WEEK IN REVIEW: Kenya Courts China While U.S. Sounds Alarm Over Beijing’s Reach in Africa
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Hello and welcome to another edition of the China in Africa podcast, a proud member of the Seneca Podcast Network. And as always, I'm joined by my good friend, Gero Nima, our CGSP Africa editor back from Nairobi, now on the beautiful island of Mauritius. A very good morning to you, Gero.

Good morning, Eric. And very quickly before we get into our discussion today, you spent the week in Nairobi. You were attending a number of conferences. Maybe just tell us very quickly about what the scene was like in Nairobi and what you were doing there. So since those discussions were on the chat at my house, I won't be able to go into the details. No details, no names. Just give us the high-level overview. Yes, but we had those series of conferences gathering Africa and Chinese experts on the

issue related to energy transition and the role of China in Africa, what it looks like for the future of China-Africa relationship. We had to talk about how to look into China-Africa, what does it mean, the future of energy transition, how China is boosting and accompanying innovation in Africa and energy transition. We had to meet startups and visit companies that are doing energy transition-related issues

EVs businesses with Chinese technology. So it was really interesting to have experts from different fields, experts from the supply chain of critical minerals. That's why I was there talking about it because we cannot talk about those EVs and the clean energy without taking the origin of all of that being critical minerals and where Africa stands on that topic and how to approach that topic. So it was really interesting because at the end you have civil society experts, legal experts and political experts

And you come out with much more nuanced views and perspective. Having those discussions happening in Africa, having African perspective on those issues is really, really interesting. And I'm looking forward for the publication to come out and the conclusion so people will know more about what happened and how that happened. But it's really interesting at the end.

It's interesting because the rest of the world is so focused on everything that's going on with the tariffs and with Gaza and with Ukraine and with all the drama that we've been going through related to Donald Trump, especially out here in Asia, where just, you know, people are consumed with it. And it's neat to see that

away from that there's these other very very constructive positive conversations did the weight of some of the world affairs that are going on filter into these conversations or

that really wasn't a part of it. Surprisingly, no. Surprisingly, no. Oh, interesting. I was expecting a little bit. During the conversation, someone even mentioned that apparently we didn't even mention the issue of like how the issue that we're living right now, the tariffs and everything are really impacting the discussion that we're having right now. So,

I say maybe it was an oversight or maybe it was just something asked based on a presentation, but it was really, it was not really part of that conversation. I'm quite happy that it was not part of the conversation because it's always interesting to be able to even have agency in those kind of debate in a sense where you don't let your point of view, your debate being driven by other people's agenda or actions. You know, no matter what happened, we need to

This is what we need to do. This is how we need to move forward. This is how we need to adapt or just build ourselves in this context. And that was...

Personally, I was quite happy that we didn't have to factor in the current circumstances, the ups and downs of the terrorist policies and the debate and what does it mean. And especially in the panel I spoke to on critical minerals, I didn't mention that given the fact that critical minerals were kind of left outside us at the time that Donald Trump has put on the US and on the import. But yes, it was really part of the debate that we had in Nairobi. And I think that's a very important lesson for a lot of people who are following all this is that

The world is moving on in many respects. The whole world isn't consumed by this.

And I think we're going to see this more and more where they're going to see this reconfiguration of the international supply chains and the international economic system to really circumvent some of this drama. And so it's very exciting that these conversations are going on and are not impacted by everything else that we've been following. Well, it's interesting that you were in Kenya because Kenya is one of the stories that we're going to talk about today. We've got three stories on the agenda. One is big news in the standard gauge railway industry.

kind of drama that's been going on for almost 10 years and we have a breakthrough that we can talk about. Also, we're going to talk about critical minerals, critical resources right up your alley and yours and my favorite topic of CIMOC group and cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo. CIMOC group, for those of you who are not familiar, is one of the largest Chinese mining companies in the world and they're again doing something very interesting that we're going to get Giro's take on. And finally,

We're going to talk about U.S.-Africa-China relations. Last week was the annual ritual of the head of AFRICOM, General Michael Langley, who comes to Washington and testifies before the Senate and the House Armed Services Committee. It's his, basically he brings a bowl to Congress and says, please fill my bowl with lots and lots of money. And this is his annual report. We're going to talk

about his testimony and Giraud was just in Washington as well. You've been traveling quite a bit, so you'll have some reflections on that. Let's first start with Kenya where you just were Giraud. Kenyan president, William Ruto is scheduled to go to Beijing later this month for another state visit. He goes to China quite a bit.

And it's expected that when he's there, he's going to sign a deal for an extension of the Standard Gauge Railway. The Standard Gauge Railway is in many ways the showcase piece of the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa, about a $6 billion railway that ended in the Rift Valley city of Naivasha. Now, that's very important.

problem with where it ended is there's not a whole lot around Naivasha, and that wasn't the original plan. The original plan of the Standard Gauge Railway was that it was going to link all the way to the borders of Uganda, it was going to link to the borders of Rwanda, and it was going to really cover all of East Africa. The problem is they ran out of money, and China did not want to finance what was then called Phase 3 of the Standard Gauge Railway. For years, the Kenyans went back

to Beijing asking for more money to be able to finance this thing. The Chinese looked at the balance sheet in Kenya and said, "Listen, you guys just don't have the ability to pay for this." Now, it turns out, we found out that a consortium of Chinese companies will provide 40% of the funding

for a $5.3 billion extension that will traverse from Naivasha to the Ugandan border city of Malaba, which is a 475-kilometer extension. This is a very big deal because it's going to open up

potentially the standard gauge railway to inland East Africa that can then basically bring goods onto the SGR, take them to the port of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean. This will be under a public-private partnership

And so basically what's going to happen is the Chinese consortium is going to run the railway for a period of time. We don't know. And then once they recoup their money, then it'll be handed over to local authorities. Jiro, that's exactly the same model that they used on the 27 kilometer Nairobi expressway that you took from the airport, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to downtown Nairobi. That too is on a public private property.

partnership. Giro, before though I get your response on this, I want to kind of play some sound that came out this week from Kenyan Finance Minister John Mbadi, and he laid out in a recent interview why the standard gauge railway as we know it simply didn't work and why they need this extension. SGR terminating at Naivasha is not adding much economic value to this country. Uganda is already

putting up their SGR site from Malawa, it will not make sense if

The SGR does not reach Malawi, and Uganda has invested so much money. And the reason why we wanted this SGR to be done was to open up Kenya market up to the west, open Uganda market, and in fact, Rwanda is very ready to also receive that SGR and do it all the way to Democratic Republic of Congo. Now, you will have a market...

from Mombasa all the way to Congo. You'll open the whole of this region. But then how do we fund it? This is the discussion that is going on. The discussion is that the current SGR, we are supposed to, over 80% of the loan is going to be paid up to 2029. Now, it is possible for us to negotiate a loan agreement with China for the component of this SGR

With a grace period up to after 2029. So that is one. But we only want to source for about 30% from Exim Bank as a loan. The discussion is still ongoing. The other 30%, we want it to come from GOK funding. Most particularly...

