This week’s G20 summit wrapped up much the same way previous G20 gatherings have in recent years, with a weak final communiqué and lots of discord among the group’s members. But this year’s summit in Rio de Janeiro was nonetheless notable as it marked the African Union’s debut as an official member of the body.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was also a stand-out at the summit, where he took a number of veiled shots at the United States in his keynote address as he sought to bolster China’s self-appointed role as spokesperson for the Global South.
This week, Eric, Géraud, and Cobus discuss Xi’s speech and whether African representatives should have been more outspoken now that they have a seat at the G20 table.
Show Notes:
- Reuters: China’s Xi announces steps to support ‘Global South’ at G20 summit by Eduardo Baptista
- The Conversation: Brazilian presidency of the G20 is likely to end with limited results by Vinícius Rodrigues Vieira
- Chatham House: What the African Union’s G20 membership means for Africa
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 today on our week-in-review program, I’m thrilled to have back on the show, CGSP’s Africa Editor, Geraud Neema, joining us from the beautiful island of Mauritius, and our managing editor, Cobus van Staden, joining us from Cape Town, South Africa, where it’s extraordinarily windy today. So, you may hear a little bit of noise in the background. A good evening to both of you.
Cobus van Staden: Good evening.
Geraud Neema: Good evening.
Eric: Okay, gentlemen, we’re at the end of the week. A very exciting week in international diplomacy, given the fact that the G20 met this week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On Monday and Tuesday, Brazilian President Lula, Inácio Lula da Silva hosted leaders from 19 countries along with representatives of the European Union. And for the very first time, the African Union was there as well. Altogether, this group accounts for two-thirds of the world’s population, 85% of global GDP, and it’s one of the reasons that there’s a lot of hope that the G20 is going to be the body that can rally international consensus around some of the critical issues that we’re facing today.
People don’t have a lot of faith in the G7. S. Jaishankar, the external affairs minister from India really blasted the G7 as this kind of exclusive club, and so everybody’s looking to the G20. Now, on the agenda this year was the eradication of hunger around the world and the launch of Brazil’s Global Alliance against Hunger. Lots of people talked about hunger, but nothing really came out of the summit. The final communique was rather bland as these are want to be. Year after year, there’s a lot of hope that the G20 is going to be something that’s going to do something productive for the global south in particular, but nothing really seems to happen. Geraud, I’d like to start with you because this was the first year that the African Union Commission participated as a full member of the G20. The a AU Commission issued a statement that its representatives participated in talks over, and let me just issue the four points that they prioritized, advancing social inclusion, not entirely sure what that means; fighting hunger and poverty, facilitating sustainable energy transitions, and reforming global governance institutions. What was your take on the African Union’s debut on the world stage at the G20?
Geraud: First of all, we have to applaud that finally the African Union is represented, even though I think that is much more cosmetic than anything else, much more representative than substantial. And I know that many might be angry about the comment I’m making right now, but yes, I do believe that’s the case. I also believe that debut was quite shy. And it’s understandable because given how Africa Union works, given the Africa Union Commission is without… an organization that does not really have real power, real political power to speak for African countries, I think it was a bit of difficult for the African Union to start with strong agenda, with strong topic on the table, and also to take strong statements, strong approach into that. So, I think it was really quite shy. The new kids in the block trying to learn the ropes and trying to build alliance, trying to know how to follow.
And mind you, you have South Africa sitting on the table as well. Now, how do you manage that? Having one country with South Africa being there, having Africa Union being there, how do you manage all those dynamics that’s happening on the table? I do believe that it was a quite complex and difficult approach for the African Union to maneuver. I’m really quite curious to know how the African Union prepared at how countries’ members really… did they really do something substantial in a way that the African Union representation will be substantial, not only just for representation, not only for show? That I’m not really quite sure. So when I look at the different point of discussion, yeah, I’d say very Africa centered and very on par with what we are talking about right now, energy transition, angers, and all those issues.
So, yes. But the question would be, what did they get out of it? Did they really push to obtain something substantial, results and actions? And you mentioned about anger. Did we talked about anger but really without having anything really on the table? When we see how the G20 ended up with a bit of the fuss, even there, it was quite difficult for African Union to really get anything done, really.
Eric: Cobus, it was a very subtle debut for the African Union. Not a big presence as Geraud said. Not lots of huffing and puffing. But we live in an era of politics of huffing and puffing. This is an era of contentious politics — Ukraine, Gaza, Trump, Xi Jinping being there, the Chinese, all of it. And if the African Union wants to assert itself, it’s going to have to speak up. I guess I was surprised that when the climate talks at the G20 this week, more or less collapsed at one point, this would, to me in the era of this kind of contentious politics, would’ve been the moment for the African Union not to leverage power as Geraud pointed out, the African Union doesn’t have a lot of power by design of its member states, but it has moral power.
And this would’ve been a moment when the representatives from the AU and the AU Commission could have convened a press conference and said, “This is unacceptable that these climate talks fell apart. You guys caused this problem, get back in there and solve it.” That wouldn’t have required power in terms of raw absolute power. That is a moral power that Africa has to be able to assert itself as the primary victim of climate change and the least among those responsible for perpetrating it. But it didn’t do any of that. And I just wonder if it’s going to take this more reserved approach in this new contentious era of great power politics. Will the African Union ever be heard?
