Capital Ethiopia published on 19 August 2025 an article titled "China-Africa Partnership Strengthens Vocational Training to Boost Africa's Workforce" by Eyasu Aklilu.
China has established 17 Luban workshops (vocational training centers) in 15 African countries with plans to establish 10 more. China hosted last month a seminar in Ethiopia highlighting the Luban workshop program.
The Atlantic Council published on 13 June 2024 an analysis titled "A Global South with Chinese Characteristics" by Niva Yau.
China has embarked on a steadily expanding mission to promote its political system alongside its economic engagement across the Global South. Even as China's economic growth has slowed significantly and its political system has grown more repressive under Xi Jinping, the number of countries welcoming Chinese governance lessons continues to grow, enhancing Beijing's global influence. This has significant implications for the future of democracy, the protection of individual rights, and the nature of the global order.
One way that Beijing promotes authoritarian governance is through training programs for foreign government officials on Chinese governance practices. This analysis investigates a new dataset of Chinese government files on such training, revealing how China uses these sessions to directly promote ideas and practices that marry economics and politics to make a case for its authoritarian capitalism model. The analysis outlines the content Beijing teaches foreign officials and the anticipated benefits to Beijing from these programs. It also explains how these initiatives fit into China's broader ambitions to undermine the liberal democratic norms that currently underpin the global order.
The South African Institute of International Affairs published in July 2023 a paper titled "The Hunan Model: China's Zone for the China-Africa Future" by Lauren Johnston.
The paper finds that an emerging Hunan model, named after the central south Chinese province in China, builds upon its comparative strengths in agriculture, construction machinery, and mining and metallurgy, as well as its recent role in poverty eradication. It may offer a model for advancing China-Africa economic ties. The paper offers conclusions on how African countries can make the most of the model for their own development.
The Washington Post published on 10 July 2023 an article titled "Winning Friends by Training Workers Is China's New Gambit" by Shibani Mahtani and Joshua Irwandi.
This is a detailed account of China's program to extend vocational education in the Global South through the establishment of Luban workshops. In preparing the article, the authors visited workshops in Ethiopia, South Africa, and Indonesia. The workshops in Africa have been billed as a key component of Sino-African cooperation and part of a broader effort to engage the region economically in exchange for diplomatic support on issues important to China.
China established Luban workshops in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mali, Morocco, Egypt, Cote d'Ivoire, Madagascar, Nigeria, and Rwanda. China says that it has 12 Luban workshops in Africa. It is possible that one or more of these workshops opened and subsequently closed.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published in February 2023 a paper titled "African Media Cultures and Chinese Public Relations Strategies in Kenya and Ethiopia" by Yuan Wang, Duke Kunshan University, and Hangwei Li, Chinese Agricultural University.
The paper focuses on the corporate communication strategies of three Chinese SOEs involved in two Belt and Road projects in Africa: the Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya, constructed by China Road and Bridge Corporation, and the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway in Ethiopia, constructed by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation and China Railway Engineering Corporation. The authors explore the changes, or lack thereof, in the three Chinese SOEs' corporate communication strategies, specifically public relations strategies.
The city of Tianjin opened the first Luban workshop in Thailand in 2016. The vocational training centers, so named after Lu Ban, a mythical figure revered as an inventor, were subsequently co-opted by the central government and have gone global, especially in Africa. China announced at the 2018 FOCAC summit in Beijing that it would set up ten Luban workshops in Africa. It opened the first one in Djibouti in 2019 with the Djiboutian president in attendance. It opened the 12th one in Africa at the end of 2021 in Morocco.
In addition to Djibouti and Morocco, China now has Luban workshops in Nigeria, Uganda, Cote d'Ivoire, Madagascar, Mali, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, and two in Egypt. The Dekar 2022-2024 FOCAC action plan commits China to establishing more Luban workshops around Africa. They are usually housed within a local institution and focus training on skills in short supply in that country. They offer China the opportunity to encourage Chinese technical standards and eventually sell Chinese equipment in African markets.
