China is offering help to “silence the guns in the Horn of Africa”, an ambitious undertaking given the many conflicts in the region, and a sign that Beijing is more active diplomatically than its traditional “non-intervention” stance. Moving towards connection. ,
Xu Bing, China’s special envoy for the Horn of Africa, made the offer last week at a peace conference hosted by Chinese officials in Addis Ababa. The Chinese government has historically avoided getting involved in foreign disputes, but some observers see the incident as evidence that Beijing seeks to rival the US as an international conflict mediator. Others saw it as a pragmatic move by a major investor in the sector to safeguard their interests.
The conference did not include specific proposals to address several current security woes, but the Chinese envoy said Beijing wanted to be more involved.
“This is the first time China is playing a role in the field of security,” said Xu, who was appointed to his post earlier this year, adding that Beijing wants a more important role. “Not only in trade and investment but also in the area of peace and development.”
According to the United States Institute of Peace, China has 400 construction and construction projects worth more than $4 billion in Ethiopia alone. Although Ethiopia has been implicated in vicious ethnic conflict since 2020, the federal government in Addis Ababa is fighting rebel forces in the northern Tigre region.
peace talks to start soonBut there is disagreement among the warring factions over who should act as a mediator, the African Union or Kenya.
“As Africa’s largest single-country trading partner, China recognizes the economic need for stability in regional anchor countries such as Ethiopia,” Fonteh Akum, executive director of the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, told VOA.
Most of the rest of the region is also in crisis. Northern neighbor Eritrea has been suspiciously involved in the war in the Tigre, while Ethiopia’s eastern neighbor, Somalia, has been ravaged by decades of conflict and Islamic insurgency. In the west, South Sudan is headed for a weakened peace after years of civil war, while Sudan recently launched a military coup. This week, Sudanese and Ethiopian armies clashed over a disputed border area.
So China has finished its work for this, and It is not the first country to try. Washington’s own Horn of Africa envoy David Satterfield lived only three months before leaving the job earlier this year. Before him, President Joe Biden’s envoy Jeffrey Feltman lasted less than a year.
The joint statement issued at the end of China’s peace conference – which was attended by foreign ministry officials from regional countries and during which no specific conflict was even discussed – was vague. It only said that all sides had agreed to “maintain peace and stability”.
William Davison, senior Ethiopian analyst at the International Crisis Group, said: “I think that despite organizing this peace forum it is unclear what they can offer the federal government and other Ethiopian conflict actors in terms of mediation.”
“It is not clear whether there is a political commitment from Beijing, or an understanding of the political complexities, or the diplomatic ability to actually engage in talks,” he told VOA.
FILE – Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks with former Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome during a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, October 30, 2019. (Madoka Ikegami/Pool via Reuters)
Washington has imposed sanctions on Ethiopia, much to the annoyance of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has also described China as Addis Ababa “The most reliable friend.” Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations Last year, the United Nations Security Council spoke out against the imposition of sanctions.
“There are concerns about the so-called Western intervention in Addis and the US advancing its agenda on the Ethiopian civil war,” Davison said. “So it will come as no surprise if Ethiopia prefers a more non-interventionist approach to China in terms of peace talks.”
Adhere Kavins, an independent Kenyan international relations analyst, agreed, saying that some Western interventions in the Ethiopian conflict “were not received very kindly.”
“The US responded with sanctions, with conditions, with threats … and this is quite different from what the Chinese are saying,” he told the VOA, referring to the fact that China was concerned with human rights rather than focused on development.
The Chinese Communist Party has always maintained that stability is essential to development and the Horn region is an important part of its global infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
FILE – A general view shows a train on a Standard Gauge railway line built by the China Road and Bridge Corporation and financed by the Chinese government in Kenya, October 16, 2019.
China has funded railways and highways in Kenya, built the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, and built a railway from Ethiopia to Djibouti – where it also established its first foreign military base. It seeks to protect this strategic base as well as shipping lanes and its own civilians working in the area.
FILE – Chinese People’s Liberation Army personnel attend the opening ceremony of China’s new military base in Djibouti on August 1, 2017.
“From an economic point of view, stability in the region will help China move deeper into East Africa, which is the focus of its BRI in Africa,” said Christian Geraud Nima Byamungu, an analyst at the China-Global South Project.
Whether they can do this by offering economic integration and development projects, Neema Byamungu said, is another question.
“The conflicts in this region are not only economically rooted, they are also socially and culturally rooted … and this is one of the areas where China lacks experience,” he told VOA.
Still, it seems China wants to send a message to Washington that it too can help promote stability abroad. However, mediation with Chinese characteristics may look quite different, with a focus not on human rights and democratization but on economic development.
A recent column on Africa in China’s State-affiliated Global Times The newspaper suggests as much as it is a good thing.
“Although some Western countries such as the US also offer to mediate in this area, China has an advantage compared to them, which is that China never takes sides or interferes in the domestic affairs of regional countries.” Read it.
But analysts don’t think it will necessarily play in China’s favour, especially in Ethiopia.
“Its neutrality was not well received by the Tigre people,” said Nima Byamungu, who had no delegates present at the peace conference.
Davison said that as China had always supported the government of the time, “it is unlikely that other actors, especially the Tigre regional leadership, would be interested in playing a mediating role in China.”
But for Cavins, “the Horns of Africa are welcoming the Chinese proposal based on the fact that it is not confrontational, it is not coercive, it is based on mutual consent.”
“Whether China is going to be successful in its mediation efforts in Africa is a question whose time has not come, it lies in the future,” he said.