Railways development levy. And again, Kenya Railways can, if they cannot get this 30%, they can securitize. Because they are receiving 45 now. The RDL has gone to 45 billion per year. They can securitize it. Then the last one of 40% should be through the consortium of those companies.

companies, Chinese companies, they come together, put their money. They will be charging, of course, for the use of the railway to pay back. So these are negotiations that the Ministry of Transport is leading.

So just a little bit of clarity there. The Ex-Im Bank he talked about is the China Ex-Im Bank, so there will be some sovereign lending that will be involved in this. This is something that the Ex-Im Bank has resisted up until now, but I think the risk is being spread now across a number of different stakeholders that they might be more comfortable now. And when he said GOK, of course, that's the government of Kenya. Giro, what do you think about this? And finally, it looks like

that the railway is going to extend to Malaba and then from Malaba, it's going to go through Uganda. So the dream of having an East African standard gauge railway does appear to be moving closer.

First of all, I'd like to notice some nuances to what has been reported in the news and what we hear when we hear him speaking. We realize that he's not really talking in a sense of like it's already happened. It's more talking in the sense that we, first of all, we should, it should, and we are still going and still in progress. It means that when I hear him talking, I hear a man who's progressing.

proposing an idea or saying, you know what, this is the structure of the deal that we want to see happen. Because we do know that President William Ruto, since two years ago, has been pushing a lot toward China to get financing. So when he did not succeed, he said, okay, ahead of Foucault, he went to say, I'm going to go with a different plan, public-private partnership, in the way that to incentivize Chinese companies to be able to want to invest in that project.

His trip in Beijing, in Fogak in September last year was not successful. He came back, drove back again, and looked back into his notes and came back with a new structure. And we know that John Baddy was in Beijing earlier this month discussing different issues with Chinese finance here and Chinese finance minister as well. And we see when he came back, he came back with that idea that we want to see this happen. And I suppose that that's what...

That's what is in discussion. Not even supposing, that's what he said, basically, that that is in discussion. So now the question is how much that's going to be accepted by the Chinese counterpart that still needs to be determined. Because we also see, we also notice that he's not giving up the name of the consortium. Who's part of the consortium? Which company is part of the consortium? That just tells you that it's still a work in progress. There are still negotiations. So that makes you a little suspicious of...

when we don't hear the stakeholders? Yes, that makes me suspicious because it means that there are still a lot of things that need to be ironed out and detailed and negotiated to put on the table. That's why when you, and this is why I say there's a need of nuances because the way it was reported in the news, Kenyan news or other international news, and when you hear him talk, you realize that a man is not saying that this is what has been negotiated and we agreed upon that. He said, we're working to make that happen.

And of course, if it's that successful then, that will really mean that William Ruto and Kenya has found a way really to send incentives to Chinese companies to do that. And it was not easy. And it's not easy because when you look at the amount, we're talking about $5 billion, $3 billion. Given the current circumstances and even the current, you know,

structure that he's proposing, it's still a lot of money. It's still a lot of money and how long the concession contract and everything, we're going to have to see how it's going to be implemented if ever they sign the final agreement on that. I'm glad you brought up this very important point that it is not a done deal. And over the years, Kenyan media has gotten ahead of itself.

And it came back from the Belt and Road Conference last year or the year before. They came back from FOCAC. And each time when there's a conversation, a lot in the media say, the deal is done. We're going to get this thing to Malaba and to Kisumu and from Navasya. And it doesn't go through. And what you don't hear is a confirmation from the Chinese side.

You hear a lot of talk from the Kenyan side, but the Chinese, what they will say is we want to support Kenya's development. We want to support, you know, you know, all these various initiatives, but they're never very specific. Those are broad statements of support, but not specific endorsements of these projects. And I think,

You also brought this same issue up with the Tazara deal as well, which was lots of fanfare. There's an MOU, but we haven't seen a contract. We haven't seen money change hands. We need to really see that next step in order for this to become a reality. Exactly. That's the point. And I think that's not really, that's only proper to Kenya. It's proper to almost every African country when they deal with China. We've seen that in Nigeria with the railway, with the highways as well, with the airport project. We see that in many African countries as

coming out of Beijing or having discussion with Beijing, they tend to always talk into the present time positive. We did that. We're going to do this. It's already a done deal. But when you look into the Chinese media or Chinese, you know, those agencies have been named. They don't say anything. They remain broad as possible.

And that has always been China's approach in a way that we don't want to frustrate you. We don't want you to feel that we are not working with you. It means that we are open to discussion, but we're going to just not make it the way you want us to be. We're going to do it on our own time, on our own rhythm.

When we're going to see that and we believe that that deal can be done. And I understand Kenyans and African government being in the sense where you need to show something. You need to really prove that we are doing and making something happen. When I was reporting about that story, I really used the conditional in my stories in French. I was like...

should and maybe and and i conclude by saying if ever that deal come to be signed and confirmed that will be a sign that this isn't happened because we know too well how that's been playing along the years we've seen that that's not the first time we've seen that along the years we're gonna have to wait and one of the one of the biggest giveaway was the fact that they did not provide the name of the companies that are going part of the consortium that just tell you that

It's a very thing, it's a thing that's still a work in progress. And William Ruto traveling this month, this end of the month in Beijing, is really trying to go and

Push them hard. Push them hard and say, I've made an incentive. I put that on the table. This is very interesting to make it happen, and I would like you to follow through. But I believe that's going to be a hard sell. I'm not saying it's impossible, but that's going to be a hard sell. Back in 2019, when I was still living in China, I had a chance to meet with an Ex-Im Bank guy, and I asked him about the phase three of the SGR and the concerns that they had at the Ex-Im Bank back then, which I don't know if it's still the same concerns, was,

The areas that they're going into are not densely populated areas. They're not heavy industrial areas.

And already the SGR is struggling to be solvent. So the Kenyan taxpayer has to bail out. And the fact that there are subsidies on a railway is not exceptional at all. Germany, France, the United States, pick any number. China subsidizes its railway. That is very, very common. The concern for the Chinese was, will they be able to generate enough money from the cargo and passenger traffic to repay the debt?

Now, and so that's why, and they did their calculations and they said no, and that's why they stopped at Naivasha. So I think the difference now is that they don't only want Ex-Im Bank to pay for the whole thing. So by spreading it out with Government of Kenya, a consortium of potentially private investors, and then some of Ex-Im Bank, that may be the secret formula.

