A relational approach to higher education in China’s engagement with Africa

• In Event: Navigating Global and Local Dimensions in Higher Education: Reflexivity, Relations, and Internationalization in China

Proposal

The Chinese state appears to view African countries as centrally important to its geopolitical strategy for several reasons. At the same time, tertiary education—in the forms of both technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and higher education—plays what is arguably an outsized role in this strategy: China provides large numbers of scholarships for African students to study in Chinese universities; there are now 61 Confucius Institutes across Africa; and the government invests in other forms of exchange such as training schemes, forums and conferences.

It is clear that Chinese policymakers view the African continent as centrally important to China’s future, and social networks and ‘people-to-people exchanges’ are also an important facet of engagement. For example, Benabdallah (2020a; b) explores how the Chinese government seeks to build social networks through various forms of training, most of which are more directly related to elite capture than tertiary education cooperation might be presumed to be. These include military/security training, training for journalists, and party-to-party training and exchanges. Given its prominence in China’s foreign policy towards Africa, tertiary education represents another important platform for influencing and African knowledge production and perceptions of China. Yet thus far, with the exception of Confucius Institutes, the mechanisms of China’s influence through vocational and higher education cooperation are relatively poorly understood.

In this paper, the aim is to map the landscape of rapidly developing forms of Sino-African ‘people-to-people exchange’ through internationalised higher education in 2024, drawing on a collection of news articles and policy texts, contributing to a better understanding of these forms of engagement and their impacts. I draw on Qin Yaqing’s relational theory as an explanatory framework, arguing for a move beyond often facile use of the concept of ‘soft power’ in higher education. Central to relationality is viewing power as emanating from a web of relations rather than as a result of material forces such as economic or military strength: influence over other countries is viewed as, in part, a function of the expansion of relational networks (Qin, 2018). Qin’s thesis is that bilateral networks of relations produce ‘relational power’, which is ‘power that resides with relations among actors rather than with an independent and discreate entity’ (Qin, 2018, p. 261).

Through a mapping of forms of China-Africa higher education cooperation, I argue that various forms of exchange contribute to China’s overall ‘relational power’. The benefit to African states and to individual students in this interaction is clear: students are provided with an opportunity to undertake training which is beneficial to both themselves and to their home country, and scholars given a platform to publicise their research and the opportunity to attend conferences (Mulvey, 2023). In this interaction, the weaker side in these asymmetrical relationships is able access resources that it would otherwise not have access, donations and trainings from the Chinese side, and in this sense, African states and individuals benefit from the interaction.

The development of a network of people-to-people relations also benefits China in that it is able to utilise these networks. Forums, as well as existing ties with scholars, developed through sponsored student and staff mobility, are drawn upon to create international ‘epistemic communities’, the goal of which is to challenge existing norms that the Chinese state sees as undermining its position in the global political economy. Similarly, through doctoral student mobility, the examples presented here highlight how relational networks are drawn upon to strengthen China’s ‘discourse power’ and improve China’s image in students’ home regions. The Chinese state is able to use these interactions in its attempts to erode the global legitimacy of certain norms, for example around human rights, or amplify its own narrative around certain issues, for example around Chinese influence in Africa. The Chinese political order is undergirded by its own, distinct, and non-liberal logic, and the Party-state thus has an interest in challenging existing norms (Oud, 2024). This is why discursive power has emerged as a key part of the Party-state’s global strategy. The recruitment of students, the organisation of academic and policy-oriented forums on key issues, and the promotion of students’ favourable dispositions on these issues are examples of how relational networks are employed in the service of discursive power.

Confucius Institutes and university partnerships which tend to revolve around the operation of a Confucius Institute in the respective African partner university, also represent a more direct means of building relational networks to increase China’s influence on the continent. University partnerships represent a means of socialising scholars and those studying in the CIs established through the partnership into the Party’s official stance on a variety of topics, as well as, in some cases, having a goal which is more closely related to China’s economic engagement on the continent. Some university partnerships, such as those focused on mineral extraction, and aid provision, for example, scholarships provided for the training of students in the fields of oil and gas extraction, seem to be related to China’s interests in securing access to these resources. Luban workshops represent another example of this. The workshops not only serve to enhance China’s image on the continent, but also contribute to training a pool of skilled labour that can be utilised on projects led by Chinese state-owned and private enterprises, importantly, at local labour market rates, which tend to be lower than those that are paid to imported Chinese workers, reducing the costs associated with the projects. These workers are also able to operate Chinese-made machinery and equipment, thus facilitating the creation of export markets for these goods.

Author

• Benjamin Mulvey, The University of Glasgow