China Foreign Minister in Eritrea at start of Africa tour

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived on Tuesday in Eritrea, one of the world’s most closed-off countries, on the first leg of an African tour, AFP reported.

His visit follows a trip to Africa by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in November that was in part aimed at countering China’s growing influence on the continent.

From Eritrea, Wang is due to head to Kenya and the Comoros before going to the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Wang will hold talks with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and Foreign Minister Osman Saleh, Eritrea’s ministry of information said in a statement.

To the dismay of the West, China has ramped up its involvement in Africa in its search for resources and has embarked on an infrastructure-building blitz.

China is the continent’s largest trading partner with direct trade worth over $200 billion in 2019, according to official Chinese figures.

But Beijing is often accused of using its creditor status to extract diplomatic and commercial concessions, with concerns that it is driving many African countries to take on unmanageable levels of debt.

Eritrea, which has been sanctioned by the United States over its involvement in the conflict in neighbouring Ethiopia, joined up to China’s global investment strategy known as Belt and Road in November.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said last month that Wang’s trip aimed to deepen cooperation with the African countries and support them “in defeating the pandemic and bringing about economic recovery at an early date.”

At an Africa-China summit in Senegal in November, Beijing pledged to offer one billion Covid-19 vaccine doses to Africa and to help African countries to overcome their coronavirus-related economic woes “without imposing its will.”