The Daily - America Has a Problem in Africa: China

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Vice President Kamala Harris’s visit to Africa last week was designed to send a simple message to its governments and people — China is not your friend. The United States is.Abdi Latif Dahir, The New York Times’s East Africa correspondent, explains what the United States has to lose if countries in Africa choose China.Guest: Abdi Latif Dahir, the East Africa correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: The vice president faced a balancing act as she tried to foster relationships.The U.S. tried to counter China’s moves in Africa during a summit last year.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Vice President Kamala Harris' trip last week to Africa was designed to send a simple message to its governments and people. China is not your friend. We are. Today, my colleague Abdi Lateef Tahir on why the United States is picking this moment to make that case and what it has to lose if African countries choose China. It's Thursday, April 6th.

China. It's Thursday, April 6th. Abdi, tell us about this very high-profile trip that the vice president made last week to Africa. So this past week, Vice President Kamala Harris visited three different African countries. Hello, Ghana! That is Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia. I am incredibly honored to be with you here in Ghana. As soon as she stepped off the plane, she really got started on this charm offensive that was meant to bring into the fold,

to woo the leaders and the people of the different nations that she visited. I am optimistic about the future of the world because of you. The woman who will shatter every glass ceiling. The entrepreneur who will identify the next digital breakthrough. The activist... She talked about the continent's young people and the potential that they have in shaping the future of the world. And one of the ways that she showed that was by talking

and meeting a lot of young people, including artists. I am very excited that this artist, this incredible artist, is going to be part of my playlist. She even posted a Spotify list of her favorite African music and met with artists, including one named Amare. with artists, including one named Amare. I just can't thank you enough for the inspiration that you are providing. Please, I can't thank you enough. To so many people.

And perhaps the most notable stop on this trip was a really personal one that she did in Zambia. It is wonderful to be in Zambia and to be back in Zambia. She gave a speech talking about her family's ties to the country. My grandfather was a civil servant in India. And in 1966, shortly after Zambia's independence, he came to Lusaka. Her grandfather worked there as a public servant for India. And Vice President Kamala Harris would visit him as a child. I remember being here and just how it felt and the warmth and the excitement that was present. But Kamala Harris's visit is just

one in the latest string of top American officials who have visited the continent this year. Just over the past several months, we've had Secretary of State Antony Blinken. We've had First Lady Jill Biden come through, the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. And before that, we had the United States ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who also visited several African nations. I have to say, that's quite a lineup. I can't really remember the last time I heard a roster of diplomatic visits that deep, all in a span of just a few months. I think the big elephant in the room is China and the feeling among American officials and the Biden administration that the United States has ceded a lot of ground to China when it comes to its engagement in Africa.

Explain that. So over the past two decades, China has become the major trading partner for many countries in the continent. It is the largest fund of infrastructure projects in many African countries. A lot of those African countries are also home to rare earth minerals, which the United States and China both need in this big technological tussle that they are engaged in. And China, you know, has already been digging a lot of those. They've been processing and exporting them, essentially locking out the United States. China has also been a major provider of educational scholarships to a lot of young African students. And so I think there's a feeling within the United States that here's a young continent

that has the potential to shape geopolitics and wild economies in the decades to come. And yet the United States has let China become the dominant force in those countries. Got it. Basically, the Biden administration realizes that in some sense, the future is Africa and China now owns that future. Exactly.

Abdi, how did we get to this place where the U.S. has ceded so much ground in Africa to China? So this begins around 1999 or 2000 at the time of the millennium. And China came out with this policy called the going out policy. And basically, a lot of it was about encouraging Chinese companies to go and invest abroad. And it was also an opportunity to bring a lot of the mineral resources that China needed, which were abroad, back home. And we see the engagement between Africa and China quickly accelerate. And then in 2013, China announced this incredibly ambitious

project that ensured that its ties to the continent will be changed forever. will be changed forever. This program, which is called the Belt and Road Initiative, is an infrastructural project that mirrors the Silk Road and it aims to stretch basically across the globe. And it's coming in to Africa, particularly to build all these highways and ports and railways that essentially will connect ports to the inland, you know, that would connect cities to the rural areas. We're talking about a total investment of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Wow. And so very quickly, as the money from the Belt and Road program floods into African cities and African countries, what you start seeing is their visibility. They are very direct. They're in your face. And very quickly, people are sort of like able to see and say, oh yeah, this was actually built for us by China. China did this.

