By Deiniol Brown
Dr Pádraig Carmody is a professor in Geography at Trinity College Dublin, specialising in research on the political economy of globalisation in Africa, in particular on competition between China, the US and other powers on the continent, and the structural economic implications of these dynamics. He is also a Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, and has consulted for the Office of the President of South Africa. He was the Trinity College Dublin director of CHARM-EU, an alliance of European Universities, and currently sits on the boards of several academic journals including Political Geography, and Geoforum, where he was previously editor-in-chief. He is also currently Chair of the Standing Committee on International Affairs of the Royal Irish Academy. In this interview, we discussed Dr Carmody’s extensive work on China’s economic and political relations with African states, as well as Africa’s importance in the context of contemporary global competition between the US and China.
You’ve suggested the concept of ‘Web-power’ to describe how China coordinates its strategy in Africa. Can you explain this concept, and how does this ‘web-power’ differ from other states’ approaches?
First of all, I don’t think that web-power is exclusive to China. Other states have forms of web-power; networks that they construct and shape. There is a useful contrast with the US’s web-power at the moment, the dismantling of USAID and the soft power networks this supported, as well as the US saying they are going to close some embassies in Africa. The idea of web-power in China is that it operates a more articulated version of this power, because in China you have a party-state fusion that deeply penetrates Chinese society through a variety of means. This gives the state an advanced reach into the private sector through policies such as requiring data sharing, if requested – enabling the state to project its power internationally through these webs and networks.
Lots of the literature on Chinese state power talks about ‘fractured authoritarianism’, and the concept of web-power points out the underlying strategic impetus of this fragmented system; it’s not that the Chinese state has lost power, but it has strategically decentralised power through this web of different actors. My article that was released the other week with Ben Barton talks about China’s grand strategy as a strategic-relational one. Rather than being clearly enunciated in policy documents or institutions, this web-power allows the Chinese state to engage through its proxies with actors in Africa in a decentralised way which still furthers its strategic objectives.
What role do the narratives that China uses around it’s strategies play? For example, discourses of ‘mutual benefit’, or wolf-warrior diplomacy.
Much of the literature argues that the Belt and Road Initiative, for example, is not a defined project but is more of a ‘discursive envelope’. Discourses like the ‘digital silk road’ or the ‘China dream’ help to set the direction of movement, which is then sometimes supported by material incentives, like tax exemptions. However, the decentralisation of these grand-strategy initiatives makes them look less intimidating. Some scholars see these projects as a direct plan to displace US hegemony by the middle of this century; most don’t people agree with that position, but fundamentally, these discursive envelopes are important in how they incentivise actors to pursue strategic goals. They are also important in how they present themselves as win-win outcomes, emphasising acculturation, interest alignment, and also social capital.
As another example, China has also formally separated its diplomacy between ‘great power’ diplomacy, with states like the US, and ‘peripheral’ diplomacy with its neighbours in Asia. This approach implies that Africa is below even peripheral diplomacy, despite China’s commitment to formal sovereign equality. However, scholars have suggested that this actually goes alongside informal equality, meaning that when Chinese officials meet with African counterparts they often afford them much more respect than they would receive from their western counterparts. This serves a ‘social capital’ function, allowing Chinese objectives to be achieved more easily through cooperation
Has China’s approach to foreign direct investment implementation been more successful than western FDI in enacting structural economic change in the political economy of Africa? Is this why Chinese FDI has received so much support in Africa?
I think the extent of structural economic change has been limited. The general outcome of interaction between the Chinese and African economies has been the reproduction of dependency; looking at the export basket, it is quite neo-colonial, with African states mostly exporting raw materials. However, one difference is China’s establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) across the continent. Secondly, Chinese FDI has had both push and pull factors attracting it to Africa. In the early years we saw an emphasis on oil and mineral extraction from the continent to fuel China’s rapid growth. Following the rise of huge overcapacity in China in many industries, China has tried to vent some of its surpluses in things steel and cement to the continent. To do this it gave loans to African states for infrastructure developments like roads and ports, which created the demand which was then fulfilled by Chinese goods.
The third dynamic is the increased investment in manufacturing in Africa, which is partly a reaction to overcapacity in China, as well as incentives relating to schemes like the Belt and Road Initiative. This investment is largely tariff-jumping, rather than export-led investment, so is limited in its ability for levelling up. People therefore question the structural benefits of these limited forms of investment. In an upcoming paper I suggest the concept of ‘closed circuit accumulation’, where Chinese state-owned enterprises are constructing infrastructure in Africa funded by Chinese loans, meaning the value of those projects is primarily captured in China, with the costs accrued by African states in the form of debt. In some cases Chinese workers were even paid into their Chinese bank accounts, so African governments didn’t even get the tax revenue from those Chinese workers. Raphael Kaplinsky and Mike Morris have described this as redolent of colonialism, where Chinese finance and infrastructure development are coordinated in a way that ensures the benefits flow primarily to the Chinese state because they are coordinated in that way.
How have western states reacted to Chinese FDI in Africa over recent decades, and have they changed their strategies there in response?
The western powers have been largely caught flatfooted in their response. There have been a few initiatives; the global gateway and the clean network initiative, which aim to provide an alternative to the BRI in Africa. However, the material resources they are able to bring to bear is limited, and they don’t have the kind of capacity to pursue these initiatives in the way the Chinese state does.
