US, China, and Russia: A Strange—and Often Strained—African Relationship
New Scramble for Africa |China-Russia rapprochement | What's in it for them? | Eroding US Soft Power
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Publisher’s Note
As Russia intensifies its role as the Chaos Agent in Africa, I asked Ambassador Charles Ray, a renowned expert on African affairs, and with diplomatic experience in China, for his thoughts on the US, Chinese, and Russian power competition on the African continent.
I would be grateful if my fellow barbers would complete a poll—what do you think about foreign influence in Africa?—at the end of Ambassador Ray’s piece.
About the Author
Ambassador Charles A. Ray served 20 years in the U.S. Army, including two tours in Vietnam. He retired as a senior US diplomat, serving 30 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, with assignments as ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Republic of Zimbabwe, and was the first American consul general in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He also served in senior positions with the Department of Defense and is a member of The Steady State.
To our fellow barbers, please complete a poll—what do you think about foreign influence in Africa?—at the end of Ambassador Ray’s piece.
The New Scramble for Africa: How We Got Here
Russia’s Africa Corps, the reincarnation of the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, whose leader died in 2023 in a fiery ball of flames when his private jet exploded mid-flight over Moscow, suffered a humiliating defeat in Mali last week. Tuareg separatists and al-Qaeda-linked militants forced a chaotic withdrawal from the northern city of Kidal. The attacks killed Mali’s defense minister and targeted multiple cities, including the capital Bamako, exposing the Kremlin’s weakness in the Sahel. Russian fighters negotiated their exit through Algerian mediation after local officials warned them three days in advance, but “they did nothing,” leaving behind weapons caches and a downed helicopter.
While the Malian junta remains allied with Moscow, the Tuareg rebels demanded Russia’s complete withdrawal from the country. This debacle raises serious questions about the viability of the Africa Corps model that the Kremlin has been exporting to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.
In 2022, the United States Congress initiated an effort to enact legislation to counter Russia. H.R. 7311 – Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, was introduced in the US House of Representatives on March 31, 2022, and sent to the Senate on April 28.
American concerns about Russian activities in Africa were heightened by Russia’s growing re-engagement in the region after the Soviet Union’s pullback following its collapse in the 1990s. Russia was able to take advantage of the Soviet Union’s history of supporting liberation struggles and its anti-colonial stance.
The reengagement, which began in earnest after Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014, accelerated after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine proper and the subsequent confrontation with and isolation by the West. This came at a time when the competition between the US and China had begun to intensify, around 2017, during the first Trump administration, when US policy shifted from engagement to competition. From 2022 to the end of 2024, during the Biden administration, the competition was somewhat moderated, with a push for ‘competition, not conflict.’ Although Biden did keep most of the tariffs on China that Trump put in place, he even increased a few.
The Biden administration, while not shying away from competition with China in Africa, focused more on Russian meddling in the affairs of African countries, particularly the actions of the Wagner Group, a paramilitary organization led by a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The administration’s Africa policy looked good on paper and focused on more substantive engagement with African countries, but was slow to deliver on its promises.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 sent shock waves through sub-Saharan Africa, exposing fissures in the US relationship with many countries, particularly those that received Soviet support during their independence struggles, when the US often sided with the colonial powers. There is also, to this day, lingering resentment of the US and the West for what many Africans view as ‘Western moralizing and criticism in their conditionalities for assistance.’ This is something they believe neither the Russians nor the Chinese do, and it has often given both countries an edge over the US in the competition for influence.
When Trump was inaugurated for his second term in January 2025, the situation regarding the US, China, and Russia in Africa took another U-turn for the worse.
China-Russia rapprochement in Africa
Cooperation between China and Russia in Africa stemmed from a combination of geopolitical shifts, mutual strategic interests, and complementary approaches to engagement in Africa.
When Western powers, primarily the US and EU, began reducing direct political and military involvement in Africa in the early 2000s, it left a vacuum for other actors to fill. Essentially, it created opportunities for China and Russia to expand their influence. China’s focus has been mainly on economic infrastructure and resource access, while Russia has zeroed in on security partnerships in unstable states. China prioritized long-term economic stability by funding large-scale infrastructure projects through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and Russia leaned toward engagement in politically sensitive or conflict-prone states, offering military, political, and security support.
China and Russia, as can been seen in the foregoing, have different priorities, and their actions in Africa are often complementary rather than competitive. The US-China rivalry in Africa, however, has reshaped the competitive environment, forcing both China and Russia to adapt strategies and sometimes to align more closely. In filling the vacuum created by the US pivot away from Africa during the first Trump administration, China and Russia have frequently cooperated to counter what residual influence left on the continent. While there is potential for conflict between the two countries, their desire to counter the US, and to challenge the Western rules-based order, has led to behind-the-scenes coordination.
