Does US embrace mean end of Kenya’s pro-China ‘Look East’ policy?
- Former president Uhuru Kenyatta helped attract US$5 billion in Chinese investment for railway line
- But successor William Ruto says country needs more friends, including America
Signs of Chinese investment can be seen everywhere in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. From major roads funded and constructed by Chinese companies to skyscrapers built by Chinese investors, Beijing has emerged as Kenya’s largest bilateral lender.
Kenya’s three former presidents – Daniel arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta – embraced a “Look East” policy, which was credited with attracting Chinese capital to a series of major projects such as ports, highways and airports. But it was from 2002, during the Kibaki and Kenyatta administrations, that most Chinese money poured in to fund Kenya’s infrastructure.
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Ruto has visited the US twice, met British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron and many more Western leaders. Kenya has received top American officials, including Trade Representative Katherine Tai, ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield and first lady Jill Biden. Kenya is also discussing a trade deal with the US, which could be used as a model for similar deals with other African nations.
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Observers said the perceived shift in Kenya’s foreign policy in favour of the West was a readjustment of local politics to reorient the new administration’s relations with the UK, China and the US.
Wilfred Muliro, a national interests and foreign policy strategist, said the Ruto administration was engaged in the geopolitics of positive non-alignment, seeking to benefit from the global rivalry between China and the traditional powers in Africa by playing off China and the West for its own national strategic interests such as trade, aid and development goals.
“The previous administration managed to level the field by deepening its ties with the East so as to checkmate the US and UK, which appeared to take their relations with Kenya for granted,” Muliro said.
He said domestic politics was influencing the refocusing of Kenya’s foreign policy from China back to the country’s traditional Western allies.
Muliro said that during the presidential election campaign last year, the US and the United Kingdom were associated with Ruto, while China, which had close ties with president Kenyatta, was believed to have supported rival candidate Raila Odinga.
He said that in the 2013 elections that saw Kenyatta elected president, the US and UK had placed their bets on Odinga, citing cases at the International Criminal Court at The Hague against Uhuru and his running-mate Ruto over post-election violence in 2007. The charges against both men were later dropped.
As a matter of survival, Kenyatta’s administration had focused on the “Look East” policy and Pan-Africanism, Muliro said.
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When asked whether Kenya was shifting its foreign policy, Ruto said in January that Kenya had the option of choosing friends.
“This is not a this versus that,” he said. “The more friends you have, it is like you have more assets. The more enemies you have, it is like you have more liabilities.
“Who tells you we cannot be friends with China and be friends with America? China and America are doing business, who are we not to do business with everybody?”
Ruto said it was important to separate politics, disagreements and political positions from interests.
“We have interests as a nation and if our interests lead us to work with China we will work with China,” he said. “If our interests dictate that we must work with the West, we will work with the West.
“I am very happy that we have a very good relationship with the East and I am also very happy that we are now developing a good relationship with the West.”
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During the presidential campaign last year, Ruto struck an antagonistic stance towards China, blaming Beijing for Kenya’s debt problems. The Ruto administration said last year it planned to renegotiate the loans Kenya took from China to build the railway. He has also threatened to deport foreign nationals, including Chinese working illegally in Kenya and operating small retail businesses that could be run by Kenyans.
Foreign Affairs Minister Alfred Mutua said recently that Kenya was pushing for “economic diplomacy”. He said that although China had stood with Kenya throughout, “we have been talking to them to open up”.
“We want to do more trade with China,” he said. “It is not about you coming to do work here. It is about how we can get our goods to China. How we can get our avocados to China, how they can open up their markets for us to send our products over there.”
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Macharia Munene, a professor of history and international relations at the Nairobi-based United States International University Africa, said Ruto wanted “endorsement by the West and hence the frequent trips to the Western countries”.
But he added that Ruto was “trying a balancing act and would not want to antagonise China as a way of pleasing the West”.
X.N. Iraki, an economics professor at the University of Nairobi, said the West had waited for a political transition to shift Kenya into its orbit, which was a very strategic move.
“They knew Ruto would want to do the opposite of what Uhuru [Kenyatta] did, even on foreign policy,” Iraki said.
Ruto had said he would be neutral, but since he had come to power, the West seemed to be displacing China, Iraki said.
“The shift is driven by the fact that the West has always seen Kenya as part of their sphere of influence, both economically and ideologically,” he said. “The strategic location, ‘war on terror’ and entry point to the larger East African community might be key drivers.”
The Chinese embassy in Kenya asked the Kenyan government last week “to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises and Chinese citizens”.
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Stephen Ndegwa, executive director of South-South Dialogues, a Nairobi-based think tank, and a lecturer at US International University Africa, said there was confusion about the new Kenyan administration’s foreign policy shift, which coincided with an aggressive comeback by the US. However, China had done a lot on the ground, especially in infrastructure, which had opened up the country.
He said Ruto had made no pronouncements on whether he was with China or the US, or wanted to play it both ways.
Ndegwa said Chinese officials in Kenya had told him they would not engage in geopolitical fights.
“If it [Kenya] wants to deal with China, that’s fine, let the record speak for itself,” he said he was told. “If you want to go to the West, you are free to do so.
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“They are not going to fight to keep the relationship going. All they want is to play by the book.”
But Muliro also said the Ruto administration had not altered Kenya’s stance on any of China’s key foreign policy interests in Kenya, Africa and globally. He said Kenya still recognised the one-China policy, which says that Taiwan is part of China.
“Kenya-China ties still focus on gaining economic advantage through aid, trade and foreign direct investment,” Muliro said.
“Notably, Kenya-China relations are among the longest, having been established in 1963. Since 1978, when the two countries revived their ties that had temporarily been suspended in 1967, Kenya-China relations have run uninterrupted and have substantially expanded in terms of trade, investment and aid.”
