2012, however, and Xi Jinping’s leadership of China, there has been a shift towards a decisive role of politics both inside and outside China, including in its Africa relations.
Arguing that politics needs to be returned to the centre of understanding China’s Africa relations today is not to suggest, simplistically, that economic ties are of secondary importance. Nor that politics can be separated from economics. Economic factors remain central to relations but are very much bound up in and determined by politics of various kinds in an evolving political economy of relations encompassing a spectrum of local to global dimensions. China’s role in Africa has also always had its own politics but these have become much more prominent, deeper and widespread in the New Era. In other words, much arises from the nature of economic ties, from the diverse impacts of China within African countries, unease about China as a creditor, Chinese migration, security challenges and, ultimately, perceptions of its new power. At the same time, Chinese government officials have come to recognize how central politics is, not just for China’s relations with Africa or in terms of China’s global politics but also to achieving Africa’s broader development goals.
What, then, is China’s New Era, and what does this mean for its Africa relations? The term ‘New Era’ simplifies and provokes questions (what was wrong with the old one? how long can something be new?). In essence, it means the reassertion of China’s party-state under Xi’s leadership in Chinese domestic politics and economy. It also means a more ambitious and expansive role for China abroad, signalled in Xi’s closing speech at the 18th National Congress of the CCP in November 2012, when he talked of the ‘great renewal of the Chinese nation’. 6 The CCP’s 19th Party Congress in October 2017 was seminal in declaring the New Era and defining Xi’s power. It elevated him to the core of the CCP’s leadership, with no anointed successor. In his report to the Congress, Xi Jinping noted that China had ‘stood up, grown rich, and is becoming strong’. The New Era would see ‘China moving closer to centre stage’ and this would require ‘major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics’ in order to build China into a great, modern and global ‘socialist power’ by the mid twenty-first century.7 The approach China had adopted after 1978, that of keeping a low profile in order to focus on domestic development, was dumped in the dustbin of history. The CCP’s grand strategic goal has become the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’. Following the 19th Party Congress, the New Era refrain was incorporated into China’s Africa relations. China’s relations with Africa have evolved considerably to become more complex, multifaceted and consequential. Relations are continuing to evolve, in much changed and changing circumstances within China, in China’s relations with 53 different African states and global politics.
During Xi Jinping’s period in office, China’s Africa relations have been ever more defined and shaped by politics, which extends to China’s foreign policy and global politics. The prominence of Beijing’s Africa engagement stands in contrast to the actual economic importance of the continent to China. Africa accounts for around 45% of China’s global development aid but around 4% of China’s total global trade volume in the first half of 2020, and that trade in turn was dominated by a handful of African commodity exporters.8 Similar to trade, China’s investment in Africa is not significant in the context of China’s global investment, accounting for some 3.7% of total outward global investment stock in 2015. Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (or BRI) has revised Africa’s former prominence in China’s regional engagements by its global scope. However, for Africa, which accounted for 2.9% of world production, 2.6% of world trade and 16.3% of the world’s population in 2019, China’s investment and engagement means much more. 9
The centrality of politics flows from Xi Jinping’s leadership of China and the more established, far-reaching nature of Chinese engagement in Africa. Before Xi, from 1978 China’s leaders after Mao prioritized economic development as the way to maintain power. By prioritizing politics, Xi Jinping has done the opposite, starting with attempting to renew the CCP’s legitimacy, and reasserting its dominance over all walks of life. It was also inseparable from Xi’s more ambitious foreign policy. Xi Jinping has sought to redefine China’s Africa relations in his terms, including incorporating Africa more overtly into the CCP’s vision for China’s future centrality in world affairs. China’s 53 African state allies are important in China’s foreign policy and global multilateral role in this context. Since African state votes helped the People’s Republic of China (PRC) enter the UN in 1971, the continent has been a significant part of China’s multilateral engagement but the stakes have become higher in the New Era, which has seen more explicit promotion of the CCP’s China model. In turn, China is more important in the foreign relations and global politics of many African states. Economic relations have been evolving from years of high growth rates until 2014, when global commodity prices fell. The idea that Chinese investment could propel Africa to become ‘the next factory of the world’ became popular.10 Since around 2015, trade and investment have declined, debt mounted for some African states and, in 2020, the first recession in 25 years hit many African countries. China now has a more established, multidimensional and consequential presence across the continent: it is an emerged power. The importance of China within African politics on the back of its evolved economic and global role represents a major, historically unprecedented change.
In 2020, when there were celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of FOCAC, the 2006 summit had faded into history, and China’s domestic and global politics looked very different. Xi’s leadership saw China become a self-declared major power with a clear sense of long-term global strategic purpose. China’s relations with Africa have seen a transformation, having widened, deepened and diversified, and becoming dominated by issues like industrialization or security, which were absent in 2006. Africa is part of China’s global rise, now proceeding in the context of open strategic competition with the United States of America (US). Overall, politics has become far more important, in the context of economic challenges, changing global politics and higher stakes.
Approach
Interest in China–Africa relations has grown exponentially.11 It is expressed in ever more diverse ways, including in literature, art and film. China–Africa is an intensely mediated subject and reflects changes in the global media landscape under the impact of digital technologies and social media, which has recently become more prominent in African countries (some more than others) and in global conversations about China and Africa.12 Chinese diplomats in Africa now use social media like Twitter to promote official views, for example, but in China, the tightly controlled media must, as Xi Jinping has said, ‘love’, ‘protect’ and serve the interest of the CCP, or be ‘surnamed Party’. Like domestic issues, media coverage of Africa relations in China has to follow the official line.
China–Africa relations are often described in simplistic and sensational ways, not just by commentators but also by politicians in and outside African countries. Binary terms are commonly used, such as ‘win–win development’ or ‘new imperialism/colonialism’; ‘partner or predator’; ‘saviour or monster’; ‘parasitism or mutualism’ etc. In addition, simple, monocausal metanarratives officially explain China’s engagement as win–win development or reduce this to imperialism, dependency, or exploitation. It follows that grand causal claims frequently attend the subject; such as that China has undermined democracy or human rights, or has engaged in a deliberate strategy of entrapping African governments in debt. Such claims can place unwarranted agency in China and neglect actual African politics, multistranded external relations and forms of agency. While it is all too easy to blame the media, this influences opinion, can shape worldviews and impact policy engagements. In short, images and language matter, especially when added to personal experience in African countries. The topic of China’s relations with Africa has become an information minefield. Rumours, misunderstandings, or those looking for profitable attention can manufacture myths that can take on a life of their own and fuel politics in an age where social media matters.13 Emotive online news stories about Chinese exports of human flesh or plastic rice to Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal, for example, have been proved false but
