Summary

Djibouti : la naissance d’une « armée européenne » ?

Djibouti est restée sous les feux des projecteurs ces derniers mois. L’animosité entre la Chine et les États-Unis, entretenue depuis deux ans par un président aux dérapages verbaux excessifs, peut se sentir sur ce territoire où se concentrent les moyens de trois des plus importantes forces armées du monde. La France, les États-Unis et la Chine sont aux premières loges, face à la Péninsule arabique, à quelques encablures du détroit d’Ormuz et aux pieds de la mer Rouge et du Golfe d’Aden. D’autres acteurs (Japon, République fédérale d’Allemagne…) jouent un rôle mais n’ont pas la puissance militaire équivalente, des marines autonomes, des moyens interarmées d’intervention, d’ambitions géopolitiques autres que la lutte contre la piraterie, les trafics en tous genres.

AFRICA, CHINA, DJIBOUTI, EUROPEAN UNION, HORN of AFRICA, UNITED STATES of AMERICA

Africa tunes in to China

How times change. When China’s state news agency, Xinhua, opened a bureau in Cairo in 1958 and Radio Peking began transmissions to east Africa in Swahili in 1961, the news, commentary and even music bore the inescapable imprint of Mao’s Little Red Book and China’s anti-colonial communist ideology. And, although “television access was minimal…the Chinese used film to advertise the depths of Sino-African relationship and extol the benefits of Maoism.”I Spreading the revolution of Mao and solidarity with the emerging post-colonial socialist regimes and movements used to be the main function of the Chinese media in Africa—and almost everywhere else.

AFRICA, BOTSWANA, BURUNDI, CHINA, DJIBOUTI, DRC, ETHIOPIA

Potential Risks and Rewards of Sino-Somalia Fishing Agreement

During the Beijing Summit of China-Africa Cooperation Forum in September 2018, the Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $60 billion in financing for projects in Africa in the form of assistance, investment and loans.i Chinese investment and trade with Africa have increased significantly over the past few years, surpassing Europe and the USA who used to be the predominant sources of foreign investment and the main market for African exports.ii Some of the primary motivations that lie behind China’s push toward increased investments in Africa include the desire to secure a solid base of raw materials to fuel China’s own rapidly growing economy, the desire to increase China’s global political influence and the major growth opportunity presented by emerging market economies in Africa.

AFRICA, CHINA, HORN of AFRICA, SOMALIA, SOMALILAND

Horn of Africa: Enchained by geopolitical and transnational veto players

The Horn of Africa is increasingly turning into a space of rivalry and competition between rival external powers. There are perspectives that postulate this as auguring a new cold war involving military, economic and diplomatic preeminence.i It is different from the previous cold war which had involved only two superpowers (bipolar superpower system) and it was only ideological. The situation in the Horn of Africa can be taken as a manifestation of the emergence of a multi-polar world order in which more centers of powers try to assert their interests and influences.

AFRICA, DJIBOUTI, ERITREA, ETHIOPIA, HORN of AFRICA, KENYA, SOMALIA, SOMALILAND, SOUTH SUDAN, SUDAN