OPINION:
Even as more and more reports come in detailing China’s initial cover-up of the events in Wuhan that led directly to the pandemic which the world continues to struggle, Beijing is exploiting it to further its own interests around the world.
Chinese forces in the South China Sea are using the difficulties facing other nations in the region to cement its claims there and in other parts of the world. Chinese spokesmen are claiming that China alone has “defeated” the virus and is the only nation in a position to really help others.
Whether Beijing has actually dealt with infections with its own borders as effectively as it claims, its aggressive propaganda has developed a believable narrative accepted by many especially in Asia and Africa and has put it in a position to advance its interests as never before. While its failures may have contributed to the crisis in which the world finds itself, there is little question that Beijing is emerging as the main beneficiary of that crisis.
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China’s leaders are convinced that in world politics they are on the ascendancy and will dominate this century as the United States and the West dominated the last two. The nation that stands in their way is the United States and as it becomes more and more aggressive, its strategists are convinced we can be pushed out of the way not just in Asia, but in Africa and even Europe as well. It is the recognition of the muted but real struggle in which we find ourselves that led the Trump administration to champion redirecting U.S. defense spending to recognize that Beijing’s aggressiveness is the main threat we face.
We must, however, be cautious as we refocus lest we appear to be abandoning friends and opening the door to China as Beijing seeks influence among those we have thus far been able to count on as allies. It is this possibility that concerns me about the announcement that the funds we have spent in recent years training and providing needed logistical support to North African nations friendly to us in their fight to defeat the terrorist extremism that seems to be a constant threat in that part of the world are being discontinued.
I’m not talking about Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, but of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania, all friendly to the United States and all with a record of successfully thwarting terrorist forces threatening them. This has been possible in part because we have provided them the training their military has needed at relatively low cost to this country.
All of these countries border the region known as the Sahel to their south. This is the natural divide between the northern African desert and what’s known as sub-Saharan Africa and has in recent years seen a great deal of terrorist activity directed at these countries as well as the nations to their immediate south.
That all of them have managed to keep terrorist incidents within their own borders to a minimum is a tribute to the effectiveness of their anti-terrorist operations. Mauritania, for example, this year successfully hosted “Flintlock 2020” in conjunction with the U.S. African Command and some 34 African and partner nations. The exercise, the largest and most successful in more than a decade, brought together some 1,600 anti-terrorist experts from participating countries.
It is with good reason that the Trump administration and our military planners want to reduce spending in areas that have little or no real impact on our strategic interests in favor of focusing them instead on the growing threat from China in the Pacific and elsewhere, but these are fragile emerging nations of great strategic and regional importance. None of them has ever asked us to fight their battles for them, but all of them need to know that at the end of the day we have their backs.
Algeria and Morocco have their differences, but are both friends and allies, and Algeria is a major supplier of natural gas to Europe. Mauritania also looks to be on the verge becoming a major energy supplier with the discovery earlier this year of huge oil and gas reserves within its territorial waters; reserves that were discovered and are expected to be developed by U.S. companies.
These nations are also among the more democratic nations on the continent and unlike many are moving in the right direction. Mauritania, Algeria and Tunisia all held free, fair and peaceful elections in the last year at a time when much of the world is tilting not toward democracy, but authoritarianism on the Chinese and Russian models.
It is in no one’s interest to abandon them at this crucial time in their development and as the Chinese are working overtime to displace Western influence in Africa.
• Bob Kasten is a former U.S. senator who focused a great deal of time in the Senate and since on the challenges we face in the Middle East and North Africa.
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