United Nations — The US ambassador to the United Nations is heading to Africa this week. He will be the second member of Biden’s cabinet to visit this month as the administration seeks to demonstrate its commitment to addressing the myriad challenges facing the continent, from conflict to climate change.
While neither Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield nor Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who arrived several days ago, have spoken directly about countering any other nation’s influence, their visits are also a clear attempt by Washington to respond to important and growing economic, political problems of China and Russia. and military influence throughout Africa.
A senior Biden administration official said the high-level visits were intended to highlight US interest in helping to “address the impacts of drought, conflict… climate change and other contributing factors.” to food insecurity around the world.
President Biden told African leaders last month that he himself was planning a trip to sub-Saharan Africa this year. He would be the first sitting US president to visit the region in a decade.
Chinese and Russian footprints in Africa
Next month, South Africa will hold joint naval exercises off its coast with Russian and Chinese forces. The exercises, along with China’s booming trade with africa — which surpassed those of the United States more than a decade ago — have been on the front lines of the White House battle.
China has invested money in Africa for decades in the form of business and infrastructure investments and has boosted security cooperation with some nations. Aid from Beijing, mostly in the form of loans, totaled more than $153 billion between 2000 and 2019, according to the China Africa Research Initiative at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced and International Studies.
Russian influence has also been growing for decades.
Yellen arrived in South Africa a day after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was in Pretoria. At a press conference Monday with his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor, Lavrov discussed joint military exercises his country will hold with Russia and China in mid-February. The 10-day exercises will coincide with the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
South Africa has refused to condemn Russia’s war, remaining neutral in the conflict, and Pandor defended his country’s decision to hold the joint exercises, saying “all countries hold military exercises with friends around the world.”
Years of Russian and Chinese support for African countries may already have had an impact on the global stage of geopolitical confrontations. Kenya and Nigeria voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution last March demanding that Russia withdraw all its forces from Ukrainian territory, but 17 African nations abstainedincluding South Africa.
Thomas-Greenfield has put in particular the issue of reform the way the UN Security Council works on the agenda of his trip to Africa this week.
While the administration doesn’t frame visits by top US officials as a response to Chinese and Russian influence, many experts say it’s clear Washington has some catching up to do.
“China is winning”
Yellen hinted this week that China’s aid to nations like Zambia has left developing economies with huge debt burdens that could prove crippling if Beijing refuses to renegotiate payments. She suggested that the United States will be a friendlier benefactor.
“We see a rapidly growing young population that needs opportunities and economic growth,” said the head of treasury in Zambia. “We have a lot of government and international programs that are geared towards helping efforts to build infrastructure, and when we do that, we want to make sure that we don’t create the same problems that Chinese investment has sometimes created here.”
Salim Dawood/AP
This week will mark Thomas-Greenfield’s third trip to Africa as the top US representative to the UN. Her priorities, set by a senior administration official, are to strengthen alliances with current and former UN Security Council nations; regional security issues; strengthen food security and refugee issues; support the recovery of Africa and mitigate the effects of climate change; and consult on the reform of the UN Security Council, an issue closed to the heart of many leaders of African nations.
“We are focused on pressing global challenges…obviously, that includes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” the administration official said.
Michelle Gavin, a senior fellow for the Africa studies program at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CBS News’ John Dickerson last month that the Biden administration was prioritizing better relations in Africa for many reasons, including because “force labor force in Africa is going to be bigger than China and India by 2050.”
Richard Gowan, UN director for the International Crisis Group, told CBS News this week’s spate of visits represents a major diplomatic effort, saying the Biden administration appears to be taking its African outreach seriously.
“But at the end of the day,” Gowan said, “African leaders will wonder if this is a short-term courtship or the start of a more sustained US attempt to rebuild ties on the continent, because China is gaining influence in Africa through long-term business arrangements”.
“If the US can’t counter China’s economic reach, US diplomatic reach is not going to be a game changer,” he said.
Yellen would visit Zambia, Senegal and South Africa, while Thomas-Greenfield would stop in Ghana, Mozambique and Kenya.
Sarah Carter of CBS News in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
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