Cobus: I mean, I share your concern, but at the same time, that would be a very big swing for the first time they’re included.
Eric: Yeah, why not? I mean, that’s where you got to go. Do you know what I mean? I even sense in you this hesitation like this is where we are today in politics.
Cobus: Yes. No, definitely. Definitely. And I mean, I think that that was complicated by the fact that, in the first place, COP29 is happening at the same time as the G20, right? So, the G20 wasn’t alone in talking about climate. It was one of two very like huge complicated parallel negotiations. In that context, I think the G20 did achieve one thing, which was to move closer to shared language on what the contributions are supposed to be from large developing countries, which is a big fight at COP29 at the same time. And it’s interesting there’s been some splits in the global South coalition at COP29 with Nigerian representatives actually calling for China and India to occupy some kind of middle space where they also make contributions.
What they achieved at the G20 was to clarify obligations versus voluntary contributions, which seems like very, very abstruse legal terms. But it translates into very big differences in terms of what different countries will contribute. The other thing that the African Union did achieve was they were part of a new fund or a new set of institutions and funded institutions that’s aimed at facilitating access to scientific achievement and to do more targeted research. And that has actually been set up by the African Union, South Africa and China and Brazil. So that is an actual achievement. The thing that I would look forward to is some, some of the subsequent G20 meetings would be some of like really well-developed African Union talking points to get more attention.
A major one is illicit financial flows. And there we will see the real moral weight of the African union because the people they’ll be up against will be mostly G7 governments because when we’re talking about illicit financial flows, we’re not talking only about corruption, we’re talking mostly about tax avoidance by large transnational companies. So, there, I’d look to that as an interesting development for the next G20 conference or G20 meeting, which I think is going to be in South Africa. I think that will be the more natural moment for the AU to take on a much more muscular position. I think it may be a tall order on their very first summit.
Eric: Well, let’s just pick it up there, because the highlight for Africa at this year’s G20 was in fact the handover from President Lula to your president, Cobus, Cyril Ramaphosa. And Ramaphosa gave a five-minute speech announcing the priorities for the next G20 that’s going to happen when South Africa takes over next year, and he’s going to promote inclusive economic growth addressing food security, leveraging artificial intelligence and innovation for sustainable development. Those are going to be his main priorities for the coming year in the G20. Geraud, when you hear that coming from Ramaphosa, do you think those should be the priorities of an African leader when they are now in charge of one of the world’s most important multilateral forums?
Geraud: I think it’s trying to be centered around what would be current Africa issues, but at the same time being forward-looking in a sense where you don’t want to send to those issues on what Africa is, on what we want, on what’s the current issues of Africa because those issues are “backward,” and those issues are… they’re stereotypical to Africa. He wants to bring those issues, the forward-looking future issues in a way that despite the problem that we do have right now, we want the kind of issue, we want to address those kind of issue that’s going to take us to the next step of development, in the next step of evolution. That’s why talking for example, talking about AI, which for many African country will make no sense whatsoever, Like, why are you talking about AI in Africa?
I understand that it’s a new topic. Countries like China, the U.S., the United Nations are trying to make sense of it, even try to regulate it, what can happen. But in Africa, we are still far behind in that priority. But you talking about that doesn’t really make sense to us. But I will understand that South Africa being the most developed country in Africa, really trying as well, to also take Africa to say, “We’re not going to be stuck in those spots of those old issues that are ours. Let’s try to move forward to the issues that can take us into the future. At the same time, we’re going to try to address our current issues, but our current issues don’t need to be at the central point of what G20 can be for the future for us.”
Eric: I guess, Cobus, the thing that surprised me the most when Ramaphosa laid out his priorities is that there wasn’t much talk about debt relief. And the G20 used to be, remember, back during the pandemic, the main forum to discuss debt relief. And that’s where, of course, the debt sustainability initiative came out of. The common framework came out of the G20, both of them largely ineffective, unsuccessful initiatives, for the most part. I think we can call those efforts a failure. Never was a priority of the G7 countries to really address debt relief in the G20. You remember during the pandemic era when the debt issues were most concerning for the G20, they literally copied and pasted a lot of the language over from one year to the next, and from one meeting to the next. This year, very low priority. But I was surprised that Ramaphosa didn’t make debt relief a bigger issue because not only is it a problem in many African countries, across the global south, we’re looking at trillions of dollars of debt now that is going to come due and is weighing down developing countries. Surprising to me. What’s your thought on that?
Cobus: Yes, it is interesting. I mean, it’s a really important continental issue, but here we are now in the politics between South Africa being a G20 member and the African Union now also being a G20 member. So, dividing the continental issues and trying to work out the politics of hen South Africa gets to speak for Africa and when they’re not supposed to, that quite underlies some of that issue. It’s a big issue, yeah.
Eric: Which is a very sensitive issue among African countries. It’s a super-sensitive issue that a lot of African countries do not like the fact that South Africa is self-nominated as the spokesperson for the continent. And that, in fact, Geraud, that wrinkled the bricks a little bit between Ethiopia and Egypt as well.
