It’s no secret that China covets Africa. Africa plays a major role in China’s Belt and Road initiative, and many African governments have featured in China’s debt-trap diplomacy. Whereas U.S. foreign assistance helps African countries to develop capacity and become independent trading partners, China takes the opposite tack: It brings in its own workers to extract wealth. They live in compounds isolated from the local population and then they leave, the wealth gone and the environment in ruins.
The Trump administration’s Africa strategy recognizes the importance of competing on the continent, especially against Russia and China. Nowhere is this competition more active and of greater strategic concern than on the Horn of Africa. “From 2014 to 2016, Djibouti’s external public debt-to-GDP ratio ballooned from 50% to 85% with most of that debt owed to China.” National security adviser John Bolton remarked when unveiling the Africa strategy. (Today, that figure has skyrocketed to more than 100%). Not only has China established a military base in Djibouti only miles away from Camp Lemonnier, but it has also reportedly shot lasers at U.S. pilots from its base to interfere with U.S. operations operating out of the tiny east African country.