Let's see, though. I think you're right to be cautious. Because the consortium was going to put a toll on the railway. This is one of the things that also the consortium is going to put. It's going to put a toll on the railway in the way that to be able to get the money back. But now, I think it's going to depend on the length of the concession contract they do. We are talking

Probably 30 years, though, is my guess. I think it may even go longer than that because unless you have heavy freight, heavy transportation happening. When I was in Nairobi, someone mentioned, a Chinese stakeholder was there, he mentioned, that's really interesting. The ticket train between Nairobi and Mombasa was cheaper than the ticket of the Uber I had to take from Mombasa to my hotel. It's still in Mombasa. And I was like, that's not a commercially viable approach. I understand the need to...

to have a lower price so you can incentivize a lot of people to use the train. But at the same time, you realize that if the prices are low, in terms of you reimbursing the loan, it's just taking heavy, heavy heat on the public treasury. So at some point, this is not the balance they have to strike between the cost of the toll and the market and the environment, the demand, the

All of that. That's really heavy. It's a heavy business deal to sell. Yeah. And just one other quick point here is that, remember, the SGR in Kenya faces intense competition from truckers and trucking routes. Yeah. And also, he's talking about bringing the SGR to Congo. Felix Chesikedi, your country's president, and also Zambia, they've announced all new trucking routes to get to ports.

So this train will face competition from overland trucking routes in terms of price. And so if they have the tariff so high on the train in order to pay back the loans, that it's going to make it less competitive than shipping by truck.

That could be a problem too. Yes, yes, that could be a problem. But to clarify, the truck road they're going to be taking when they expand to Naivasha, when they go Malaba, Uganda, and Rwanda, and DRC, it's going to be much more on the eastern part of the DRC. It means that in the Mahagi region, in the northeast part of the DRC.

Zambia and DRC is going to be much more on the southeast on the southeast so there will be less competition given that the truck coming out of the DRC will not go there was really no road going from the north to the east so that's going to be much more easy to manage but it's about much more the freight that's going to come out of Uganda to be well enough and heavy enough and I mean

I mean, just commercially viable in a way that it makes sense. And I'm really feeling, as he mentioned himself, John Baddy, and this is the part where I think the China fund itself is also in a kind of not a debt trap situation, but a very bad business deal situation where stopping in Naivasha just doesn't make sense at the end.

This is the part. So yeah, you start... I mean, he acknowledged it. This is not even a Western kind of critique of it. I mean, here you have the finance minister of Kenya saying it's not working for the country. Exactly. It's not only working for the country. It's not also not working for China at the end because you're like, if you want them to reimburse you, you want them to have a...

I mean, SGR that makes money. And where you guys stopped, it doesn't make money. So for you to make money, you have to put more money so to extend it in a way that... But this is a risk to take. And I think that given the current circumstances...

- Hi man, I really don't see how, I mean, it's not impossible, but that's going to be really difficult, really difficult to sell. - Well, it's definitely closer. - Yeah, it's definitely closer. - It moving, there's a shape of this that is closer than what we've seen for the past 10 years since they've been trying to do this. So there is something there. And just to be fair, not that you're suggesting otherwise,

Kenya has been right on time in terms of serving as the Chinese loans. So all of the narrative about debt sustainability and debt problems, Kenya has actually been a very strong performer. There was a little bit of a controversy that popped up a few weeks ago when, you know, Kenyan officials, you know, floated the idea of restructuring some of their Chinese debt.

and all of a sudden the credit agencies and everybody started freaking out, saying, wait, what, wait, wait, what, why? You want to restructure your debt? Are you having problems? And the finance ministry and the treasury just said, no, no, no, no, no, no, everything's fine. We're good. Let's just ignore that. We didn't say anything about that. I also just want to point out that in the background,

there's been a lot of activity in China-Kenya engagement over the past few weeks. And China's ambassador to Nairobi, Guo Haiyan, has been very, very active. And Jiro, I just noticed something very interesting a couple of weeks ago, that Ambassador Guo had a

meeting with former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is also the country's main opposition leader. And Odinga then gave a press conference after meeting with Ambassador Guo. And I want to play some sound and get your reaction. I have received today here Ambassador Guo Haiyan from the People's Republic of China. She's paid a courtesy call on me, just like other ambassadors have done.

This is basically, in my capacity, the leader of the Orange Democratic Movement. We have discussed issues of common interests. As you know, the People's Republic of China has been in this country for as long as Kenya has been independent. They have financed a number of development projects in our country.

There's a very good cordial relationship between Kenya and China within the fields of trade, fields of industrialization, the fields of cultural exchange, and so on. So we have just done a review of this, and I know there is ongoing discussions between the government of China and the government of Kenya

but I'm not part of the government. Therefore, I'm only concerned about the mutual relationship between our two countries. This is what we discussed this afternoon. And the Minister or the Cabinet Secretary for...

So Mbari was in attendance in that meeting. That's very interesting because he's technically not a part of the government. Notice that Odinga, by the way, is starting to sound a little Biden-esque in his delivery. Yeah.

He's getting pretty old. I mean, Odinga has been on the scene for a long time. - He's old, yeah. - He's old, he's very old. You know, nothing that Odinga said was that interesting, okay? What is notable though, and this is a very important aspect of Chinese engagement in Africa, is the amount of time that Chinese ambassadors spend working with opposition parties.

And the point here is that they, you know, they're very pragmatic in their engagement in Africa. It's not ideological.

And so they foster deep relationships and deep ties with various political parties. And the fact that they, that Ambassador Guo was meeting with Odinga to me is very interesting. And it doesn't say anything about what, do they lack confidence in William Ruto or whatnot? What it means is that when there are power transitions in African countries, they are very seamless in terms of their ties with China, in part because of these types of courtesy visits that Chinese ambassadors often do with opposition leaders.

Two things I'm going to say about that. I'm going to bring a bit of nuance to what you say. So two things I'm going to say. The first one, Ondinga, I think at this point in the Kenya political landscape...

It's really difficult not to qualify Odinga being in opposition with Ruto because in the last, what, two years and a half, one year, two years and a half, William Ruto has campaigned hardly on the continent for Odinga to get the chairman of the EU Commission.

So he traveled to Ruto. They went on different trips. They went into Beijing together. They went to different places together. They were really together. So Ondine at this point being qualified as an opposition leader in Kenya, I think some would say, at this point he's not really in opposition anymore. It's a

He's an opposition government adjacent somehow. Well, he is the head of the One Kenya Coalition Party. That's the only reason why he gets the qualification of being an opposition leader. At the end, at this point, they're going to qualify him opposition only because he's not in the government. But in terms of opposition of political mindset, I don't think they're really into that anymore.

No, I don't think that's true. Exactly. Second point, this is now, it's not related to the meeting itself. It's really interesting at the end where, because you remember when Ruto went to Focac last year, the critics that Odinga made of that trip in Focac and everything. Saying he shouldn't have gone. So the criticism was that Ruto shouldn't have gone to Focac and yet Odinga went to Focac.

