The “China Dream” and the African Reality: the Role of Ideology in PRC-Africa Relations
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OCTOBER 2020 The “China Dream” and the African Reality: The Role of Ideology in PRC-Africa Relations BY JAMES BARNETT © 2020 Hudson Institute, Inc. All rights reserved. For more information about obtaining additional copies of this or other Hudson Institute publications, please visit Hudson’s website, www.hudson.org ABOUT HUDSON INSTITUTE Hudson Institute is a research organization promoting American leadership and global engagement for a secure, free, and prosperous future. Founded in 1961 by strategist Herman Kahn, Hudson Institute challenges conventional thinking and helps manage strategic transitions to the future through interdisciplinary studies in defense, international relations, economics, health care, technology, culture, and law. Hudson seeks to guide public policy makers and global leaders in government and business through a vigorous program of publications, conferences, policy briefings and recommendations. Visit www.hudson.org for more information. Hudson Institute 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Fourth Floor Washington, D.C. 20004 +1.202.974.2400 [email protected] www.hudson.org Cover: A Chinese paramilitary policeman patrols past a memorial to the late South African leader Nelson Mandela outside the South African embassy in Beijing on December 11, 2013. South Africa’s ambassador to China has compared Nelson Mandela to Mao Zedong, the Communist leader whose rule saw tens of millions killed by famine and the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. (Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images) OCTOBER 2020 The “China Dream” and the African Reality: The Role of Ideology in PRC-Africa Relations BY JAMES BARNETT ABOUT THE AUTHOR James Barnett is an independent researcher and writer specializing in African security issues. He was previously a Public Interest Fellow at the Hudson Institute and an analyst at AEI’s Critical Threats Project. He has also worked with the United States Institute of Peace as lead researcher and writer for the final report of the Senior Study Group on the Red Sea and as a research assistant at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. He was a 2016-2017 Boren Scholar in Tanzania and has been awarded a Fulbright research grant for Nigeria for 2020-21. He holds a B.A. with Highest Honors in History and Plan II Liberal Arts Honors from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently pursuing an MA in War Studies at King’s College London. Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank Eric Brown, Nic Cheeseman, Abel Abate Demissie, Ovigwe Eguegu, Iginio Gagliardone, Haggai Kanenga, Ronald Kato, Carl Levan, Joshua Meservey, Justus Nam, Paul Nantulya, Ken Opalo, Abdul-Gafar Tobi Oshodi, Winslow Robertson, Nadège Rolland, and Amb. David Shinn, as well as those who requested not to be named. Any errors are the author’s own. TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary 6 Introduction 8 Chapter 1. From the Little Red Book to the Checkbook: A Historical Overview of PRC-Africa Relations 10 Chapter 2. The PRC’s Strategic Interests in Africa: Investing in the Future, Securing Support Today 13 Chapter 3. Xi’s Incoherent Totalitarian Dream: Unpacking CCP Ideology 17 Chapter 4. “Natural Allies”: The CCP Touts Its Model in Africa 23 Chapter 5. Illiberal Partners: The Influence and Limits of the CCP’s Model in Africa 27 Conclusion 37 Glossary of Terms 39 Endnotes 40 THE “CHINA DREAM” AND THE AFRICAN REALITY: THE ROLE OF IDEOLOGY IN PRC-AFRICA RELATIONS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promotes its worldview to engage in various commercial ventures. The PRC is not and political and economic model overseas, particularly in selective in its partnerships; it maintains diplomatic relations with the developing world, albeit in a very different manner than all but one African state, and it has long abandoned support it did in the era of Mao Zedong. Under Mao, who fashioned for revolutionary armed movements. At the same time, as a himself the champion of Third World revolutionary movements, continent of 54 mostly developing countries, Africa is central China exported a comprehensive, proactive, and universal to Xi’s “Community of Common Destiny.” In order to realize this ideology. Today the party’s theorists are struggling to develop vision, the CCP systematically introduces African elites to its a message of similar caliber. What they have produced so far theories, norms, and practices through a variety of avenues, has not translated into a particularly coherent or compelling including party-to-party and military-to-military trainings that “Xi Jinpingism” that appeals across cultures and societies. But augment China’s economic ties with the continent. this has not stopped the PRC from pursuing an ideologically grounded foreign policy. President Xi speaks frequently of The impact of these efforts on African politics is quite varied and a “Community of Common Destiny,” a still-vague vision for a fluid. Many African elites, such as those in Kenya and Nigeria, Sinocentric world order in which the CCP’s model is