World News: China, Russia, Build Nigerian Alliance

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Category: World News - Europe

Published on Tuesday, 01 August 2023 12:16

Written by Olivier Longhi

The evacuation of French nationals from Niger indirectly illustrates the growing and already well-established influence of Russia and China on a continent destined to become a new space of economic competition and diplomatic opposition.

Until recently, French diplomacy has only recently been the evacuation of French nationals based in Niger seems to sound the death knell for French ambitions and influence in West Africa. Already unpopular in Burkina Faso-Fasso and Mali, the France is now found natio non grata in Niger, a country of high strategic value since rich in uranium, exploited, among others, by the French company Orano.

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But beyond the evacuation as such, the question arises: how has West Africa, ten years ago still happy to welcome French military forces as part of Operation Barkhane conducted to eliminate the Islamist terrorist threat in the Sahel, particularly in Mali, gradually changed its perspective in the face of a Western power now concerned as an occupier and undesirable? The first reason is to be found, not on the African continent but in Moscow and, to a lesser extent, in Beijing.

Natural Resources and Support

Russia, in search of international influence, and this well before the partial invasion of Ukraine, has therefore worked to swallow up the populations of the countries mentioned above in order to deteriorate, at least, alter the image of the France by presenting it as a vampire nation whose only interests are and remain to exploit the natural resources of the region.

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To do this, Moscow has relied on the Wagner militia, which has been able, in recent years, to weave a network of influence sufficiently dense and skillfully nourished by anti-French and more broadly anti-European discourses to establish its authority. These speeches have thus found an ear within the armed forces of the various countries, anxious to restore a supposedly failing order and to drive out by coups d'état, more or less prepared, local leaders considered vassals of Paris.

Fantasies or reality, the future will tell if the new regimes resulting from these coups will survive but one thing already seems assured, they will be supported by Moscow. But for how long? Another power to have on the African continent, certainly with more finesse and another equally formidable efficiency, China.

Beijing, without openly denigrating or undermining the influence or presence of the former colonial powers, has discreetly imposed itself in various countries (Kenya, Ethiopia, Algeria,...) through the construction of infrastructure or the development of agricultural areas whose products are often exported to Europe. This diplomacy of the economy, Chinese soft power, contrasts with the harshness of the Wagner mercenary group but leads to perhaps more convincing results.

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New Diplomatic Space

Because without destabilizing the regimes in place, Beijing strives to become indispensable in order to maintain its influence without being accused of interference, the Chinese political culture abhorring any form of chaos.

Thus, if Moscow can claim to drive the former colonial powers out of Africa in a view to dominating the regions concerned, this policy, visible and rowdy, is nevertheless limited in its long-term effects because nothing predicts that the new regimes now supported by Moscow will not turn against it in the near or distant future.

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An unstable and dangerous region, the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa, and Africa in general, are now called, in a world with frozen geopolitical spaces, to become the new space of confrontation of a Western bloc grouping the European Union and the United States, opposed to an Eastern bloc composed of China and Russia, both attracted, just like the Westerners, by the richness of the African subsoil.

Focused on the war in Ukraine, international opinion has therefore turned away from the African continent while, without denigrating the weight of the Ukrainian-Russian opposition, it is there that the next major stages of international diplomacy will be contested.

Bio: Olivier Longhi has extensive experience in European history. A seasoned journalist with fifteen years of experience, he is currently professor of history and geography in the Toulouse region of France. He has held a variety of publishing positions, including Head of Agency and Chief of Publishing. A journalist, recognized blogger, editor, and editorial project manager, he has trained and managed editorial teams, worked as a journalist for various local radio stations, a press and publishing consultant, and a communications consultant.