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Spite Won’t Beat China in Africa
If the United States wants to counter Beijing’s diplomacy, it needs to understand why it works so well.
BY LINA BENABDALLAH | JANUARY 23, 2019, 11:43 AM
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Ethiopian Foreign Minister Workneh Gebeyehu speak during a joint press conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Jan. 3, during Wang's official visit. (Michael Tewelde/AFP/Getty Images)
When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi touched down in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Gambia, and Senegal in January, he was not there to cut the ribbon on the new roads and bridges that have been at the center of U.S. attention toward Chinese efforts in Africa. Wang’s trip, like many others made by Chinese leaders in the last three decades, was intended to reinforce the layers of networks and relationships that have been spun between Chinese and African diplomats, military officers, party officials, journalists, and civil servants.
Beijing says it respects all African countries as important partners regardless of size or power—as long as they disavow Taiwan—and its diplomatic practices do a lot to reinforce that. Since 1990, Chinese foreign ministers have made a point of picking Africa for their first trip of the new year.
If U.S. President Donald Trump, as his administration has stated, intends to have an Africa strategy centered on combating China’s reach in the region, the United States needs to recognize how China’s influence actually works. The kinds of ties exemplified by Wang’s visit—rather than more traditional points of attention, such as China’s growing financial involvement, its military base in Djibouti, or the Chinese-built roads and bridges in Kenya—give China its real advantage over the United States in Africa.
Although it is nowhere near flawless, a fair amount of consultation between Chinese and African counterparts goes into the making of China’s Africa policy. Chinese presidents and premiers make a point of making official trips to Africa as soon as possible after taking office. A closer look at high-level exchanges and official visits by China’s president, premier, and foreign minister shows that aside from Wang’s 2019 diplomatic visit, its top leadership has made 79 other trips to 43 African countries in the last decade.
China-Africa relations are certainly about infrastructure investments and natural resource extraction, but these go hand in hand with investments in people-to-people relations and sustained diplomatic outreach. Every year, the Chinese government sponsors thousands of exchange visits, short-term trainings, and scholarships for civil servants, young entrepreneurs, and high-ranking military officers. Just last summer, China held the first-ever China-Africa Defense and Security Forum, where top officials from 50 African countries spent two weeks touring military facilities and discussing security partnerships with their Chinese counterparts.
Then in September, Beijing rolled out the red carpet for 51 African leaders to participate in the seventh meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). This marked the biggest turnout by African leaders for a FOCAC summit to date. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who also serves as the current chairperson of the African Union, reiterated the perception among African leaders that “the relationship between Africa and China is based on equality, mutual respect, and a commitment to shared well-being.” In contrast, equivalent recurring opportunities for tête-à-têtes with African leaders are hard to find in U.S.-Africa relations at present.
At the FOCAC summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced during his opening address that “China will provide Africa with 50,000 government scholarships and 50,000 training opportunities for seminars and workshops and will invite 2,000 young Africans to visit China for exchanges.” These trainings and exchanges provide a window into China’s history, culture, and development model, cultivating a sense of familiarity and vital connections for Africans who attend.
The Chinese government invests serious effort and funds into bringing African journalists to China for all-expenses-paid, short-term trainings and sometimes even degree-seeking programs to counter what it sees as negative narratives from the Western press. Speaking to a delegation of Kenyan journalists in China last fall, Zhao Lijun, the director of China International Publishing Group’s Training Center, emphasized that the program was funded and maintained because “people-to-people interactions are very important,” according to the state-run China Daily.
The expansion of Confucius Institutes across Africa is another part of the push worth engaging with. With more than 50 Confucius Institutes teaching Chinese language, as well as the Communist Party’s version of Chinese history and culture, more and more Africans have the chance to study Chinese and travel to China on cultural scholarships. In 2015, approximately 50,000 African students attended Chinese universities, compared with 40,000 in the United States and the United Kingdom. Elementary and middle schools in several African countries are now offering Mandarin as a foreign language.
U.S. diplomacy lags far behind Chinese efforts. The delayed appointment of Tibor Nagy, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, was yet another signal that African countries are not a priority within the State Department. African countries remain without a U.S. ambassador as the Trump administration enters its third year. Even in South Africa, where China has appointed Lin Songtian, one of its highest-ranking diplomats as an ambassador, the United States is still moving very slowly. These things matter.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/23/spite-wont-beat-china-in-africa/
If the United States wants to counter Beijing’s diplomacy, it needs to understand why it works so well.