Jones and Hamieri’s recent article argues that the Chinese state has recently downscaled its commitment in Africa because of issues like the debt and political backlash in many African countries, at the same time that the western powers are scaling back their operations there. There is a reorientation towards isolationism in the US especially, albeit with a bellicose and expansionist element, and this is also reflected in countries like the UK with the ‘Hard Labour’ movement cutting back international aid. This reorientation was supercharged by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has furthered geoeconomic fragmentation and increased militarisation.
The EU is cognisant that if they are going to try and compete with the Chinese in Africa, they are going to have to change their approach by treating African counterparts with more respect. However, there are competing priorities as demonstrated by the recent 800 billion euro announced for the rearmament of Europe. If you look at French involvement in West Africa and the Sahel as an example, there has been a dramatic reduction in influence, with France closing military bases in the region as many of those African governments turn to the Russian Wagner group for assistance. Ultimately, the authoritarian powers have been much more effective at leveraging things like information spaces for their own ends compared to the western powers. Despite this, there has been an interesting development in Gabon, where the general who led the recent coup has been elected, and is in favour of maintaining a recalibrated relationship with France, showing that we can’t know for sure how this will play out in particular contexts.
Do you think that the US’s withdrawal under Trump, and other western powers’ recalibration of their relationship with Africa, will prompt China to change its strategy to reflect the broader move away from Africa?
The lowering importance of Africa economically for China, and its rising importance geopolitically, is a trend that predates Trump. However, what will be deepened is that the Trump administration will drive African countries into China’s arms through the bullying tactics it is using. The ‘Mar-a-Lago Accord economic plan of the US is to devalue the currency as well as reduce the US’s trade deficit, whilst also increasing tariffs on other countries. The administration differentiates between three different types of countries; ‘green countries’ like the UK which it thinks can be bullied in exchange for security guarantees, ‘yellow countries’ like the EU which are non-aligned, and can resist American bullying, then ‘red countries’ like China, designated as foes. The Trump Administration sees American involvement in Africa as largely a failure; it hasn’t gained much from aid programmes there, but if it can extract some concessions through tariffs or security guarantees it can peel off some states into its sphere of influence. It has talked about recognising Somaliland in this context, if it demonstrates its loyalty to the US, as a way of competing with China in the horn of Africa. However, I think its undoubted that China will benefit from the US’s bellicose approach to international relations.
As well as China benefitting, do you think that BRICS as an organisation will benefit from these changes?
Yes, I think so. BRICS has been expanding rapidly over recent years, but it is still dominated by China, with China accounting for 60% of its total economic output. BRICS provides an action place for China that allows it to position itself as a broader leader of the global south. Discursively, it is very important for China, but whether the relationship is formalised by something like a BRICS currency will depend on the strategic calculations of its members. BRICS does demonstrate the existence of this alternative pole of power and the rise of multipolarity, but most scholars are sceptical about its ability to enact change because of the divergent interests of its members. Some scholars say that BRICS doesn’t matter at all; I don’t take that position, I think it’s important as a forum for states to act. For example, following Ethiopia’s accession to BRICS, there were several Russian manufacturing plants established there quickly after. Those bilateral relations are an important offshoot of BRICS as a multilateral structure.
China’s commitment to combat the US’s tariffs has also stretched outside the BRICS, with them recently holding talks with Japan and South Korea on how to minimise the impacts of tariffs. I think that the Chinese are therefore definitely capable of withstanding the competition with the US. Once you implement tariffs, it becomes a feature of the global economy, and that is going to cause a lot of inefficiency in many sectors of the global economy, with a cascading effect on global supply chains where the US has been central.
Returning to Africa, in your article ‘The Shifting Geopolitics in Africa’ you identify a lot of the trends we are seeing, with the West moving away from involvement in Africa. How do you see the territorialist politics now pursued by the US as relating to Africa; why are they rejecting the continent and what will be the outcome?
The reality is that the US is still the world’s largest economy, and this is a gambit by the US to leverage its domestic industry, its global companies, and its reach to reassert dominance over the global economy and reshape it in its own image. Africa is peripheral in that image, and it’s not surprising that Africa features little in Trump’s vision. I think they see it primarily as a site of strategic competition with China, and have rejected it as a site for humanitarian aid. This is a trend in broader US foreign policy, with Africa being perpetually peripheral. Under George W. Bush, Africa was seen as serving a ‘balancing’ function, where the US quadruples aid there, and this was seen as softening the US’s international image at the same time as its invasion in Afghanistan and Iraq – serving a strategic, discursive end.
In 2019 we wrote a paper about ‘Trumping Development’ where Trump tried to reduce international aid in his first term. Obviously the dismantling of USAID in this term has been hugely cruel and damaging. I heard that in Uganda, 1.3 million people will lose access to anti-viral treatments as a result of this abolition of USAID. In his first term, Trump cut off Rwanda from the African Growth and Opportunity Act because it had introduced a ban on imports of second-hand clothing, in order to stimulate its domestic textiles industry, which damaged US exports there. Despite its minute impact on US companies, Trump was then willing to exercise this huge disciplinary power on a very poor African country for the short term economic interest of the US. We can’t predict exactly how things will play out; Africa could suddenly become more central to US foreign policy, but based on Trump’s previous attitude towards the continent, it is likely to be of marginal significance. However, this opens up new opportunities for emerging powers; China, India, Turkey, middle eastern states, and Russia to engage with the continent.
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