Locating Africa in China's community of shared future for mankind: A relational approach

Abstract

This study applies a Chinese theoretical frameworkrelationality, as articulated by Qin Yaqing-to explain how Beijing creates and manipulates its relations with African partners to advance its "core interests" and leadership of the Global South. Relationality elucidates the "Community of Shared Future for Mankind"-an interlocking, multitiered network of Sinocentric relationships based on traditional Confucian conceptions of reciprocity. The pervasiveness of China's influence in Africa can be explained by its overlapping latticework of relationships involving thousands of African elites traversing all four levels-bilateral, subregional, regional and global. At each level, Chinese interlocutors use material support, inclusive rhetoric and host diplomacy to create and perpetuate so-called "win-win" relationships with African partners. Because the "relational power" these dyads generate disproportionately strengthens the weaker

‘We help them, and they help us’: Reciprocity and relationality in Chinese aid to Africa

“…Such statements can be read as coercion and a warning that aid would be withdrawn if African countries do not support China in the UN (Eisenman, 2022). Indeed, Lam and Fung (2021) find an increase in the frequency of PRC‐specific terms or terms whose meaning has been reinterpreted by the PRC in UN documents and UN department annual reports, which is part of China's effort to build ‘international discourse power’ (Rolland, 2020).…”

“…Its value for analysing Chinese foreign aid lies primarily in the contributions it can make to explaining Chinese actions, particularly the strategic deployment of renqing . This was demonstrated, for example, by Eisenman (2022), who applied Qin to China's advancement of the ‘Community of shared future for mankind’ in Africa. Eisenman (2022, p. 8) concludes that the Confucian conception of reciprocity conditions China's Africa policy to be deeply Sinocentric and thus hierarchical in the traditional sense of Tianxia (Qin, 2011; Zhao, 2021)—the perfect harmony of all under heaven between China and all those who accept it as the centre.…”

“…This was demonstrated, for example, by Eisenman (2022), who applied Qin to China's advancement of the ‘Community of shared future for mankind’ in Africa. Eisenman (2022, p. 8) concludes that the Confucian conception of reciprocity conditions China's Africa policy to be deeply Sinocentric and thus hierarchical in the traditional sense of Tianxia (Qin, 2011; Zhao, 2021)—the perfect harmony of all under heaven between China and all those who accept it as the centre. In this set‐up, the ‘win–win’ rhetoric is nothing more than just a tactic to build a multilevel network of social relations with key African stakeholders to elicit their support and deference through the threat of dissolvability of relational power (Eisenman, 2022, p. 11).…”

“…Although Qin was accused of essentialism (e.g., by Ho, 2019), his position as one of China's most influential foreign policy thinkers means that his views to a certain degree incorporate ideational features of Chinese political thought and his insights are reflective of Chinese leadership's political preferences (Ho, 2019). For this reason, China scholars have drawn on Qin to examine how traditional Confucian concepts of relationality influence China's international relations in general (e.g., Kavalski, 2018;Nordin, 2020;Nordin & Smith, 2018;Shih et al, 2019) and the relations with Africa in particular (e.g., Benabdallah, 2020Benabdallah, , 2021Carrozza & Benabdallah, 2022;Eisenman, 2022).…”

“…Euro‐American debates often dismiss such references as propaganda. Critical scholars highlight the gap between the rhetoric of equality and power asymmetries in the relationship (Benabdallah, 2020; Carrozza & Benabdallah, 2022) and explain specific (e.g., collaterals) and diffuse (i.e., political support in the UN) reciprocity with China's ability to coerce or corrupt recipients (Eisenman, 2022). The rhetoric is undoubtedly employed strategically (Link, 2013; Schoenhals, 1992), and the link between aid and corruption has been documented in the literature beyond China (Pavlik & Young, 2022).…”