And it was just kind of like, what? Exactly. And then a few days later, and then today you see him. When you know the past that Odinga had with China, how they helped with his daughter and everything. And today you see the way he was praising the relationship with China, Africa relationship, just to tell you at the end that

People need to be careful when they look into Africa's political landscape and political leaders to say, you know, in the position they hate China, the elections. No, no, no. You have to be careful because you really have very, very few, if almost no political leaders in Africa in the position who hates China. It's like the old anti-China rhetoric is only for internal politics. It's only for internal consumption. And if...

And we don't even hear that much anymore. So yes, all of that, those are two points I wanted to point out to show that there is a lot of nuances. That tells you that certain things that come out of political leaders in Africa needs always to be taken into account with a lot of built-in salt and paper just to make sure that you don't get yourself lost in those. So Giro mentioned something that happened with

Odinga's daughter. And this was about eight, nine years ago. Yes. Let me just give a little context on this. Odinga's daughter had a very serious, I think it was a brain issue, and that needed a surgery. They flew her to South Africa, which...

which has some of the most advanced medical care in Africa. The doctors there said, we can't do it. We don't have the technology and the expertise to fix this. China sent a private jet to South Africa, a medevac jet, brought her to Beijing. 10 surgeons at Peking University Hospital operated on Odinga's daughter and saved her life.

Odinga then afterwards wrote this really, and I'll see if I can find it and put in the show notes, this very effusive letter in the Kenyan press to thank China for saving the life of his daughter. And I wrote at the time, I said, China, this was the best soft power investment that China could have made because they basically bought the loyalty of a major African figure for the rest of his life. Because who, I mean, if you save, if somebody saved my son,

I would never, never, you know, let that debt kind of expire, you know? So there's an interesting relationship between Odinga. I mean, we're not going to say it's corruption. It just, this was a very generous thing that China did to save the life

of a young person and also to really showcase Chinese capacity in terms of being able to deliver those kinds of services at a place like Peking University Hospital. So let's continue on, move away from Kenya, and we're going to head to your neck of the woods in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We have been tracking a CMOC group for about two years and some of the unusual behavior

Now, the reason I say it's unusual is because normally when the price of a commodity is rock bottom, the instinct of the mining companies or the oil producers or whoever it is, is to pull supply off the market in order to force that price up.

The Congolese government has tried to do this on their own. So they have implemented an export ban and we're coming to the end of that, right? It's been in effect for about three months. Is that correct? - Two months because it was basically one month and a half.

No, we still have two months. Okay, and there's talk about extending it, right? Of course, yeah. Okay, and it has worked to some extent because the price of cobalt has gone up. So many people say, wow, you see? Now, you said from the beginning that this was a joke. You said this export ban was never going to work for the simple reason

that the mining companies are still going to continue to produce cobalt in anticipation of when the ban eventually lifts, and then they sell the cobalt that they produced. Guess what CMOC did in the first quarter of this year? They increased production by 20.7% to 30,000 metric tons. Copper output rose by 16%. So the export ban of cobalt has had no impact whatsoever on CMOC's

cobalt output in the DRC,

And it probably has everything to do with what you were saying, which is eventually when the ban is lifted, they will just sell again. This was the case, was it last year, when there was Tenkefungurume? - 2023. - 2023, 2023, the Congolese shut down shipments from the Tenkefungurume mine, which is Simak's mine, the second largest or the first largest cobalt mine in the world. - The first largest. - First largest cobalt mine in the world.

they continued production even though they weren't allowed to export it out. Eventually, once the export ban lifted, they sent it out. So this is the context.

Tell us about the politics of what's going on here. And why do you think CMOC is continuing to produce? I'm not really surprised about it because I think I said that early beginning. That's what you said from the beginning. You said right from the beginning, you're not surprised. I was like, unless you also force companies not to produce cobalt, what you're doing now, you're just finding a short-term solution to a long-term and much more deeper problem because companies are still going to produce and they're going still to stock.

I understand that some would say we can question some companies' ability to stockpile for long term, but a company like Simoc, who produced last year 34% of the world's cobalt that produced in 2024, has enough capabilities to stockpile thousands, hundreds of thousands of cobalts.

tons of cobalt. So, and I was saying that unless when they lift the ban, it's accompanied with certain measure being, for example, export quota, what they're doing right now is just, I mean, it's just like a short-term solution because when the ban will be lifted, what's going to happen? Simogru just opened the floodgates of its stockpile and you're going to have hundreds of thousands of cobalt out of the market. And there's a

And that price will just come right back down again. You're going to see that line going from up to really straight down, just like we are seeing going up right now. So this is what I mentioned. And the fact that I see CMOC still maintaining its production schedule, not changing, not slowing down.

whatever. Two things. I know that CIMOC has put in place a working group. They've announced themselves. They've put in a working group that's going to work with the government to try to find a way to get the ban be lifted. We also know that mining companies, not only Chinese one, mining companies, the DRC, also formed a group to talk with the Congolese authorities to say we need to lift the ban and somehow even challenging the fact that it's not the legality of the ban itself. But I understand they don't want to push on the legal front, but they want to march forward

They want to push more on the economic and political side of it. But the simple fact that CIMOC maintained that production up means CIMOC has developed a certain sense of confidence about what's going to happen after. And I'm even anticipating it's going to increase even much more in the sense where they're going to calculate the fact that the export ban will be lifted accidentally.

with a certain amount of export quota. If it's accompanied with export quota, we need to be able to have enough of cobalt that in a way that when we're still exporting, we are still making money, we are still within the revenue, and let's not forget, we are still within the goals of

the geopolitical strategy that China is putting because let's face it, CIMOC even being a private company, but CIMOC is one of those big four, what I call the big four of Chinese private companies that are now at the forefront of China's critical mineral strategy in the world.

Just for those who would like to know who are called the big four, CMOC, Tsing Chan, Tsing Chan Holding, Digit Mining, and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt. Those four are the very first one at the forefront of China critical mineral strategy around the world. And CNMC, China Non-Ferrous Metal Corporation? It's a state-owned company. Oh, you're talking about private companies, right?

I'm talking about the big fourth private companies. And if you add C&E and CUF now, you add much of that. So yes, I do believe that CMO is going even to increase because the predictions for 2025 to say we're going to produce 100,000, 20 tons of cobalt for 2025. But given how the circumstances, things are playing out, I'm expecting them to go even beyond that in a way that they still remain within the margin of what they want to make.

- Now the Congolese have started to reach out to the Indonesians and we started to see more coverage of talks between Indonesia and the DRC to form some kind of critical mineral cartel, much the same way that there's OPEC, for example, for oil.

Do you think there's any opportunity for the big critical resource countries like Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Indonesia, the DRC, to be able to come together to coordinate on production so that they can form a cartel that can control prices the way that OPEC does with oil? Or is that just all pie in the sky?