China did that. And you quickly noticed how much China was changing cities across the continent. So China is literally building Africa's infrastructure. Absolutely. You know, even in cities like Nairobi, where I am based, particularly over the past decade, the way this city has completely transformed is very much, you know, synonymous with China and its arrival in the continent. I used to, for instance, like study

at a university on the other side of Nairobi. And basically, the road that would go to that university was like a two lane road. And now it's one of the biggest highways in this region. It's up to like eight different lanes. And so whenever you think about how the traffic in Nairobi was so bad in the past, and how there are all these highways and expressways that are opening up all across the city, everybody just thinks about China. Everybody just thinks, oh yeah, it used to take me this many hours to get to one place. But thank God for China. And Abdi, where was the United States during all of this, as China is making these enormous

investments that are clearly creating a tremendous amount of influence for it across Africa? The U.S. has always been there. I think we shouldn't discount the fact that the United States is still the continent's largest aid donor, right? And the fact that, you know, they continue to be very pivotal in providing emergency food investments in healthcare. But I think in many ways over the past two to three decades, the U.S. has treated Africa less as a strategic partner and more as a problem to be solved. And the focus particularly has shifted towards dealing with the continent through a terrorism and a security lens. Explain that. countries like Somalia, where there's been an ongoing civil war for decades, and then the arrival of the terrorist group al-Shabaab and all the troubles that they've caused in this region

and beyond. And so the relationship that the United States has with neighboring countries, including Kenya or Ethiopia or Djibouti, is all about like, how do we partner up to sort of like tackle this? How do we make sure that the militaries in this region are professionalized? How do we help law enforcement build up intelligence infrastructure that would deny al-Shabaab haven in the region? Got it. So the U.S. is focused on building an infrastructure to fight terrorism, not on the kind of infrastructure projects that China is focused on, which is the kind of bread and butter bridges, airports, and dams that so many of these countries need. Exactly.

And these countries, they do need the security support, you know, that would sort of like deter a lot of these terrorist groups. But on a day-to-day basis, these big infrastructure projects that China is bringing, they're loved. They become these symbols, right, that a lot of people look at and appreciate. And that's sort of like the conversation that you hear reverberating in many places across the continent. So presumably the United States has recognized

what you're describing here for some time, that China has been, to put it undiplomatically, eating America's lunch in Africa. So when does the U.S. decide that this is a problem that it has to do something about by dispatching all these top American officials, including Vice President Harris? So the real wake-up call comes after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And during that time, like, you know, the United States rallied countries across the world at the United Nations General Assembly to basically condemn the war. A recorded vote has been requested. We shall now begin the voting process. And China,

of course, did not condemn the war. They did not vote for the resolution. Those in favor of draft resolution, please signify those against abstentions. But also... The result of the vote is as follows. Nearly half of African countries abstained or were absent from the vote to condemn Russia. Interesting. Which suggested a growing reluctance in many nations to accept

an American narrative of what's right and what's wrong. Right, because in this moment, it feels like African countries are, in a sense, choosing more of a Chinese narrative of this Russian war in Ukraine than the American narrative of the Russian war in Ukraine. Exactly. And, you know, a lot of African countries or the leadership in those countries were basically putting out statements or lines of thinking that said that, you know, this is not our war and this is not our problem. And we are going to continue trading with China. We're going to continue trading with Russia. As the Ugandan president, Yuriy Maseveni, said, you know, we don't believe in being enemies of somebody else's enemy.

And so it becomes very clear that whatever influence that the United States had in the continent had quickly been ceded to a lot of other countries, including mainly China. conceded to a lot of other countries, including mainly China. So not long after this, it's only been about a year, we have Vice President Harris hopscotching across Africa. Not exactly a one-to-one cause and effect, but clearly the U.S. was spooked by what you just described and started to act. But what makes the United States, what makes the Biden administration think that they can now ever catch up after essentially 20 years of losing ground to China? So after 20 years, the relationship between China and Africa, as much as it's been beneficial and deepening, it's also coming under extreme scrutiny. It's coming under scrutiny from public officials, from young people in those countries,

