The tiny breakaway nation of Somaliland is making a bold geopolitical wager: deepening ties with Taiwan, courting conservative power brokers in Washington, and positioning itself as a rare pro-U.S. ally in a region where China holds significant sway.
But this strategy comes at a cost. By crossing Beijing’s red line on Taiwan, Somaliland has likely closed the door on Chinese investment and guaranteed opposition in global forums where China holds veto power.
Somaliland foreign policy researchers Moustafa Ahmad and Sacad Muhumed join Eric & Cobus from Hargeisa to discuss the government’s high-stakes gamble of playing the big powers off one another to secure formal diplomatic recognition.
Show Notes:
- The China-Global South Project: A Tale of Two Recognized and Unrecognized Republics by Moustafa Ahmad
- The New York Times: African Breakaway State Offers U.S. a Chance to Stick It to China by Abdi Latif Dahar
- Semafor: US House committee calls for Somaliland office to counter China by Yinka Adegoke
About Moustafa Ahmad and Sacad Muhumed:
Sacad Muhumed is a researcher specializing in critical security studies, focusing on governance and security in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea. He holds an MA from Addis Ababa University and is pursuing a second master’s degree at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
Moustafa Ahmad is a researcher and writer who explores the geopolitics and security of the Horn of Africa, focusing on political shifts, regional rivalries, and global influence in the region.
Transcript:
ERIC OLANDER: Hello, and welcome to another edition of the China in Africa podcast, a proud member of the Sinica Podcast Network. I’m Eric Olander, and as always, I’m joined by CGSP’s Managing Editor, Cobus van Staden, joining us, as always, from beautiful Cape Town, South Africa.
A very good afternoon to you, Cobus.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Good afternoon.
ERIC OLANDER: Cobus, there are some of these weeks when it’s a little bit slow in the China-Africa space, and there’s some of these weeks, like this week, where it is definitely not slow. And a little bit has to do more with the U.S.-Africa relationship, but as we know today, anything to do with the U.S. geopolitically, China is not far behind. So I want to run through a few things to get your reaction, because a lot of it has to do with you and your country in South Africa, not you specifically, Cobus, you’re not that famous yet, but your president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said that he is actually going to be going to the United States on a working visit next week, and he’s going to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump.
There’s been a lot of talk this week about South Africa in the news, because many of your Afrikaner compatriots, white folks from South Africa, landed in the United States, I think somewhere around 69 in total, and Trump has really kind of stepped up his rhetoric, talking about the oppression that white people are facing in South Africa, and the fact that they deserve refugee status in the United States, that’s probably going to be very high on Ramaphosa’s agenda. Ramaphosa himself has spoken out forcefully against this just this week alone. Also this week, it was announced by the U.S. National Security Council that they’ve ordered all U.S. agencies and departments to suspend work with the Group of 20 conference that will be hosted by South Africa.
That is, again, something tied to this issue of the refugees. A White House official referred to Trump’s comment on Monday, accusing South Africa of carrying out a, quote, genocide against white citizens, and saying that the president would not attend the G20 leaders’ meeting in Johannesburg unless, and this is the quote from the National Security Council, the situation is taken care of. So item two is involving South Africa.
Now item three, Cobus, is very interesting, because I have to say that I was completely wrong on this. It turns out that the United States is going to host a U.S.-Africa leaders’ summit. According to Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Troy Fitrell, he made the remarks this week in Cote d’Ivoire at the inaugural summit of the American Chambers of Commerce in West Africa.
Let me quote him on this. It will absolutely happen this year on the theme of trade and investment. Fitrell told The Africa Report, it won’t be a summit to talk solely about politics and war as such.
It will prioritize exchange between partners and relations between equals. Fitrell said the summit is expected to be held in late summer or early autumn, probably somewhere in the June to August time frame. And they’d like to do it in New York.
So that’s very interesting. Again, you’re seeing this shift away from politics. We’ve heard a lot of that this week as well from Donald Trump in the Middle East, where he says, we’re not going to tell you how to live your lives.
We’re not going to tell you what to do. We’re not going to get into the nation-building business anymore. Sounding, ironically, very Chinese, focusing on deals and business.
The other thing that happened this week is we had, and this is really relevant for our discussion today about the Horn of Africa and Somaliland. There was a hearing on Capitol Hill in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee talking about East Africa and the Horn, and some very pointed remarks coming from James Risch, who’s a Republican senator and also chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In his opening remarks, Cobus, for a hearing on East Africa and the Horn, he expressed his pointed displeasure with Kenyan President William Ruto for Ruto’s recent trip to China, and he even called for a review of Washington’s ties with Nairobi.
Let’s take a listen.
SOUNDBITE: Many African nations maintain troubling ties with China, including key national security partners. Just last month, President Ruto declared to Kenya a major non-NATO ally, and China are co-architects of a new world order. That’s not just alignment to China, it’s allegiance.
Relying on leaders who embrace Beijing so openly is an error. It’s time to reassess our relationship with Kenya and others who forge tight bonds with China. And it isn’t just an embracement of China, but also the quote, new world order, end quote.
ERIC OLANDER: Of course, the irony here is that it’s the United States that is paving the way for a new world order with the upending of the old international order. But also interesting, Cobus, because as soon as I heard that, I thought to myself, Kenya is potentially going to become the next South Africa, at least in the eyes of some lawmakers in Washington who are clearly displeased with what they’re hearing. So lots going on, Cobus.
Pick and choose as you like where to start in terms of your reaction to some of these developments this week.
COBUS VAN STADEN: It was quite funny for me, this targeting of Kenya, particularly because if you read the full speech that William Ruto made at Beijing University, a lot of it was focusing on how the current global governance and economic financing systems are not functional and not serving Africa, and that there’s kind of massive global reforms needed. So it’s interesting that Ruto’s statement of Kenya and China being co-architects of a new world order is shifted in the American view to allegiance to China. So there is this kind of funny implication that an African can’t be an architect, that it must be an architectural assistant, you know, to the actual architect.
