Written by Kemo Conteh, Former President, UTGSU
Clearly, the seemingly unstoppable rising China presents the world with a huge challenge of understanding China and its miraculous transformation. This challenge is as a result of decades of propaganda campaign that is championed by the Western powers, who have been painting and portraying China as a country with nothing positive to inspire the world with. These sheer propagation and pontification of disinformation and misinformation about China, with the aid of western propaganda machines, have become so entrench to a point that any attempt to edify or enlighten the hearts and minds of Western-psychologically programmed people, especially those in the continental Africa, becomes a serious challenge. Moreover, it is worth noting to stress that Africans in particular and the world in general must not rely on the Western-centric views, models, and lenses to understand China because its distinctive characteristics and models are undoubtedly beyond Western comprehension. Thus, any move, using the West as a baseline in understanding China will be subjective, bias, and misleading.
Apparently, considering its history and rich civilization, it is an undisputed fact that China has been cheated in assuming its right place under the sun. The western colonial architecture was arbitrary established without respect to the consents and wills of the colonized people. The China’s rich civilization shuns and despise the power exercise and projection of the West against those she established her grip on. The indefensible justifications of civilizing and Christianizing Africa, combined with exploitation till today, were/are issues that a civilizational power like China never wants to employ in its stride to connect with the continental Africa. Since China started connecting with Africa, it has profoundly and indelibly changed the infrastructural outlook and socio-economic fabric of continental Africa in a way incomparable to over 400 years of western exploitative and parasitic presence in Africa. Today, the once darkest and hard-to-reach villages of Africa become accessible and more habitable due to China’s mutually beneficial relationship with Africa.
It is imperative to put into account that China is profoundly distinctive from the West. China is a civilizational state, with strong culture which dates back to the Confucius era, and has continued until today, in shaping the modern China. Unlike the Western nation-state system which is a product of the Westphalian Peace Treaty of 1648. Therefore, metrics of westernization, such as those of western liberal democracy, will completely be wronged for China. China, by all measures, must be uniquely and objectively studied, putting into consideration the deep-rooted cultural factors that have long since shape the civilizational state of China. Moreover, it is the mentality of this civilizational state that, as well, that shapes China’s foreign policy with Africa. The intellectual arrogance and parochialism among some academics in dogmatically concluding that modernization is westernization and China must accept the conformity principle with the West before it could attain certain level of development is utopian and delusional. China, by all indications, is transcending the western models of politics and development. It is pivotal for the world to accept that the rise of China is making a single, extraordinary transformation and reconfiguration that will inevitably set a new world order that is completely different from the Western World Order, and will automatically and passionately be followed by the world.
Politically, China has successfully carved out a system of inclusive and meritocratic system that is more representative and competent-based when compared to any of the western liberal democracies. The Chinese Communist Party is a conglomeration of highly-skilled, purpose-driven, action-oriented, and focused leaders, with the capacity of maintaining unity, stability, and economic development. It is apparent that China will never produce a president who will learn on the process base on a “try and error” model, because all China’s presidents are fully built and equipped with all the necessary skills and knowledge needed before they presided over the mantle of leadership. Going by this model of leadership selection, America’s Donald J. Trump will be the least qualified to hold any leadership position in China, and the world have avoided the Gulf Wars because none of the George Bushs would have been president in China. Arguably, President Xi Jinping remains the most competent leader in the world stage today, because of the moral uprightness or virtues he embodies which are instilled in him by the China’s civilization and model. The Chinese democracy is an amalgamation of rich cultural experiences and the best things that China has learned from other parts of the world.
Ostensibly, despite this unique and enviable characteristics of the China’s political model, at no point in time in human history, has China ever conquered the world and imposed its political system on others. Its engagement with the world has been based on mutual respect and peaceful cooperation, especially for the local political realities and systems. Since China started engaging with Africa, despite the enormity of aids, grants and loans it has been giving to Africa, she has never demanded for political changes as a preconditions for its supports. China has the requisite political, economic and military might to effect a political change anywhere in the world, but due to her moral impulse, informed by undiluted cultural values and respect for the international laws, sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries, she will never exercise such illegality and immorality.
Economically, despite series of Western intellectual forecasts of the “incoming collapse of the China’s economy” which will subsequently be followed by the political collapse of the Communist Party, the Chinese economy grows in record margin, and has since lifted over 6 million people out of poverty. Moreover, the Chinese government enjoys more legitimacy among its citizens than any Western liberal democracies. Spectacularly, China’s miraculous economic performance was attained without aligning itself to the Western modernization theories and models. It is safe to postulate that, China’s economic development would not have happened with western electoral liberal democracy, considering its demographic and geographic size.
Externally, China’s economic development has been profoundly felt globally. Through China-Africa relations, the continent that was once exploited, ruined and obliterated beyond recognition by the West, is now experiencing thrive, economic rejuvenation and resuscitation due to the mutually beneficial bilateral and multilateral relations between China and the African countries. China’s intervention in the economic development of African countries through infrastructural developments such as road, railways, ports, conference and cultural Centre and the Belt and Road Initiative have significantly changed the entire outlook of continental Africa. This interventions has, to some degree, improve the living conditions of the people in Africa.
In sum, overcoming the misunderstandings about China remain challenges due to the early contacts of the West with rest of the world including Africa, and the messages the West continues to propagate against China through their propaganda tools, exacerbates the challenge. However, despite the peddling and pontification of fictions about China in the world, the country remains a towering miracle for both economic growth and development, championed by its competent political leadership. On a win-win basis, China remains an important global actor for genuine friendship with the developing world, particularly Africa.
Written by Kemo Conteh Former President, UTGSU
BSc in Political Science (summa cum laude)
Advanced Diploma in IR
