2024 is coming to an end with a planet immersed in changes and uncertainties marked by the genocide in Gaza, tensions in the Middle East, the perpetuation of the war in Ukraine, the commercial rivalry between the United States and China and the race of various powers for acquire and control access to raw materials, oil, gas, minerals and rare earths.
The search for resources and commercial issues determine strategies. The US knew how to take advantage of the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine to establish itself as an alternative to Moscow gas, and went so far as to sell its liquefied gas to Europe forty percent more expensive than Russian gas. In the Middle East it continues to actively support Israel, in a region with borders modified by the illegal Israeli occupation and in which Washington has numerous military bases and interests.
The annexation of Palestinian territory is part of the colonialist and expansionist aspirations of Israel – which has also illegally occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967 – and is accompanied by other plans, such as “the restructuring of the Middle East” – recent words from Netanyahu – or the layout of routes that link Asia with the Mediterranean, through Israeli territory.
This has been stated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on several occasions – September 2023 and October 2024 – showing maps in which the Palestinian territories do not exist and in which routes for the transport of energy, fiber optics and railway lines that would link India with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and the Mediterranean.
In the commitment to the massive exploitation of resources, global relationships are drawn based on these ambitions
The race for resources in other regions
In a planet that continues to rely on the massive exploitation of its wealth, exceeding its physical limits has environmental, but also political, social and economic consequences. International relations and geopolitical maps are drawn based on these ambitions.
In Africa, China has been establishing agreements for the exploitation of mines, the construction of infrastructure, the layout of railways and preferential trade pacts for years, in exchange for loans and aid. It is, in fact, the largest investor and the largest trading partner of the continent.
through the call New Silk RoadBeijing intends to consolidate a commercial route – land and sea – between Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
The US star project in Africa is the Lobito Corridor, with which it seeks to counteract Chinese influence
Biden’s visit to Africa this week
Given this, Washington seeks to reconfigure its presence in the area, with the desire to compete with China. The US strategy on the African continent has usually been led by a predominantly military reading. The United States Department of Defense’s Unified Combatant Command (AFRICOM) and its military bases have been the most visible face of Washington in African countries, where the damage caused by 20th century European colonialism and its consequences is still maintained in the collective memory.
At last year’s G20 summit, Washington and the European Union announced the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, a route to boost a rail network and naval trade between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Jordan, with the object of uniting India with the Middle East and Europe. This project aims to counteract Chinese influence in these areas.
Within this competition for the transportation of minerals and raw materials, there are a star project to whom Joe Biden wanted to dedicate his first and last trip to Africa as president. A few days ago, the still US president visited Angola, a country rich in gas and oil reserves and the central core of the Wolf Runnerstrategic project of Washington’s agreements with the African country.
This route, also known as the Trans-African Corridor, is a public-private project led by the US. Among its objectives is the extraction of raw materials and their transportation to the West. Its route plan would connect the port of Lobito in Angola with landlocked, mineral-rich countries such as Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Indian Ocean.
These nations have significant deposits of cobalt and copper, essential for producing electronic devices, smartphones and laptops. They also contain nickel or coltan, the extraction of which has already deforested large areas of forests.
Chinese power in Africa
The United States’ reaction comes after decades of Chinese investment in the African continent. Beijing has been expanding its orbit of influence and its businesses in the region. Angola, for example, is one of the main suppliers of crude oil to China. In return, the Chinese government has provided the African country with large loans for infrastructure development.
This year the Chinese president announced more than $50 billion in financing for Africa over the next three years, and recently established zero tariffs for the thirty-three poorest countries on the continent.
Two years ago, China forgave the debt of seventeen African nations in exchange for influence and new contracts. Many Chinese companies exploit mines and land in several countries in the region.
The US-China trade war and Trump’s announcements partly explain the EU-Mercosur agreement
Restrictions and agreements in the face of the trade war
The Washington-Beijing rivalry conditions the dynamics of international relations and is generating new political measures, with the risk of greater tensions. Just a few days ago the Biden Government announced an expansion of the limitations in the sale of advanced American technology to the Chinese semiconductor industry, which means stopping exports to 140 Chinese companies. Pending his inauguration, Donald Trump’s promises indicate more aggressive steps in this regard, with the imposition of higher tariffs on Chinese products.