So there’s a little bit of a, you know, it plays badly in all different directions. But yeah, it’s, you know, it’s very interesting.
ERIC OLANDER: Quick take on some of the other issues. Quick take on the summit and Ramaphosa and those other things.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Summit’s very interesting. I think it’s an interesting move. It’ll be very interesting to see what South Africa’s position is there.
The G20 thing, I think, is going to be a very big deal, particularly because the way that the G20 works is it works in troikas, right? It’s the current president, the current chair of the G20, the previous chair of the G20, and the upcoming one work together to coordinate all of these very complicated G20 processes. The fact that the US is now fully kind of like withdrawn from the process means that the G20 process as a whole is now kind of thrown into kind of disarray, not only for this year or next year, when the US is supposed to be taking over as G20 chair from the South Africans, but also for the full kind of three-year process into the future, you know.
So this is a serious challenge, I think, for the G20. It’s also a very serious challenge for South Africa, because, I mean, how do you deal with this situation? So I think, you know, it’s all kind of very interesting, and it’s all kind of also, in general, this kind of feeling of everything’s kind of thrown up in the air, and we’re kind of waiting to see how it’s going to land.
ERIC OLANDER: Well, it just seems to me that at least for the Johannesburg Summit, it’s going to cede an enormous amount of space to Xi Jinping to be able to maneuver and to operate, and to shape a lot of the outcomes of the G20 statements that come from that meeting. One has to wonder, though, without the United States there, do the communiques that emerge from this G20 summit actually mean as much without, again, the United States being a part of that? But in terms of discourse power and narrative, I think that this is a very, I mean, from my point of view, the Americans are ceding space, and then they’re going to complain that the rest of the world is kind of lining up behind the Chinese.
But, you know, Woody Allen said, what, 90% of life is showing up, and so if you don’t show up, you don’t get to shape the narrative as much. But maybe for MAGA and for Rubio and for Donald Trump, they don’t like this narrative, and they don’t want to shape it. Let’s shift back to the Horn of Africa.
This is going to be one of our topics. Over the years, Cobus and I have been talking about Somaliland as an issue. It’s very relevant for us in part because of the connection between Somalia and China and then Somaliland and Taiwan.
So that’s one of the reasons why it’s kind of popped up on our radar. We have quite a bit of news coverage on our site about the various events that happen in Somaliland. For those of you not familiar, Somaliland is a breakaway region on the Horn of Africa, very similar in many respects to the dynamics between Taiwan and China, not officially recognized as a country, but yet in many ways has the hallmarks of a country.
It’s got a functioning government, it’s got a foreign service, they’ve got ambassadors, they’ve got infrastructure and ports, and there is growing momentum in the United States to formally recognize Somalia as an independent country. And the Somaliland government for the past three or four years has been very aggressive in courting conservative Washington, both in Washington, but also flying very influential conservative pundits like Joshua Meservey, who was originally at the Heritage Foundation but now at the Hudson Institute, also Tibor Nagy, who was the former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Peter Pham, who is at the Atlantic Council and a very influential American diplomat, at least in the discourse, if not in Washington itself. They’ve become very outspoken advocates of Somaliland’s recognition of Somaliland. It’s never been entirely clear whether they were paid or not paid, but they have been very, very supportive of this idea.
Let me take you back to 2022, and that was an interesting time because Somaliland was sending delegation after delegation to places like the Heritage Foundation to promote this idea that recognition of Somaliland would not only benefit the United States in terms of its engagement in Africa, but also in its global competition with China. And let me play you a speech, a little bit of an outtake of a speech by Kevin Roberts, who is the President of the Heritage Foundation and a very strong proponent of U.S. diplomatic recognition of Somaliland, and he’ll really set up our discussion today.
SOUNDBITE: We need to be clear-eyed about the competition we’re in with the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party is America’s single most formidable opponent, and is devoted to advocating for autocracies like itself and Russia by violating the peace and prosperity of nations that refuse to kowtow to it. America must meet this challenge with resolve.
That would include a close relationship with Somaliland, given its strategic position, its pro-American orientation, and that, almost alone in Africa, it’s been immune to Beijing’s overtures and threats. In fact, Somaliland has established ties with our Taiwanese friends, another unrecognized democracy that the United States should support.
ERIC OLANDER: And that is what you hear from a lot of conservative corners of Washington, and so we are thrilled today to have two experts on the issue to join us to explain the background, the issues, and what’s at stake for a part of the world that doesn’t get a lot of discussion outside of conservative media foreign policy circles. Mustafa Ahmad is a researcher who specializes in the politics and security of Somaliland and the Horn of Africa, and Saad Mohammed is a researcher specializing in critical security studies focusing on governance and security also in the Horn of Africa. Both of them join us from the capital of Somaliland, Hargeisa.
MUSTAFA AHMAD: A very good afternoon to both of you. Good afternoon. Thanks for having us.
SACAD MOHAMMED: Good afternoon, Eric, Kobus. Good to be here. It’s great to have you both here.
Mustafa, let’s start with you. We heard from the president of the Heritage Foundation. Tell us a little bit more about the drive to gain diplomatic recognition from the United States and why you feel, and many of your compatriots feel, that it’s so important right now.
MUSTAFA AHMAD: I think this is a very interesting conversation. It’s been going on for many years. For Somaliland, it starts with the idea that we need to be part of the national community as a recognized state.
This follows the logic that being part of the national community gets you so much needed infrastructure, diplomatic support, bilateral relations, and so forth. So with the different five, I can say, six administrations that Somaliland had of presidents, the international relationship was pretty much strong on the agenda, the top foreign policy priority. So with the United States, there was this thinking and logic that’s deepening ties with the United States will give you so much needed support because, number one, U.S. position in the world in terms of power, political capital.