Geraud: Yeah, I understand that. But I think that in international power, we don’t need only representation, we need substance. I understand that people would like equality representation and everything, but at some point, if you want to get things done, you’re going to have to have one big kid in the block, that kid that say, “I’m going to get things done.” And South Africa is in that position to do that. That’s why I believe that G20 under South Africa, with the Africa Union, I believe that next year, the next G20, you’re going to Africa Union being much more vocal because it’s going to be under South Africa G20. And I think South Africa was going to try to also make both itself and also Africa Union shine. I believe that people can complain why South Africa did that. Who else could have done that? At the end, who has the power, who has the leverage, who has the exposure, who has the resources? Which country has that resources really to do that? So if you don’t have that, instead of complaining, let’s find a way to work around that.
Cobus: I guess the only thing I’d add is that in the end, while certain African countries suffer disproportionately under the pressures of debt relief and how difficult it is to do debt restructuring at the moment, Zambia being obviously the most important one. Particularly, I mean, South Africa has a lot of issues, but that isn’t particularly South Africa’s issue right now. And there’s also I think the strategic avoidance, I guess, of painting debt problems as essentially an African problem when several of the countries in other parts of the world. And what really we need to talk about is the brokenness of the global development financing system. There, obviously, Africa really has a lot to say and needs to take a strong intellectual role. But at the same time, I think they may well be hesitant to paint this as an African problem, whereas what it actually is, is a global north problem.
Eric: Okay. Let’s shift now away from Africa and look at the major powers. I think it’s fair to say that this G20 summit was not America’s finest diplomatic outing. There were some rather embarrassing moments for our aged president here in the United States, Joe Biden was under a palm tree apparently when they did the family photo. And when they discovered that he was missing, I mean, I think he was just 10, 15 meters away, the U.S. State Department said that this was due to logistical issues, but he did not appear in the final family photo with all the other leaders. And what was very interesting is that once everybody, and if you watch the video of this, once all the leaders realized that he wasn’t there, people were screaming, “Hey, Biden’s over there.” They just said, “Eh, don’t worry.”
And they all kind of walked off stage. And I think that was, if you’re looking for a little bit of a metaphor for America’s place in the world today, that might have been it. Of course, everybody sees Joe Biden now as an authentically lame-duck president. There was a lot of talk about the incoming Trump administration. We’re going to get to that shortly. But the big player at this year’s G20 was, of course, Chinese President Xi Jinping. He was the heavy hitter that came. I think the value for Xi was less at the G20 and a lot on the sideline meetings that he had. That made a lot more news than his appearance at the G20. But let’s talk very quickly about what Xi said at the summit, and it does relate to Africa in some sense because Xi tried to bolster China’s credentials as a, if not the, or a leader of the global south.
I wish I had some sound. I couldn’t find his speech anywhere available to share with you. So I’ll have to read you a few of the quotes and I’d like to get both of your reaction. Xi said in his address, “China has always been a member of the global south, a reliable and long-term partner of developing countries, and an activist and a doer in support of global development.” Geraud, China is really pushing this role as a leader in the global south. It’s competing with India for that mantle in many respects. But do you think that other developing countries, particularly those from Africa, look at China as a global south country, as a developing country? Or do you see it more as one of the big, advanced industrial economies?
Geraud: I think they see China in this hybrid place where sometime it’s that industrial country and also the global south. The global south approach, I think, is much more ideological than anything else, not economically, because when you look from an economics perspective, when they visit China and when they go to New York, they go to Paris, they basically see, okay, China is already in that stage of development, but the reality is when you look at the data, it’s something else. And I think that beyond the data, it’s also much more ideological to see China as a global south because of China’s stance against the global north and powerful country, want represent the current establishment of the international politics, the international order that they all seek to reform now in the global south. So yes, from that regard, they see China as a global south because whether they like it or not, they’re going to see also China as an ally.
It is an objective ally. An ally that has much more power and leverage and leeway to be able to get something done in terms of multilateralism, in terms of change they want to see happen in the international system. So yes, I do believe that many countries in Africa would see China in that hybrid places depending on who they’re talking to and when they’re talking about. But overall, they’ll see China as a global south country because of the ideological purposes.
Eric: Do you think that rhetoric, Cobus, that Xi Jinping laid out as a member of the global south resonates with African countries?
Cobus: Yes, I think it does. In the first place, obviously, as we saw at COP29, I think some African countries do draw distinctions between developing countries at the size of China and India and increasingly Brazil and Indonesia, and the rest of the developing world. I think that makes sense. Obviously, these are outsized economies. What China does when it keeps talking about itself as a global south country is it makes a very, I think, powerful, it’s a very powerful gesture, I think, because unlike Japan and South Korea, China isn’t putting itself on the trajectory of having been poor in the past and now having faithfully entering the developed world, and now being able to think of themselves as just simply the same as France, for example, right?
That is an ideological gesture, but I think it’s a very powerful ideological gesture, and a very, very relevant one right at the moment. Because I think what China is implying there is that no one is becoming a developed country anymore. It’s impossible to become a developed country anymore. None of these large, rich developing countries are ever going to be Belgium-style fully developed countries simply because that category is so crowded out by the G7 that no one is able to join that category anymore. In that sense, I think what China’s doing is political, but it’s political with a very long horizon, knowing where they’re going to be for a long time and knowing where everyone else is going to be for a long time.