While expanding influence and thwarting the US and the Western rules-based order are common goals of both, the China-Russia relationship in Africa, as in other parts of the world, is like an onion: there are many layers that must be peeled off before one reaches the core.
What’s in it for them?
Beyond filling the void left by what seems like Western disinterest in Africa, and the goals mentioned above, what else do Russia and China seek on the continent? And, are these deeper goals in concert, or are they destined to eventually be in conflict?
China’s stated goals for the BRI are to (1) supplement regional development through economic integration through an extensive network of land and maritime routes, (2) improve its industry, and (3) resolve issues caused by excess industrial capacity. Reminiscent Silk Road, which connected China with the lands to its west, the BRI logistically connects China with Southeast and South Asia, Central Asia, Pacific Oceania, Europe, and Africa. Its expanded global economic presence potentially strengthens its currency, possibly providing a competitive alternative to the US dollar. It also has the potential of mitigating China’s dependence on the Strait of Malacca for oil imports to fuel its growing industrial base.
In order to achieve its main goals in Africa, China needs stability and predictability. While it supports authoritarian governments, it does not seek to cause chaos or government change. Its need for Russia, it appears, is primarily as a spoiler and distraction to its main competitor, the US.
Russia’s needs, on the other hand, are quite different. In addition to Putin’s desire to restore some of the glory of the old Soviet empire, after the seizure and the subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia found itself isolated from most of the West, and in need of allies. A lot of the recruitment of these new allies, in addition to trying to leverage its membership in the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) alliance, was in Africa.
Where China has used economic enticements to expand its influence in Africa, since it resumed its outreach activities in Africa, Russia has exploited political instability and weak autocratic regimes to expand influence quickly and ‘on the cheap.’ In 2018, for example, Russia deployed mercenaries to support the besieged regime of Faustin-Archange Touadera in the Central African Republic and beginning in 2020, political upheaval, extremist encroachment, and the failure of French-led security efforts, enabled Russia, with use of the Wagner Group, to displace France as the dominant partner for the autocratic governments in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, effectively giving it dominance across the Sahel.
While Russia’s relationships with the unstable regimes of the Sahel are fragile, as is its dependence on paramilitary groups like the now mostly defunct Wagner Group, the Kremlin seems content as long as it can weaken Western influence, gain even limited access to markets and resources, and raise Russia’s profile as a global actor.
How will the decline of US soft power in Africa affect the Russia-China relationship?
In the first Trump administration, Africa was relegated to the far periphery of US policy concerns. In the second, the administration has moved away from multilateral engagement and development to a bilateral, transactional model, and in some cases, such as South Africa and Nigeria, confrontational. In addition, the US administration’s cancellation of many aid programs in Africa, reducing the soft power advantage the US once held on the continent, and its withdrawal from Niger, following France’s expulsion from the Sahel, left a power vacuum that Russia has rushed to fill. In the Sahel, the Kremlin has embedded itself in the security structures, expanding its political influence, and has become Africa’s top arms supplier, providing 40 percent of the weapon imports to the continent.
Though not directly related to American actions, Russia’s influence ebbed as American interest and presence waned. As has been mentioned, the attitude of the first Trump administration was viewed on the continent as dismissive. Before his second term, Africa expected little other than the continent being the arena for superpower competition. The reality of the first year-plus of the administration has been somewhat different. Africa has not been at the bottom of Trump’s list of concerns, but the attention has not always been to the continent’s benefit.
The administration, and the president personally, has been at odds with South Africa from the beginning of the administration over that country’s alleged mistreatment of the white Afrikaner minority and the US giving priority to the resettlement of Afrikaners in the United States. Trump went so far as to have the US boycott the 2025 G20 summit hosted by South Africa and to disinvite South Africa from the 2026 G20 summit which is scheduled to be held at his Mar-a-Lago Golf Resort in Florida.
The US has been selective in its outreach on the continent in terms of conflict resolution, essentially ignoring conflicts in Sudan and Cameroon, but attempting to mediate the decades-long war between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda because of a desire to access th vast mineral wealth in that region of Africa. There have also been allegations that the US has conditioned some humanitarian aid to Africa on access to minerals and/or agreements to accept people being deported under the US’s massive anti-immigration push. These actions, while they have been accepted by some countries, have sparked tensions and legal concerns in others, and further erode American soft power influence in Africa.
As US soft power lessens, other countries, most notably China, gain. A 2024 Gallup Report showed that median approval ratings of Washington in Africa dropped from 59 percent in 2022 to 56 percent in 2023, while China’s rose from 52 percent to 58 percent during the same period, putting it ahead of the United States. Of four countries rated by the survey (US, China, Germany, and Russia), the US ranked second, two points ahead of Germany (54 percent) and 14 percent ahead of Russia (42 percent), but it was the only one showing a decrease in approval.