So that’s the logic. The second thing is the fact that the United States will give you some sort of recognition, diplomatic recognition, will lead other states to follow suit, and that will make the Somaliland question not something controversial. For example, other states will have some sort of precedence to follow.
So it’s the idea of targeting the biggest boy in the club, and then see what others would say. And that lays the ground for other issues, including relations with Taiwan, close relationship with other African states.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Sacad, I think most people listening to this conversation don’t have much of an idea, I think, of Somaliland identity. So I was wondering if you could just give for outsiders, give us some of the reasons why Somaliland doesn’t feel comfortable to still be part of Somalia. Why is heading out on its own in a treacherous neighborhood, why is that a better option for Somaliland than staying with Somalia from your perspective?
SACAD MUHUMED: There are multiple reasons that Somaliland is looking for international recognition. It has historical aspects, it has a legal aspect, and it has a more humanitarian aspect. So much like the rest of the continent of Africa, Somaliland was part of British colony, which created the current frontiers of the borders that Somaliland claims are based on, while Somalia was an Italian colony.
The rest, which is part of Ethiopia and Kenya and French colony of Djibouti, the contemporary Djibouti state, have all of them inhabited Somali communities. And this nation, which shares cultural language and history, was divided by colonial factors of borderless, artificial borderless that the European colonialists had created in this part of the world. And soon enough, with the idea of creating a bigger unification within Somali-speaking people or Somali nation, Somaliland and Somalia have joined together, July 1st, 1960.
And with that, Somaliland has felt that union was politically marginalized. Somaliland, time and again, with administration and other Somaliland advocates for Somali recognition. I’ve mentioned the fact that Somaliland was, you know, a state that has suffered and joined the rest of Somalia.
But when it comes to power distribution, when it comes to, you know, allocation of resources and other developmental projects, Somaliland was treated as, you know, a new region within Somalia. So that argument was one reason that Somaliland wanted to, you know, rectify or correct a historical marginalization. And one contemporary reason that Somaliland was looking for a recognition was the conflict.
For many communities that reside in Somaliland, creating a Somaliland as a sovereign state was a way to unify or create a shared project with the communities that find themselves in Somaliland. And one more reason, which is more contemporary, was the fact that the things, especially the security and political reality in Somalia, were not looking that much perspective. Soon after the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, there was, you know, decades of warlordism followed by a terrorist group linked to Al-Shawab, the Al-Qaeda-affiliated group that’s active in Somalia.
And then you have a very conflicted relationship between, you know, federal government and federal member states, which Somalia have adopted later on.
ERIC OLANDER: So, Sacad and Mustafa, everything that you’ve laid out in terms of the history and the desire for international recognition makes a lot of sense. And the pathway that you’ve chosen is interesting by going through the United States. The part that I don’t really understand, and I’d love for you to talk about this, is this Taiwan question.
So Taiwan, and this was a big deal a few years ago, where Somaliland set up an embassy, or not an embassy, a trade, they were representative offices. Taiwan set up a representative office in Hargeisa. There was an exchange of diplomats.
There was a senior delegation. I think even the president of Somaliland went to Taiwan. He was vetted.
Okay, I get that. The problem is, though, is that you’ve crossed a thick, thick red line for China. And there are no more issues that are more sensitive to China than the question of Taiwan.
And not only have you recognized Taiwan, you’ve fully embraced Taiwan, and you’ve fed this in, not you personally, but the Somaliland government has fed this into Washington. So you talk about Mustafa getting development assistance and getting recognition and all the benefits that come from being a member of the international community. Because of Somaliland’s position on Taiwan, it’s almost guaranteed that China is going to block your admission to the United Nations.
You will not be part of the World Health Organization. You will not qualify for the International Monetary Fund. They will veto you at every turn to make sure that you get nothing.
And I guess my question is, is the relationship with Taiwan worth more than the pathway to diplomatic recognition that absent Taiwan, maybe the Chinese probably wouldn’t have cared that much, and you would have had a much faster admission into some of these international organizations. Mustafa, I’d like to get your take on that.
MUSTAFA AHMAD: I think this is where you see a dilemma on this issue. On one hand, for most countries sacrificing in relation with our full country, veto United Nations Security Council member like China, it’s not worth it just to engage with Taiwan. But for a politically unrecognized entity like Somaliland, which has little to lose with Beijing, relations with Taiwan, I mean, that’s Sandestan and Hargeisa, offers a rare chance to assert independent foreign policy and at the same time gain international attention and be on the table.
Now, obviously, this will block China and China has been very strong and assertive on this and this is a dilemma from China. But I think that’s the risk Somaliland was willing to take. But why?
ERIC OLANDER: I mean, I guess I’m just I’m confused because you’re saying that they don’t have a lot to gain, but they have a lot to lose. I mean, if your dream was to have a seat at the United Nations, and that’s the ultimate, getting US recognition on one level, sure, fine. But the US is just one country that doesn’t open the pathway to anything.
UN membership really does. But because of Taiwan, you will never get admission to the United Nations. So I’m just wondering, is that worth it?
MUSTAFA AHMAD: To be honest, this is where I think whether Somaliland ties with Taiwan will be permanent thing or will be something that will be shaken by diplomatic pressure, by other options, as these conversations going on for how long. The same conversation has been going on in Hargeisa as well. And we need to sacrifice a country like, antagonize a country like China for Taiwan.
But at the same time, Somaliland tried to engage with China. And there was at this point, China also wanted to invest in the Port of Berbera. There was this willingness to have some sort of engagement.
But China repeatedly aside and went to deal with Somalia instead. So I think it was a decision for Somaliland to be on the conversation and start conversation. And also like from the other side, Somaliland government was willing to have a conversation with China when it comes to relations and how to progress.
But again, you have that dilemma. And it’s something I see as something we also recognize how important it is. There are voices exactly saying, what are you saying?