BY LINA BENABDALLAH | JANUARY 23, 2019, 11:43 AM
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Ethiopian Foreign Minister Workneh Gebeyehu speak during a joint press conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Jan. 3, during Wang's official visit. (Michael Tewelde/AFP/Getty Images)
When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi touched down in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Gambia, and Senegal in January, he was not there to cut the ribbon on the new roads and bridges that have been at the center of U.S. attention toward Chinese efforts in Africa. Wang’s trip, like many others made by Chinese leaders in the last three decades, was intended to reinforce the layers of networks and relationships that have been spun between Chinese and African diplomats, military officers, party officials, journalists, and civil servants.
Beijing says it respects all African countries as important partners regardless of size or power—as long as they disavow Taiwan—and its diplomatic practices do a lot to reinforce that. Since 1990, Chinese foreign ministers have made a point of picking Africa for their first trip of the new year.
If U.S. President Donald Trump, as his administration has stated, intends to have an Africa strategy centered on combating China’s reach in the region, the United States needs to recognize how China’s influence actually works. The kinds of ties exemplified by Wang’s visit—rather than more traditional points of attention, such as China’s growing financial involvement, its military base in Djibouti, or the Chinese-built roads and bridges in Kenya—give China its real advantage over the United States in Africa.
Although it is nowhere near flawless, a fair amount of consultation between Chinese and African counterparts goes into the making of China’s Africa policy. Chinese presidents and premiers make a point of making official trips to Africa as soon as possible after taking office. A closer look at high-level exchanges and official visits by China’s president, premier, and foreign minister shows that aside from Wang’s 2019 diplomatic visit, its top leadership has made 79 other trips to 43 African countries in the last decade.
China-Africa relations are certainly about infrastructure investments and natural resource extraction, but these go hand in hand with investments in people-to-people relations and sustained diplomatic outreach. Every year, the Chinese government sponsors thousands of exchange visits, short-term trainings, and scholarships for civil servants, young entrepreneurs, and high-ranking military officers. Just last summer, China held the first-ever China-Africa Defense and Security Forum, where top officials from 50 African countries spent two weeks touring military facilities and discussing security partnerships with their Chinese counterparts.
Then in September, Beijing rolled out the red carpet for 51 African leaders to participate in the seventh meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). This marked the biggest turnout by African leaders for a FOCAC summit to date. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who also serves as the current chairperson of the African Union, reiterated the perception among African leaders that “the relationship between Africa and China is based on equality, mutual respect, and a commitment to shared well-being.” In contrast, equivalent recurring opportunities for tête-à-têtes with African leaders are hard to find in U.S.-Africa relations at present.
At the FOCAC summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced during his opening address that “China will provide Africa with 50,000 government scholarships and 50,000 training opportunities for seminars and workshops and will invite 2,000 young Africans to visit China for exchanges.” These trainings and exchanges provide a window into China’s history, culture, and development model, cultivating a sense of familiarity and vital connections for Africans who attend.
The Chinese government invests serious effort and funds into bringing African journalists to China for all-expenses-paid, short-term trainings and sometimes even degree-seeking programs to counter what it sees as negative narratives from the Western press. Speaking to a delegation of Kenyan journalists in China last fall, Zhao Lijun, the director of China International Publishing Group’s Training Center, emphasized that the program was funded and maintained because “people-to-people interactions are very important,” according to the state-run China Daily.
The expansion of Confucius Institutes across Africa is another part of the push worth engaging with. With more than 50 Confucius Institutes teaching Chinese language, as well as the Communist Party’s version of Chinese history and culture, more and more Africans have the chance to study Chinese and travel to China on cultural scholarships. In 2015, approximately 50,000 African students attended Chinese universities, compared with 40,000 in the United States and the United Kingdom. Elementary and middle schools in several African countries are now offering Mandarin as a foreign language.
U.S. diplomacy lags far behind Chinese efforts. The delayed appointment of Tibor Nagy, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, was yet another signal that African countries are not a priority within the State Department. African countries remain without a U.S. ambassador as the Trump administration enters its third year. Even in South Africa, where China has appointed Lin Songtian, one of its highest-ranking diplomats as an ambassador, the United States is still moving very slowly. These things matter.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/23/spite-wont-beat-china-in-africa/
