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Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen
President Tsai Ing-wen visits last African state that recognizes Taiwan's independence
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen is currently on a diplomatic visit to Eswatini, the country’s last remaining ally on the vast African continent. The southern African country is hardly a natural ally for democratic Taiwan: King Mswati III has ruled the landlocked country of 1.1 million with an iron fist since he assumed the throne in 1986 at age 18. It’s the region’s last absolute monarchy.
What’s Tsai doing there? Eswatini is one of just 13 remaining countries worldwide that has not ditched ties with Taiwan in favor of relations with China, which views the self-ruled territory as part of the mainland. Since Tsai took office in 2016, Beijing has coaxed nine countries into switching alliances, most recently Honduras, and continues to pressure other holdouts to follow suit.
Tsai’s trip – notably on the heels of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to South Africa – saw Taipei dole out $1 million in funds to the kingdom. And it comes ahead of Taiwan’s election in Jan. 2024, where Tsai’s VP William Lai is ahead in the polls. (Tsai is term limited.)
Viewpoint: Is China the only reason the US cares about Africa?
Heads of state and/or government from 49 African countries are currently breaking bread at the US-Africa Leaders Summit at the White House. It’s only the second such summit in history, the last one hosted by President Obama in 2014.
It’s no secret that many African nations have long felt jilted by Uncle Sam. But the Biden administration is trying to cast the conference as a reset in US relations with the world’s fastest-growing continent, announcing a $55 billion investment in Africa over the next three years and a presidential visit next year.
Still, some African experts are skeptical that Washington’s approach to Africa is really changing. To them, it can often seem that Washington is more focused on keeping Beijing – which in recent years has outpaced the US in foreign direct investment to Africa – away from the continent than on creating new opportunities for growth independent of China’s activities there.
To make sense of the Biden administration’s Africa policy, we had a chat with Amaka Anku, Eurasia Group’s lead Africa analyst.
GZERO: A White House official said this week that the US is “the partner of choice” for African states – which was broadly considered to be a dig at China. How is this sort of thing perceived by African leaders?
I don't think it's particularly controversial. I mean, he's a US official – what else is he going to say?
What's more controversial is when they go after China directly and say “the Chinese are using a debt trap” – rhetoric that we saw from former President Trump. A lot of African policy makers really chafed at that. It was very paternalistic. It was very much like “hey, you guys, you must be so stupid” for entering into this sort of arrangement with the Chinese.
Biden hasn’t really done that. His rhetoric has been all great and pretty, but it’s … hollow. So the problem isn't really what they're saying. It's what they're not doing. The Biden administration is saying all the right things but they’re not really doing things differently.
Ok, so what are Africa’s biggest investment needs right now?
Infrastructure in all of its forms. China has put a lot of money into transport infrastructure – roads and rails – which has been very helpful in terms of connectivity and economic growth.
Why isn’t the US government giving more money to Africa then?
Well, it's not important enough. It’s just not a priority. And that’s why a lot of the rhetoric sounds hollow.
But it's not just about the government, because there are two levels to this relationship. There's the government – and China has done well on this front – but it’s also about relationships in the private sector, and the US is substantially a private sector led economy. If the American private sector doesn’t see Africa in terms of economic opportunity then it’s not going to put its money there.
Has Biden’s approach to engaging Africa differed from his predecessors?
Every time the US wants to talk about Africa they always start with value promotion. It’s always about open and liberal societies. But this misses the point. The biggest constraint on mature, competitive, electoral party politics across Africa today is lack of state capacity and low economic outcomes.
So if you look at Biden’s sub-Saharan Africa strategy, the first points are about open and liberal societies, and democratic governance – and then eventually you get to post-pandemic development. That’s where you should start!
Government officials like to bring up “democratic backsliding” because there was a coup in places like Mali or Burkina Faso. But those coups happened because those states could not guarantee security for their citizens. It's not because people want authoritarianism.
What has China’s Africa policy been like?
China doesn't do value promotion. China will come to an African state and say “what do you want?” and then will help them finance it. There are also problems with this approach.
Do African governments feel that they are being used as pawns in the greater China-US rivalry?
African countries don’t feel like Washington is generally interested in the region beyond its China strategy. Biden is trying to pivot away from that, saying his strategy is solely about the relationship with Africa. But there’s still a broad feeling that the US only cares about projecting its values and influence.
