At today's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) questioned Joshua Meservey, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, about China.
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00:00Thank you, Senator.
00:01Senator Cruz.
00:03Mr. Basurbi, as we've been discussing, I believe the Chinese Communist Party presents
00:08the most significant long-term strategic threat to the United States.
00:12I also believe that China is a global threat that has to be confronted globally, including
00:18in Africa.
00:19We have a vast range of interests in Africa and a complicated security architecture.
00:24Our interests there are counterterrorism, trade and critical mineral supply lines,
00:28global biosecurity, preventing illegal immigration that threatens allies in other parts of the
00:33world, blocking illicit finance of hostile actors, and even, importantly, space development.
00:40And across Africa, again and again, the Chinese have exploited local political, economic, and
00:45sometimes even cultural conditions to undermine American national security interests.
00:51Sometimes they do it by securing bilateral and multilateral agreements that block American
00:56goals.
00:57Other times they do it by creating instability.
01:00But they are actively doing it.
01:02Talk a little bit about the specific tactics that China is using in East Africa and the
01:07Horn.
01:08And what are the specific conditions they are exploiting?
01:11Yeah.
01:14Thank you, Senator, for the question.
01:17China, first of all, has a long-standing strategy for the continent.
01:23That's been a topic of this conversation is the U.S. doesn't have anything comparable.
01:27And they are highly disciplined about implementing it.
01:30So that's sort of the foundation of what they're doing.
01:34As far as specific tactics, they like to engage at a very senior level, the highest possible
01:40senior level.
01:41They do that in a variety of ways.
01:43Some of it is as open as bribery, but a lot of it is helping leaders, for instance, with
01:52key infrastructure projects that helps them politically in the domestic space.
01:57But even the diplomatic exchanges, they engage, as I said, at a very high level, but they
02:10do it constantly as well.
02:11I referenced in my opening remarks over 100 visits from senior Chinese officials to this
02:17area.
02:18So they engage at a much higher tempo and at a much more senior level than U.S. diplomats
02:24do.
02:25So those are some of the specific tactics that they use, but they're not unique to East Africa.
02:30They use them across the continent to great effect.
02:33And then easy money loans, very important to their strategy, investment, trade agreements.
02:39We're seeing more and more free trade agreements where these so-called green lanes, where they're
02:45preferential access to the Chinese market for agricultural goods.
02:49So it's genuinely a wide array of tactics that are grounded in a long-term strategy.
02:55And how has Chinese involvement impacted the ongoing conflicts in the region?
03:00Yeah.
03:01Yeah.
03:02So I think usually China actually prefers stability because that facilitates what they're trying
03:10to do in other areas.
03:12They generally try to stay out of these types of things.
03:16We have seen some sort of, I would argue, weak diplomatic efforts from the Chinese.
03:21They do have a special envoy for the region who occasionally goes and talks to the various
03:27leaders, but I don't think anything substantive comes of it.
03:33And they do contribute to peacekeeping operations, but that's much more, I would argue, about them
03:40building both diplomatic heft, but also capabilities and experience for the troops in these types
03:47of austere environments where they're often put.
03:51So I think they are not nearly as helpful as they could be.
03:55I think where they actively are negative are the Chinese weapons that flow through the area.
04:01Back in the original Sudan Civil War, they armed the Omar al-Bashir regime, which was genociding
04:08Darfuris at the time.
04:11They armed both Ethiopia and Eritrea during their border war in the late 1990s.
04:16And Chinese weapons continue to flood the area.
04:20We're seeing Chinese bombs and other things, probably re-exported from UAE, show up in Sudan.
04:27So many of the agreements China has been locking in are explicitly military agreements.
04:32Since 2017, China has operated a military base in Djibouti.
04:36The CCP Beijing is actively working to deepen ties across the region to secure greater access
04:42to the Red Sea and key maritime routes.
04:45Can you describe the nature of China's specifically military cooperation in the Horn?
04:52Yeah.
04:53So you referenced the flagship, which is the Djibouti base.
04:56But we have seen a very real uptick in military trainings.
05:00So I think it was two or three years ago, the Chinese inaugurated an annual meeting for African defense chiefs.
05:10They convene in Beijing.
05:12And that has been ongoing, I believe, for three years, if I remember correctly.
05:16I also referenced in my written testimony the fact that PLA Navy vessels participate in these anti-piracy task forces in the Gulf of Aden.
05:26They then will go all around the continent doing port calls, both on the Indian Ocean but also the Atlantic Ocean side.
05:34And that's clearly an effort to build Blue Water Naval capabilities that they covet, so they can project power into the South China Sea, and probably for an eventual invasion of Taiwan.
05:45And again, the weapons, so weapons training, deployments, and I already referenced the peacekeeping operations, I would say those are the primary elements.