A gardener at work under a Belt and Road Forum installation in Beijing in late 2023. Years of funding and building megaprojects under its multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative has also seen China build a positive view of itself among the African people. - Photo: AP
DOHA/BEIJING (SCMP): When Rwandan President Paul Kagame spoke at this month’s Doha Forum, he sang China’s praises.
“We have been benefiting from the cooperation and the attitude of bringing everybody to the table where everyone feels they are winning in the process,” he said. “That is, to my understanding, what China presents.”
Kagame is not alone in his high opinion of China. Across Africa, many countries have had support from the Asian superpower over the years as they paved their way to independence. Once there, they found that a strong relationship with China offered other benefits as well.
“Now the cooperation presents more value in terms of trade, investment,” Kagame said.
That view appeared to be reflected in a survey by the Asia Society Policy Institute, a New York-based think tank.
According to the data released earlier this month by the Asia Society’s Global Public Opinion on China Project, positive views of China outweighed the negative by about three to one among the nearly 300 people surveyed across sub-Saharan Africa.
“China is not simply making inroads in Africa by cultivating elites – it is genuinely popular,” the study said.
Andrew Chubb, foreign policy and national security fellow at the Asia Society’s Centre for China Analysis and the project lead, said the positive views of China in most parts of Africa reflected a sense that China brought development and economic opportunities.
He said Chinese companies and Chinese finance had a strong presence in many places that other development partners had largely stayed away from.
“I think that generates a sense that China is showing up and doing things where others aren’t,” Chubb said.
China is Africa’s biggest trading partner. Over more than two decades, it has given about US$182 billion in loans to countries across the continent. The money has helped build ports, railways and all kinds of megaprojects, according to Boston University data.
But the glowing opinion of China is not universal.
Some countries, such as Zambia, had ongoing controversies and political debates over whether China’s influence was a good thing, Chubb said.
Others, such as Tanzania, had long histories of cooperation with China, he said, and therefore citizens held largely positive opinions of the country.
Even the people of eSwatini – the only African country which does not have diplomatic ties with Beijing – view China in a positive light, according to the Asia Society.
The eSwatini data is supported by the latest survey from Afrobarometer, a pan-African research network. The survey, carried out in late 2022, indicates there is a strong belief in eSwatini that China’s economic activities have a significant impact on its economy, and perceptions of China’s economic and political influence are overwhelmingly positive – though less so than a year earlier.
The survey found that 73 per cent of citizens in eSwatini believed China’s economic activities had “some” or “a lot” of influence on their country’s economy.
On the flip side, in Zimbabwe, where China has vast interests in mining and tobacco, its citizens have a mainly negative view of China.
This is despite the fact that for more than two decades, the country has been dealing with the fallout of devastating economic and political sanctions, imposed by the United States and some European nations during the presidency of the late Robert Mugabe in response to controversial land seizures forced on white farmers.
Looking at public opinion from a global perspective, the trend appears to be that as the view of China in the developed world becomes more negative – particularly since the coronavirus pandemic – the opinions in the developing world become more positive, according to the Asia Society data.
The Global Public Opinion on China Project noted that across more than 1,200 surveys in developing countries, positive views of China outweighed negative views by about two to one.
But China’s image is by no means positive across the entire Global South.
Major developing countries such as India, Turkey and Iran leaned towards the negative, the study found.
For example, more than a decade ago, Indian citizens held generally positive views of China. But since 2010, sentiment has tipped to become more negative in most surveys. During the pandemic, in particular, Indian views of China dropped to levels similar to those in Europe and North America.
The Asia Society explained that the Covid-19 pandemic coincided with the deadly clashes in 2020 along the disputed Himalayan border, which prompted a wave of anti-China sentiment in India.
Before that, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tried to cultivate friendly ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“This suggests the negative sentiments recorded in surveys of Indian public opinion likely reflect grass-roots popular nationalism more than top-down political mobilisation,” the Asia Society said.
The Asia Society’s dataset is purely focused on views towards China and does not include comparison with how Western countries are seen. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
