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China’s support for ruling parties undermines its ability to be an impartial arbiter of conflict resolution in the Horn of Africa and highlights China’s use of mediation to pursue its geostrategic interests.
China-Africa relations thrive on interpersonal ties of mutual dependence, obligations, and reciprocity that African elites tend to skew to their benefit at the expense of the public interest.
African countries can negotiate a more equitable role in FOCAC, but this requires a more strategically focused approach, better coordination, and greater accountability to their citizens.
Chinese officials around the world use Twitter and Facebook, which are blocked in China, to post about their country’s initiatives and defend it against controversy. But the seeming popularity of many accounts, which the Communist Party controls and whose content is sourced from state-run media, and of their posts is artificially inflated by fake accounts that retweet posts by the thousands of times. These retweets violate Twitter rules on manipulation, leading to a high rate of account suspensions. Improving the labeling of government accounts to better indicate the likelihood of content being propaganda and helping social media implement their own rules will be key to mitigating these strategies.
The power imbalance between China and Africa poses a challenge for negotiating equitable investment deals. The interests of African citizens can be strengthened through agreements that are transparent, involve experts, and facilitate public engagement.
A selection of Africa Center analysis of China's military, commerical, diplomatic, and other engagements in Africa
China’s party-army model, whereby the army is subordinate to a single ruling party, is antithetical to the multiparty democratic systems with an apolitical military accountable to elected leaders adopted by most African countries.
In an interview with the Africa Center, China expert Yun Sun offers a look at Beijing's engagement with Africa and African governments' evolving expectations of their relationship.
In Cameroon, Chinese investment through the Belt and Road Initiative is estimated to be worth double the country’s other investment sources combined. These infrastructure and agricultural investments, focused on forest areas, have created 12,000 jobs. China, Cameroon’s largest purchaser of timber, relies on Cameroonian forests for 85% of its imported raw logs. Poor governance and corruption enable unsustainable timber exploitation and illegal logging, damaging fragile ecosystems and threatening livelihoods for rural communities.
China's Belt and Road Initiative forges intertwining economic, political, and security ties between Africa and China, advancing Beijing’s geopolitical interests.
China is doubling down on its soft power initiatives in Africa as part of China's Grand Strategy to tap emerging markets, shape global governance norms, and expand its influence.
China’s infrastructure deals are ubiquitous across Africa. The motivations behind these deals vary, however. This investigative report details how China leveraged the indebtedness of Sri Lanka to effectively force it to cede a port to China. The experience has implications for the debt trap many African countries face, especially with China, as well as for China's interest in acquiring strategic assets in Africa, military and intelligence interests in China’s commercial activity, oversight over major infrastructure and natural resource contracts including China’s Belt and Road Initiative on the continent, Chinese influence in foreign elections, and risks to African sovereignty.