CHINA WATCHCritical Minerals, Waning Western Influence a Focus of Chinese FM’s African Tour, Analysts Say
Critical minerals and oil, a renewed focus on the Atlantic coast, and the West’s loss of influence in the Sahel are some of the reasons analysts believe Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has chosen the Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Chad and Namibia as the stops on his visit to Africa this week.
Critical minerals and oil, a renewed focus on the Atlantic coast, and the West’s loss of influence in the Sahel are some of the reasons analysts believe Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has chosen the Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Chad and Namibia as the stops on his visit to Africa this week.
For decades it has been tradition that Beijing’s top diplomat makes his first foreign foray of the year to the African continent, and each time experts try to analyse the reasons behind the specific itinerary.
“It’s always a mix of big states and small ones. The main point of all of this is to show that China is a non-discriminatory partner; that it doesn’t have ‘important countries,’ the way Western powers would tend to cherry pick,” Cobus van Staden, an editor at the China Global South Project, told VOA in a WhatsApp voice message.
During his first stop in Namibia on Monday, Wang said the 35-year-old tradition of starting the year with an Africa trip shows the world that “China remains Africa’s most reliable friend” and its “strongest supporter…on the global stage,” Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
Namibia and Minerals
Namibia is Wang’s southern African pit-stop this year. The country “is China’s major maritime partner on Africa’s Atlantic seaboard, where the largest concentration of China’s port developments are located,” Paul Nantulya, a research associate at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C., told VOA.
Van Staden echoed this, noting that “the last year or two there seems to have been an emphasis on the Indian Ocean, this year they seem to be rebalancing towards the Atlantic.”
Namibia is also rich in uranium and critical minerals like lithium, cobalt and manganese.
Namibia’s president, Nangolo Mbumba, said at his meeting with Wang this week that Chinese investment “continues to play a significant role in developing Namibia’s uranium sector as one of the biggest global uranium producers.”
Mbumba and Wang also spoke about Chinese investments in infrastructure such as a planned desalination plant. Chinese companies are also starting to build Namibia’s largest solar power plant this year.
Republic of Congo and Oil
After Namibia, Wang heads next to the Republic of Congo, another Atlantic seaboard country and the incoming African co-chair of the Forum for China Africa Cooperation or FOCAC.
