Africa

As the first-ever Russia-Africa summit made headlines around the world in the past few weeks, the comparison between the Russian and the Chinese approach to Africa was recurrent. It originated in the fact that both China and Russia are not Western countries, both have seemingly ‘returned’ to Africa in the 21^st century for economic and political reasons, both advocate a non-interference approach in the internal affairs of other countries and both are perceived as great powers in international relations.

The Russia-Africa summit hosted at the Black Sea retreat of Sochi, with the participation of 43 African heads of state, marked the culminating point of the Kremlin’s renewed interest in the African continent and its political and economic assets.

Russia’s presence in Africa has returned to the fore. The first-ever Russia-Africa summit, held in Sochi on 23-24 October 2019, sparked international attention, raising questions about Russia’s new Africa strategy.

The language of empire strikes back. Against the backdrop of China’s growing influence on the African continent and the attempts of other great powers to counter Beijing’s sway, Western news outlets have, in the last eighteen months, seized on comparisons between these current rivalries and those of the nineteenth-century colonial era. The Economist led the way with its headline “The New Scramble for Africa.”

The African continent has been increasingly in the sights of many global actors such as China, the United States of America, the European Union, Turkey, Japan, India and, more recently, the Russian Federation. The successor to the Soviet Union is not a new actor in Africa, but relations deteriorated with the collapse of the USSR at the end of the Cold War. Its renewed engagement, through its “Pivot to Africa” has been more niched, focusing in the areas of security, weapons trade, oil and gas.

In recent years, Russian president Vladimir Putin has increasingly placed a high premium on re-building Russia’s global influence in Africa.