The China Model: Chinese soft power resource in Africa

There has been ongoing debate about what really is China Model. Attempts have been made to draw comparisons with Washington Conesus, a neoliberal paradigm designed and enforced to the rest of the world by Western countries and their institutions. It was Joshua Ramo who coined the term Beijing Consensus in 2004 as a result. But China has aptly been reluctant to equate its development model with Washington Consensus and prefers China Model instead. There are a number of reasons for this but the most important one is that what has come to be known as China Model is still a work in progress, meaning that it has not evolved into a fully fledged development paradigm in the form of a consensus. Moreover, Beijing maintains that its model is only an attempt by the Chinese government under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respond to the country’s realities and development challenges. As such, there are no basic tenets of the Chinese model that assume universal application as it is the case with Washington Consensus. It’s on this basis that Beijing is not willing to export its model to other countries. However, despite this reluctance, the Chinese model is increasingly becoming popular in places such as Africa. A recent survey by Afrobarometer, a highly respected think tank, showed that the Chinese model of development is the second most popular in Africa behind the American model. Given China’s relative late entry as an active player in African politics this is by no means a small achievement.

In his definition of Beijing Consensus, Ramo correctly argued that the Chinese model is not just an economic model as it is also a political one. Economically, the Chinese model defies traditional assumptions of growth by emphasizing on equality and sustainability as opposed to indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It also rejects the one-size-fits-all theory of development as espoused by dominant Western economic theories. For China, each country should choose its own model suitable to its own conditions. But Chinese model is also expressed in its advocacy for self-determination; no country should interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. This explains why Beijing not willing to export its model elsewhere.

Most analysts tend to situate the Chinese model in the post-Mao China. This is because it is during this time when China recorded miraculous economic development. However, often overlooked is the fact that the Chinese model dates back prior to economic reforms which started in the late 1970s.

The China Model and Chinese Soft Power

China has taken the idea of soft power seriously. Some analysts even argue that the level seriousness attached to soft power by Beijing surpasses that of the United States for which the concept was designed to serve. Soft power concept was coined by American scholar Joseph Nye to mean the power of a country to attract, as opposed to coerce, others to achieve a favorable outcome. Nye argued that a country’s power to attract rests on its culture, political values and foreign policy. Over the last decade, China has adopted and redefined soft power and is using it as a power building mechanism. The redefinition of soft power by Chinese scholars and government means that for Beijing the concept means the use of all power resources except military force. It thus includes all soft power resources mentioned by Nye as well as economic inducements in their various forms. For Nye, the use of economic inducement is not soft power, it is hard power.

Chinese soft power in Africa

Chinese soft power discourse is dominated by the Culture School, one that is favor of promoting Chinese culture. However, it is the China Model which seems to attract Africans more than any other Chinese soft power resource. This is historical. Accounts of African leaders who visited China in the 1960s and 1970s are full of admiration for the Chinese development model then. The China Model then, as it is today, was both economic as well as political. Efforts by Beijing under Mao Zedong to lift the masses out of poverty were recognized in Africa. Visiting Peking (now Beijing) in 1974, the former president of Tanzania Julius Nyerere expressed his admiration for the Chinese way of development. In his speech he approvingly stated that there were two things which convinced him that socialism can be built in Africa and that it is not a utopian vision. The first, he claimed, was the fact that capitalism was ultimately incompatible with the real independence of African states. The next reason was even more revealing. He said the second thing which encouraged him was China. He stated that China was providing an encouragement and an inspiration for younger and smaller nations which sought to build socialist societies.

As a result of this, Tanzania’s ideology of Ujamaa (African socialism) drew parallels with the Chinese model. One pertinent aspect was the villagization policy- setting up socialist villages where villagers worked and produced in village farms that resembled Chinese communes.

Being political as much as it was economic, the China Model added to its power to attract for supporting anti-colonial struggle in the African continent. By siding with Africans in the liberation agenda, China chose the right side of history. This, coupled with the fact Beijing had not taken part in colonization and enslavement of Africans, can be said to be the source of Chinese soft power we see today. It is for this reason that Chinese analyst He Wenping has argued that if China has soft power, Africa is the only place where it can be measured.

Today, the success of the Chinese model hugely informs the country’s soft power in Africa. Africans are beginning to look at China as an alternative of tired Western models which have ravaged the continent for decades. The Chinese model provides a moment in history for Africans to chat out their own route to economic prosperity and this in turn adds to Beijing’s ability to attract: soft power.

The author is a Tanzanian student currently at the East China Normal University and expects to graduate this year.