During Kamala Harris's Africa trip, one thing was on everybody's mind |
The White House would probably have been satisfied with Kamala Harris’ nine-day, three-country tour of Africa if it had passed without any notable missteps.
Instead, Harris looked perhaps her most comfortable as vice president during the tour. It helped that all three destinations — Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia — have political success stories to tell, decreasing the potential for awkwardness. Ghana has long been a beacon of steady democracy, Tanzania has Africa’s only current democratically-elected female president, and Zambia’s president was elected in 2021 after his predecessor had him imprisoned a few years earlier.
U.S. coverage of the trip noted that it might help her with voters back home. But the substance of the visit was inextricably linked to China, whose high-profile inroads America is eager to counter.
The White House is aware that African leaders don’t appreciate being treated as a pawn in a geopolitical rivalry, and has sent a parade of top officials to the continent this year to build diplomatic ties, officials including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
But despite the many attempts by the Biden administration and the Vice President’s own rousing speeches to very friendly African crowds, it has been difficult to frame the conversation around the tour as being about the U.S. and Africa, rather than China and Africa.
“There may be an obsession in America about Chinese activities on the continent but there’s no such obsession here,” said Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo in response to a journalist’s question at a press conference in Ghana this week with Harris alongside him, gamefully trying to smile through the awkwardness of the moment.
Even when China wasn’t mentioned it was still being talked about. Take Harris’ visit to Zambia, which in 2020 became the first African country to default on its debt during the pandemic era. The southern African country is currently negotiating a debt restructuring program with international creditors. There’s just one problem: China, whose state institutions and private companies hold a combined $4 billion of Zambia’s debt, is refusing to take a haircut unless multilaterals like the World Bank do so too — something they have traditionally never done.
In a joint press conference with Zambia’s President Hakainde Hichilema last week, Harris didn’t call out China by name but her reference wasn’t subtle either: “I will reiterate a call we’ve made many times, for all official bilateral creditors to provide a meaningful debt reduction for Zambia,” the Vice President said.
— Yinka Adegoke