Which is, it’s guaranteed that China will block every pro-Somaliland in international. At the same time, Somalia was not gaining anything by also sitting back. So it has its own nuances.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Sacad, over the last few weeks, there’s been these reports showing up that Somalia is blocking people with Taiwanese passports. So I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that dynamic and more broadly, how Somalia is handling the Somaliland-Taiwan-China situation, because considering that Somalia had some of its own kind of disagreements with China in the past.
SACAD MUHUMED: The recent news from Somalia that relate to, you know, banning Taiwanese passport holders from Somali airspace have come lately. And there was an article of news which reported that a high delegation from Taiwan are, you know, heading or are expected to visit in Somaliland. Recently, Taiwan have invested or implemented a couple of projects in Somaliland, including a road that connects in Hargeisa airport to the city.
And there is, you know, the investment or the assistance program that Taiwan is expected to implement in Somaliland, which relate to health sector, especially the construction of hospital, which later have become the expansion that already exists in Hargeisa terminal hospital. So it was a move Somalia to block from that visit to materialize. That’s the news that those reports have come out later on.
More broadly speaking, since Taiwan and Somaliland have forged the official relationship back in 2020, we have seen Somalia which issues an increased statement in terms of how they are pre-affirming or how they are committing in terms of one China policy. And also we might recall recent, the latest meeting between President Xi Jinping and Ashish Abdulhamid on the sidelines of China Africa Forum, which Chinese and Somalia relation was elevated more strategic partnership. During that statement, which, you know, Chinese have issued a letter on, President Xi Jinping was saying, you know, it’s a historical responsibility to both states, meaning China and Somalia.
They had a historical, you know, responsibility in terms of pursuing national reunification. In the case of Somaliland, being part of reunifying with Somalia and you know, Taiwan becoming part of the national China on PRC.
ERIC OLANDER: Yeah, it’s interesting you bring that up, the relationship between China and Somalia got closer. And I’ll make the argument that part of the reason why China and Somalia elevated their diplomatic ties is because of Somaliland and Taiwan. Let’s not forget, and Cobus made reference to this, that relations between China and Somalia in the early 2020s were very cold, because Somalia was the first, and so far as I know, the only Muslim majority country, not once, but twice to sign on to letters at the United Nations Human Rights Council to criticize China over its treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
And that really sent diplomatic ties into a little bit of a deep freeze. In fact, we were hearing from diplomatic sources at the United Nations that behind the scenes, the Chinese were blocking Somali efforts and to get AU resources and UN resources. But again, that changed when Somaliland started to up its engagement with Taiwan.
And so again, I’m not trying to push something here, so I don’t want you to think that, but it just seems to me that had Somaliland not pursued the Taiwan path, you may not have had this obstacle in the form of China, and you could have gotten investment, you could have gotten more pressure on Somalia, and taken advantage of that chill between Mogadishu and Beijing following the Xinjiang letters. Saqad, I’m just wondering if there’s any kind of regret maybe in Hargeisa over the path that they took, or are people very comfortable with the choice of Taiwan over Beijing?
SACAD MUHUMED: In Greek, I think there is a variety of specter of opinion when it comes to Somaliland, you know, pursuing an official relationship with Taiwan. But also what I’d like to bring into the conversation is that Somaliland’s relationship or pursuit of relationship with Taiwan was not only by itself, you know, and one kind of strategy. In many sense, this is the conversation that we had in many official, particularly the previous administration, the policy towards having an official relationship with Taiwan was a means to an end itself.
So it came the decision to have pursue an official relationship in Taiwan. There is a couple of precedents that we can mention. First of all, the adaptation by US Congress, the Taipei Act, which encouraged other states to pursue an official relationship, but also to maintain those who have a relationship with Taiwan.
So Somaliland have so an opportunity, you know, to use Taiwan, which have a very strong support with the US government, particularly in the capital hill. Somaliland was, you know, using as a ways or as a means to bring the issue to Washington. That’s one sense or one part of the argument.
Another thing was my colleague Mustafa have mentioned earlier, Somaliland was, you know, it finds itself in a hard and very delicate situation. Yes, China is a security member and feet to hold it. But at the same time, there wasn’t that much to risk that was happening in at that time with Somaliland was entertained or was, you know, contemplated the decision with Taiwan.
You know, you have Somaliland president visiting in China back in 2010. There was a decision. It’s not decision, but a talk is that Chinese might involve, you know, investing forces, particularly in Berbera, especially early in 2010 and beyond that.
But none of that have materialized. So Somaliland was like, maybe there will be some risk down the line, but that risk, we can mitigate by, you know, getting closer to the Washington and getting some sort of accommodation from there, which didn’t happen. And as soon, you know, the relationship have happened, we had the COVID-19 and the pandemic, which, you know, have affected the relationship from the start.
But also we had the idea that Taiwan has been absent from Horn of Africa more than 60 years. So it needs a time and space to find a common ground or trying to understand the dynamics that’s happening in the region. And the same thing can be said Somaliland, which does not have that much, you know, inside understanding in terms of dynamics between China and Taiwan.
MUSTAFA AHMAD: Mustafa, do you have any thoughts on this? Yeah, just wanted to add a point that came out with the conversations we had with government officials and diplomats in Somaliland, which is basically Somaliland tried and approached China government for more investments. And when it comes to relations, China is obviously interested to engage with Mogadishu, with the central government.
So by default, things were not working for Somaliland. And there was this option and idea thinking we can’t do nothing. There’s no option.
We’re not part of any of the platforms, international platforms. Somalia is sitting on the platforms and making sure it gets everything through its channels. So it came out from this thinking.
And at the same time, as I mentioned, it was a means to an end. So the end was thinking like will attract the United States. This is something in my view, there’s nothing static in diplomatic relations.
