In Africa, the PRC is bent on acquiring vast amounts of the continent’s abundant raw materials and mineral wealth to provide Chinese manufacturing with key components while disadvantaging companies in the United States and allied countries. Largely debt-financed, China’s projects in Africa often fail to meet reasonable international standards of sustainability and transparency, and burden local economies with heavy debt and other problems.109 China also expands its influence in African states by aggressively cultivating high-level relationships. General Secretary Xi, China’s premier, and the PRC’s foreign minister, for example, collectively made 79 visits to Africa between 2007 and 2017.110 At the same time, nationals from African countries who work in the PRC frequently face racism and discrimination, a problem that drew international outrage amid Beijing’s domestic reaction to the novel coronavirus.111
In 2017, China established in Djibouti its first foreign military base. The base looks out on the Bab-el-Mandeb Straits in the Gulf of Aden, through which passes nearly 10 percent of the world’s total seaborne-traded petroleum. This comprises 6.2 billion barrels per day of crude oil, condensate, and refined petroleum.112 Together with China’s anti-piracy activities in the Gulf of Aden and growing presence in the Gulf of Guinea, the base has extended China’s military reach off Africa’s coasts and into the Indian Ocean.113
Western Hemisphere
China’s geopolitical influence stretches deep into America’s backyard. Beijing accelerated bilateral trade investment in Latin America after the 2008 financial crisis to acquire extensive stakes in the region’s petroleum, mining, and energy sectors. China’s Huawei and ZTE are among the region’s top providers of telecommunications equipment and networks as well as of surveillance architectures — all of which pose espionage risks.114 In addition, Beijing pursues nuclear contracts in Brazil and Argentina, not only furnishing preliminary financing but also, in Argentina’s case, offering a slush fund of more than $2 billion for use as the government sees fit.115 Meanwhile, poorer Latin American countries export commodities and foodstuffs to the PRC while importing increasingly high-value Chinese manufacturing and technology goods. Loaning far more than it invests, the PRC often requires Latin American countries to repay in commodities, yielding resource security for China while incentivizing corruption abroad.
