China is one of Africa’s largest sources of investments and is now also one of Africa’s top trading partners. Additionally Beijing has also become a reliable source of development funding for African countries trying to develop their infrastructure. African leaders have also benefitted from Beijing through various grants that have been extended to build prestige projects such as stadiums, presidential palaces as well as parliament houses.
In an environment where global capital frowns upon political risks of instability and corruption, China has gone on ahead to do business with Africa where these risks are abundant. Because of the importance of this emerging ‘partnership’ the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was established in the year 2000 to coordinate engagements between China and African countries.
Today, it is an undeniable fact that China has become one of the most important economic and diplomatic partners of African countries. It should however be quickly highlighted that China is not in the relationship as an economic and political messiah for Africa.
It has concrete interests and a concrete strategy. The Chinese have studied how Western governments and institutions have since independence influenced the political and economic trajectories of African countries through the ideology of liberal democracy resulting in the creation of civil society organisations as well as the emergence of opposition political parties who espouse the tenets of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
Another strategy used by the West was the instrumentalisation of debt as a means of influence and control. African countries remain heavily indebted to Western nations, International Financial Institutions and private lenders.
This phenomenon, I presume, has been studied by the Chinese over a very long time in order to frame a counter narrative as a grand strategy to influence African political elites to have positive perceptions towards China. Remember this is happening within the context of the geopolitical rivalry between China, the USA and the rest of the West.
The Chinese grand strategy in Africa is seen first through the establishment of political leadership schools. The first one, and I believe will not be the last one, is the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School in Tanzania which aims at training political executives mainly from the former liberation movements of Southern Africa.
This is a direct strategy to counter the democratic initiatives and narratives supposedly brought by the West in Africa. China is a one party state under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with an inclination towards authoritarian and sometimes totalitarian political control.
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The establishment of this first leadership school is a sign that China is geared for a push back against a purely democratic form of governance in Africa by teaching African political elites its doctrine of political management. Innocent Batsani-Ncube who has done some research in this area, in July 2022, the school hosted some 120 party executives from the African National Congress (ANC), Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO) and Chama Chama Pinduzi(CCP) in a programme entitled ‘The leading cadres workshop’ . This workshop targeted party executives between the ages of 22 and 45.
Why this particular age range? They are the future leaders of both their parties and possibly their countries. It is not of benefit to China to continue training the old guard, they need a ‘compliant’ future African leadership that will not jeopardise their interests in the long term. To support this strategy, various short term scholarships are also given for officials from ruling parties whether former liberation movements or not, to study under the instruction of CCP instructors in China. Added to that, China is also investing in African parliaments through giving grants to African governments to construct their parliament houses.
By using this strategy, the Chinese are able also to influence potential leaders even in the opposition since parliament houses are places of inter-party gatherings. This is a well planned and thought out strategy.
The other important facet showing in China’s strategy is that the Chinese are no longer strictly held down by the old orthodoxy of the non-interference policy. The non-interference policy appears to be now going through progressive changes and tweaking. It is being adapted to geostrategic concerns. T
his is because the very establishment of such a school is a form of interference in the political affairs of African countries since the political and leadership ethos and ideologies taught there will directly influence the political management of these African states.
This should not be difficult since there already is some ideological affinity between the CCP and former liberation movements stemming from historical ties. It is also a fact that these movements have had a liking for single-party governance systems since independence and this fact is still being reflected in their governance methods today.
Besides investing in Africa’s political future through the establishment of political leadership centre(s), China has also used debt as a strategy to pave its way into Africa’s future.
The fact that African countries are heavily indebted to IFIs, Western nations and private lenders is relatively well known. According to One Campaign the total African debt to external creditors stands at $644 billion, which was 24 per cent of their combined Gross Domestic Product in 2021.
Combined with domestic debt, the figure stands at over $1 trillion. This becomes dangerous ground to lenders with a commercial sense. Over the past few years, the Chinese ignored this fact and continued to give loans to African countries that can be called ‘credit unworthy’.
Is this mere benevolence or there is something more to it? Debt is a very effective way of political and economic control. Although the greater chunk of Chinese loans to Africa are concessional in nature (attracting around 2 per cent interest per annum only), the fact that China has given a lot of these loans to Africa should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Although recently China has drastically reduced its lending to Africa, already 12 percent of Africa’s private and public debt is owed to China. In 2020, China held over $73 billion of Africa’s debt.
Repayment periods can extend to 20 years and more and political decisions have been continuously made to extend these repayment periods as a show of ‘brotherhood’. What this only means is that China has also followed the West in chaining Africa to debt. The more Africa will struggle to repay the loans is the longer the Chinese will have a stake in Africa’s economic and political trajectories. This has already created and carved a special place for China in Africa’s future.
African leaders need awareness around these issues.
There is need for these leaders to understand international engagements are about interests, strategies to achieve the interests as well as exploiting the weaknesses you see in the opposite side.
China has a well choreographed strategy to engage Africa but a lot of African countries do not seem to have any. This is explained by a lot of African leaders’ futile thinking that engagements with China or with any other external actor should only be held by politicians and bureaucrats.
Critical players such as civil society, academia, the private sector as well as community leaders should be given important roles to play in defining the nature of African countries’ relationship with China. It is disheartening to find that some local African politicians are sometimes reported as protecting Chinese companies exploiting Africans and not voicing the African cause.
This could be a pointer of another form of colonialism, with Chinese characteristics, of course.
Chipaike teaches international relations at Bindura University of Science Education where he researches Africa-China and Zimbabwe-China relations. He is also a research associate with the Public Policy and Research Institute of Zimbabwe. These weekly New Perspectives articles, published in the Zimbabwe Independent, are coordinated by Lovemore Kadenge, an independent consultant, managing consultant of Zawale Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, past president of the Zimbabwe Economics Society and past president of the Chartered Governance & Accountancy Institute in Zimbabwe (CGI Zimbabwe). — [email protected] or mobile: +263 772 382 852
