“Mr. Ambassador, be my interpreter to my friend Xi Jinping to convey my sincere thanks.
From the tarmac at Blaise Diagne airport, Senegalese President Macky Sall is speaking this Wednesday evening during a speech broadcast live on television.
Behind him, we are busy unloading the plane that has just landed.
On board?
The first 200,000 doses of the country's anti-Covid vaccines, coming directly from China.
This delivery to Senegal is not an epiphenomenon.
Vaccine shipments from China to African countries have increased in recent weeks.
Egypt, Morocco, Equatorial Guinea and the Seychelles have received the precious Chinese vaccine.
On Monday, Zimbabwe received 200,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine, donated by China, before committing to buy almost 2 million.
At the same time, the European Union, which is struggling to have enough doses for itself, has instructed the UN to distribute the doses reserved via the Covax device, deliveries of which are still awaited.
"This was to be expected," decrypts the Parisian Thierry Vircoulon, associate researcher at the Sub-Saharan Africa center of IFRI.
It is part of China's
soft power
strategy
with the objective of seducing and showing that it is a global player.
"China wants to prove that a developing country is capable of finding a vaccine, of producing it and of distributing it on a large scale," said Thierry Pairault, specialist in China-Africa relations.
At the same time, France, the land of Pasteur, is not capable of releasing anything: for China, that means a lot.
"
Africa, political support
China in Africa is nothing new.
"We can say that it's been twenty years since the Chinese developed their presence there", details Thierry Vircoulon.
"Everything goes back to 1989, during Tian'anmen, when China realized that if it could find economic support in Western countries, it would not find political support there," explains Thierry Pairault.
From that point on, China looked to Africa for some.
"
Since then, Chinese investments on the African continent have accelerated.
According to figures from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, they rose from less than a billion dollars in 2004, for the whole continent, to more than 44 billion in 2019. “China imports raw materials from Africa and there exports manufactured products, ”notes Thierry Vircoulon.
Africa, in full development, and where a demographic explosion is expected in the coming years, is proving to be an interesting economic market for China, all the more so in a context where it arouses mistrust elsewhere.
"There is a total asymmetry: Africa needs China for economic reasons, China needs Africa for political reasons", explains Thierry Pairault.
By "helping" Africa, even more with the delivery of masks at the start of the crisis, and now vaccines, China is seeking the support of Africa.
Essential support: "Africa is 54 countries, more than a quarter of the votes in the United Nations General Assembly," recalls Thierry Pairault.
So many voices that today allow the Middle Kingdom to be at the head of four UN agencies.
Towards other Chinese targets?
The subject worries.
On Wednesday, Emmanuel Macron spoke with several African leaders on the subject of vaccines.
"The slowness of the vaccination campaign in poor countries, especially in Africa, is inexplicable and intolerable," he lamented.
Asked Thursday on France Inter, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, swept Chinese policy: "It is not because we deposit doses of vaccine on a tarmac that we have a vaccine policy" , recalling that Chinese vaccines have not been approved by either the World Health Organization or the European Medicines Agency.
“China accompanies its deliveries with a narrative,” notes Thierry Pairault.
Everything is filmed, retransmitted, messages of thanks are sent ... And there is no narrative in front of that: France is silent, Europe is silent ... France is no longer able to have any posture.
There is, in Africa, a total invisibility of the West.
But when a Chinese raises a finger, everyone knows.
"
Morning essentials newsletter
A tour of the news to start the day
Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters
China could deploy its strategy well beyond Africa.
"We can expect deliveries to countries in South America," predicts Thierry Vircoulon.
In the European Union, China has also scored points: Hungary has decided to authorize and purchase, without the approval of the European Commission, doses of the Sinopharm vaccine.
And the Hungarian President, Viktor Orban, to justify this change of course by the slowness of the European Union: “Every day that we would spend waiting for Brussels, we would lose a hundred Hungarian lives.
"
