The Economist Europe – July 22-28, 2017

The EconomistJuly 22nd 2017 35

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I

N CRISP white uniforms and standing to

attention beneath a fluttering red flag

with five golden stars, the sailors on board

the People’s Liberation Army ships setting

sail for Djibouti on July 11th represent a sig-

nificant step for China. When they arrive

they will open the Middle Kingdom’s first

military base abroad since the Korean war.

It is a canny first foray. China has pre-

pared the ground with low-key deploy-

ments of blue-helmeted troops to UN oper-

ations in places such as South Sudan. And

it has placed the base in a country that is

likely to cause the least offence.

America already has a large airfield and

naval station in Djibouti. From there it con-

ducts counter-terrorism operations, and

watches the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea,

both much used bysmugglers trafficking

drugs, weapons and people. And China’s

main regional rival, India, cannot argue

that the installation represents a significant

projection of power into an ocean it re-

gards as its own. The base will mostly be a

logistics hub for a naval squadron China

has long sailed in these waters, escorting

commercial vessels. Still, the hoisting of a

red flag over African soil will be the most

visible sign yet of China’sgrowing asser-

tiveness on a continent that was once the

playground of Soviet and Western powers.

The base represents but the tip of a fast-

growing bamboo shoot. The next segment

down is a vast effort aimed at enhancing

with varying degrees of success. In South

Africa, for instance, more than half of the

members of the executive committee of

the ruling African National Congress have

attended such schools in China, a country

the party calls its “guiding lodestar”.

China is, like the West, strategic about

the ways in which it doles out aid. A study

by AidData, a project based at the College

of William and Mary in Virginia, found

that countries that vote with China in the

UN General Assembly get considerably

more money than those that do not.

China has also spread its influence in

less visible ways. Victoria Breeze and Na-

than Moore at Michigan State University

reckon that in 2014 the number of African

students in China surpassed the number

studying in either Britain or America, the

traditional destinations for English-speak-

ers (France still beats all three, however).

Much of the growth is because China has

given tens of thousands of scholarships to

African students, the academics say. If ef-

forts such as these are aimed at burnishing

China’s image, then they are working.

Afrobarometer, a polling firm, found that

63% of people in 36 African countries con-

sider China to be a positive influence. Nev-

ertheless, it also found that African people

still think China’s development model

ranks second after America’s.

That may change in time, since by far

the main part of China’s involvement in

Africa is in business. In the past decade,

Chinese loans and contractors have, quite

literally, reshaped much of the continent’s

infrastructure, paying for and building

new ports, roads and railways. In many

cases, thishas been matched byinvest-

ments in mines and manufacturing plants,

shopping centres and corner stores. The

scale and extent of China’s business inter-

ests are easilyvisible, whether in a hotel in

China’s soft power in Africa and at pro-

moting the so-called “China model” of au-

thoritarian, state-driven development as a

counter to Western efforts to spread liberal

democratic capitalism. Much of this is

done through political training pro-

grammes whereby members of ruling par-

ties, labour unions and ministries are tak-

en to China to meet the members of the

Chinese Communist Party. Its best student

is Ethiopia, where the rulingEPRDF party

has copied much of what it has seen in Chi-

na, tightly controlling business and invest-

ment, and imitating China’s Central Party

School and party cadre system.

China’s attempts at spreading its view

of the world go far beyond Ethiopia, albeit

China in Africa

A thousand golden stars

ACCRA

China is making its presence felt across the continent in ways big and small

Middle East and Africa

Also in this section

36 Succession politics in Nigeria

37 Arab media move to London

37 A ceasefire in Syria

38 Drugs in the Middle East

Across the board

Source: American Enterprise Institute

Chinese investments and contracts in Africa

By sector, $bn

*To May

0

10

20

30

40

50

2005 07 09 11 13 15 17*

Energy

Transport Real estate

Metals

Utilities

Technology

Other