Scholarship offers driving China’s soft-power play in Africa
- Initiative that sends thousands of African students to Chinese universities builds an army of influencers for Beijing on the continent
- Boosts China’s image in Africa, where it is a dominant investor and trading partner, while countering accusations of unscrupulous practices
Since the late 1990s, Beijing has chalked up a broad list of successes in Africa, driven by a “going global” strategy that encourages domestic enterprises to invest more abroad.
Under that plan of action, China in 2009 toppled the United States to become Africa’s biggest trading partner.
Beijing also is now the biggest bilateral lender to most African countries; over the past two decades it has financed about US$143 billion worth of infrastructure projects, including ports, railways, airports, motorways, roads and hydropower dams, according to data compiled by the China-Africa Research Initiative at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.
But Beijing’s image has taken a beating in the process.
It faces growing criticism that it is burdening African countries with debt through its Belt and Road Initiative, a multibillion-dollar plan to link China with Europe and Africa through investment in infrastructure.
To some critics, Beijing is in Africa to colonise countries. They accuse Chinese companies of shipping in workers to take on jobs that local workers could handle. They also object to China’s alleged dumping of cheap products on the continent.