中国重建在非洲的软力量

——李希光在国际新闻学会第56届年会演讲

China’s Charming Offensive in Africa

                                                                   By Li Xiguang[1]

China’s soft power or using my Western friends’ term “charm offensive” in Africa is not a new thing.

I was a 10 years old boy when I for the first time saw a color film. It was not in a movie house. It was shown in a basketball field in a mining village in northern China. It was a documentary film about the groundbreaking ceremony of the construction of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway in 1970. In the film, the celebrating black people were beating drums and dancing to the steps of a rhinoceros, powerful and spontaneous. It was also for the first time I saw men and women dancing together, which impressed me most.

Like building the Great Wall 2,000 years ago, 56,000 Chinese workers took part in the construction of the Great African Railway which runs from Kapiri Mposhi just north of the Zambian capital Lusaka to the Tanzanian capital and major east African port of Dar es Salaam. The railway allowed Zambia to avoid dependence on transport routes through apartheid South Africa, and connected the vast interior of Tanzania with its coast. In July 1976 The Tanzania-Zambia Railway opened to traffic. The 1,860-km railway can now be hailed as a long-standing hard evidence of China’s soft power in Africa.

China soft power with Africa has its roots in policies pursued since the mid-1950s when Africa was seen primarily by Chinese leaders as seeking national liberation and freedom from the Western colonial rules and influences. This took the form of Chinese political and military support in southern Africa for national liberation and the construction of the Railway. Moreover, Chinese leaders recognized that, with their numerical advantage in the United Nations General Assembly and anti-colonial perspective, independent African states held the key to removing the Taiwan from its official status as occupant of the permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

In May 1956 Egypt became the first African country to establish diplomatic relations with China. Between December 1963 and June 1965 Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai made three visits to Africa, inspiring a large number of African countries to seek diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. By the end of the 1970s, 44 of the 50 independent African countries had entered into diplomatic relations with China. Today, China has diplomatic ties with 48 of the 53 African countries.

In May 1996 Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mali, Namibia and Zimbabwe. He proposed developing a China-Africa relationship toward the 21st century characterized by “long-term stability and all-around cooperation” when delivering a speech at the headquarters of the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa.

In October 2000, the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation was created to expand cooperation and promote common development. In April 2006 Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Morocco, Nigeria and Kenya. At the Beijing Summit of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum held in November 2006 China and 48 African countries adopted a declaration and action plan proclaiming the establishment of "a new type of strategic partnership" between China and Africa, which features political equality and mutual trust, economic win-win cooperation and cultural exchanges.

 In November 2006, Chinese president Hu Jintao proposed setting up China-African Development Fund which totals five billion US dollars, aiming at promoting Chinese business investment in Africa and poverty relief efforts in Africa.

The cooperation between China and Africa has long been characterized by a history of China providing economic aid to African countries, and thereby building goodwill and international support to China.

China relied on the African votes heavily in gaining its status in UN and expelling Taiwan from UN in 1971; for more than a decade, China has relied on African strong support in defeating US- proposed resolution condemning China’s human rights records at UN meetings throughout 1990s; and without saying, China could not get 2008 Beijing Olympics without strong support from African countries.

Chinese assistance to African countries includes grants as well as low and no-interest loans, leveraging loans a second time, forgiving debt for the poorest countries. China's aid and debt forgiveness earns its much needed political and moral support among the international community.

 China’s assistance to the continent includes the construction of roads, railroads,  public buildings and telecommunications making China a leader in Africa’s infrastructure construction.  

China's soft power in Africa can also be seen from its building schools, hospitals, stadiums, sending teachers to Africa, running workshops training professional to as recently as  building FM radio broadcast stations and satellite TV station in Africa. Since 2003, China has run three training workshops for African journalists and three workshops training government spokespersons, four workshops training government economic officials and 30 workshops training technical professionals in the fields of agriculture, solar energy, methane technology, meteorology.

Statistics show that the Great Wall TV Channel in Africa has an audience  of 5.3 million. Every day, China Radio International FM station in Nairobi broadcasts 19 hours of program in English, local African language and Chinese.

