Day: July 28, 2022

As campaigning gears up for Kenya’s August 9 presidential elections, the two main candidates are both focused on one key talking point – the economy – and this inevitably means the country’s controversial relationship with China is coming under the spotlight.

Deputy President William Ruto, a former chicken-seller who styles himself as a champion of the poor and calls himself the “hustler-in-chief,” has come out with a strongly anti-China platform. He’s vowed to deport Chinese nationals doing jobs he says should be reserved for Kenyans and has also promised to make public government contracts with Beijing.

At an economic forum in June, Ruto said, “Chinese nationals are roasting maize and selling mobile phones. We will deport all of them,” Agence France-Presse reported.

As Africa’s biggest investor, China has been responsible for major infrastructure projects in Kenya, including the recently opened Nairobi Expressway and the controversial and expensive Chinese-built Standard Gauge Railway, which links the capital with the key port city of Mombasa.

But the pro-China policies of current President Uhuru Kenyatta – with whom Ruto has fallen out – now mean Kenya now owes China billions of dollars.

Ruto said he would cut government borrowing and promised to make public opaque contracts with China — something some Kenyan activists have even gone to court over.

In contrast, Ruto’s opposition rival Raila Odinga — who has come up short in four previous presidential bids and is now backed by his former nemesis, Kenyatta — has been less strident on China.

Odinga has noted that Western nations were in Africa before the Chinese, who simply filled a need for infrastructure development, and said working with Beijing does not mean having to exclude other countries. He said recently he would renegotiate terms for the debt.

China spotlight

“The deputy president and the presidential contender William Ruto and his allies have made China a talking point in their campaign, and they’re mostly critical of the role of China in the country,” Cliff Mboya, a Kenyan researcher at the China Global South Project think tank, told VOA.

Another Kenyan independent analyst and China specialist, Adhere Cavince, said he thinks Ruto’s stance is “a politically convenient way to hunt for votes” in the face of rising living costs and high unemployment.

“Kenya is currently experiencing a lot of economic difficulties and there’s been this narrative about the role of China, especially in regard to this debt trap narrative,” Cavince told VOA. “Politicians leverage anything they can blame, and I think for the deputy president, China has become a very easy target.”

Another reason for Ruto’s stance, Cavince said, could be to distance himself from his boss, Kenyatta, with whom he fell out in 2018.

“We understand some of these development projects could have sidelined the deputy president from the lucrative tenders that come with it and so it could be a way of getting back” at Kenyatta, he said.

Mboya likewise said Ruto was trying to distance himself from the government, which has been associated with corruption in relation to Chinese mega-projects.

“It is believed that a lot of money was siphoned off to benefit the political class,” he said.

While many ordinary Kenyans are “very appreciate of the projects,” Mboya added, they are also “angry about the borrowing.”

Both analysts also noted Ruto’s about-turn on Chinese lending and Odinga’s contrasting attitude to the Asian giant.

Previously, Ruto was “protective and defensive” about the government’s relationship with China, but has since changed tack, Cavince said, “maintaining that he will not be going to China to borrow should he ascend to the presidency.”

“Raila Odinga, on the other side … has equally had a very measured temper to the Chinese,” said Cavince. “He’s been on record in his campaigns, giving the example of China’s development track record, saying it’s possible for Kenya to go the way China did.”

China’s position on lending

While both presidential candidates have expressed concern about Kenya’s debt, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Kenya earlier this year and rejected the “debt trap” accusations.

“All China-Kenya cooperation projects have been scientifically planned and appraised in detail, bringing benefits to the Kenyan people and boosting Kenya’s national development and revitalization,” he said.

“Eighty percent of Kenya’s foreign debt is owed by multilateral financial institutions, and its debt to China is mainly concessional loans,” he added, according to the official Foreign Ministry statement.

The Chinese Embassy in Nairobi did not respond to VOA’s requests for comment on Ruto’s anti-Chinese rhetoric.