Things change as Somalia, China changed. So Somaliland is now betting on this with the United States. And I wonder if this doesn’t come through what Somaliland expects.
How will things affect, particularly with Taiwan? Is Taiwan going to be the ally with Somaliland? And again, as I mentioned, the idea of mutual misunderstanding also happened.
Somaliland had no diplomatic relations with any of the Asian countries in China and Taiwan. Taiwan had no presence in East Africa. So that bit of like slow down, you know, things and try to understand where each other is coming from and things to move slowly.
I think there’s a lot of moving pieces here and there’s no single explanation of what’s where and why. And I think also at the same time, there’s no Somaliland president who visited Taiwan. So it’s only a ministerial level relations.
And one of the things, one of the issues that we learned from the conferences we had with the government, Hargeisa slowed down this momentum to make it president to president level. Because in an attempt not to antagonize China further, the relations are already, and the office is already absurdly jean very much. So there’s a lot of dynamic and nuance there as well.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Sacad, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the kind of methods that Somaliland has used to reach out to the United States. So, you know, obviously the United States and Washington, D.C. particularly is a very dense, there’s a very dense competition between different kind of like foreign actors trying to get U.S. attention. And Somaliland has been particularly over a very short, relatively short time has become quite prominent, you know, over that time.
So, and we’ve seen these kind of high profile trips by very kind of prominent Republicans going to Somaliland. So I was wondering, how did Somaliland manage to get this amount of like U.S. attention so quickly?
SACAD MUHUMED: For Somaliland, U.S. was part of the equation when they pursue an international recognition or breaking the diplomatic assertion that it has been for the past more than three decades. One of them was many people recall or understand, especially in Somaliland decision makers, the role that United States have been playing in terms of the case of South Sudan, that’s particularly in the Horn of Africa or the decision of the United States to recognize Kosovo. So there is this understanding that when it comes to self-determination or there is some sum of help that they may get from the Washington.
But one way that Somaliland have used in terms of their engagement with U.S. was the emphasis of Somaliland democratic, you know, credibility and success that they have been practicing since 2002. But lately, there was this understanding or appreciation that much of United States policy in Horn of Africa and particularly in Somalia was securities and tech. And with that, by, you know, capitalizing or by bringing the issue of the realty and the strategic location that Somaliland situates can be part of the calculation that United States might use as an access point when it comes to their pursuit of security policy pursuing the Horn of Africa, which can explain the vicissitudes of AFRICOM delegations who have been lately since 2002 have been visiting and other DOD members. But also added to that, Taiwan, as we mentioned earlier on, was a means to an end, which Somaliland have felt the close relationship that or the support that Taiwan enjoys in Washington was something that Somaliland can also explore and capitalize in terms of creating multiple interests that relate to democratic and governance credibility that Somaliland present compared to Somalia, but also the strategic position that Somaliland locates, which, you know, another reason that Somaliland want to get a recognition because no one have the ways to deal with Somaliland because it’s not, you know, it’s a sovereignty in equation.
Pretty much, that’s some of the ways that Somaliland have used it. You know, the governance issue and lately the security issue.
ERIC OLANDER: Mustafa, I’d like to close our conversation with you. My personal view is that I think Donald Trump is going to recognize Somaliland. I think that a lot of what comes out of the Heritage Foundation so far has turned into actual policy.
There is the bonus of sticking it to China, which is very popular in Washington these days. I guess though my question is, are you going to be, you know, the expression in the United States, the dog that caught the car? You know, the dog chases the car, finally catches the car, doesn’t know what to do once he’s got it.
You’ve got an administration now that has been very articulate in its disdain for Africa. They want to cut back the diplomatic presence. They’ve cut USAID, which has had devastating effects across many parts of Africa.
Looks like they’re going to try and cut their contribution to the African Development Bank. That’s in the upcoming budget proposal from the White House. Not a lot of enthusiasm in the White House for Africa.
So you get recognition from the United States and at the end of the day, they may not put an embassy in Hargeisa. They may not put an ambassador there. It may be a hollow victory at the end of the day and you will have sacrificed again some of your other potential avenues that you could have gone down to get diplomatic recognition from the UN and others because of the choices on Taiwan.
So I guess looking forward, what’s your forecast for what’s going to happen in the next six to 12 months?
MUSTAFA AHMAD: I think essentially if that goes through, and there’s a lot of speculation what’s happening, what’s going to happen, but I think if that happens, Washington goes for Somaliland’s recognition. I think for Somalia, it’s a big win in terms of we attained this. So domestically, it’s something that serves political goal achieved.
But at the same time, it gives allies, primarily countries in the Gulf, who Somaliland also seeks to have a more solid partnership with, a direct engagement with. So you’re not only looking for the United States, again, it’s a broader ambition.
ERIC OLANDER: And specifically when you say the Gulf, we’re talking the United Arab Emirates, that DP World has a port in Hargeisa, that’s the big player for you, right?
MUSTAFA AHMAD: Exactly, exactly. And I think that’s a very significant thing because many of the issues Somaliland faced is the issue of recognition, trying to seek support in terms of infrastructure. Countries would say, but we don’t have a bilateral relationship.
So it would remove, as I mentioned, that idea that we can talk to Somaliland. But you have the United States already up in that conversation. I think that’s pretty much the important thing.
Also, the other issue is, and the people you talked to in the government also would say, Somalia lives in a very turbulent region, and there’s a very important need to have a security assistance, whether it’s an intelligence or upgrade security capabilities. That’s something the larger comes with the offering, for example, the security presence of the US in Iberia, that will come. So there’s a lot of uncertain issues when it comes to recognition.
But one thing is that it would break the isolation, it would normalize and would give a precedence for other countries to engage. Again, this is a lot to consider. Countries in the Horn of Africa have a good relationship with China, so Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya as well.
So how would this place Somaliland in an broader geopolitical dynamics?