Geraud: I think, Cobus, you’re raising a point that’s very interesting to say that no one is going to get to that place of developed country, and thus the need for us today to reform the international system that has been stuck against all of us, not allowing us to get to that stage. And it’s really interesting because at the end, it’s really now carried a mantle of like we want to change, we want the reform. This is why basically we are also calling on those change to happen because the international system has been rigged against countries like us to be able to get to that level. And another element of ideological perspective is to say that, when you look at the FOCAC readout and everything, China’s modernization, the way they define modernization, which is for them is not westernization, you realize that it’s like, it’s also being able to reach the new developed stage that’s not the current developed stage. You see? I don’t know if you see what I mean.
It’s like being modernized, being industrialized without being what we’re up against today. And I think it’s very ideological and subtle the way China is approaching that question of global south and representation.
Cobus: Yeah, I agree. What I would add to that is that it implicitly then asks the question, why is the global order set up in a way where some of, like, when once a country somehow magically attains this developed status, then it gets to dictator to everyone else, right? Why is there this pecking order where somehow it’s natural for developed countries to, say, appoint the head of the IMF and the World Bank? And why does no one else get a say in especially considering that they are being affected much more by the choices made in those institutions?
Eric: Is that a rhetorical question or is that a legitimate question? Because money is power.
Cobus: I think that’s a question that China’s raising. I think that’s a question that China is asking.
Eric: China didn’t have any power on the world stage when it was a poor country, but now, today, as a major power, it has a lot more authority because it’s rich or richer.
Geraud: But when they ask about the IMF, yeah.
Cobus: It still doesn’t get to appoint the World Bank governor, right?
Geraud: Exactly. Exactly.
Eric: Well, those are legacy institutions, but Xi, in his speech, he laid out eight points of calls for reform. And so Geraud, I don’t know if you were channeling Xi Jinping thought on this one or if you read the speech very closely, but let me read three of the points that stood out to me the most. He wants to improve global economic governance, and this is a quote, he said, “As main creditors, international financial institutions and commercial creditors need to take part in debt reduction and suspension for developing countries.” Now, this is a line that the Chinese have been putting forward for the better part of a year now, saying that the multilateral development finance institutions, the World Bank, the IMF, any of these Bretton Woods institutions need to do more because they are among the primary creditors.
Again, a lot of people make the mistake that China is one of the major creditors in Africa, which it is, but it only accounts, today, for 11% of the debt on the continent. Eurobond and multilateral development bank financing and loans account for the significant majority of external debt on the continent. He also talked about improved financial governance, here’s another quote, “… to increase the voice and representation of developing countries.” There you go, Cobus. “The World Bank should carry out shareholding review and the International Monetary Fund should carry out a quota share realignment in line with the agreed timeframe and roadmap.” This is a very sensitive issue for the Chinese in particular because when they went to the Obama administration and said they wanted a shareholder review and they wanted a larger quota at the International Monetary Fund, I think it was the IMF, maybe it was the World Bank, they were turned away.
And they said no. And that’s what prompted the Chinese then to start the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. So that inequity speaks to, I think, to a lot of the frustrations, Cobus, you were talking about. And then finally, the last point then I’d like to get both of your takes on this — improve global trade governance. Now this one, this is the code for the United States that he’s talking about — “Oppose unilateralism and protectionism.” That is a direct reference to the United States and the sanctions and tariffs. “Restore the normal functioning of the dispute settlement mechanism as soon as possible at the World Trade Organization.” We’ll get onto the WTO in a second, but Geraud and Cobus, those are the calls that both of you are talking about that probably resonate very, very loudly among the African delegations. That’s good politics for the Chinese, there’s no doubt about that. Cobus, let’s start with you and then, Geraud, I’d like to get your reaction.
Cobus: I think these remarks would get a lot of sympathy, I think, in Africa. It was notable that he foregrounded international development, which isn’t necessarily a given in a G20 context. And the G20 isn’t necessarily that interested in poor countries no matter what they say. And so it was interesting, for example, dovetailing with Brazil’s anti-hunger stuff, he was also voicing support for G20 anti-poverty initiatives, which include also forms of knowledge transfer as part of relocating research to the global south. So, in a lot of ways, a lot of what he was saying I think was resonating with people in parts of Africa that are very conscious of structural exclusion from these decision-making structures. So, yeah, I do think it resonated.
Geraud: Oh, yes, I share the same views with Cobus, and I can feel and see how the African Union delegation will be like, yes, China is talking for us. And it’s even answering the question that you’re asking if China can really proclaim itself, self-proclaim as leader of the global south, when you see the point that you mentioned, yes, I think it has that “legitimacy” to say, I’m the leader of the global south, I call for reform and everything. And he managed to put also his own agenda with the U.S. in that point. But yes, I think it resonates a lot with African countries that are also hoping those changes to happen, hoping those reforms to happen. Just to get back to the first questions, Africa Union could have said much more, could have expressed much more and could have tried to raise some new points that was really much aligned with Africa with African interest and with African situation, which was not the case.
But at the end, China tried to pick up, but let’s not forget that China somehow has also a certain part of responsibility, structural responsibility to a certain imbalance that we see, especially in trades between China and Africa in international trades. So yeah, those are the things that needs also to be addressed at some point.