from rights groups. And one country where this is all playing out and where the United States feels that it can compete with China, claw back some influence, is the country where Vice President Kamala Harris ended her trip, and that is Zambia. We'll be right back. So, Abdi, what has China's relationship with Zambia looked like? And how has it created what the United States now sees as an opportunity to regain ground in Africa? Zambia is one of the largest producers in the world for copper and one of the largest producers of cobalt in Africa, which, as we know, is used in batteries and electrical vehicles, something that both the United States and China want. And as China's engagement in the continent throughout the 2000s picked up, one of the things that Zambia did was that it turned to China

in order to borrow and pay for the huge infrastructure projects that they wanted at the time. And the Chinese come into the country. They build dams, railway, airports, hospitals. So there are all these projects that are being planned. Zambia is facing tough questions over its foreign debt levels. And the debts quickly start to pile up. From investors who think the real numbers may be more than double what the government has disclosed.

Soon enough, they spiral out of control and even at one point reaching more than 100% of the country's economy. Wow. The International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday that corruption had inflated the cost of numerous high-profile projects in Zambia. And that all these reports around corruption with illicit finance that come out, hundreds of millions of dollars taken out of some of these projects. Do we have the figures in the Chinese mines? Do we know that? We don't have any figures in the mining industry. It's crazy. And the fact that, you know, China is involved in all of this and how that was impacting the economy. Inflation rates are going up.

They are destroying our generation. Where are we going to be? Where are children going to be? A lot of young people in the country, because of this debt crisis, are jobless. Government, wherever you are, take this opportunity to listen to us, the Zambians. They're disgruntled, they're not happy. And around that time, the International Monetary Fund starts getting word that the country is at high risk of debt distress. And even as this disgruntlement goes on, we hit a pivotal moment in 2020. Zambia is inadvertently making history for all the wrong reasons, as it becomes the first sub-Saharan country to default.

When Zambia became the first African country to default on its debt during the coronavirus pandemic. And what ends up being the fallout from that default? The fallout from that is that that happens literally a year to a major election. Because of all the disgruntlement across the country, what President Edgar Lungu starts doing is that there's an increasingly brutal crackdown on human rights. We see opposition leaders, journalists, activists all being targeted. The president, his rival Hakainde Hichilema, reigned on this platform that he will end corruption, that he will restore the rule of law,

that he will fix the economy. So Zambians want change. I mean, it's written on the walls. Change is written in the air. And young people across the country come out in droves to actually vote for him. We all want to see things improve. That is why we're braving this sun

and everything else to come and stand in the queues to vote. I love HH because he's an economist. I think he's going to bring development to this country. And he wins. Hishlema Hakainde is to be president-elect of the Republic of Zambia. This is 16th day of August 2021. And that win shows that there is this deep fissure in the relationship that China had worked so hard to build and nurture.

And the United States now sees an opportunity there that they are able to step in. Right. And it feels important that unlike over the past 20 years when China is associated with many good things, you know, a new bridge, a new dam, a new airport, here in Zambia, China becomes associated with something quite bad, which is corruption and a government that the people have rejected. Exactly. And Western leaders have increasingly voiced fears about China's intentions in Africa and said that they were predatory largely because they think that this model of like giving so much money and loans to African country is meant to be exploiting them so that when the debt continues to grow and these countries are not able to pay, China would willingly take oil or any other minerals in payment. They will continue to do trade in those countries. That's why there's a lot of

concern, particularly coming from the United States and directed towards China-Africa relations, particularly coming from the United States and directed towards China-Africa relations, where they say this model is not working and Zambia is an example of that. So given everything you have just described that's happened in Zambia at the hands of this aggressive Chinese involvement, how does the U.S., how does Vice President Harris think about the U.S. opportunity there as a result? about the U.S. opportunity there as a result. So Vice President Kamala Harris announces a raft of programs in Zambia, which are more or less like a lot of the things that the United States had already been doing in Zambia. These include agreements or commitments related to trade and economic transformation, investments in health, such as fighting malaria and HIV AIDS. But I think what was really different

this time around was that Harris calling out basically China and saying that China needs to come to the table to be able to restructure Zambian debt. And she basically used her podium in Zambia to point to the reality of what was happening in Zambia as a question of detail and saying that America is a better partner than China for Zambia. And that is no doubt the message that Vice President Harris is trying to project over the entire continent, right? I mean, she might be visiting three countries, but the message that is emerging from each is China is not really your friend. China brings problems. We are a better alternative. But the question still remains, is it possible for the U.S. to successfully persuade these governments that the U.S. is a viable alternative when China has become so intimately bound up in the lives, the airports, and the streets of these countries over the past 20 years.