To be fair, every country’s foreign policy is about projecting values and interests, but it’s about how you do it. And the question for Biden is: Do you think African economic transformation supports that goal? For example, can the US get ahead in its battle with China by having new export markets in Africa? Or is it just going to be about countering Chinese influence here?
So you still think it's the latter?
Yeah, right now it still feels rhetorical. I think they have a lot of work to do to show if it's not.
A hostess stands before the opening of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, (FOCAC) in Dakar, Senegal.
Hard Numbers: China-Africa trade hits new high, record remittances to Central America, Barry Manilow vs protesters, Indian government vs Chinese apps
254 billion: Trade between Africa and China reached an all-time high of $254 billion in 2021, up more than a third from the previous year. But most of the increase came from a jump in Chinese exports, which continue to dwarf Africa’s exports to China.
15: To disperse ongoing demonstrations against the country’s strict covid policies, New Zealand authorities tried blaring a 15-minute loop of Barry Manilow’s greatest hits and the famously insufferable (but curiously addictive) Macarena. Undaunted, the protesters — inspired by the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” — remain outside the parliament building. PM Jacinda Ardern says the protests are “imported.”
54: The Indian government has reportedly banned at least 54 more Chinese apps, citing their threat to privacy and security. With broader economic and strategic tensions rising between the two Asian giants, Delhi has banned more than 220 Chinese apps over the past two years.
25: Remittances to Mexico and several Central American countries soared 25 percent last year, reaching historical levels as the US’ pandemic stimulus and broader economic recovery put more cash in workers’ hands. In Honduras and El Salvador, money sent back from overseas now accounts for a quarter of the economy.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a briefing on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Downing Street, London, Britain, January 4, 2022.
What We’re Watching: BYOB Boris, Kim Jong Un’s new toys, China will lend less to Africa
“Bring your own booze.” It’s an old story: the damaging reveal that the political elite holds the public to a different standard than it holds its own leaders to. News emerged on Tuesday — courtesy of Dominic Cummings, the UK prime minister’s former political adviser turned bitter political foe — that Boris Johnson’s private secretary had invited more than 100 people to a "bring your own booze" party at the PM’s official residence… in the middle of a coronavirus lockdown in May 2020. Johnson and his wife have not denied they were there. To be clear, this is not the same party that his staff was caught on video laughing about during another lockdown over Christmas in 2020. Is the political ineptitude even more damaging than the hypocrisy? Either way, Johnson’s government is now in real trouble. The PM faces a parliamentary grilling on Wednesday, and may not survive a leadership challenge from within his Conservative Party later this year. At a time of bitterness over his handling of COVID and consumer pain from rising prices, this was not the story Britain’s prime minister needed.
(More) hypersonic North Korea. There aren’t many things the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is good at, but its scientists do have a talent for building high-speed missiles. On consecutive days, North Korea launched what appeared to be two hypersonic missiles more advanced than the impressive weapon fired just last week, or the first hypersonic projectile Kim Jong Un tested in September. Tuesday’s version, fired into the sea about 435 miles off the country’s coastline, is estimated to have traveled at about 10 times the speed of sound and at a low altitude that makes it harder to detect than previous generations of missiles. Kim himself attended the Wednesday test in-person for the first time since the pandemic began. International reactions have been predictable; the US and Japan have condemned the launch, while China and Russia have called for an easing of sanctions to lower the diplomatic temperature. It’s an election year in South Korea, and we’re watching to see how the South Korean government responds to renewed pressure for inter-Korean talks.
China cuts Africa lending. China, Africa's top lender, is taking a closer look at its lending policy on the continent. Xi Jinping announced last November that China will cut overall lending to the continent by one-third until 2024, as many African countries risk default due to COVID-induced economic crises. In the future, Xi also wants to prioritize cash for small businesses and green projects over more big infrastructure stuff, a riskier investment that can leave Beijing holding a bigger bag when debts go unpaid. China has long been accused of luring African countries into a "debt trap" by lending them cash with no political strings attached, but with fine print that allows Chinese companies to take control of strategic infrastructure — like Uganda's Entebbe airport — if they get stiffed. What some view as "predatory" lending by Beijing also enables corruption, with Kenya's famously overpriced Nairobi-Mombasa railway as a glaring example. A defensive Beijing says that the world's poorest continent needs Chinese loans to build infrastructure, and that the IMF also gets tough on African governments. But needed or not, China’s investment strategy is becoming more cautious.