It's going to be quite difficult because they're going to have to pick and choose which minerals they're going to build the OPEC on. They cannot build an OPEC of a basket of minerals. For example, cobalt, lithium, nickel, and copper, all of them together. Because each mineral has its own market and its own dynamic and all different components that affect its prices and its growing and everything. So putting them all together...

it's going to require a very complex economic and geopolitical mechanism to be able to control the price of all of them at the same time. And especially given that most of them in that supply chain, in those producing countries, do not control the very useful part of the supply chain being the midstream of transformation processing and down to the final product of the supply chain where the influence of the price is coming from. So,

you're just producing, yeah, but if you don't control what's coming down there, you don't really have much of a power. So I don't believe that, first of all, they're going to have to pick and choose which minerals. And second of all, and if they do pick and choose,

DRC producing, what, 72% of the world's cobalt and Indonesia being really, really down, even if it's second, but it's way far behind second. That kind of cartel will just not make sense. DRC by itself or cobalt is a cartel on itself. So you're like, unless you want to find political legitimacy or international to say, I'm not doing that alone, it's not really something that I think to see that happen anytime soon.

So as of Friday when we are recording this and I have to put the day of the week in there because things are changing so fast, US President Donald Trump now says that the minimum tariff on goods coming from China is 145%. This is basically, again, they're trying to force the divorce, the commercial divorce, if not the entire divorce between the US and China trading relationship. I'm curious on this critical minerals question,

So if GM and Ford and Tesla and all of American industry that relies on processed cobalt, lithium, you know, all of, you know, tantalum, you name it, so much of it, graphite, comes out of China. Is that going to have downstream effects now into places like Zambia and the DRC and other places since the supply chain will be disrupted by the tensions between the US and China? Do you see that downstream effect coming or is this, they're too far removed from these tensions? Yeah.

It puts an exception on critical minerals, though, in the tariffs. They do not cover... So they're not... Okay, so just to be clear, so Ford doesn't have to pay the 145%. Okay. Okay, that's good to know. Exactly. He was smart enough, I think, the industry was smart enough to say, you know what, don't...

don't put the minerals on that because we are still highly dependent on that. If you do that, you're just defeating the purpose of us being able to produce here on the ground. So yeah. But China though, in their retaliation, and I haven't seen the details of it, has restricted some of the flow of critical minerals from China to the US. Yes, yes. So this is a weapon that I think the Chinese are going to use more. That could have downstream effects because as we saw with germanium, when the Chinese stopped exports of processed germanium to China,

the U.S., the DRC stepped up and said, hey, guess what, guys? We got a lot of germanium. So it could be some opportunities for the DRC or other mining countries to be able to insert themselves in this to

sort out some of these supply chain issues. The problem is, of course, is the processing, right? Yes, exactly. They have to identify the opportunities because in the case of Germanium, they have to process the tailing that the DRC had of old minerals they had in the DRC Katanga. But for other countries, they're going to have to identify the opportunities to look into the recycling, old tailings they do have. Maybe they can find something out of there. But so far, the minerals that China has put...

export ban on that specific for the US market it's quite difficult to find it elsewhere and I was even reading a paper some they were saying that at the end some of those minerals the US is not really depending on China anymore in most of those minerals but some of them are still the US is really heavily relying on that relying on China on that

But I'm expecting things to get even worse the way things are going. And I believe that China hasn't used the full extent of all the tools that it has right now. I think they've learned from the first Trump administration. And for this one, they're very much ready. And we...

We may see ourselves in a very difficult situation. We've been reading and seeing a rapprochement between China and the European Union. We're expecting to see a EU delegation going to China maybe by July. We're having talks about maybe the EU removing tariffs on China EV to Europe. So...

The Trump position is really creating a context where you're just creating a context for people to create an alliance against the United States. And I'm afraid that at some point, the U.S. might find itself more and more isolated from other partners. We realize that we cannot rely on you anymore. It's really quite dangerous for the U.S. for the coming month and maybe years. Okay.

Okay. Did you take your blood pressure medication today? Because you're going to need it for this next segment. Are you ready? I mean, are you calm? Are you relaxed? Yes, I'm calm. Let's go. Are you sure? You want it? Okay. Okay. So last week, you wrote a fascinating column doing a preview of what General Michael Langley, who's the head of AFRICOM, which is the Africa Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany. Okay. And...

And he had to do his annual appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, and then he'll also appear before the House Armed Services Committee, and then they will also talk to members of the Appropriations Committees. These are the rituals every year that the commanders from around the world, SOUTHCOM, CENTCOM, AFRICOM, must do in order for Congress to be able to allocate money.

to their different commands. And so what ends up happening is you have this appearance of these different commanders, and in this case, General Langley appeared alongside the commander for CENTCOM. CENTCOM is the Middle East all the way out to Pakistan. That's the jurisdiction for the Central Command Commander.

And they basically field questions on everything. This is a fascinating ritual because the United States is the only country in the world, as far as I know, where they bring their military leaders in front of the legislative process, make it very public, and the military leaders are expected to comment on every subject.

not just military issues. So you're gonna hear today about USAID, you're gonna hear about influence operations, about propaganda, and these military commanders are expected to be experts on everything. The reason why we like to track these conversations between Congress and the military commanders is it reveals so much about the thinking in official Washington and in the Pentagon about how they see the world. And I think what you're going to hear in the next few minutes is,

Again, we walk away from these conversations just shaking our heads. Hard to tell if the stupidity is intentional. That is, they are going through this kind of performance theatrics to say what each one wants the other to say. And they really behind closed doors. If you had a whiskey with them at a bar and you were talking about China and Africa, they'd be full of really fascinating insights.

or is it that they're just very poorly informed and they just really don't get it? That being said, Giro, this year we did not hear anything on debt traps, which is a first, I would probably say, in many years of us covering that. But let's start...

with some scene setting from the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker, who is a senator from Mississippi, a Republican senator. And let's take a listen to what he said in terms of setting the tone for how the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senator Wicker himself view China in Africa. The Chinese Communist Party views its competition against the United States as a global problem.

project to China, the continents of Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa are all critical in Xi Jinping's unprecedented global military expansion.

In particular, Beijing has been active on the African continent. In Djibouti, China's naval base has grown substantially. It's now capable of hosting China's most advanced naval vessels and serving as an intelligence collection outpost against American and allied forces in the entire region.

China is also actively pursuing a naval base in Africa's western coast, the Atlantic coast, which would provide an enduring foothold along the Atlantic Ocean. According to General Langley, this would, quote, change the whole calculus of the geostrategic campaign plans of protecting the American homeland, unquote. There you go, Giro. So we've moved from debt trap to...

To the basing allegation, I just, I want to be very clear and do a fact check here. This has been the case for years. There is no publicly available evidence whatsoever to suggest that China is seeking to build

a military installation on the west coast of Africa. This has been an assertion by the United States government that was initially started by General Steven Townsend, who was General Michael Langley's predecessor, and we have a lot

of information on this on our site. But again, this is an American assertion. There is no, there's no evidence in the Chinese literature. There's no evidence in the PLA discourse. There's no evidence outside of an American assertion. But it is very useful, Zhihou, as you pointed out in your last column, for the generals to go to Congress and talk about this base, this fictitious base, as far as we know, on the West Coast of Africa that the Chinese want to build.