For now, in response to Biden’s new restrictions, the Chinese Government advertisement this week that will restrict the export to the United States of critical minerals, such as gallium, germanium, antimony and superhard materials. All of them can have military or civil use. Gallium and germanium are used in semiconductors, and antimony is also used in infrared technology, fiber optic cables, and solar cells.
China extract around 70% of cobalt, more than 60% of graphite and more than half of the rare earth from all over the world. In addition, it has been accelerating the construction of its value chain for clean technologies, the main demanders of critical minerals, for more than two decades. It is capable of processing 35% of all the nickel in the world, 58% of lithium, 65% of cobalt and 87% of rare earths.
The trade war between the United States and China – and its repercussions on the world – also partly explains the agreement signed this week between the European Union and Mercosur, at a time of Brussels’ loss of influence and Beijing’s advance in Latin America.
Germany and Spain have been the two countries most willing to move forward with this pact, given the arrival of a US president, Donald Trump, who has also threatened European products with an escalation of tariffs.
The sale of US arms to Taiwan or the military maneuvers with Japan and the Philippines are perceived by China as a threat
AUKUS and the Indo-Pacific Strategy
The Chinese Government claims its right to grow economically and develop technological advances without restrictions. The United States responds to this growth with strategies focused on slowing its advance. Some are limited to the commercial field; others combine military plans with political alliances in different parts of the planet.
Within them is included the Indo-Pacific Strategyannounced by Washington in 2022, which indicates that this region is the epicenter of global economic activity and highlights the importance of promoting the strategic position of the United States and containing the advance of China:
“We will focus on every corner of the region, from Northeast and Southeast Asia, to South Asia and Oceania, including the Pacific Islands. (…) This increasingly intense US focus is partly due to the fact that the Indo-Pacific faces increasing challenges, particularly from the People’s Republic of China. (…) No region will be more important to the world and to Americans than the Indo-Pacific,” the document states.
The US also promoted, three years ago, the AUKUS strategic military alliance with the United Kingdom and Australia, by which London and Washington committed to helping Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines. The pact includes cooperation on cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence and quantum technologies, and provides for Australia’s acquisition of new long-range strike capabilities for its military forces.
AUKUS was also designed to strengthen other treaties for the area in which the US is involved, such as the Five Eyes alliance, of which Australia, Canada, Washington, New Zealand and the United Kingdom are part. After its constitution, the chinese government He noted that this US plan is an attempt to establish a new “NATO” in the region, with an “outdated Cold War mentality” to maintain the dominant position and system of hegemony of the United States.
The US responds to Chinese growth with commercial but also political and military plans that increase tension
Multipolarity or war
In the midst of these tense dynamics – which are not only limited to trade relations – many countries are reluctant to have to commit exclusively to the United States and are seeking more room for maneuver. The Chinese Government is aware of this reality, and in its speeches it insists on defending “an egalitarian and orderly multipolar world, in which each country can find its place.”
However, in the US, numerous voices are calling for a trade confrontation with China, also using military strategy and subjecting third countries to US interests. For example, Trump-appointed U.S. ambassador to China David Perdue posted in September an article titled “China’s New War: US Freedom Depends on Confronting the Threat.”
The world is experiencing changes in the balance of power between the United States and China, and the strategists of both countries know it. In that sense, the sale of US arms to Taiwan or Washington’s joint military maneuvers with Japan and the Philippines contribute to increasing tension and They are perceived movements by Beijing as threats.
As the former Australian Labor Prime Minister has warned Kevin Ruddknowledgeable about Chinese and American cultures – he speaks Mandarin fluently – we find ourselves in a moment that is shaping up to be decisive for relations between the US and China, in a decade about which he says “we will live dangerously.”
Given this, there are two options: either assume the world as it is – with its multilateralism – and look for ways to coexist, combining own interests and mutual respect, with a reinforcement of the tools of negotiation and peace; or the insistence on more confrontation, which would lead to a collision and even the paths of “a war that would rewrite the future in ways we can barely imagine.”
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