Note: These remarks were prepared and delivered in part for a webinar held on Sunday December 12 entitled “China/Africa Relations: Challenges of Cooperation and Development.” The event was sponsored by the International Manifesto Group and the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA).
President Biden’s virtual Summit for Democracy on December 9-10 is part of a campaign to restore the United States’ standing in the world, which took such a beating under President Trump’s erratic foreign policies. Biden hopes to secure his place at the head of the “Free World” table by coming out as a champion for human rights and democratic practices worldwide.
Egyptian foreign ministry officials interviewed for this paper describe the last decade of Egypt’s regional positioning as “defensive” in nature as the country contended with domestic issues.
The rationale to explain these Central Asian elites’ choices is that they may be better off embracing China while subtly distancing themselves from Russia, as Beijing increasingly aligns with its Central Asian counterparts with greater success than Moscow. Despite Central Asian countries being independent for three decades, it is common to find Russian assertions that they still effectively own the region.
The United States and China both have skin in the APEC game. The setting in which they must deal is multilateral, and their dealings are on full display to all other 19 members. APEC is not a negotiating forum that delivers formal inter-state agreements or has legal supra-national authority. It gives equal voice to, and requires consensus among, all its members, large, small and middling. It is no accident that the Biden-Xi summit follows hard on the heels of APEC.
Africa is experiencing a flowing tide of solidarity and self-strengthening, and the continent’s influence in international affairs continues to grow. It is now forging ahead with the development of free trade zones, accelerating industrialization and modernization, and heading towards the bright future envisioned in the AU’s Agenda 2063.
COP27 is to be held in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on the south-eastern edge of the Sinai peninsula. Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in making his bid to host it, said that Egypt would work to make it “a radical turning point in international climate efforts in coordination with all parties, for the benefit of Africa and the entire world.”
Libyan stability matters. Over the past decade, a stream of mercenaries, terrorists and weaponry flooding out of Libya’s southern borders have fueled a plethora of conflicts throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees have taken advantage of the chaos in a bid to cross the Mediterranean and enter Europe. Libya has, furthermore, mutated into a proxy conflict for a spectrum of international players.
The economic principles have to be pursued and demanded with the same energy as the political ones. Fundamentally, it is the responsibility of the state, controlled by democratic institutions and an active civil society, to ensure that economic growth actually translates into employment creation.
The costs of a possible war between Russia and Ukraine far outweigh the benefits. The war is fraught with significant risks to the economy, political stability and Russian foreign policy. It fails to solve key security problems, while it creates many new ones.
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