China’s Africa strategy – stronger focus on soft power and military cooperation

China’s Africa strategy seems to be evolving to now incorporate a stronger focus on soft power and military cooperation.

This was one of the takeaways from the triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (Focac) Summit in Beijing last week. The event is notable for the seriousness both sides approached it with, François Conradie, lead political economist at Oxford Economics Africa, says.

Representatives of 53 African states travelled to Beijing, all the states on the continent, except for Eswatini, the only African country that maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The 53 representatives included 23 heads of state, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

When Ramaphosa met with President of China Xi Jinping, he expressed a wish that many of the Africans in Beijing would have shared: “We would like to narrow the trade deficit and address the structure of our trade” through “manufacturing and job-creating investments”.

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China scores more than Africa in trade

In 2023, China exported goods worth $173 billion to Africa (mainly manufactured goods) and imported goods worth $109 billion, mainly un-beneficiated commodities, leaving an imbalance of $64 billion in China’s favour.

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu also met with Xi and focused on infrastructure. He also made time to visit the China Railway Construction Corporation, which has been involved in railway projects in Nigeria for decades. The meeting also resulted in a commitment to a currency swap arrangement between the two countries’ central banks. A similar arrangement was announced between China and Ethiopia.

Kenya’s President William Ruto also met with Xi. Kenya owes China at least $8 billion and its efforts to raise fresh taxes to address the debt overhang caused unrest this year. Despite the scope of the existing debt, China announced a fresh $310 million loan to Kenya the week before the event.

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Will China’s pledges change the trade relationship?

However, the pledges made in Beijing will not change the trade relationship soon as this graph demonstrates:

Source: Unctad

Conradie says the biggest news from the summit came on Thursday last week when Xi delivered a speech titled “Joining hands to advance modernisation and build a community with a shared future”.

After a lyrical start where the Chinese leader asserted that “the friendship between China and Africa transcends time and space, surmounts mountains and oceans, and passes down through generations”, he made some ambitious pledges, Conradie says.

“These pledges intended to demonstrate China’s commitment to mutually beneficial cooperation (“the sunny road”), as opposed to the Western approach, which has “inflicted immense sufferings on developing countries”.

“Much of the coverage of the Focac focused on the pledge of $50 billion in financing to Africa over the next three years, of which $30 billion will be credit, while $11 billion will be “assistance in various forms” and at least $10 billion will take the shape of Chinese companies investing in Africa.”

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Zero-tariff for all lines in 33 countries

On trade, Xi made the big announcement that China will give all less-developed countries that have diplomatic relations with China, which includes 33 countries in Africa, zero-tariff treatment for 100% of tariff lines.

Conradie says some of the credit will be raised in the form of panda bonds in China, making Chinese savers and commercial banks the African governments’ creditors, rather than the government and big state-owned enterprises.

China will increasingly deploy soft power through a “platform for governance experience sharing, a China-Africa knowledge network for development and 25 centres on China and Africa studies”. China will also invite 1 000 members of African political parties to “deepen exchanges of experience”. Beijing will also send 2 000 medical personnel to Africa.

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China’s focus on peace and security

Xi also mentioned peace and security. Conradie says. China’s readiness to help Africa improve its peace-keeping capacity includes disbursing $140 million in military assistance, training 6 000 military personnel and 1 000 law enforcement officers and inviting 500 military officers to visit China.

Ideally, Conradie says, Chinese companies’ investments in Africa and the fresh loans will end up doing what promises and what his guests want: create jobs in Africa, transfer skills and technology and shift Africa’s trade relationship with the rest of the world away from the current model of exporting raw materials and importing everything else.

“Some of the Chinese investments that were made since the last Focac managed to more or less achieve these goals. However, these investments are dominated by industrial projects in Morocco and Egypt, where Chinese firms’ concerns about supply lines are as important as their will to develop these countries’ industrial fabric.

“The basic nature of the China-Africa trade and lending relationship will remain unchanged in the medium term. The promotion of soft power is interesting, and a sign – if any was needed – of China’s increasing assertiveness on the global stage under Xi.”