I started there because I know that's one of your pet project issues. Let's start with your reaction to Senator Wicker's claim about the base.

So that was expected. I think that in the column I wrote as a preview of that hearing, the title was like, is the China threat going to save Africa again? Because it happened before in 2019 and in 2020. It's happened before in a sense where when it was floated, when the idea was floated at that time, Donald Trump was still trying to close Africa, still trying to shrink it in a way that for him, Africa has no strategic interest for the US. And the Beijing issue became one of those issues

one of those questions that really had a lot of traction in D.C. on the bipartisan way, on both sides of the aisle, people believing that it was going to happen. And it really became a staple into AFRICOM or even any U.S. security paper related to China's presence in Africa, military presence in Africa.

The basic issue has become a staple that we do find everywhere in the discourse. So I was not really surprised to see Senator Wicker mentioning that, putting that on the table to show that this is the part of the debate. But even though when Michael Langley talked about it, it really was less adamant to that than Senator Wicker's words were on that topic, which I find...

And certainly than General Townsend was, because General Townsend really pushed this one very hard. Exactly, which I find quite interesting. I had that feeling that for certain questions, they just make sure that if I'm not really sure, I'm not going to contradict you, but I'm not going to either make it that that's the case.

So, yes, I'm not really surprised. And I think that's going to remain for quite some time, given especially that the fact that we see a lot of Chinese maritime exercise on the continent. We see a lot of Chinese ports where China's – West China is present.

And recently, our friend Paul Nantulia released a report mentioning the amount of ports in Africa that can have a dual use, civil and military use, that can potentially maybe having a certain ability to receive Chinese military basic. So yes, when you compound all those elements together, the narrative is not likely to die anytime soon. And I believe that they're still going to use it

for the survival of Africa. Will Africa survive after that? I'm not really sure, but that's, I think, what's going to remain. - Well, Congress likes AFRICOM. The president does not like AFRICOM, but the Congress does. Just a little bit of context, and we've talked about this many times before, so regular listeners of the program are going to think like, oh my gosh, here we are again talking about this.

One of the key reasons that you cannot have a base, a Chinese base on the West Coast of Africa, and RAND Corporation did a fascinating report on this and really kind of highlighted it. There's two key reasons. Number one is that unlike an American base where the Americans can step outside the line to provide force protection, the Chinese cannot put a PLA soldier on foreign soil. That is just not part of their doctrine. So protecting the base would be up to the host government.

There is not a government on the west coast of Africa that has the capacity to protect a Chinese base. So that makes it a very big limitation. Number two is, and this is what RAND Corporation pointed out, is that a base would need to be powered. It needs energy, it needs oil, it needs electricity.

That is something that the US in the event of a conflict could cut off very quickly. And so there is a vulnerability to a base that far away from China's supply lines, again, way far away.

The reference that Senator Wicker made about changing the whole geopolitical equation for the United States, that is anchored in our best estimate, and we've been studying this for about five years now, is that it's not going to be a traditional base that the Chinese will put up in the west coast of Africa according to this American theory.

It is a submarine base that they're most concerned about that would be able to put long-range nuclear-powered submarines, nuclear-armed submarines into the Atlantic that could then reach Washington, New York, and Atlanta. Currently, Chinese ICBMs can only reach as far as the west coast of the United States. So when they talk about the change of the geostrategic equation, the fear that Congress gets whenever they talk about a base in West Africa, it's a submarine resupply base.

Again, just very quickly, and I don't want to dwell on this, China has, I think, five long-range nuclear submarines. If they idle the submarine in the Atlantic, okay, the United States may be bad at a lot of things, and there's a long list of them, but one thing they are excellent at is submarine hunting.

Because the United States has a history of submarine warfare that dates back over a century now. And so putting one lone submarine out into the Atlantic makes no sense for the Chinese, given the capabilities of the American Navy to find submarines. So the whole thing is a budgetary kind of fiction. Okay, let's move on now. You talked about bipartisanship. One of the things you're going to hear in the different

questions from the senators is you probably cannot tell the political party of the different senators because when it comes to China and Africa, Republicans and Democrats are 100% aligned. Let's talk about USAID. That was a very popular theme of the questioning for Michael Landley. Again, odd that in a military interrogation on Capitol Hill, it

all these other issues come up, but let's listen to New Hampshire democratic Senator Jean Shaheen talking about the impact of USAID's closure in Africa. Um, I want to follow up on Senator Reed's question about USAID's presence in Africa or lack thereof. Now that, um, this administration has closed down virtually all of the operations in Africa. Um, this is the fastest growing continent in the world. Um,

It is a place where we're seeing increasing incursion by the Chinese, as you pointed out. So as we have withdrawn our presence from countries in Africa, are you seeing additional Chinese presence come in to take over some of those services and programs that the United States has been providing? For example, in Rwanda, we had a program to help with

children, women and children, and the challenges of childbirth. My understanding is that now that we have left that program that the Chinese have come in to take it over. Are you seeing that in places?

Sir, I am seeing that. You know, there's a number of programs that we see that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to replicate. They can't do what we do. They can't do what we do in PEPFAR, where they extended the lifespan of a number of Africans by 20 years. They're trying to replicate that.

They're trying to match what we do. So that's what we're seeing as we start to fold in the capabilities of USAID under State Department. They're trying to, China's trying to exploit that scene. And do you agree that it would be a huge loss if we don't continue many of those programs?

Senator, I won't speak to the policy part of that, but it is a need. Those capabilities are needed for the U.S. to maintain a strategic advantage over the Chinese Communist Party because we do it best. And the Africans, they speak. They speak that they do prefer the United States.

