Africa: as the West falters, China consolidates

“Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of.” This was Donald Trump, with his customary offensiveness, three weeks ago. Unusually, it was not a flagrant lie — at least as far as his followers (and most Americans) are concerned.  The 35% of Africans living in extreme poverty, 43% without electricity,  relying on only the most basic of health services, are becoming even more invisible.  Even though “the poor you will always have with you” (Mark 14:7) is a constant rebuke to the West. The trousering by corrupt African leaders of national wealth, not to mention $1 billion of funding earmarked for mitigating climate change, doesn’t help.  Of course, African leaders aren’t unique in turning political power into personal enrichment.

You might think that a continent with annual GDP growth projected to rise from 3.8% this year to 4.1% in 2026 would receive more attention from a UK government stuck on much lower growth.  Ditto the export market of a projected 2.5 billion population in 2050 ( projected world population of 9.7 billion) available for British entrepreneurs.   Add an abundance of rare earths and other minerals sought by the global information and renewables economy, and the importance of consolidating relationships with Africa — political, economic and humanitarian— should be a no-brainer.

But here’s the rub.  Yes, Nigerians have entrepreneurial vigour seeping from every pore.  Lagos has thousands of small business start-ups.   The “Nollywood” film industry, worth $6.4 billion, employs 300,000 people and  churns out 2,500 films a year.   By 2050 Nigeria is projected to have the fourth largest population in the world, after China, India and Pakistan. Now, however, it has massive youth unemployment and comes deplorably high in Transparency International’s country rating for perceived corruption at 140/180 (the higher the score, the worse the corruption).  Botswana and Rwanda, by contrast, score 43/180.

The 3 Cs — Corruption, Climate Change and Coups — which threaten Africa’s future are interlinked.  Corruption, though, is the most consistently dysfunctional in terms of creating an “economy as if people mattered” (F.S. Schumacher in Small is Beautiful).  Coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have damaged the economic and security integration of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States).  Prolonged droughts, exacerbated by climate change, beset East Africa.

So how do China, India, the US, the Middle East, Russia and the EU — all sustaining game-changing relationships with Africa — together feature in this complex picture? (See my article here: The New Scramble for Africa, 6 January 2025.)

The total trade of the People’s Republic of China with Africa was $295 billion in 2024, up 6% from 2023.  Compare this with India’s $83 billion.  The USA – which reduced its African oil imports due to its own shale production — was displaced from third place by the Middle East, with Russia down to $18 billion. Total EU-Africa trade, mostly in North and West Africa, once greater than China’s, has been declining. The UK, once the largest colonial power in Africa, is no longer even a major trading partner.   The impact of Trump’s tariffs on African trade, which is stuck on 2.8% of the global total, remains to be seen.

Such figures do not provide a full picture of China’s impact on Africa.  China’s contribution to transformative infrastructure dates back half a century.  It includes railways — Addis Ababa to Djibouti, Mombasa to Nairobi — a huge Nile dam, the 1,600 kilometres long Greater Nile pipeline, from oil fields near the Nuba mountains to Port Sudan, run by the China National Petroleum Company.

I remember eating Chinese dinners, unappetising pieces of tinned chicken, on holiday in Dar-es Salaam in 1970.   Chinese workers were beginning building the Tanzam railway, linking Zambia’s copper-belt to the coast — avoiding South Africa — at a cost of $3.2 billion in today’s money.  A major improvement on “the hell run”, a meandering road full of huge potholes plied by oil-tanker drivers.  Tanzanians’ bon mot was: “you could tell they were drunk if they were driving in a straight line”.

The West’s responses to Chinese initiatives have often been slow and reactive. In 2000, China creates its Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC), with 37 out of 55 African countries involved.  The EU holds an African Leaders’ Summit the same year.  China launches its Belt & Road Initiative in 2015, again bringing in 37 out of 55 African countries and offering $28 billion in Chinese loans in 2016.  The scramble for Africa intensifies.  In 2021, China draws Africa into its 5-year plan for an “Ecological Civilisation”, with a target of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050.  In 2022, the US holds an African leaders’ Summit in Washington, the EU its own “Global Gateway” Summit in Brussels, promising 150 billion Euros.  Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, then makes the first of eight successive visits to Africa. In 2023, St Petersburg hosts 17 African leaders, a notable decline from 2019 when 47 joined Putin in Sochi.  In December 2024, China cancels tariffs for 43  African LDCs (Least Developed Countries). Joe Biden visits Angola. In March 2025 Trump imposes tariffs.

The West’s portrayal of a predatory China and a supine Africa applies to states rather than citizens.  China’s African loans are accused of creating debt-dependency.  Some do.  Oil-producing Angola, for example, owes over $17 billion.  A third of its population live on less than $2.15 a day.   And yes, China seeks Africa’s minerals and rare earths, with a stake in 15 of 19 cobalt and copper mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The collapse of a “tailing dam” at a Chinese state-owned Zambian copper mine recently released a catastrophic 50 million litres of acidic slurry, polluting 60 miles of the Kafue river.   Over half Zambia’s population depend on its waters economically.   Exporting their domestic human rights record, working conditions in China’s mines have also been appalling – though not uniquely so.

China’s autocratic regime doesn’t easily bend to popular concerns  — nor downgrade its commitment to a net zero by 2050.  China continues its coal-fired energy generation while making strides towards effective storage for its fast growing solar and wind generated energy, also improving the efficiency of semi-conductors used in lighting.  So cobalt for batteries remains a priority,  as well as — not so scarce — lithium, and more copper for smartphones.  China still focuses in Africa on extraction of minerals, but is moving steadily towards productive industry, and is now supporting economies with a strong digital and energy-transition component and regional economic integration.

Russia, in comparison, far from pre-occupied by climate change, floats on its oil and gas reserves. It seeks gold, diamonds and platinum, as well as secure supply-chains for its military-political complex.  The Wagner mercenary force, some recruited from prison, represent a new mix of military, economic and political intervention, now under the Russian Ministry of Defence.  They take away annually c. £1 billion worth of gold from mines such as Intahaka in Mali and Ndassima in Central African Republic, adding bonuses to their $3-4,000 monthly salaries.  African votes at the UN are a political trophy in derzjavnost, Russia’s imperial dream of statehood, the quest for equal global status with the USA and China.

Africa holds great potential, but many risks.  US isolationism and the UK’s decade of economic mismanagement leave the EU and NGOs as the only alternative to relations with China.  Chinese visa requirements for Africans are easier than in the West, not only for those who intermarry.  Surprisingly there’s a Congolese Pentecostal Church in Guangzhou city,  services in Mandarin for Chinese Christians in some African States.  But China has not addressed debilitating corruption, or the coups that hold Africa back.  It’s a complex relationship which is becoming more mutually beneficial.  And you won’t find Xi Jinping promoting isolationism — nor saying that nobody has heard of Lesotho.

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