Eric: Yeah, well, what she did not talk about is the fact that in trade, that China’s very distorted trade with Africa is contributing to a lot of the problems too. I mean, we have to be honest because we just saw the new Kenyan trade numbers come out and imports are surging of Chinese products, and exports are not going up in anywhere near as much. And so the current trade system certainly benefits a country like China and its ability to pump out enormous amounts of goods for countries that make it difficult for them to compete, given the fact that they can’t beat that China price. So, it’s cheaper to import products from China than it is to make them in a place like Kenya. And that results in these huge trade deficits, which definitely puts pressures on the economy. Certainly, the Chinese are not going to advocate for anything that’s going to hamper that trade.
They’re going to focus their efforts a lot on the United States in particular and the tariffs that are coming down. One of the other issues that Xi brought up was the question of modernization. And I know this is a big topic for you, Cobus, because this is obviously a concern for many developing countries, especially those in Africa. And so he said, “China does not seek to be a single player.” Again, another throwing shade in a little bit of a dis at the Americans, but rather hopes that a hundred flowers will blossom and that it will work hand in hand with the vast number of developing countries to achieve modernization. Any China watcher or historian may have had their ears perk up when he referenced hundred flowers that will blossom. Because nerdy China watchers are going to remember that in 1957, Mao said, let a hundred flowers bloom, and there was a campaign to promote criticism of the Communist Party that only led to the Anti-Rightist crackdown in 1959, 2 years later, that led to the deaths of considerable and imprisonment of a lot of people.
So Xi does fashion himself as a descendant of Mao and in terms of his political heritage. So that choice of 100 flowers were blossom really was rather interesting choice of words. And nothing is done by accident, by the way, in a speech by the Chinese. So that must have been an intentional reference to Mao. And I wonder, Cobus, and again, we’re going way, way out of our lane here, okay? But let’s just try this. There is a right-wing surge in U.S. and Europe. Is it possible that they were trying to signal that this was an anti-rightist of right as type of reference, I mean, subtle as it might be? I mean, what could explain that kind of reference in your view? And again, I know you’re not necessarily a China historical scholar on this one, but it just seems so odd to me that that reference would’ve been included in his speech.
Cobus: Yeah, I have no clue. I really, I’m not sure.
Eric: Okay. Pleading ignorance is perfectly fine on this show.
Cobus: I mean, if it’s a dog whistle, it’s a very specifically abstruse one which I don’t think anyone will get. So, it was very confusing for me. Yeah.
Geraud: Exactly. Yeah, because I don’t believe that people in the audience were really… they picked up into understanding what that reference means. And given that China language with the Chengyu, those proverbs that you throw here and there in your speeches, most of the time people don’t get them. I think that many of them just say, “Yeah, it’s one of those Chengyu that he put in the speech and that’s it.”
Eric: Chengyu is, of course, the Chinese word for sayings. Who knows? But remember that his audience isn’t only an audience in the room. His audience is also an audience back home too.
Geraud: Yeah, true.
Eric: He has a very large domestic audience that he has to play to. Anyway, we have a lot of much smarter people who listen to the show than we are on this, and we would love to hear from any China scholars out there if they thought that reference to a hundred flowers will blossom was a reference to Mao’s hundred flowers campaign as well. Maybe, might be a stretch, who knows? But let’s get back to the key point here. He’s promoting multilateralism and modernization. That is, again, very much code. And those are the dog whistles, as you talked about, against the United States that he says are unilateral and protectionist.
And in many ways, they say hamper modernization because of U.S. trade policies. That feels like a winning lying to me because multilateralism in the global south is something that is strongly advocated for. Geraud, when we talk about multilateralism, Africa and African countries are very much opposed to the current, basically, unilateral position that the United States has and would like to see more powers at the table. Much of the way that the Indonesians have laid out in the Bandung Conference in 1955 for the Non-Aligned movement. And we’re talking about a modern non-aligned movement that wants to displace the United States as the sole power and give more power to global south country. So, it feels like Xi’s rhetoric is probably going to hit the mark on that one with a lot of African countries.
Geraud: Oh, yes, definitely. It’s already started during the FOCAC in September, multilateralism reform of the international system came up in the FOCAC final declaration and the Action Plan in 2025, ’27. So yeah, it just tells you it’s really trying to align itself with Africa interest and African frustrations because that’s where he’s playing the smart card to say we are all the victim of that rule-based order that only serve the interest of a few and discard the interest of the many of us. And we want that to change, we want that reform, we want that new approach in the international system. And we want the multilateralism in a sense where it’s not what the U.S. says that pass, it’s not what the “international communities,” when they say that language, lingo, international communities, when they say that from an African perspective, it’s usually the G7 minus few countries, but those countries. When they say that, it’s really a call for a system where every country somehow, every countries or every region’s opinion are taken into account, especially when you have crisis.
When you have crisis in, for example, in Libya where Africans are saying something and France at the Security Council and United States decided, no, we’re going to impose a no-fly zone on over Gaddafi and everything and the crisis that ensued after that. It became a regional crisis after that. So yeah, we want an international system where we are also present, where when you talk about the Security Council, where you have permanency there, where we want to be present and talk about that. But something, a caveat I would like to mention here is when China talks about that, China doesn’t also lay out its own clear vision of what it sees to be the international system, even though it’s mentioning multilateralism.