ERIC OLANDER: So there’s a lot to think of. Oh, it’s a lot to think of. And you guys have laid it out for us to show that this is one of the most fascinating regions in the world and one of the most fascinating diplomatic questions in the world and geopolitical challenges that are faced that are really fascinating.
Thank you both for taking the time to walk us through this and explain it all to us. Zakhaib Mohammed and Mustafa Ahmad are both researchers based in Hargeisa who follow Somaliland geopolitics and the Horn of Africa. And also, I want to call attention to a wonderful article that Mustafa wrote that we published on our website earlier this year, A Tale of Two Recognized and Unrecognized Republics.
I’ll put that in the show notes. Very worthwhile reading as well. So Zakhaib and Mustafa, thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you for having us.
SACAD MUHUMED: Happy to be here.
ERIC OLANDER: Thank you. It’s absolutely fascinating. This is the most nuanced conversation that I think we’ve ever had on Somaliland.
One other idea that I want to put out there. This was raised in our chat with the guys after our conversation. And this is something I didn’t think of.
But it’s possible that Taiwan, at the end of the day, just like with Donald Trump, could be a bargaining chip. So rather than something that the Somaliland government has sacrificed in terms of aligning with Taiwan against China, they could eventually open conversations with the Chinese and say, we will give up our diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but you have to give us something in return. This, of course, is the same rhetoric that Donald Trump has been using in terms of a deal with China.
He has hinted many times that he’s not committed to Taiwan security and to the relationship with Taiwan, and that the relationship with Xi is more important. But there is that scenario as well. And when Mustafa said that it was not a presidential visit to Taiwan, that indicated that maybe there’s some hesitations in Hargeisa as well.
Just very interesting geopolitics that are going on here.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Yeah, really interesting. And I mean, it’s also all of the calculations around a port and possible US versus non-US interests there and so on. It’s such a kind of complicated situation in an extremely complicated part of the world.
ERIC OLANDER: Yeah. And the US is, of course, center in all of this. And it’ll be interesting because the right wing in the US and the Heritage Foundation have been extraordinarily effective in getting policies through the Trump administration.
And so I kind of think it’s going to happen. I don’t know what it will actually produce at the end of the day, but because Somaliland is so commercially focused, it may align with the new priorities of the Trump administration. I want to circle back to our discussion at the the US-Africa Leaders Summit, because in the same Africa Report article, where they interviewed the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and he also outlined a new six-point plan for US engagement strategy for Africa.
And I want to get your take on this. So let me just read through some of the six points. And this is going to be how they shape US engagement with the continent.
US trade with Africa accounts for less than 1% of total US trade globally. So not an important trading partner, but they apparently do want to make it more. Let me read some of these things.
They want to, number one, make commercial diplomacy the core focus of US-Africa engagement. All US ambassadors in Africa will be evaluated on how effectively they advocate for American businesses and the number of deals they facilitate. Work with African government partners in priority countries to implement the top five market reforms identified by the private sector, including tariff and non-tariff barriers.
Okay, my guess is the private sector is going to say we don’t want to pay taxes, and we don’t want labor, and we also don’t want environmental controls. That’s my guess what the private sector would say. Implement key sustainable infrastructure projects in priority countries, unlocking private capital.
The unlocking private capital is the operative word there. That means that the United States is not going to try and compete with the Chinese in a Belt and Road fashion like they did with PGII and with Global Gateway and things like that. Have the State Department lead more commercial diplomacy trips, such as the current visit to Cote d’Ivoire by the Assistant Secretary.
Connect a greater share of the 300,000 export oriented US businesses to the African continent, whatever. Reform US trade promotion initiatives to take on greater risk and more quickly and efficiently support American businesses. And this is a quote that I’d like to give you from Troy Fitrell, again the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.
US government resources are often too slow, too fragmented, and too siloed to compete effectively with global competitors like China. I’m here to tell you this changes now. This changes now, by the way, was in bold.
So that is where we are with United States policy towards Africa. What’s very funny to me reading that is that the new United States policy towards Africa sounds a lot like the old Chinese policy towards Africa. No more talking about human rights.
No more sending jazz bands for cultural exchanges. No more putting up LGBTQ plus flags on the embassies. This is about deals and business and commerce and trade.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Yeah, very interesting. It is also revealing for me how in one of the kind of like transcripts that I was reading, they were saying, you know, kind of they’re interested in commercial, you know, development focused infrastructure, and they want to identify the first one soon. And it was quite interesting for me, like considering the hundreds of hours it feels to me of conversation we’ve had about the Lubito corridor, you know, over the last few years, that clearly, Lubito clearly doesn’t count as this kind of development focused, you know, kind of infrastructure.
So it then it made me wonder where Lubito is now, whether it’s kind of like high and dry now, or whether this will be a way of making that work in the new dispensation. Overall, the linking of diplomacy and commercial kind of interests is an interesting move. I’d want to see how it works.
You know, I’d want to see kind of like, you know, how that economic diplomacy actually works, like how they, for example, overcome the very well documented, you know, risk aversion that keeps the most kind of US firms out of Africa. The ones that have a risk appetite to work in Africa are probably already in Africa, you know, so the rest of them seem to not be that enthusiastic. So I wonder how that is actually going to work.
ERIC OLANDER: That’s a good point. Because there’s a real misalignment between the United States and African countries, in the sense that the bulk of African exports are raw materials extractives. The United States doesn’t really have a manufacturing sector to process and to take on those extractives.
China does. The United States is a tech and services economy, as much as Donald Trump and J.D. Vance don’t want to acknowledge that. And the problem is, is that there’s not a huge market for the very expensive McKinsey, KPMG, Deloitte services that the United States sells and makes an enormous amount of money for.
African consumers are not poised to spend $1,500 on an iPhone, the same way that they’re going to spend a few hundred dollars on the top end transcend phones. And so I don’t know what the expectations are. There was also some rhetoric in this article about how Africans need to buy more from the United States, the same rhetoric of narrowing the trade deficits.
