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There is emerging but still manageable divergence in two other areas: arms sales and resource extraction. In the former area, Russia has historically been the leader but the effects of the Ukraine war and Chinese competition are eroding Moscow’s advantage. The war in Ukraine has revealed the poor performance of Russian military equipment, and sanctions are impacting Russia’s ability to produce enough equipment to both replace its losses in Ukraine and make significant equipment available for foreign customers. China has been touting its equipment as an alternative by noting it is both cheaper and more readily available. In resource extraction, especially mining and energy deals, China usually wins due to superior resources but Russia has been trying to compensate via security-for-resources deals. Perhaps the best way to characterize how Russia and China interact in Africa is to view it through African eyes. As Dr. Paul Tembe, a South African scholar, sees it, the two have a “passive, proxy-type alliance”. He continued by noting that while Beijing and Moscow are not partners in Africa, “at the same time they won’t in the next two decades stab each other in the back.”
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// RUSSIA AND CHINA IN AFRICA Delphi Global Research Center
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