Ukraine war heightens geopolitical rivalry over Africa
South Africa and its neighbours were at the centre of a tussle for influence this week when top Russian and US officials visited, offering a rare moment of leverage for governments on a continent more used to being buffeted by events than wooed.
With a war in Europe pitting invading Russian forces against Ukraine’s army supplied with Western arms, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen were both on the hunt for broader international support.
For the countries of southern Africa, which maintain strong ideological and historical sympathies for Russia but hold far more significant trade balances with the European Union and United States, that rivalry presents an opportunity. “They have the opportunity to play one side off against the other to get concessions; to get more aid, more trade,” said Steven Gruzd from the South African Institute of International Affairs. “That’s precisely what we’re seeing at the moment.”the war in Ukraine has intensified long-standing great power competition for access to Africa’s abundant natural resources and the diplomatic prize of its 54 UN votes.
But Africa’s voting patterns at the United Nations show a continent divided over which side to support in Ukraine’s war.
Landlocked between South Africa and Mozambique and with a gross domestic product of less than $5 billion, the tiny kingdom of Eswatini doesn’t often command the attention of world powers. No Russian diplomat is based there.
Nevertheless Lavrov made a stopover after visiting South Africa, which his counterpart Thulisile Dladla described as a “profound honour.” The two sides signed a visa waver agreement.
Eswatini relies on the United States for aid, but it has suffered US criticism on human rights.
MULTIPOLAR
For South Africa, the continent’s economic powerhouse and diplomatic heavyweight, it was an opportunity to thumb its nose at a Western alliance it regards as too bossy and hegemonic.
Receiving Lavrov in Pretoria, his counterpart Naledi Pandor defended joint military drills planned with Russia and China as a “natural course of relations” between “friends”, and suggested South Africa no longer believed that Russia ought to withdraw from Ukraine, unless a peace deal is agreed. South Africa, alongside Russia and China, is pushing for a “multipolar” world in which geopolitical power is less concentrated around the United States. For that reason, it is an enthusiastic exponent of a proposed political and trade alliance between Brazil, Russia, India, China and itself (BRICS) — for which it is holding a summit later this year.
THE WAR IN UKRAINE HAS INTENSIFIED LONG-STANDING GREAT POWER COMPETITION FOR ACCESS TO AFRICA’S ABUNDANT NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE DIPLOMATIC PRIZE OF ITS 54 UN VOTES