So the United States, because of the relationship it has with a lot of these countries, you know, might be able to convince some of them or make some inroads at some point along the way. But I think the way China and its political economic dominance has spread across the continent is something that will be very hard to like rectify quite quickly. American officials landing in a lot of these African countries are landing in airports that were expanded either fully or partly with Chinese money. They are getting into meetings in buildings where China has built and sometimes even has the China flag, you know, thanking China for building the building. Right. So that's very hard. And it will take what I think is consistent engagement with these countries over several different administrations, prioritizing Africa and engagement with Africa at multiple levels before they're able to sort of like come to

par with what China and China's place in the continent looks like now. I'm curious, if you are an African country right now, and I'm sure in your reporting you are speaking to the leaders of these countries, does this competition from these two superpowers, China and the U.S., for investment and for attention and influence, is this a welcome development? I mean, does this empower these governments? Because perhaps they can now play the U.S. and China off of each other. Or is this just the latest chapter in a very long and familiar story of large outside countries trying to exploit these African countries. And how are these African leaders seeing this moment? I think African leaders are seeing this moment as an opportunity for them

to showcase and to say what they mean at the global stage, particularly when you have multiple powers interested in their resources, interested in the trade and the consumption that their young people will be able to do, interested in seeing, wanting and craving even like their support when it comes to global issues, including like the war in Ukraine or human rights issues. So it's a shifting moment in the continent where we're seeing African leaders publicly push out their policies to both these superpowers at the same time. For instance, like, you know, the Zambian president, he's firmly and publicly actually talked about how he's willing to work with the United States as much as

he's willing to work with China. Which is very interesting, and it may mean that these African countries, they could become the very rare and perhaps enviable examples in their lives, but that one not have necessarily the upper hand. And perhaps that could spare them some of the exploitation that we have come to expect from these relationships. Yes. One of the words that I continue to hear from African leaders that I speak to is the word agency. You know, these African leaders, they talk a lot about agency. They talk a lot about being allowed to like trade with China and like work on health and development with the United States. And there is this sense of like, why should we pick a side? This is a largely developing continent.

like, why should we pick a side? This is a largely developing continent. There are different partners who are able to come in and solve different issues. We will welcome them all. As one official put it to me, he said that, you know, China will come and build the hardware and the United States will come and build the software. And both of those will complement each other and then benefit the people of the country. Both of those will complement each other and then benefit the people of the country. And they are not naive. They know that the relationship they have with one side or the other will be fraught and complicated and complex. But for now, where they stand, they sense an opportunity and they want to take that opportunity. Well, Abdi, thank you very much.

We appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. In a surprise defection with major implications, a Democratic state lawmaker in North Carolina has switched parties and given Republicans veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers of its legislature. Modern-day Democratic Party has become unrecognizable to me and to so many others throughout this state and this country. The lawmaker, Tricia Cotham, said she was leaving the Democratic Party over policy disagreements

and because, she said, she had been bullied by fellow Democrats for failing to fall in line with North Carolina's Democratic governor, Roy Cooper. It became very clear to me early on in January that you better vote in line with everything Governor Cooper tells you to do. All of this sense of control, I will not be controlled by anyone. Her defection may now allow North Carolina Republicans to, among other things, restrict

abortion and voting rights across the state. And on Wednesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy stepped into the growing feud between the United States and China over Taiwan by meeting with Taiwan's president in California. by meeting with Taiwan's president in California. McCarthy became America's most senior elected official to meet with a Taiwanese president on American soil since the United States established diplomatic relations with China in 1978. China argues that such meetings undermine its claims of control over Taiwan. Today's episode was produced by Shannon Lin, Sydney Harper, and Diana Nguyen, with help from

Jessica Chung and Carlos Prieto. It was edited by MJ Davis Lin, with help from Devin Taylor, contains original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wunderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro.

See you tomorrow.