China's footprint in Africa

Cissé, Daouda / Karoline Eickhoff / Julia Fath / Christine Hackenesch / Rainer Thiele
External Publications (2023)

in: Megatrends Working Paper 05 (June 2023)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18449/2023MTA-WP05
Open access

China’s relations with African countries are deepening, comprising economic, political and social ties. Consequently, scholars and policy-makers consider an increasingly broad “toolbox” of Chinese foreign policy as potential means of furthering influence on the continent. In this report, we take stock of the state of research on China’s influence in Africa, highlighting the following trends:
- China’s economic influence on the continent remains strong, driven by China’s interest in access to resources and export markets, as well as in investments by state-owned and private enterprises. More recently, China has shown growing interest in investments in the digital sphere, and in particular in information and communication technologies (ICT). It is in the digital sphere where China’s activities are also increasingly discussed as instances of influence on politics and governance in African countries.
- China’s relations with African countries are becoming more political, through multilateral diplomacy, strategic state-to-state engagement, the deepening of party-to-party relations through political training and influence, and with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) advocating for its governance approach and reforms of the international institutional architecture. China also started to develop a stronger focus on security co-operation with African partner countries.
- China’s footprint on African societies is also increasing. Among the formal co-operation mechanisms in the fields of education, culture, press and media, in particular the training of journalists and content development co-operation are seen as potent means of influence. Moreover, migration and diaspora relations increasingly matter for African citizens’ views on China and the Chinese. The Megatrends Afrika project has contributed to debates on China’s influence in Africa by investigating China’s activities on the continent in comparison with other external actors, in particular “the West”, for instance in the following areas:
- The local reception of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in East Africa, a large-scale infrastructure scheme and its impact on regional thinking on connectivity;- China’s investments in Africa’s ICT sector and questions over whether the interests of
China and Chinese companies align with those of African governments, highlighting socio-economic benefits as well as risks surrounding data sovereignty, digital surveillance and censorship;
- China’s “Initiative for Peaceful Development in the Horn of Africa” as an example of how Chinese foreign policy thinking on the security–development nexus is undergoing profound changes, and what this means for the established peacebuilding architecture on the continent. Based on the review, we suggest that more robust empirical data is needed, for instance on the link between China’s economic co-operation and welfare outcomes, Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) follow-up mechanisms and Beijing’s evolving activities in the field of peace and security on the continent. Furthermore, future research should strengthen the link between empirical data and broader theoretical debates on status, power and influence in international relations and take a comparative view to better situate China within the wider field of Africa’s international relations.