US defense chief warns China, Russia 'destabilizing' Africa

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned African leaders at a summit on Tuesday that China and Russia risked "destabilizing" the continent with their rising involvement.

"The combination of those activities by those two countries, I think that bears watching. And certainly, I think their influence can be destabilizing," Austin told a panel with several presidents at the start of a three-day US-Africa summit.

Austin said that China was raising its footprint in Africa "on a daily basis" through its growing economic influence.

"The troubling piece there is they're not always transparent in terms of what they're doing and that creates problems that will be eventually destabilizing if they're not already," Austin said.

Austin said that Russia is "continuing to peddle cheap weapons" and deploying "mercenaries across the continent."

"And that is destabilizing as well," Austin said.

But the Biden administration has mostly chosen not to speak explicitly about rivals, believing it is futile to try to turn the tide on China's massive infrastructure spending.

Biden plans to unveil $55 billion for Africa over three years. In one of the first announcements, the White House said the United States would invest $4 billion by the 2025 fiscal year to train African health workers, a rising priority for Washington since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The summit's first day also brought in NASA, with Nigeria and Rwanda becoming the first African nations to sign the Artemis accords, a US-led bid for international cooperation on traveling to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

The Artemis accords, which already include European allies, Japan and several Latin American powers, come as China rapidly expands its own lunar program and as tensions with Russia threaten its post-Cold War work with the United States on space.