While Russia lags far behind the other three countries, it has recovered the ground lost after its invasion of Ukraine. The question, though, is how will the changing dynamics of the US-China competition affect Russia’s relationship with China, particularly in Africa?
On a global level, Russia and China share a desire to end the US-dominated international order, and are leveraging support from the countries of the Global South (which includes Africa) to create an order in which the role of the US-led West is minimized and authoritarian states are free from scrutiny and immune to Western sanctions. As long as Beijing and Moscow see Washington as a principal adversary, their relationship is likely to remain strong.
If, on the other hand, Beijing begins to sense a clear victory in its competition with the US, it could alter the Chinese views. While it’s unlikely that China-Russia ties would be severed, the interests of the two countries in Africa are not fully aligned. As Africa’s largest trading partner and the world’s second largest economy, China’s emphasis is on regional and global stability. Russia, o the other hand, has no interest in being seen forever as China’s junior partner, particularly under Vladimir Putin’s leadership. The Russia-China relationship dates from the 1600s, and has been marked by trade, diplomacy, and conflict.
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, China’s Communist Party moved to establish official ties with the USSR and the two countries enjoyed close ties throughout the early 1950s. An ideological rift began to form in the mid-1950s, with escalating tensions leading to open military clashes just short of full -scale war. These tensions persisted until the late 1980s when China, under Deng Xiaoping, began to pursue a more pragmatic foreign policy, which enabled improved ties with the Soviets. With the settlement of border disputes, ties continued to improve through the early 2000s, including increased economic and military cooperation. Both countries have sought to cooperate where it is mutually beneficial, while avoiding interference in each other’s core interests.
Just before, and since, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian and Chinese leaders, in a meeting at the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, affirmed that “Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation.” Political rhetoric notwithstanding, the Russia-China relationship is driven more by their rivalry with the United States than any genuine affinity. Their militaries have participated in joint exercises, but they are not interoperable. They have a growing economic relationship, but the Russian economy is no match for China’s economic might, and Russia is very much the dependent party in the relationship. While the two countries cooperate in international forums, and oppose the Western-led world order, their visions of a new world order differ.
China seeks to reform the current world order to better suit its interests, rather than replace it outright, while Russia acts more the spoiler, creating chaos and instability. While the current leaders of both countries appear to have a good relationship, many officials, business leaders, and citizens of the two mistrust each other, based on historical grievances and overt racism from both sides. In short, while China seeks to have a world order that suits its needs, it seeks one with stability and predictability, Russia seems to thrive on turmoil and instability. This is especially apparent in Africa. In the Sahel, for instance, Russia has been involved in human rights violations in its support of military regimes and their fights against terrorist groups.
If, over the next three years, the current US administration’s transactional foreign policy cedes more ground to China in Africa, and Russia’s destabilization operations impinge on China’s economic activity on the continent, there is a likelihood of a cooling off of bilateral relations.
Despite Russia’s destructive interference in Africa, like China, it has in some areas risen above the US in popularity. These gains can be attributed to a combination of the decline in US engagement and loss of US soft power, as well as Russia-China cooperation.
Some have called the Russia-China relationship a ‘marriage of convenience.’ It is perhaps more accurate to describe it as a ‘poor relations’ (Russia) showing up at a time when China is engaged in a dispute with a neighbor. The poor relation serves to distract the neighbor, and is allowed to camp out on the couch while the dispute goes on. If, and with the current US administration this is a big if, the neighborly dispute is settled, the poor relation’s presence is no longer needed. He is still a relative, but one we’d prefer to deal with from a distance. While not a sure thing, if US influence in Africa vis-à-vis China continues on its current trajectory, and Russian activity begins to intrude on what China sees as its spheres of influence, we could very well see some space opening up between the two countries.
Additional Reading(s)
A Conundrum: Strategic Minerals and Periferal Africa (Foreign Policy Research Institute, 11 Feb 2026)
Xi and Putin Message the Global South (Barbershop Whispers…Russia, 07 Sep 2025)
Prigozhin’s Ghost Meets African Resistance (Barbershop Whispers…Russia, 12 Apr 2026
China’s Xi promises one million jobs for Africa (Al Jazeera, 05 Sep 2024)
Putin Pays Homage to Emperor Xi (Barberhsop Whispers…Russia, 19 May 2024)
BRICS - A Big Family (Barbershop Whispers…Russia, 13 Jul 2025)
Vol 4, N20 (MT799) - BWR 31.04.2026
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