Russia and China in Africa: Interests, In uence, and Instruments of Power
Activity is not the same as e ectiveness. While the Africa Corps has been active in Africa, there are cascading signs that it has been ine ective at providing security for hire for its client governments and may actually be making things worse. Burkina Faso serves as an example here. Since Russia’s social media star client, President Ibrahim Traoré took power in September 2022, insecurity in Burkina Faso has grown more deadly. As an August 2025 report from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies notes, “fatalities linked to militant Islamist group violence have almost tripled in the past three years, reaching 17,775 deaths. This compares to 6,630 deaths in the three-year period prior to Traoré’s coup.” Violence has also expanded geographically under Traoré: some 165,000 square kilometers of Burkina Faso have seen more violence than before the coup, representing “an intensi cation of militant Islamist presence in northern Burkina Faso and an expansion westward and southward toward the borders of the coastal West African countries of Benin, Togo, and Côte d’Ivoire.” The e ect of this intensi cation and expansion of violence, which is also happening in other Russian client states like Mali, is likely to damage Russia’s reputation as a security provider on the continent. [39] [40] Russia’s economic engagement with Africa is narrow and targeted. It focuses on energy, mining, nuclear power development, and arms sales, with deals often tied to political or security arrangements. Although it boasts multibillion-dollar contracts in the mining and energy sectors and has signed nuclear cooperation agreements with Egypt and Nigeria, Russia’s overall economic weight in Africa is paltry. According to 2024 gures, Moscow’s trade with African states totals some $25–30 billion, smaller even than Ukraine’s ($41 billion) and far behind China and the US. Russia barely registers as a provider of foreign direct investment, and arms sales, where the Kremlin once led, have seriously eroded since 2020, dropping Russia to the second-largest supplier to sub-Saharan Africa, behind China. [41] [42]
China
Beijing’s use of the instruments of power in Africa is guided by the CCP’s belief in the nexus between security and economic development. China seeks to ensure that insecurity in Africa does not threaten its economic investments to allow those investments to raise the level of economic development in Africa; thereby, China contributes to more stable security conditions. Its use of diplomatic and information instruments complements these goals. Although Africa has long been an important diplomatic space for China, it has made a major diplomatic push there over the last several years. As noted, China maintains an embassy in all 54 African states, compared to 39 for Russia. Since 2007, Chinese o cials have made some 140 trips to Africa, often tied to Belt and Road Initiative projects. For 36 straight years, the Chinese Foreign Minister has made Africa his rst annual trip; this year, the trip took place in early January and included stops in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Lesotho. Even with a four-year hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s President Xi Jinping has visited the continent four times since 2015. The primary institution for China’s relations with Africa is the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which brings together Chinese and African o cials to discuss trade, development, security, and other topics of mutual interest. Finally, in line with its belief that development and security are linked, and its BRI priorities, Chinese diplomatic visits occur disproportionately in the poorest African countries. [45] [43] [44]
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