Beijing pressured African states to deny overflight rights to President Lai, forcing a longer route home via the Indian Ocean.
This past weekend was instructive for anyone curious about how China approaches its relations with Africa and how it extends its diplomatic influence.
Pursuing its relentless campaign to reincorporate Taiwan into the mainland, Beijing pressured various countries in Africa to deny overflight rights to Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te for his visit to Eswatini.
Lai used the Eswatini king’s plane to fly back home by a longer, more circuitous route across the Indian Ocean.
It is still not clear whether Lai’s flight to or from Eswatini transited South African airspace. To land in the mountain kingdom, it would have to have transited either South African or Mozambican airspace.
Aeronautical curiosities aside – and China’s dismissal of the trip as irrelevant notwithstanding – Beijing used its diplomatic muscle to squeeze the Taiwanese.
An earlier visit, scheduled for last month by Lai, had to be cancelled because of the overflight bans.
Is this a sign of further Chinese quid pro quo demands for investment or aid to African countries?
If it is, then that will not be surprising, given that there is, effectively, a major power influence vacuum in Africa at present, with the American government either pulling back from the continent, or using even heavier bullying tactics to get its way with African nations.
China has astutely recognised that Africa offers opportunities to sell its goods, gather natural resources for its voracious industries and secure diplomatic allies not only for issues like Taiwan, but for its greater – and so far downplayed – desire to replace the US as the world’s number one superpower.
Many Africans – even before the dismissive Trumpled view that Africa is a “shithole” – are receptive to a relationship with China, whose industrial products already dominate the globe.
Beijing must remember, though, Africans don’t need another colonial “baas” telling them what to do.
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