Biden fulfilling promise to visit Africa as US looks to counter China's deepening influence in region

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNN Politics

Updated 8:22 AM EST, Sun December 1, 2024


CNN — President Joe Biden will fulfill a two-year promise to visit Africa as he departs Sunday night for Angola, a trip aimed at highlighting US investment in the continent under his watch in the face of China’s deepening inroads in the region.

Biden’s three-day visit to oil-rich Angola comes at the tail end of his presidency, as he’ll hand over power to President-elect Donald Trump in January. The trip provides Biden with another chance to cement relations with a key US partner in Africa even as the continent prepares for the return of Trump, who made disparaging comments about African countries in his first term.

When Biden lands in the capital of Luanda on Monday, it will mark the first time a sitting president has visited sub-Saharan Africa since 2015, when then-President Barack Obama visited Kenya and Ethiopia. It will also be the first time a US president has visited Angola, with which Biden has sought to shore up relations in recent years.

As he hosted African leaders in Washington for a 2022 summit, Biden vowed to visit the continent the following year but ultimately missed that deadline. He scheduled a trip to Angola for this October, which was postponed due to a pair of devastating hurricanes hitting the US. Biden’s trip will highlight investments in the Lobito Corridor, an 800-mile railway project backed by the United States and Europe aiming to facilitate the transport of critical minerals from interior Africa to Angola’s western port for exporting.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/01/politics/biden-promise-visit-africa/index.html

[Irish_Dem]

1. China has been staking claim of Africa for years.

Investing huge sums of money there, stationing Chinese military troops on African soil.
And Chinese companies work there.

US has been snoozing and oblivious.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Russia (or more accurately, as the USSR) was in there even before China

which is how the Aswan Dam got built. I think once the USSR broke up, that gave China an opening and they got to train probably tens of thousands of their citizens on construction by doing such in a number of countries on the continent of Africa.

[Irish_Dem]

3. China sets up poor countries with debt traps.

China has loaned poor countries billions of dollars for infrastructure construction.

The poor countries have to hire Chinese only companies to do the work.
So the money goes back to China.

But the countries are on the hook for money they can never pay back.

China owns these countries.

China and Russia are allies. So China owning Africa helps Putin too.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. I think there is still a bit of "competition" there between Russia and China

Recall the Wagner Group interventions (and their "goal" ) - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68322230

[Irish_Dem]

5. Make no mistake, China and Russia are classic frenemies.

Neither one trusts the other further than they can throw them.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Bingo!

[Irish_Dem]

7. China is still quite angry that Putin bungled the Ukraine invasion.

The plan had been for China to invade Taiwan next.

China was also not prepared for all the financial sanctions which scares China.
Their economy is already in serious trouble and they cannot afford to anger the west
too much with a Taiwan invasion and receive financial sanctions.

They are now working on the divide and conquer strategy in Taipei,
like the one Putin has done quite successfully in the US.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. And don't forget a more recent screw-up

Syria!

[Irish_Dem]

9. China is used to pain in the ass allies.

Last edited Sun Dec 1, 2024, 06:11 PM - Edit history (1)

China and North Korea also have a love-hate relationship.

NK's threats and shenanigans brings US nuclear subs into the Yellow and East China Sea,
far too close to Beijing, the nation's power center, and Shanghai, China's financial hub.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. I know China has been in an interesting relationship with NK

which makes me wonder what they think about Russia using NK soldiers to fight Ukraine. NK's troops are not really "battle hardened" so it offers them an opportunity to actually engage in warfare.

Of course China's favorite exhortation is to "not get involved in the internal affairs of another country" (yeah right).

[Irish_Dem]

13. China wants to see Russia win in Ukraine.

It has gambled a great deal on Russia's success.

The plan is for Russia and China to be the global superpowers.

Now that the US is being degraded and greatly weakened their plan is falling into place.

Putin is to have control of the US and Europe.
China the entire Pacific.

China is giving Putin some secret, back door help, but obviously we know about it
so not so secret. But not to the point they are getting sanctioned.
China is terrified of financial sanctions because their economy has been crashing more and more
for the past several years. Xi is running it into the ground.

China has the largest Army and Navy in the world right now.
But they have no real combat experience and are untested.
And there is so much corruption in the Chinese military it is hard to say
if anything works.

We can see that the NK soldiers were woefully unprepared for combat and are being
killed in high numbers in Ukraine.

China obviously cannot send its troops to Ukraine to help Putin, it would mean sanctions and also escalate the war. China is afraid of nuclear war. It realizes that if the world is nuked
to pieces, there are no customers to buy the stuff they make.

I guess a long way to say I think the Chinese might approve of sending in NK troops to help Ukraine.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. I think they are at a "wait and see"

(be patient) posture. They are keeping Russia afloat with buying their oil if anything.

[Irish_Dem]

15. Yes

But China is helping Russia behind the scenes.
And in public doing military ventures to harass those in the Pacific.

[oldmanlynn]

10. Well, I'm OK with Biden visiting Africa

He needs to be visiting the department of justice and the department of defense and education department, and all the other departments of the executive branch to make sure that they have some guidelines and protections in place to prevent Trump from completely dismantling those departments. Biden needs to be spending time in his own departments showing those up.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. They already have that type of thing in place

at least as much as they could muster as the courts could easily toss it all aside.

Remember when Biden/Harris came in after the 2020 election, they saw what within the Obama/Biden administration had been screwed with, and I think they hit the ground running to restore and shore up regulatory authorities, along with enact E.O.s crafted to resist overturning.

But be aware, we do NOT (yet) have a RW loon "Unitary Executive" where a dictator President can suddenly "delete" or "eliminate" a Department or Agency (although it is being made to look like it by the RW-owned media because they refuse to teach people Civics 101). CONGRESS must be involved in any "dismantling" or other structural changes, because CONGRESS creates the Departments, and FUNDS things within them for specific purposes.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

16. That's nice