Chinese Communist Party Diplomacy in Africa

 Megatrends Afrika published in October 2024 a policy brief titled "Pragmatic, Strategic and Wide-Reaching: The CCP's Party Diplomacy in Africa" by Christine Hackenesch and Julia Bader.  

The policy brief analyses recent patterns and motives of China's party diplomacy in Africa.  It finds that the CCP maintains close ties with the main ruling parties in southern Africa and in some countries in East Africa, while engaging with a broad range of parties in countries in North Africa.  Beijing's party diplomacy in Africa seeks to promote China's core foreign policy interests, advance an alternative narrative on global China, and normalize China's authoritarian system.

Beijing's Political Training School in Tanzania

 Axios filed on 20 August 2023 a story titled "In Tanzania, Beijing Is Running a Training School for Authoritarianism" by Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian.  

Beijing established in Tanzania the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School, a partnership between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the ruling political parties of Tanzania, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.  

At the school, the CPC teaches how it fuses the ruling political party and the state making a clear departure from Beijing's previous, more subtle attempts to peddle influence on the international stage.  Economics takes a back seat to political training.  The school's program contradicts CPC assertions that Beijing isn't exporting its authoritarian model for governing.

Namibia-China Relations

The Institute for Public Policy Research at the Hanns Seidel Foundation Namibia published in October 2019 a major report titled "Risks and Rewards: Making Sense of Namibia-China Relations" by Dietrich Remmert and Rakkel Andreas.

This is a broad overview of the Namibia-China relationship. The authors conclude that Namibia's engagement with China can be described as unbalanced--similar to Zambia or Angola. Inviestment and trade is targeted towards a few sectors only and Namibia has as yet to establish a coherent and sensible strategy of cooperation with China.

Communist Party of China Solidifies Ties with Six African Ruling Parties

IPP Media posted on 17 July 2018 an article titled "African Freedom Parties Team Up in New Leadership College Venture" by Aisia Rweyemamu. China is building and financially supporting a $45 million Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School in Tanzania with the engagement of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The six ruling African political parties involved in the project are Tanzania's CCM, Angola's MPLA, South Africa's ANC, Namibia's SWAPO, Mozambique's FRELIMO, and Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF. The school will offer short, mid, and long-term training in political ideology and leadership skills with the aim of hastening the economic liberation of Africa.

Zimbabwe's The Herald published on 17 July 2018 an article titled "Groundbreaking Ceremony of Julius Nyerere Leadership School Held." The article reported a congratulatory message from Chinese President Xi Jinping that the CPC is taking the opportunity of this leadership school to enhance exchanges with political parties in Africa so as to jointly promote the construction of a closer community with a shared future for China and Africa.

The Daily Maverick posted a commentary by Susan Booysen on 1 August 2018 titled "Hues of the ANC's Chinese Homecoming" on the ANC's connection with the Tanzanian-based leadership school and the longer relationship between the CPC and the ANC. It appears that the joint school in Tanzania will substitute for a national ANC political school in South Africa that has been under discussion with China.

It is interesting that southern African countries such as Zambia where political power has changed from one party to another party or those such as Botswana where democracy is more firmly implanted are not part of this project. This begs the question: should one conclude that the six ruling parties that are part of the project expect to remain in power in perpetuity?

China-Namibia Uranium Cooperation

The Journal of Current Chinese Affairs recently published a research article titled "Nuclear (Geo) Political Ecologies: A Hybrid Geography of Chinese Investment in Namibia's Uranium Sector" by Meredith J. Deboom, University of Colorado.

The article explains how the Husub uranium mine has resuscitated Namibia's uranium industry and facilitated the political goals of both Chinese and Namibian leaders.

China in Namibia: A Force for Good or Not?

The New York Times Magazine published on 2 May 2017 an extensive account focused on Namibia titled "Is China the World's New Colonial Power?" by Brook Larmer.

The author suggests that for some Namibians the flood of Chinese loans and investments doesn't look so much like freedom as it does a new form of colonialism. The new infrastructure projects have saddled the economy with debt and done little so far to alleviate the nearly 30 percent unemployment rate. Somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 Chinese nationals now live in Namibia. Reflecting on China's image in other African countries, the author concludes that China can be seen by others, in the same instant, as a blessing and a curse.

Uranium: China, Niger, and Namibia

The China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies published in March 2017 a paper titled "China and Uranium: Comparative Possibilities for Agency in Statecraft in Niger and Namibia" by Peter Volberding and Jason Warner.

The paper examines how Chinese investment has impacted the uranium sector in Niger and Namibia and what impact investment has had on these states' ability to enact state agency across eight indicators in economic and social domains. It found that the impact has been mixed and uneven. While the investment in Niger was widely regarded as a failure, the opposite was true in Namibia.

Survey of China-Namibia Relations

The Konrad Adenauer Institute published in 2014 a compendium titled "Namibia's Foreign Relations."  It contains on pages 111 to 134 a survey of China-Namibia relations by Andre du Pisani.  The entire document is available on-line.