 50-70% of lithium supplies and 35% of nickel supplies.
It must be acknowledged that the Biden administration is aware of the scale of the problems and the corresponding adjustment of the US strategy in Africa is already taking place. In particular, the Lobito Corridor project, which is already being implemented and connects Angola, the DRC and Zambia, is a major geopolitical and infrastructure project to get rid of direct dependence on Beijing.
The corridor will provide a shorter and more reliable transport route from the mineral-rich inland countries to the Angolan port of the same name on the Atlantic Ocean via a new railway.
WEST AFRICA
In recent years, Beijing has been making some adjustments to its African strategy. Having abandoned support for risky projects and the distribution of loans, it is focusing on cooperation in key areas for itself, trying to secure the support of the largest players on the continent.
This primarily concerns Nigeria, South Africa and Ethiopia, with which the Chinese side has the most impressive indicators of trade and economic turnover, and whose economies are the largest in the African subregions.
It is pro-American Nigeria that today strives not only for economic but also political leadership in the regional association ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States).
Our main geopolitical project on the Black Continent, the Sahel Alliance, which has announced its complete withdrawal from ECOWAS structures, is the main obstacle to the implementation of this plan. It is logical to assume that Nigeria, which is China's key partner in the region, may ask Beijing to put pressure on Russia in West Africa. There is reason to say that the Sahel Alliance (which includes Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger) may face tacit opposition from China.
The fact that in this case the interests of the pro-American regime and China may coincide should not be disconcerting. We can see something similar in Kenya, where China is implementing large infrastructure projects, while the country's political leadership remains pro-American. The whole point is that the struggle on the African continent is not two- or even three-sided. It is a multi-sided game, with a large number of countries and factors. Therefore, the most unexpected temporary combinations and alliances are possible here.
According to African observers, Nigerian leader Bola Tinubu's participation in the Beijing summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) can be considered the clearest indicator of the success of China's strategy, even though as many as 54 African delegations attended the summit.
Even a brief list of the results of the talks between Tinubu and Xi is impressive. In particular, Nigeria is ready to strengthen partnership in the development of energy and mineral resources and to build factories together with Chinese companies both to meet local needs and for export, says Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar.
The two sides also decided to make joint efforts to build on Nigeria's geographical and economic advantage in West Africa to establish the continent's flagship projects for inter-ethnic and inter-regional cooperation. China commended Nigeria's leading role in ECOWAS and its efforts to ensure stability in the region.
Nigeria has long been laying claim to clear leadership in West Africa. For a long time, the language barrier with the rest of the Francophone part of the region and the active policy of Paris prevented the local elites and the US standing behind them from realizing these ambitions.
In fact, it is precisely these motives that explain Abujdi's very restrained reaction to the militaristic rhetoric of Côte d'Ivoire towards the new authorities of Niger. De facto, it was Nigeria's position that nullified the real attempts of the French side to restore the status quo in Niamey by military means in the summer and autumn of last year.
Having achieved recognition of its regional ambitions from Beijing and, as a result, pressure on Russia’s position, Nigeria has every chance of becoming not only an economic but also a political leader in ECOWAS.
This can only be realized if the "Sahel Alliance" countries return to this community. Simply under new conditions and without obvious tutelage from Paris. But without a serious role for Russia in the region, of course.
And such political consequences of the alliance between the “Chinese dragon” and the regional leader in West Africa are much more important to us than the “pure” economy.