lauded as appear to see political engagements with the CCP as a cost of a contribution to human civilization, liberal democracy is widely doing business with the world’s second largest economy. They discredited, and the developing world looks to China above all have not meaningfully emulated elements of the CCP “model” others for inspiration. to date and do not appear to have much appetite for such political learning. In contrast, those southern and east African To this end, Beijing seeks to provide developing world countries ruled by former liberation movements have tended to elites with a malleable intellectual and practical program for be more receptive to Beijing’s lessons in illiberal governance. advancing illiberal governance. In the intellectual arena, the Many of the liberation movements received some degree of CCP provides a critique of the existing international order support from China during their armed struggles in the Cold and political and economic liberalism along with a defense of War and drew inspiration from the CCP in notable ways, such developmental authoritarianism. In a more practical sense, the as by adopting Maoist notions of the military as a “people’s CCP disseminates certain governance tools, technologies, and defense force.” These historical and ideological affinities practices—such as organizational techniques for managing a facilitate close cooperation with the CCP today, representing single-party state—in a piecemeal and ad hoc manner in order the clearest example of CCP partnership or mentorship in the to bolster illiberalism where it already exists. In this sense, the realm of African governance. CCP acts as a partner or mentor in illiberal governance rather than as the agenda-setter of a tightly bound ideological coalition. The CCP’s overall impact on African politics should not be overstated, however. Ideological affinities matter, but economic This ideological element is present in China’s approach to Sub- interests play a greater role in pushing African states into Saharan Africa, a region long considered to be primarily if not Beijing’s orbit. African states, the former liberation movements exclusively of economic importance to Beijing. The PRC has included, tend to look to multiple countries for lessons in earned the reputation for being a pragmatic, transactional actor development and governance—particularly to the East Asian in Africa, and for good reason. Since 2000, Chinese lending, “late industrializers”—rather than trying to replicate any single trade, and investment in Africa have all increased dramatically, model offered by China. More importantly, the behavior of while over a million Chinese migrants have moved to Africa Africa’s illiberal regimes is generally best understood as a 6 | HUDSON INSTITUTE product of local and regional politics rather than imported “One China Policy”—but it has not systematically sought to ideologies or practices. In other words, the CCP’s support and force any state to choose between Washington and Beijing. ideas can bolster illiberal regimes, but African ideas and political Unlike the Cold War, US-China competition is not likely to play realities are ultimately what drive these regimes’ behavior. out as a contest between ideologically opposed camps in a divided world so much as it will be a struggle over the norms Even if the CCP were to develop a more exportable ideology and values that each side hopes will guide a globalized world, and push African states to adopt it wholesale, such efforts would Africa included.1 face notable limits. Africa’s authoritarian states generally lack the capacity to achieve anything close to the near-totalitarian To best compete, therefore, the US must first present a positive control that the CCP exercises. Certain authoritarian regimes, vision for liberal values and development rather than adopt a zero- such as Rwanda’s and Tanzania’s, are relatively disciplined and sum mindset that is liable to alienate Africans who understandably efficient, and their relationships with the CCP merit scrutiny. But wish to avoid a repeat of the Cold War. Second, the US must these represent the exception rather than the rule. In the near- be pragmatic and patient in its approach to Africa, recognizing term, it seems likely then that the CCP’s theories, practices, and that it does not have the resources or influence to dramatically technologies will continue to embolden certain illiberal regimes, but reduce China’s footprint on the continent in the near future. This no “Xi Jinpingist” state is likely to emerge in a meaningful sense. will require identifying and prioritizing core strategic interests on the continent that may be at risk while accepting that there are The CCP therefore represents a very different ideological limits to how much any state can shape African geopolitics. challenge than the Soviet Union, the historical analogy that has increasingly been invoked in this era of great power competition. In order to be competitive in Africa in the long-term, the US will Whereas the USSR and Maoist China sought to overthrow ultimately need to focus more on African needs and interests governments and gain satellite states in a zero-sum competition, than on Chinese behavior.