Does it sit to a system where there is equality, each countries are all the same? Or is it a country where there is a certain sense of hierarchy in the system where that hierarchy is still respected? And here, I’m remembering one of the podcasts where we had a few years, I think last year when you received a guest, we were talking about the way China is seeing hierarchy in the Asia and how it’s perceiving it. And I’m really wondering if it’s also the same vision that it has regarding the reform of international system.
Eric: No, China has traditionally seen itself as a supreme power in Asia. And China defines itself as the middle kingdom. And I think Chinese historians, and that was a show, Cobus, you and I spoke with a scholar in Japan who talked about the hierarchy of power in Asia, how China sees itself as the apex power in Asia today. And there was even a quote from Yang Jiechi, who was the former foreign minister and the former top foreign policy official for the Chinese Communist Party who said China’s a big power. And there was some reference, I think, to a South Pacific country. “You’re a small power, and because of that, we get to set the rules.” So, in many respects when we talk about this multilateralism, Cobus, it’s not everybody on the same level. China will still see itself as a major power and not on the same level as say Mali, right? I mean, they’re not talking about this kind of equal level for all countries. Is that your take on that as well, Cobus?
Cobus: That is the impression I get as well is that China feels that the global system needs to be reformed, but part of that reform is to acknowledge China’s own size and power and development. So that inherently implies that some other countries will be weak and smaller and less developed than China in that system. I guess then the question becomes how is the decision-making going to be more inclusive and how will it operate differently from what we currently have, and whether it’s just a situation of replacing one strong country with a different strong country.
Eric: Well, I think they would probably put up the examples of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and even to some extent the BRICS that were both Chinese initiated. Now, some people will say that the AIIB is definitely a China-led organization. I think the AIIB would disagree with that strenuously. It’s got member states from U.S., I mean from Europe and from Africa and from Asia and from all over the world. And they’re using these multilateral institutions that they created as examples of this less intrusive governance style. The key question comes is at what point does that sense of comradery and benevolence that the Chinese are saying in their governance style, at what point does that stop when interests can contradict their agendas?
So, when criticisms of Chinese human rights policies, criticisms of Chinese moves in the South China Sea, for example, or things that hit any of the Chinese red lines, at what point then does the Chinese governance style become a lot more assertive and a lot less multilateral?
Geraud: And I think that’s the part of that vision of multilateralism is the sense where there’s no country that has now the right or the legitimacy to criticize another country foreign policies or stance on any kind of issues. Because as long as we don’t have a permanent country or prominent group of country, which norms and value dictates the way we see the international system, the way we see the international order, it means that we are in a space where there’s no legitimacy for any specific or any group of country to criticize any country, big or small, in terms of the foreign policies and in terms of the internal policies. And I think that the vision of multilaterals they have in mind where basically there’s no one set of norm that’s dictated based on one group of country’s interest.
Eric: So, three other points that Xi raised, and we won’t go into detail on it, but he wants to improve global digital governance. We heard quite a bit of that at the summit from other leaders. He didn’t go into too much detail about it, but he also wants to improve global ecological governance and improve security governance. So, Xi’s eight points that he talked about at his speech were very much about reforming the international system. I think, Cobus, to your point, it’s about changing the architecture of the international system to be more inclusive to be less dependent on the United States. All of this comes again in the backdrop of the incoming Trump administration and what’s going to happen. I’ve been here in the United States for the past two weeks, I’m heading back to Asia this week, and it’s been interesting to be here because there is a sense of covering your eyes and looking at what’s happening, but at the same time, keeping your fingers very open over your eyes because you can’t turn away from what’s going on in Washington and the appointments of the new cabinet that are taking shape.
And so we’re trying to get a sense of what the Trump foreign policy doctrine is going to be like. Semafor reported, and I’d like to get your take on this, Semafor reported that advisors close to President-elect Donald Trump are pushing for renewed U.S.-Africa policy, which focuses on, and this is going to be their line, I think, “deals and deterrence.” And so they’re going to also roll back some of what they see as the overly progressive “woke diplomacy” under the Biden White House. This would involve promoting evangelical Christian conservative interests — Cobus, I know you’re going to have something to say on that — and reversing some of the pro-LGBT policies championed by the Biden White House. So, it looks like the priorities are going to be focused again on China. That’s the deterrence. Cobus, when you hear that coming from the whispers in Washington, how do you interpret that?
Cobus: Well, in the first place, I’m not surprised that, of course, they’re punching down on LGBT people because that’s the only thing they know how to do, right? Is punch down on LGBT people. In general, I had to laugh a little bit because this is like, what deterrence? What deterrence are they going to have in Africa? More militarization than they already have? More threats of kicking people out of AGOA? Trump already kicked Rwanda out of AGOA for refusing to take second-hand clothes. What more do they want to do? It strikes me as quite hollow. I don’t expect much action in the U.S.-Africa relationship over the next while because there was zero action in it under Trump, or very little at least, and relatively little under Biden, except for big plans being announced, which I now have quite strong doubts that they’ll actually move forward. From my quite admittedly cynical take, I think it’s big talk and nothing more.
