Authoritarian African Governments Join US and Russia on Ukraine Vote

 The Hill published on 24 February 2025 an article titled "These 17 Countries Voted with US Against Ukraine UN Resolution" by Elizabeth Crisp.

Seventeen countries joined the US at the UN General Assembly in voting against a resolution condemning Russia as the aggressor in the war against Ukraine.  Eight of these countries--almost half the total--are among the most authoritarian in Africa: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic (CAR), Equatorial Guinea, Niger, Sudan, Eritrea, and Mali.

Comment:  Burkina Faso, CAR, Niger, Mali, and Sudan receive military support from Russia's Wagner Group or its Africa Corps. Is the US trying to build a new group of "friends" in Africa?  

Russian Undercutting of Democracy in Africa

 The Africa Center for Strategic Studies published on 21 June 2023 an analysis titled "Tracking Russian Interference to Derail Democracy in Africa."

The analysis tracks five ways that Russia works to undermine democracy in Africa.  The techniques include political interference in elections, activities of the Wagner Group, undermining international democracy norms, disinformation on the democratic process, and political support for extraconstitutional seizures or term limit extensions.

The most significant Russian interference has occurred in the CAR, DRC, Libya, Mali, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.  

The European Union and the Crisis in Sudan

 World Politics Review published on 3 May 2023 a commentary titled "The EU Has Been Sleepwalking Through Sudan's Crisis" by Alexander Clarkson, King's College London.

The author argues that the EU must fundamentally reassess its relations with the Gulf states whose primary strategic goal is the reassertion of authoritarian forms of government in the Middle East and North Africa, including Sudan.  

China's Global Media Influence in 2022

 Freedom House published in September 2022 "Beijing's Global Media Influence" report.  It provided detailed reports on 30 countries including 7 in Africa: Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia.  

The study concluded that the Communist Party of China and its proxies are using more sophisticated and coercive tactics to shape media narratives and suppress critical reporting.  Of all 30 countries, Nigeria was deemed most vulnerable to Beijing's media influence campaigns.  

Putin's Invasion of Ukraine Poses a Conundrum for Some African Countries

 The South China Morning Post published on 5 April 2022 an article titled "Russia's War in Ukraine a 'Diplomatic Conundrum' for Some African Nations" by Jevans Nyabiage.

African governments that failed to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine tend themselves to be authoritarian, are heavily dependent on arms imports from Moscow, and/or see this war as an easy way to spite the West.  

China-Africa Relations: What Motivates Africa?

 Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences posted on 15 November 2021 a commentary titled "China in Africa: Exporting Authoritarianism?" by Paul Massari in an interview with Bulelani Jili, PhD candidate.

Jili explores what motivates African countries to engage with China, particularly in the area of information and communication technology.  He notes that the tendency to see China as exporting authoritarianism both portrays African nations as passive and fails to identify the reasons that both democratic and repressive regimes have for doing business with China.  Jili looks at the balance between motivations that are tied up with China's domestic supply needs and those that respond to local conditions in Africa.  

The Elements of the China Challenge

 In the waning days of the Trump administration, the State Department's policy planning staff just released a 72-page document titled "The Elements of the China Challenge."

A relatively sober document, it argues that meeting the China challenge requires the United States to return to fundamentals.  To secure freedom, America must refashion its foreign policy in light of ten tasks.  The tasks are reasonable and even include non-Trumpian goals such as the need to "strengthen its alliance system" and look "for opportunities to cooperate with Beijing subject to norms of fairness and reciprocity."  

The document devotes only a half page to Africa.  It emphasizes negative issues such as China's interest in acquiring Africa's mineral wealth while disadvantaging American companies, contributing to Africa's debt problems, failing to meet reasonable international standards of sustainability and transparency, and engaging in racism and discrimination against Africans in China.  

The complete document is available in the Axios summary.

China's Digital Silk Road Encourages Authoritarian Model

A Democratic staff report prepared for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on 21 July 2020 titled "The New Big Brother: China and Digital Authoritarianism" details China's growing influence on the digital sphere as China promotes an alternative model for the digital domain based on state control.

China's Belt and Road Initiative contains an effort to create a Digital Silk Road that will allow it to shape the future of the global Internet and reinforce the Communist Party of China's leadership at home for decades to come.  Other nations such as Zimbabwe have or are looking to acquire Chinese information and communication technologies (ICT) and integrate them into their national infrastructures, opening up potential opportunities for abuse.  

China's efforts to advance and proliferate its ICT hardware and systems, both in China and overseas, represent not only a desire to continually expand its economy, but also to push to establish, expand, internationalize, and institutionalize a model for digital governance that this reports describes as "digital authoritarianism."