By Jonathan Arkin
Student Writer
Dean Ernest J. Wilson III joined a panel of international authors and diplomatic experts at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on Dec. 7 to discuss China’s expanding economic role on the African continent.
Author/publisher Dr. Sharon T. Freeman hosted the talk, China, Africa, and the African Diaspora: Perspectives, which was moderated by the Wilson Center’s Steve McDonald and featured ambassadors, People’s Republic of China ministers and foreign relations experts.
In his remarks, outlined in a paper he co-authored titled A Converging China?, Dean Wilson said China’s rising status continues to be a “vexing concern” for developed nations unable to place the country’s external behavior into an appropriate context but is seen in a different light in emerging countries – many of which are in Africa.
“Africa can be seen as a kind of laboratory for China’s global ambitions,” said Wilson, who posited that China’s behavior in the region could provide crucial signals for diplomats hoping to better understand the motives and future aspirations of the People’s Republic of China. “While Western democracies and their publics have exhibited a rather cautious deepening of ties, much of the developing world has been eager to emulate a Chinese-style (model) of political control with rapid economic development.”
With a nearly $100 billion increase in China-Africa trade over the last 10 years, the relationship has affected both economics and public diplomacy efforts and everything in between. The panelists discussed the diversity and depth of Chinese involvement, and Wilson showed a graph that he said would ultimately determine China’s real influence in a world that seems to expect behavioral “convergence” – yet may be ready to accept alternatives.
“By looking at China’s behavior in Africa through the lens of long-term convergence toward or divergence from international norms,” Wilson said, “we can hope to better grasp the important dynamics and trends at work in China’s emerging global role, and importantly, how they run up against Western interests. Policy makers with the responsibility for designing and conducting international diplomatic and security affairs need a sense of whether or not the emerging Chinese giant is playing by the conventional ‘rules of the game.’”
Wilson added that an internationally agreed-upon set of diplomatic norms – including trade, aid, diplomatic engagement, human rights – based on these rules could determine how other nations react to and judge China’s forays into developing nations.
“For the China-Africa debate, this focus on long-term behavior should remain at the center of all policy consideration,” he said.