I mean, it's like a parallel universe as if nothing's happened. Everything's great. Everything's fine. Nothing to see here, ladies and gentlemen. Géraud, go for it. Listen, first of all, the line of questioning was quite funny for that. And I could feel the journalists being a bit uncomfortable, being put on a hot seat where clearly you had a Democrat senator trying to make political points using...

humanitarian cases, combining it with the security agenda on the same table and putting on a hot seat to generally say, you know what, is it a good idea for us to close, basically, is it a good idea for us to close USAID because it's a security challenge to it? So that was quite interesting. But the way she was framing the issues, like, first of all,

China cannot react as USAID closed only like one month ago. So we cannot, almost two months ago, we cannot expect that USAID closed two months ago and the next month China is there. So when she said that we've seen China taking it over, that's just not true. That's just not true. That's not true. It's just not true, first of all. That needs to be put out there. There was Chinese...

medical cooperation with Rwanda happening way before that. The fact that USAID left, of course, only left on the scene that Chinese medical presence being there. So when you see only Chinese medical presence there, you cannot say they just arrived to replace us. No, no. You were together, all together at the same time because Rwanda has been receiving a lot of money, $42 million of Chinese medical support, expanding hospitals in certain parts of Rwanda.

and training random doctors and everything. So that's not the first, that's not true to say that they've been replacing USID on the ground. And second of all, based on what the General Anglican said,

Yes, when they say they're trying to replicate what the U.S. does, they cannot do what we do. First of all, that's true. In terms of PEPFAR, the U.S. has done things that almost no country in the world would be able to do in Africa. Really lifting our population, saving a lot of people in terms of HIV medication and all of that. That's one thing. But the second thing, saying that China is copying U.S. policies,

U.S. approach is, first of all, missing the point of a historical aid relationship that China had with Africa long time ago, way before the U.S., in terms of medical support, training and everything. And of course, it has never been China's first priority. But we've seen the trend into Oprochain trend where we see a lot of doctors coming in.

What people don't know, for example, I'm going to give you a few numbers. There are at least, in almost 35 African countries, there are at least 25 or 26 Chinese medical mission right now. It means that it's the 26th,

It means like Chinese have been sending missions, medical missions to those hospitals, training doctors, building hospitals. The simple fact that we are not paying attention to that because for us, the China-Africa relationship was only through geopolitics, economic, industrial. We just were blindsided to those aspects. But now with USAID gone, we're going to see much more of that, believing that they just came now. They were there before. They were just coming.

But that is political framing that she's doing, because the reality is that what the United States did with USAID was on a scale that the Chinese never even came close to. So you talk about these missions, these are tiny missions. The USAID budget in Africa, if I recall, was somewhere around six billion dollars.

Just for the Africa CDC alone, the Americans cut their contribution by $115 million. Together, China and South Korea made a $4 million contribution together. We don't even know if it was two and two, three and one. And the point here is that the Chinese are going to be very tactical in where they fill some aid gaps. So...

Out here in Southeast Asia, when the Americans pulled out of the demining campaign in Cambodia, the Chinese stepped in because that was a critical need, but also was very political as well. So you're going to see some examples of the Chinese stepping up their aid, but it's not the way the Chinese set up their system. So SIDCA, which is the Chinese aid agency, is not gonna balloon into a $20 billion agency. The Chinese view,

their loans and their development finance as part of an aid initiative. So they frame aid in a very different way than it's framed in the West. And so what you're seeing is politicians and even journalists

try to do a one for one apples to apples kind of comparison. Well, if the US isn't doing it, the Chinese are going to fill in as if it's almost like the Cold War and the Soviets, you know, if we don't do it. That is not the way this is playing out. So Senator Shaheen was completely wrong. Let's go on now to the Belt and Road and go back to Senator Wicker from Mississippi.

who again, very odd, you're asking a military commander about these things, but guess what? That's where we are. So this is how this system works. Let's take a listen about his concern about the Belt and Road in Africa. As we dial back USAID in Africa, China's not dialing back the Belt and Road initiative anywhere in Africa, are they?

Chairman, China is responding by trying to replicate what capabilities USAID was very successful across a number of years. They're trying to replicate that, whether it's in health diplomacy or any development-type programs. They're trying to use that as extension of the Belt and Road Initiative to gain favor by the African countries. And they—

Would you say it's not principally altruistic on the part of the Chinese communists?

Chairman, I'd say that they've made some missteps in the last couple of weeks, especially in Zambia with that spillage into the river that affects five million people. So they're getting a horrible start using a track. And they do it. They do it in their own self-interest. The Chinese, which is, again, a very odd framing, especially in an era. And remember, Senator Wicker is a Republican.

And we're in this era of transactional politics now. But this idea, see what the insinuation they're trying to say, I told you, did you take your blood pressure medication? What they're trying to suggest is that American assistance was altruistic and that Chinese assistance is somehow strategic and selfish.

And I think most people will talk, will explain, most experts will tell you that aid is an extension of statecraft and state power, and public diplomacy and soft power. And no country does anything altruistically. They do things for the benefit of, and for,

Former Senator Marco Rubio, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was one of the most articulate defenders of USAID and the value that it brought to American taxpayers and American diplomacy. Not altruism. This is about power. And so this suggestion that the Chinese are somehow different and exceptional is just surreal. But this idea also that General Langley puts forward that they are trying to be like us.

is also just kind of perplexing, to be honest with you. I was watching, I didn't tell you, but I was watching the whole hearing for like 12 days. It was really funny. I was listening to the questions like, guys, it doesn't make sense, the way you're framing it. And you notice that General Langley tried it the first time when the question was asked,

to dodge the answer. He did not want to answer that question. Like, no, the Chinese are trying to do something. He tried to dodge that. And in the end, he did not even answer the question about the Belt and Road Initiative itself. Because let's face it, what China has done in terms of infrastructure to Africa, the U.S. hasn't done it.

So what China, what the U.S. is to Africa in terms of aid, humanitarian aid, it is what China is to Africa in terms of hard infrastructure. And that's simply put as that. So the U.S. doesn't even come close to the number of railway, ports, streets, roads, bridges, schools. Not even come close. Not even come close. There is nothing. Nothing. I mean, we don't have, I mean, it's zero to... Exactly. And this is what's so interesting is that the one, whenever...

We heard criticisms of the Americans about their engagement in Africa. You could come back to the fact that humanitarian assistance was one of the shining kind of advantages, the most powerful advantage that they had over the Chinese. And I remember when trolls would hit me on various social media platforms saying, America hasn't done anything for Africa. And I'm like, that's not exactly true. You know, when you start listing through the accomplishments of PEPFAR and others, you

And yet they have single-handedly walked away from that. So now when you look at US-China competition in Africa, okay, it's a tough sell. I mean, I would like to be General Langley because all he can do is saying they want to be like us, which is, I don't know what that means.

Because there's not much declining trade, no infrastructure investment, no humanitarian assistance, no student visas. I mean, go through it. But let's, okay, let's close out. I warned you, Giro. I warned you. Okay, don't say I didn't warn you. We're going to close out this conversation. And by the way, this is Washington inside politics. Even a lot of Americans think this is just Looney Tunes. So this is the theatrics and performance art of budgetary politics. Again, I would be very interested, and I'm no...

I know some of General Langley's folks, his advisors, listen to the show. And I think I have permanently now reduced any, eliminated any chance of ever having an opportunity to say hi to General Langley. No, me, I'm extending the invitation. If they're listening, we'd be really, really happy. Oh, wouldn't it be fascinating? But I don't think they would want to come. One of those officials on the table to talk about it. It's interesting, you know,

But I would just want to know, again, what I don't understand. General Langley is a super smart guy, and I've seen him speak in other contexts that

And again, when and he's a military guy, this is a guy who spent his time in the Marine Corps and he's being forced into a terrible situation here to speak on all these humanitarian issues, on all these social issues, on political issues, on things that have nothing to do with what a military commander of his expertise knows. He doesn't have a Ph.D. in political science. Maybe he does. I don't think he does. But he's a military man.

