--By Harry Verhoeven, Convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network; Wolfson College, Department of Politics & International Relations, University of Oxford

The rapid intensification of ties between the People's Republic of China and Africa's 54 countries is of considerable geopolitical significance. It is impossible to understand how China has sustained year-on-year breath-taking growth without factoring in the contribution of African commodity exports and the profits reaped by Chinese enterprises through African demand for consumer goods, construction projects and ICT services. An extensive literature analyses the China-Africa story; an initial shouting match pitted those who cast Beijing as leading the re-colonisation of the continent against authors enthusiastically praising China as Africa's saviour at a time when the West would only engage through the lens of the Global War on Terror and rockstar driven charity. In recent years, a more nuanced conversation has underscored historical dimensions to the China-Africa relationship, emphasised African agency and deconstructed the myth that all Chinese actors –PRC embassies, state-owned enterprises, private firms, migrating individuals- share a unity of purpose, guided by a grand plan designed by the Chinese Communist Party.

This paper seeks to explore the influence of the PRC on the African continent, beyond material flows and traditional political-economic analyses. It asks whether and how Beijing may be influencing the nature of African politics and what role ideological factors may play in this. Put differently, this article focuses on China's "soft power", or the idea that because of the economic miracle that has taken place since 1978 in the People's Republic, African countries are increasingly eager to replicate a presumed "China model" within their own border. As the PRC's economic clout has grown, so have impressions that perhaps Beijing's combination of close guarding state sovereignty, turbo-charging state capitalism (or "socialism with Chinese characteristics") and rejecting Western liberal democracy may come to replace the once dominant Washington Consensus as a normative template for political and economic life across the developing world. While for some China's development and governance trajectory may appear so unique that it is inimitable and holds virtually no concrete policy lessons for African states, for a substantial number of African elites there appear to be plenty of worthwhile components to the Chinese experience that may help Africa meet contemporary challenges of poverty reduction and job creation. The paper seeks to historically contextualise discussions about Chinese soft power and offer insights from across Africa, not least regarding perceptions of Chinese power and China's role in international affairs.

A critical examination of PRC soft power, encapsulated by the idea of a "China Dream", both furthers the scholarship around China's global identity and the opportunities and limitations of Chinese foreign policy, but it also helps us to better understand what the political future may hold for African states in a multipolar world. Since the early 1990s, three paradigms on the African state have competed for academic and policy pre-eminence. They are different in every regard except for their collective understanding of contemporary Africa as a context where serious state-building agendas have no place. Firstly, there is the liberal paradigm, which portrays African states marching inexorably towards a bright future, gradually converging on the liberal-democratic model. This perspective always makes sense of African domestic politics through the prism of the democratisation paradigmand presents economic policy prescriptions as iterations of the (post-) Washington Consensus. A second dominant approach substitutes dystopian pessimism for the over-the-top wishful thinking of the liberal paradigm: the African state as a failed state, overwhelmed by organised crime, unruly societies, environmental degradation and/or terrorism. Those who reason in these terms misconstruct the experiences of Somalia, Liberia & Congo as somehow representative of a whole continent and see a bleak future ahead where international society increasingly disconnects from Africa as it tries to protect itself against refugee flows and the export of instability. A third perspective stresses the weaknesses of African states, but claims that elites are surprisingly adept at managing decay, entrenching themselves in power and keeping the ship afloat, even in a context of scarcity and violence. Neo-patrimonial networks may severely damage economic growth and any pretenses of a meritocratic politico-administrative system, but they are vital in keeping incumbents in power.

However, between the liberal convergence paradigm, the failed state narrative and neo-patrimonial seamanship, important experiences that fit none of these remain unexamined.I argue that the existence of alternative agendas appearing out of the ashes of war in places like Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Angola is part of a major emerging mode of "illiberal state-building". These states model themselves to a considerable extent, sometimes implicitly sometimes explicitly on the Chinese experience after 1949 and the East Asian development model more broadly. They are ruled by unified and well-organised movements that have, in the aftermath of conflict, captured the state and established durable political order, building a core of functional institutions. Their aspirations go beyond a short-term resource grab, as they use the state to centralise resources and create and/or strengthen a robust edifice of control. The Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (Ethiopia), the Rwanda Patriotic Front and the, Al-Ingaz (Salvation) regime (Sudan) share the background of a well-organised guerrilla and/or political movement with a strong degree of indoctrination and internal discipline as well as an articulate developmental discourse.

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