By 2009, China will train 15,000 professionals for African countries. China already built 30 gymnasiums, 20 schools and 43 hospitals in the past decades while sending 100 agricultural technicians, building 10 agricultural technology centers, building 100 agricultural schools in Africa.

Building alumni resources has long been recognized as a cornerstone in boosting the muscle of a country’s soft power. Since the mid-1950s, over 20,000 African students had enrolled in Chinese universities pursuing degrees.

Attracting African students to China has improved China's image in their countries, builds grassroots support in local communities and a better understanding of China among the educated elite. In 1980s, 2,245 African students studied in China; In 1990s, 5,569 African students studied in China; Between 2000 and 2005，11,296 studied in China. Since 1949, the Chinese government has offered scholarships to 18,000 students from 50 African countries. By 2009, China will increase its scholarships to African students from an annual of 2,000 to an annual of 4,000.

Under another agreement reached at China-African education ministers in November of 2005, China will train 1,000 educations administrators, school principals and teachers working in colleges, middle and primary schools by the year 2008.

China's emergence as a key player in Africa, the impact of its presence  and its challenges to traditional Western pre-eminence in Africa have now been termed as a new China Threat or a new China Challenge.

In recent years, there has been a debate about the motives for Chinese investment in oil-rich Sudan, Nigeria and Angola. Critics doubt that China’s investment in Africa would trickle down to ordinary local people. Sensing an increasing international concern, China has launched a public diplomacy in an effort to rebuild its traditional friendship, brotherhood and mutual trust with the local people, making people in the street feel the benefit from Chinese investment.

Like in other parts of the world, China has built Confucius Schools in Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Ruwanda, where African people can learn Chinese language and culture. In the meantime, China has set up culture centers in Benin, Mauritius and Egypt.

      In 2005, the first group of 12 Chinese Youth Volunteers came to Africa and they will work in Etheopia for six months as school teachers, medical doctors, agricultural technicians and IT engineers. In 2006, , another group of 50 Chinese Youth Volunteers came to Africa. In November 2006, Chinese president Hu Jintao announced that China will send 300 youth voluntees to Africa in the next three year.

Since China sent its first medical team to Algeria in 1963, China has sent 19,000 medical workers to 47 African countries, treating 2.4 billion patients. In November 2006, Chinese president Hu Jintao offered to build 30 hospitals with between 100 and 150 beds in some of the poorest Africa countries and offer 300 million yuan worth of medicine against malaria. Between 2007 and 2009, China will offer 10 million yuan aid in helping African family planning and fight against HIV/Aids.

      The Chinese government has recently approved 20 African countries as destination places for Chinese tourists, launching a people’s diplomacy in Africa.

China's experience in promoting ties with African countries illustrates some of the competitive advantages China has when operating in unreliable and even dangerous areas. The Chinese companies have been very active investors in African infrastructure and energy industry including oil, gas, hydropower plants, pipelines, factories and hospitals in countries where high-risk situations keep large western companies from coming. Darfur in Susan, for example, presents Chinese businessmen with an investment and operating environment where they are competing successfully against Western multinational corporations even though the latter enjoys greater access to capital and technology. Where the western countries failed in politics and in business in such high-risks markets of Sudan, China and the Chinese businessmen are seeing their opportunity of winning politically and economically, and importantly, meeting China’s domestic needs for energy and economic growth.

Internally in Africa, the China’s charm offensive is winning back the hearts and minds of people there reminding me of the good old days in  1960s and 1970s. But externally outside in the West there is a growing criticism of China’s operation there. The criticism on the Western media and the American congress is damaging China’s image. Facing this challenge, the Chinese government and Chinese businessmen need to work harder to look more charming to African people by using the strategies of public diplomacy, such as building more schools, more hospitals and providing more jobs to local people.

Centuries of exploration of oil and diamond in Africa has left the people of the region poorer than they were before the discovery of the minerals. People are only hoping that the Chinese investment into Africa would open on an optimistic era of development and human progress.