U.S., Chinese and Russian officials tour Africa as charm offensive

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, new Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have all embarked on African tours within the past month.

Yellen met with South African officials including President Cyril Ramaphosa last week, just days after the country’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor stood alongside Lavrov and vowed to strengthen bilateral relations between Pretoria and Moscow.

Yellen’s three-country African tour, which also included stops in Senegal and Zambia, was presented as an effort to build trade and investment ties with the continent, accompanied by discussions about sustainable energy and food security initiatives and debt relief.

Yellen noted last week that Africa would “shape the future of the global economy,” signaling the U.S. motivation to re-engage with the continent of 1.4 billion people, but she also said Friday that she had discussed adherence to Russian sanctions in each of the three countries visited.

Earlier in the week, Pandor refused to reiterate any calls for Russia to withdraw troops from Ukraine, and took a subtle swipe at Western attempts to influence other countries’ choice of allies. South Africa was one of 17 African nations to abstain from the U.N. vote in March to condemn Russia’s war of aggression.

Perhaps more controversially, South Africa last week announced a joint military exercise with Russia and China next month, coinciding with the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, which drew concern from the White House.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also toured sub-Saharan Africa last year, while U.S. President Joe Biden held a U.S.-Africa Summit in December, perceived as an effort to recoup some of the economic and trade influence Washington has lost to China over the past decade or more. Blinken also stopped off in Egypt on Monday on the first leg of a planned tour of the Middle East amid a renewed spate of Israel-Palestinian violence.

Diplomatic analysts told CNBC last week that the flurry of diplomatic activity should not be seen as a “scramble for Africa,” but rather a demonstration that the continent’s economic and geopolitical bargaining power means it now firmly occupies a seat at the table.

African governments resist taking sides

In the backdrop of Yellen’s trip is Washington’s concern about its waning influence on a continent that has increasingly pivoted toward bilateral relations with global powers that do not overtly exert pressure to adopt…