And the problem is, the African consumer isn’t well positioned to buy a lot of American products that are typically at the higher end of the market. And so I don’t know what they expect to get out of this. And again, I don’t know.
I mean, this is a little bit of, I’m lost right now, I’ll be honest with you. However, I do think that this new focus may bode well for AGOA. It may bode well for the politics of keeping the trade relationship going.
And African policymakers may say, listen, if this is what you want to do, you need to keep AGOA going. And so this might be a lifeline for the free trade agreement that stands between Africa and the United States, who knows. And then maybe what they’ll do is they’ll pick off country by country, like South Africa, you’re gone from AGOA, I think that’s pretty clear.
And now maybe Kenya may be on the block as well.
COBUS VAN STADEN: So in relationship to the US services, it was very funny in one of the readouts for trial was saying that, you know, kind of like calling on African stakeholders that, you know, they should buy more kind of US services, and also saying that, well, you know, kind of, they should also find ways of paying for more expensive US services, because they’re so much better. So it’s like, okay, like, you know, going to get ready to be gouged, we’re going to gouge you is basically the kind of the message, you know, which is, you know, Africans being notoriously price sensitive, you know, kind of, that’s probably not the way of getting them, getting them over.
ERIC OLANDER
And, and also letting the private sector set the agenda for the ambassadors, I think is a disastrous idea. And remember, there’s no more Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that’s being enforced. So I think between corruption and the priorities of the private sector are not necessarily aligned with the priorities of the public sector.
And so environmental concerns, labor concerns, transparency issues, those are all things that the private sector would like to keep as laissez-faire as possible. So without public pressure coming from the government, I think that the the American mining companies, well, there aren’t really aren’t that many, but there are a few now, would much prefer to operate like the Chinese in secrecy and not have to pay the same cost for environmental and labor, you know, that the Europeans or others do.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Yeah, I mean, the Chinese themselves have, you know, obviously put out successive new sets of standards, you know, so it’s like around these issues, particularly, you know, so so there’s more pressure on Chinese companies from the Chinese government now.
ERIC OLANDER: But there’s no enforcement mechanism, though. But take those with a grain of salt, because there’s no enforcement mechanism of a lot of these things that come out of China for what they want their overseas businesses to do. It’s a little bit of a load of BS, because they won’t necessarily show you how they’re going to enforce.
And then if somebody is arrested or detained or fined for violating those rules, we don’t see on the back end, what kind of legal process they go through in China. So I think a little bit of a grain of salt is required for that. Yeah, indeed, indeed.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Two interesting kind of points from the African side on this like today, and this actually showed up in our daily newsletter today. Like what one is that the the African Export-Import Bank put out this interesting statement where they basically said, yeah, they’re not very bothered by the trade war, like they really kind of debunked the idea that Africa is going to suffer very, very much under the US trade war, because the flip side of the thing that you were pointing out in that that Vitral was pointing out that, you know, you know, Africa makes up a very small percentage of US total trade, but they were also pointing out that the US makes up less than 5% of Africa’s total trade. So and countries like the UAE makes up a much bigger part.
So they were saying, we’ve already diversified our market. So we’re actually not as exposed to the US. So we don’t care.
The other thing that’s also very interesting that’s coming out is Tanzania put out a new mining policy, which really explicitly focuses on critical and rare earth minerals, which they have a lot of, and they’re not kind of like putting in a new full strategy to explore, they targeted like 40 different minerals. And one of the things that they’re requiring is that any medium to large size investment won’t get approval from the Tanzanian government if it doesn’t include very robust local value addition, including things like refining. It’s gonna be interesting.
ERIC OLANDER: Oh, okay. So we Okay, this, my head is about to explode when we talk about this. So we just published a fantastic column by Obert Bore, our critical minerals resource editor.
And he was just at a conference in Paris by the OECD, where they were saying the same thing, value addition, beneficiation, all this other stuff. It’s absurd. It is absurd, because they don’t mention you can feel my blood pressure.
Cobus, why are you doing this to me, my wife’s gonna kill you. Here’s the problem. Because in that conversation about moving up the value chain, you have to take into account that you are running head on against the Chinese, who are subsidizing their water, subsidizing their electricity, have economies of scale and processing that are vastly bigger.
And so the Tanzanians don’t have a monopoly on these minerals that are at 10, 15 year lows in terms of prices. So mining company X comes to Tanzania and says, we’d like to mine there. And they say, well, you must do value addition here and process here.
And they go, okay, because that’s gonna be more expensive than if I go somewhere else and ship it to China. The lack of discussing the China price in these discussions is absurd. And nobody should take any of these conversations seriously, unless you hear a clear pathway for how these governments and how these countries are going to compete with the China price on processing.
And they seem to ignore it. At this OED seminar that Obert went to, the China question was not raised once, okay? Yeah.
How is that possible when China is the dominant player, not only by the way, in processing, but the technology that enables the processing and for rare earths, by the way, they have export controls on that technology. So where are the Tanzanians going to get that technology if the Chinese won’t sell it to them? Where are they going to get the expertise to run that equipment?
These are these conferences where everybody talks in a vacuum just to each other. And there’s nobody from the mining industry. There’s nobody from China.
There’s nobody saying, excuse me, the Chinese are charging 6.25 a pound. You want to charge 9.25 a pound for processing. How is that going to work?
And what people don’t fully appreciate is how unsentimental Glencore is, or Freeport-McMoran. They don’t give a crap about Tanzania. They don’t give a crap about development.
They are going to go where the cheapest price is, period, full stop. And I just, so yeah, you got me all flustered here. I mean, because I’m just tired of this conversation that happens in a vacuum.
Yes, you’d like to move up the value chain, but it’s ridiculous.