And so it's interesting that they don't ask about, you know, troop engagement. They don't ask about, you know, hardware, any number of military issues, strategy things. It's all about social. Let's end our discussion today on political narratives and media influence. Again, odd questions to be asking a general, but.

But here we are. Let's take a listen now from Michigan Democratic Senator Gary Peters. China employs strategic narratives to justify and enhance their presidents in sub-Saharan Africa. Through partnerships with African journalist training programs, the CCP integrates its perspective into local media. It directly engages in more than 60 African political parties.

But their most influential impact, I think you would agree, has been the Belt and Road Initiative, which has significantly impacted Africa's economic landscape through substantial investments, particularly infrastructure investments.

In 2023, African countries experienced a 47% increase in Chinese construction contracts and 114% surge in investments compared to the previous year, which totals about $21.7 billion, a substantial amount.

So my question for you, sir, is can you expand upon the going presence that China has in Africa politically, economically, and militarily, and how that is a threat to our very important strategic interests on the continent? Yes, Senator, thanks for that question. China's trying to set the globe now. They want to be the global hegemon now. Chairman Xi has put out a 2049 plan, but they want to get there earlier.

So there lies the importance that we engage and show assurance actions, but we just can't just harbor the facts. We harbor the facts, but we don't own the narrative. That's being drowned out by the CCP and their campaign plans to be able to influence civil society, influence the militaries. They can't replicate what we do, whether it be their actions

trying to copy of what we're doing in our IMET or our international military education training, it doesn't compare. And we match our efforts, whether it's Title 22 funding or Title 10 funding, whether it be security, the state partnership program or the SFABs, Security Force Assistance Brigades.

They build institutional capacity like none other. Our African partners know that. So whatever is in the information space, we do need to meet it with a comparable narrative. Thanks, sir. I think this is an honest – this is probably the most honest answer that I think he gave in terms of accuracy where military-to-military engagement, I think African militaries in the United States –

I think the Chinese don't come close. There's some great research when Judd Devermont was at the Center for Strategic International Studies comparing Chinese and American military engagements and exchanges in Africa. They're very different. There's a lot more training that happens on the American side. So I think on that point, he's right. They're very different kind of trainings. And so you can't even compare them in one sense. The other point which he acknowledged

which is that the Americans are being outdone on the strategic messaging side by the Chinese. He said it, we're being outdone. And I think that's the most honest answer that we've heard out of an American stakeholder that says that the Chinese on their media, their propaganda, their exchanges, all their different influence operations have been incredibly effective in Africa.

And the United States now, I mean, whatever they had, again, VOA, I wasn't a huge fan of VOA. I thought it was pretty junky, but it's gone. So, you know, no more USAID, no more VOA, and they've just kind of walked away from it. So no doubt that the U.S. is going to be less competitive in that idea space than they were last year at this time.

Definitely the messaging coming out of D.C. was really low and they've been outdone by China for so far, for so long. But the problem for me, the problem of being outdone was caused by themselves. Why I say that? Because they wanted to compare the engagement with China in space where they were not present.

When you look into the parallels of the US engagement in China and Africa, you realize that there's much more complementary work than competition work. You are strong in humanitarian. Talk about what you do. Talk about how you save lives. Talk about how you...

You train people. Talk about how you avoided Ebola to become a world pandemic crisis. Talk about how you put $1 billion in the eastern part of the DRC, in Bunia and Uganda, to be able to build Ebola centers and to come up with a vaccine. Talk about that. But you want to go to talk trash about how China is investing in infrastructure in the space where you are not present.

Okay, China is putting billions of dollars in terms of railway and bridges and everything. We don't take Chinese money. So the US, are you there? No, you are not there. So why are you talking about that? At the end, China will be talking about things that it does, what people see, the hard infrastructure, the hard power, the

hard element, at the end, you find yourself being outdone because you spend too much time trying to talk trash about what other people are doing where you are not present instead of talking about what you do best.

Military training, as you mentioned. Humanitarians saving lives. You don't talk about that. Yeah, but we don't want to talk about that anymore because they don't think that helps the American taxpayer. So at the end, what do you want? Well, and here's the other thing that I find so interesting is that you were just in Nairobi at a conference with African and Chinese stakeholders. There was recently, just last month, a five-day conference where

and trade event between the city of Chongqing in southwestern China and Kenya. And the mayor of Chongqing, and remember Chongqing is 20 million people, the sixth or seventh largest city in China. It has a GDP larger than most countries. It would be very close to a G20 country. And you're seeing all this subnational engagement that's now happening that's way off the radar. I mean, that's the stuff we cover. And

And again, you don't see a state of California and Kenya delegation going over saying, how can we do business together? What can we do to trade? And you're seeing all of this activity happen. Our colleague Njinga Akina is doing, he has an entire podcast now called the Africa EV Show and a whole series of videos on YouTube about

that are focused only on how African entrepreneurs around the continent are using Chinese green technology and mobile tech to innovate in this new green mobility space.

this isn't happening with the Americans. And so, and then we talk about Transcend and we talk about all the different companies that are doing innovative things there. That level of comparable innovation and comparable economic engagement just isn't happening from the Americans. And so, you know, and whatever was happening is happening much less frequently. Let's give your final thoughts. We're a little bit over time today, but give me your final thoughts on everything we've talked about, but particularly on what we heard from Congress this past week.

I really do believe that the United States needs to do better in messaging its approach to the U.S. in Africa or its competition with China in Africa. I always believe that there's no really need of a competition of the U.S. and China in Africa because the reality is...

They have their own strengths, they have their own weaknesses, and each of them is playing to its own strength in its engagement with Africa. And the reality is none of those countries are able by itself to resolve or to solve any African country issue by itself alone. The reality is there will always be need of compromises.

coming from different stakeholders for the continent, for Africa to come all together to work on the continent. And I do believe that there is a time where now from the U.S. to start to understand that. But given the current circumstances, the geopolitical tension, I'm really just quite doubtful that we're going to see that happen. Now it's going to depend on African stakeholders to really take the lead into determining the kind of agenda and conversation they need to have on the continent in their relationships

with the great power competition that's taking place right now. Okay, well, let's leave the conversation there, Giro. Welcome back home. You must be happy to be there. Hey, by the way, you and I, we're on the road in a couple of weeks. We're on our way to Salzburg. So you're going to be, and we're going to be doing some shows from Salzburg, Austria. So we have something to look forward to there. So you've had quite a travel year so far. I hope you're racking up your frequent flyer points. Exactly, obviously, obviously.

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Back in Mauritius, I'm Eric Olander. Thank you so much for listening. ♪

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