Tough China stance

It is not the first time African leaders have talked tough on China. Former Zambian President Michael Sata reportedly railed against Chinese “profiteers” in the early 2000s and claimed that “Zambia has become a province of China.” In 2018 there was widespread looting of Chinese businesses in Zambia.

Zambia, whose biggest creditor is China, defaulted on its external debt in 2020 and is now negotiating debt restructuring.

But in Kenya’s case, Mboya and Cavince say Ruto’s threats are mainly empty rhetoric, given China’s huge clout on the continent.

Source: Voice of America

A concerted push by al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab to expand from Somalia into Ethiopia appears to have been “largely contained,” according to a senior U.S. military official, though he cautioned that the terror group was likely planning more such attacks in coming months.

Almost 500 al-Shabab fighters first crossed into eastern Ethiopia last week, clashing with Ethiopian forces along the border. U.S. assessments suggest they may have penetrated as much as 150 kilometers into Ethiopia before being stopped.

“It appears that the Ethiopians have largely contained and defeated this incursion,” General Stephen Townsend, the outgoing commander of U.S. Africa Command, said Thursday during a call with the Washington-based Defense Writers Group.

Ethiopian officials Thursday likewise confirmed the al-Shabab attack had been repulsed.

“Our brave soldiers foiled a plan al-Shabab was working on for at least a year and defeated the fighters they sent to Ethiopia within three days,” Mustafe Omer, the president of Ethiopia’s Somali region, told reporters.

Omar also said that Ethiopia is planning to create a “security buffer zone” aimed at countering al-Shabab attacks.

“We cannot merely watch an open border where the militants mobilize themselves on the other side [Somalia] to attack us,” he said. “We must prevent such a threat and not wait until they come to our border.”

AFRICOM’s Townsend agreed al-Shabab will try again.

“This is not a fluke. … I don’t believe this is a one-off,” he added in response to a question from VOA.

“It’s only been less than a year ago that al-Shabab emir [Ahmed] Diriye called for an increased emphasis on external attacks and increased emphasis on attacking Western targets in the Horn of Africa,” Townsend said. “This is a response.”

According to intelligence shared by U.N. member states, al-Shabab currently commands between 7,000 and 12,000 fighters and is spending approximately $24 million a year – a quarter of its budget – on weapons, explosives and increasingly on drones.

Townsend further warned Thursday that al-Shabab has been emboldened by recent political turmoil in Somalia, which consumed the attention of Somali officials and politicians for much of the last 18 months, as well as by the December 2020 decision by then-U.S. President Donald Trump to end a U.S. troop presence in Somalia.

That decision has since been reversed, and the AFRICOM commander said Somalia’s new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has also taken positive steps.

“Al-Shabab got bigger, bolder, stronger,” Townsend said. “So now we’ve got to blunt the initiative that they’ve [al-Shabab] enjoyed for 15 months or more.

“We’ve already seen an uptick in Somali security forces operations,” he added.

U.S. officials and some analysts worry that in addition to Ethiopia, which al-Shabab had previously attacked in 2013 and 2014, al-Shabab also plans to expand operations in Kenya, Djibouti and beyond.

“The militants have been enjoying in their movements and military mobilizations because of the absence of Somali National Army offensives against their hideouts and the areas they still control,” said Abdisalam Yusuf Guled, the former deputy head of the Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency.

“So they [al-Shabab militants] have got the choice to attack wherever they want and whenever they want,” he said. “To me, it [Ethiopia] was a rare attack but always predictable.”

There is also growing concern that al-Shabab is growing more powerful and more influential within al-Qaida itself.

Intelligence from the U.S. and from U.N. member states indicates al-Shabab leader Ahmed Diriye, also known as Ahmed Umar Abu Ubaidah, is part of al-Qaida’s Hittin Committee, which directs the group’s global operations.

The intelligence further suggests that al-Shabab, rather than taking money from al-Qaida’s core leadership, is directly funding it with some of its revenue.

Source: Voice of America