COBUS VAN STADEN: I think you’re fully correct. I think you’re fully correct. I think that conversation in Africa is full 15 years behind the times.
And I think though, two just kind of complicating points. One is that I don’t think, well, going to value addition doesn’t necessarily mean refining. There are other ways of doing value addition.
What the Tanzanians have in mind would be interesting. The other thing is, is that Tanzania is quite an innovative kind of policymaking country in Africa, right? So in some ways they lead some thinking.
And so if this becomes more of a kind of a generalized kind of approach, particularly in the context of the AFCFDA, then we may start seeing more action, right? Kind of like a round…
ERIC OLANDER: And that’s what Obert was saying. And that’s exactly what Obert was saying, is that if there’s regionalism here, that is countries with lots of water, partner with countries with lots of electricity, partner with countries with lots of minerals, and they work together. The problem is, is that African countries do not show a lot of precedent for this kind of cooperation and collaboration.
Obert also pointed out that when he was at the OECD, you had all of these mining ministers there, and each one spoke as individuals, never spoke as regional partners. And so just very quickly, before we go, I want to circle back to the Senate Foreign Relations hearing that took place in Washington this week. So Joshua Miservy, who is our friend at the Hudson Institute, he testified, and also Michelle Gavin, who’s at the Council on Foreign Relations.
She is really well known as one of the top Africa policy analysts in the United States. She’s a former US ambassador to Botswana. And I would say she’s really…
I mean, when you think about the top tier of Africa’s policy analysts and thinkers about US engagement on the continent, she always comes up, and she’s a very important person to follow in terms of her work. Kobi, she made a remark about China’s close relationship with ruling parties, and I wanted to get your take on what she said. So let’s take a listen to Michelle Gavin from the Council on Foreign Relations.
SOUNDBITE: This relationship between the CCP and these dominant ruling parties on the continent is actually ultimately going to be a disadvantage for China, because the sort of discourse about why these ruling parties should be in charge tends to link back to liberation, and most African societies skew very young. These are populations that don’t remember pre-liberation days and are wondering what their government has done for them lately. It would be nice to restore some of the democracy and governance work that the US did, NDI and IRI, that help really draw a clear line between party and state, which is also important for combating corruption, which if you look at Afrobarometer polling is at the very top of African priority lists.
So we can align ourselves with these populations that way.
ERIC OLANDER: Okay. I have a lot to say on this, but I want to hear from you first.
COBUS VAN STADEN: I think just in relation to these kind of party relations to the 13th China, I don’t necessarily see that, because China doesn’t only have relationships with ruling parties. They put in so much effort into this that they craft relationships with all of the different parties, right, all of the major ones. So one sees that in parts of Africa where there’s been, you know, a big election with a big kind of handover, China seamlessly handed over to the new ruler.
So I don’t think that necessarily does it. Yeah, you know, kind of like, I do think that she may be underestimating the kind of cultural longevity of liberation narratives in Africa. That is a cross-generational thing.
Even as kind of like alienated as young Africans from these kind of old, particularly from these old parties, it doesn’t necessarily translate into a one-to-one support for these old parties simply because they were liberationists. But it also doesn’t mean that they fully forgot, right? Kind of like that liberation narrative remains in many African countries one of the most compelling kind of like narratives of statehood, right?
So it frequently, it plays out more complicatedly, I think.
ERIC OLANDER: So I watched a large part of this hearing. And again, I’ll be honest with you, I’m having a hard time understanding politics in the United States today. I mean, it’s very, it’s very tough.
But on Capitol Hill and both the senators and also the participants are talking as if Donald Trump and what’s happened hasn’t happened. They’re talking about corruption. I mean, Donald Trump is literally trying to get a $400 million plane.
Donald Trump has basically banked a billion dollars a month is what people are estimating in terms of going into the family. And this idea of the fusing of the party and the state, I mean, this is exactly what’s happened in the United States that the family, the Trump family and the state have merged into one. And Trump is MAGA.
And this idea of democracy promotion in Africa, when in fact, we see the United States rolling back on this, I mean, I feel like we’re getting lectured on good governance by Robert Mugabe. I just, I’m really, I mean, I’m just having a hard time to, where does the credibility from someone like Michelle Gavin come from now to be talking about democracy and corruption without any humility, that that is exactly what’s happening on a grand scale in the United States of America today. And I’m not saying this to be anti-American.
I mean, people accuse me of this. That’s not fair. This is empirical fact.
Okay. I mean, like he’s got a meme coin out there cashing in that’s completely outside of government control. But yet you hear when they talk about China and they talk about the rollback of democracy and how they’re supporting autocratic regimes, they’re not paying attention that the week they were saying that he is in the Saudi kingdom.
I mean, it’s just, it’s surreal to try and get your head around the discourse of what they’re saying as if we’re in 1987 America and nothing, don’t look at what’s happened, the house burning down behind me, just focus on what I’m saying. And it just, I don’t know. I’m, I’m confused.
I’ll be honest with you. I’m very confused.
COBUS VAN STADEN: Yeah. Me too. Like, and that is a vibe I’m getting out of US political discourse quite frequently, you know, and particularly actually on the democratic side, you know, there seems to be this kind of almost a magical thinking.
I think, you know, kind of that we were still in the Obama era.
ERIC OLANDER: That’s what, that’s exactly it. We’re still in the Obama era and everything is, or the Biden era and everything is the way it was. And there’s no acknowledgement that so much has changed.
And so anyway, so we went a little bit longer today. We had to, there was so much this week that was going on. I mean, it just, again, we have busy weeks and we have quieter weeks.
This week was a busy week and it looks like next week is going to be the same way as well. Listen, we’d love for you to check out all the great work that Cobus is talking about when he mentions the newsletter and the site. You can’t believe the quantity of content that we are now publishing.
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Cobus and I will be back again next week with another edition of the China in Africa podcast. Thank you so much for listening and for watching.