Eric: So Semafor also quoted Cameron Hudson, Geraud, who we’ve known quite well over the years. He’s an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which, of course, is a big think tank in Washington. And here’s what Cameron said, he said, “The administration is going to be very pro-business because they see Africa as an opportunity, as Trump himself has said in the past.” And he said that the hope is going to be by doing more deals, the U.S. is going to crowd out the competitors. And I think, again, just as the Chinese use all these code words, when they say competitors, they’re not talking about the Nigerians. They’re talking about the Chinese. So, deals and deterrence, crowding out the competitors, we’re getting a lot of wonderful alliterations coming from the potential Trump administration. What’s your take on crowding out the competitors?
Geraud: You know, when you talk about deals in Africa, you’re the United States in one hand. In the other hand, you also have to keep in mind that you should not be kicking out South Africa out of AGOA because basically it’s the only country in Africa-
Eric: Which they haven’t done yet. To be fair, they have not done yet.
Geraud: So just to say that if it was somewhere in their mind, it needs to be put aside completely because it’s the only country in Africa where you can actually say, okay, we can really make substantial deals that fits the current profile of United States and African countries. Because when you remove a country like South Africa, or maybe to a certain extent Nigeria, Egypt in the north there, you don’t have many countries in Africa where the U.S. can say, we are going to make deals, business deals, not humanitarians. One way business deals. And mind you, when you have a country where the private sectors is risk-averse about the political instability in different countries, the profile market of different countries, the return of investment, return on investment, and all of that, how African countries, the market power is not so powerful, it’s not so rich and everything, at the end, you know that yes, there’s only few African countries where American companies or American business or the United States can really make business deals happening.
And those countries are South Africa, and accept that you don’t have much of them. So when he says that it’s going to be a lot of deals, I was like, yeah, not many of them will be really fitting on that profile of having business deal. You’re going to have a lot of talks, you’re going to try to promise, you’re going to try to do that, you’re going to incentivize companies to go and invest. But in the same time, you’re going to come back to us and say, “You know what? We don’t control the way companies perceive each countries and everything, and we cannot do that.”
And here I’m mentioning it because yesterday, there was this talk that was organized by Carnegie, and they had, as a guest, a former U.S. secretary assistant, Tibor Nagy. And he mentioned the case of the DRC, my country, where he said that, “We had a lot of hopes in the DRC. We kicked out Kabila, and President Tshisekedi came and he wanted American companies to come, but unfortunately,” and he said that, “unfortunately we are not like Xi Jinping, we cannot just order a company to go to invest in your country.” You have those reality-
Eric: That’s shocking how clueless that statement is.
Geraud: Exactly. Look at what he said, and you realize like, yeah, when they say deals, I say, come on.
Eric: Okay. So, what Tibor doesn’t seem to understand, and it’s remarkable to me because he’s been a professor and he’s been an assistant secretary of state for African affairs at the State Department. He’s traveled up and down, he’s been focused on China for a long time. What he doesn’t seem to understand is that the secret weapon that the Chinese have to get companies to go abroad is Sinosure. That is the risk insurance division of the Chinese government that backstop some of these investments, a lot of these investments. It’s the very thing that a lot of American companies and European companies have been asking for from their governments as well, to provide that risk insurance that will make it easier for them to go to high-risk countries like the DRC, less because they’re being ordered by the CPC or by the Chinese government. Again, they don’t understand the mechanics of why the Chinese have been successful in places like the DRC.
Eric: Just for those of you who may not have been able to follow what Geraud was saying on the AGOA and South Africa, let me just provide a little context there. AGOA, of course, is the free-trade pact between the United States and Africa. Only about 25 countries now are members of AGOA. Is that correct?
Geraud: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. It’s about half of the continent. There’s been a lot of grumblings in Congress over the past year, particularly among Republicans, and among some Democrats too, that South Africa is increasingly aligned against us interest by cozying up with Vladimir Putin, with doing deals with the Chinese, and, of course, supporting Gaza at the International Court of Justice, which something that people in Washington take great offense at. Cobus, when you hear this about crowding out the competitors, Geraud is very cynical, I presume you’re also very cynical because, at the end of the day, I’m not entirely sure what American business in Africa actually looks like, simply because the mining companies have said, made it pretty clear they don’t want to go back into Africa, into places like the Congo.
It’s too risky for them, their shareholders just aren’t going to support it. Freeport-McMoRan left the Congo during the first Trump administration. A move by the way that a lot of ex-Trump administration officials say was a tragic mistake on their part, not to block the exit in the deal that they did with CMOC on that. But the United States is a tech and finance economy, it’s a service’s economy. Let’s say that it actually did materialize where there was a lot of interest among Americans, what would they sell to Africans and African countries.
Cobus: There’s a lot of American companies doing business in Africa. For example, Ford, Coca-Cola, a lot of big players, the ones that are interested in setting up in Africa largely already have set up in Africa, and they are doing business. I mean, the question is, which other ones somehow miss the continent on the world map and need to now be reminded of its existence? The entire discourse seems to me a little bit of a fantasy play. Because it seems to assume that there is this hidden pool of African money that these companies can exploit and that they just haven’t yet. Yeah, I don’t know. I think the difference on the Chinese side is, A, as you said, companies like Sinosure do underlay and support these companies to be able to do business.
