Something’s going on in Africa, and America should be concerned. China and Russia are establishing footholds in Africa, leaving countries bought off by or beholden to our rivals.
National security adviser John Bolton laudably brought this problem out into the light with an address earlier this month. It’s an “America First” argument for trying to help the countries of Africa.
In Eritrea, Russia will build a military base on the Red Sea. In the Central African Republic, Russians have been training the president’s security forces and set themselves up as a mediator between the government and rebels — with lucrative resource exploration on the side. Across the continent, arms deals with few conditions are exchanged for political support from Moscow and natural resources.
China financed railroads in Nigeria, hydropower in Angola, and a cement factory in Zambia. It has built a base in Djibouti and even fronted the money for a parliament building in Zimbabwe among other projects. Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $60 billion in investment during the 2018 China-Africa Forum that saw participation from nearly every country on the continent. Saddled with unpayable debt owed to Beijing, these projects buy political support and access to markets and natural resources.
But all this interest does little for local people. Projects built by Chinese employees for Chinese companies don’t lift local communities and, often, prop up corrupt leaders. Russian arms are destabilizing already volatile regions and resource extraction removed by and for foreign powers hardly profits the locals or contributes to stability.
Washington is right to be interested, and worried.
China has already surpassed the U.S. as the continent’s largest trading partner and is expanding its economic reach. Both Russia and China have used deals to extract power — this is especially obvious in dwindling international support for an independent Taiwan or calls against human rights abuses at the U.N. Perhaps most concerning, however, is the push for new military bases that challenge U.S. operations.
Russia and China may also succeed at tipping the entire region away from the U.S. and its allies and, in the process, breaking apart longstanding alliances which will ultimately undermine the integrity of international organizations.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., of the Armed Services Committee put it succinctly in an editorial board interview with the Washington Examiner. “China says, ‘We’ll build your infrastructure, and we’ll fix your [human rights] problems with the U.N.’ … Russia’s pitch to the world is regime preservation.”
Facing this rising threat, America will be pulled toward two pitfalls: isolationism and central planning.
“Isolationism” is one of the most overused words in Washington. Often used as a synonym for “skeptical of a given war,” isolationism can have a far more useful meaning: ignoring or neglecting global issues because their effect on the United States is indirect.
Isolationism could lead an American to not care about African countries because they falsely believe the fate of Nigeria and Kenya don’t affect the U.S.
The opposite pitfall is central planning. Whenever the U.S. faces an aggressive international rival, American politicians, academics, and commentators all start lamenting that we can’t beat the socialists or authoritarians unless we imitate them. We saw this during the Cold War, when we were assured that the U.S., lacking a coordinated economy, couldn’t compete with the rigorously crafted and brutally enforced plans of the Soviet Union. This argument was hogwash, but it somehow was resurrected in the 1990s, this time vis-a-vis Japan.
In the long run, the planned economies of our rivals failed while our free economy grew stronger.
So as we face down China’s industrial policies and corporatist foreign aggression and as we seek to counteract Russia’s authoritarianism, we need to make sure we don’t become the evils we are fighting.
Our main weapons should be transparency and openness. Our outreach to the countries of Africa can start by explaining to the leaders — national, local, cultural, and religious — in these countries that partnership with Putin and Xi tends to end badly. Our aims should be to open the economies to all business, not to play the corporate-welfare games our federal agencies often play.
America needs to care about Africa and the rest of the world, at least because Russia and China care about them. But in our engagement to counteract our authoritarian and socialist rivals, we need to be sure we don’t become them.