But the other big difference is that these companies have business to do there. They have stuff to sell, they have roads to build, they are on the same page as African economies. And by the way, not only China, but it’s also true for the rest of the Indian Ocean realm. One of the large reasons why the U.S. and Europe, it’s always funny for me when they talk about, oh, it’s so difficult to get all these European and American companies to do business in Africa as if the entire economy within which Africa functions wasn’t set up around Western power. Africa is in the position it is in because it serves the purposes of Western power for it to be in that position.
If it weren’t, it would be in a different position. For a hundred years, Africa’s position in the global economy was a unipolar situation, largely driven by Western power. So now for western governments to be like, “Oh, yes, Africa, we should be doing business.” Why won’t American companies do it? What? It’s ridiculous to me. This entire conversation, I have to admit this, the entire discourse as it comes out of Washington at the moment for me is risible actually.
Geraud: But Eric, I’d like to add on something else. And I think that’s something that can be interesting in a sense where the space they can be. They can be in a space where FinTech and startups, financing those young startup in Africa, but that space is not a space where there is a need to have competitions. And this is where I go back to the framing of all of it. Like, yes, it’s not because U.S. is going to invest in Africa to make business there that you need to oust the competitions. And Africa is so big as a market, as a continent, as opportunities that one country cannot pretend by itself to say, “I’m all in everything that you’re going to need.” So, if U.S. wants to be back, they can be back. But they just have to be sure that in the space where they think they are… They’re just going to have to choose the space where they’re much more competitive than the space where they cannot actually win. And it’s going to be a waste of time and a waste of money and energy to try to be in a space of infrastructure, for example, or build. No, that’s not going to make sense at all. They’re just going to have to keep that in mind. Yeah.
Cobus: Yeah. Just adding to that, I find it very disingenuous when everyone keeps talking about, oh, it’s so difficult to get western companies to engage with Africa because Africa is so risky, when the Western financial industry is making huge money, like distorted risk perceptions around Africa. There’s already an entire predatory finance system set up to exploit risk perceptions of Africa. And which was, by the way, encouraged by these governments, the U.S. governments and Western governments encouraged these industries to hunt for frontier markets where they can get higher yield. That was fully explicit. To now suddenly be realizing that, oh, Western companies find Africa risky, yeah, they do. Of course, they do. This is the entire point.
Eric: Well, I just want to leave you both with one final thought that came out of the Semafor article that apparently there’s interest from some in Washington who are keen on diplomatic postings in Eastern and southern Africa for game hunting opportunities.
Geraud: Game hunting.
Eric: They want to go hunting, they want to kill wildlife. That’s where we are in 2025 America. So, forget about everything else. They want to go on a safari.
Cobus: A few years ago, there was some MAGA monster who was posing with a dead giraffe. And I was like we’re sending box on her house, like, really?
Eric: My goodness. That’s where we are today. Okay, so we will continue to look at what’s going to happen and unfold in the incoming Trump administration and how it’s going to impact the China-Africa discourse. I get the sense, and I think you guys do as well, that we’re going to go back to the China, China, China, China, China, China, China policy. There’s going to be a lot of that. But in part because Marco Rubio, who is the expected secretary of state, he’s big on that. Now, he’s not going to focus as much on Africa as he is on Latin America and the Western hemisphere, which has been his area that he’s focused on. But no doubt he’s going to bring that same level of alarm to Africa. And it’ll be interesting to see if he goes to Africa in the first year of his time in office.
Geraud: The Q will be who’s going to be the assistant secretary for African Affairs. I think that guy will be at the center point of Trump administration of African policy.
Eric: Maybe it might be Cameron Hudson. We don’t know.
Geraud: Yeah, maybe. You never know.
Eric: We never know. So we’ll find out. Usually those appointments come closer to the inauguration when obviously the secretary himself has to be named. So after Rubio is gotten through the senate confirmation, then the deputies will be named, which is the assistant secretary. So that is a key position which we’ll be keeping an eye on. Gentlemen, thank you for another lively conversation, always a lot of fun to get together. Geraud and Cobus, every day work to put together all of the content that you see on our site. We want to thank everybody who… We’ve had a nice little surge of subscriptions in the past few weeks. I think the interest in the Trump foreign policy is driving a lot of that. So, we want to welcome all of our new subscribers from around the world who are reading us now. And if you would like to join this growing community of readers, go to chinaglobalsouth.com/subscribe.
Subscription start at just $19 a month. You get the original reporting that’s done by the entire CGSP team, also inputs from the Boston University, the London School of Economics. We’ve got contributors from around the global south who are writing fascinating analysis. We’ve got a new correspondent based in Jakarta as well, Edwin, who’s doing some great work. And then Jony in the Middle East, and Njenga, who is our climate editor out of Nairobi. So a fantastic team putting together all of the work on the China Global South website. Again, if you are a student or a teacher, email me eric@chinaglobalsouth.com, and I will send you a discount link for half off — just $10 a month. And we’d love to have you, again, part of our reader community. And a big shout out to our Patreon community, to thank you for your support. Without your donations and your work, this project would not be possible, especially in this age of independent media that struggles so much to stay afloat. So we need your support and we are grateful to those who support us. Geraud, Cobus, and I will be back again next week with another edition of the China in Africa podcast. For Cobus in Cape Town and Geraud in Mauritius, I’m Eric Olander — thank you so much for listening.
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