African officials, policy analysts and academics build images of China based on trade, investments, people-to-people exchanges and aid. This is a data-based image of China.
But a place must be reserved for a subjective impression of China, one that is based not on data and formal events, but on watching people going about their daily lives.
I recently had the privilege to form fleeting impressions of China during two working visits to Beijing. Some of the impressions confirmed or reinforced what I already knew from close to two decades looking at the China-Africa engagement. Others were unexpected and to some extent unsettling.
On a hot summer day, it is a pleasure to admire the grandeur of The Temple of Heaven in Beijing. The architecture, the craftmanship, the vivid colors, the scale of the buildings – all dating back to the fifteenth century. Standing in the plaza facing the Temple, one’s mind is flooded with questions which are similar to those that occur while standing outside the Versailles Palace in France or the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, in Russia.
The purpose of The Temple, a sacred place to pray for prosperity and good fortune, resonates with most Africans. Here and there on the African continent, there were places reserved for identical purposes. Few have survived Arab and European desecration. This rupture of the connection between a people and their Creator, and the attempt to interpose a new Creator, is one of the root causes of the turmoil which is in the minds of many Africans, I suspect. Embracing other people’s Creators has wreaked untold pain and suffering on the African continent for nearly two millennia.
I am more comfortable with the Creator who singled out my lineage three million years ago, to honor it with prosperity and good fortune, season after season, so that I can stand in front of The Temple of Heaven in 2024. Alas, the view of my Creator who presided over the emergence of Mankind somewhere on the African continent is increasingly hazy.
On my way to Kung’s Palace, I walk past many shops selling gifts to almost entirely Chinese customers. Business is brisk.
My untrained eye tells me that the people come from different regions of China. Physical and facial differences cover entire spectrums – from the northern reaches of Inner Mongolia to Guangxi in the south, from Xinjiang in the west to the eastern melting pot.
Do such differences have economic, political or social consequences? If so, to what extent? Is there a pecking order? Does a tourist from Tibet buy a gift with motifs that are prevalent in Guangzhou, for instance? Why are such questions on my mind? Because in many parts of Africa, the process of downgrading ethnic identities and elevating a national identity has been a major hurdle in making nations.
Moreover, right from the first African contact with outsiders, be they Arabs or Europeans, ethnic differences have been exploited to the detriment of us, especially sub-Saharan Africans. Could I learn something from China? Is it significant that my host always points out the regional origin of the cuisine of every restaurant where we stop for lunch or dinner? How deep is this celebration of cultural diversity? How can it be duplicated?
Then there is Kung’s Palace itself. It is a metaphor for opulence and extravagance and just a touch of corruption. My tour guide informs me that those
who indulged in these excesses were punished. That seems like justice when seen against the quality of life of a typical Chinese in 1780 when the palace was built.
But it is the corruption behind the creation of Kung’s Palace that grabs the attention of an African.
Corruption features so prominently in Western-African engagement as to convey the impression that it is endemic or even congenital among Africans. The delivery of aid, trade, investments and loans has been distorted by measures designed to ensure that African officials do not divert resources. Indeed, a common refrain in western criticism of the China-Africa engagement is that Africans prefer working with China because the Chinese are more tolerant of corruption – a denigration of both Chinese and Africans. The possibility that Africans turn to China and others to escape the engagement with the West because it is soaked in motifs of colonization is not considered.
Obviously, corruption slows down the rate of modernization and entrenches inequalities. But it is also true that the steepest economic ascent of today’s advanced economies was accompanied by epic corruption and allied ills on a scale that has yet to be reached anywhere in Africa. In our time, pointing to corruption as the primary reason for low levels of modernization in Africa is the height of hypocrisy.
Tiananmen Square is iconic. Like the Great Wall in the past, it announces China to the world.
And even in late Summer, it is still necessary to control the flow of Chinese tourists who come from the far corners of the country to enjoy their national symbol. Yet, as I joined in taking pictures in Tiananmen Square, I was struck by the relative youth of the people and the symbols that the young Chinese carried with them.
A group of uniformly very tall young men sported T-shirts with the logos of leading American basketball teams. Here and there young women had handbags with the trademarks of leading designers in France, Italy or the United States. In their purposefully threadbare jeans, the young people in Tiananmen Square recall to mind a late summer stroll through Regent’s Park in London or Central Park in New York.
The symbols represent aspirations to a certain kind of modernity. Perhaps even a universal modernity in our interconnected world. Yet, perhaps reflecting the sentiments of an older man, I was moved to hope that even as the young Chinese aspire to universal modernity, they will retain some symbols that are uniquely Chinese. Analogously, I wish young Africans would retain uniquely African symbols even as they embrace a universal modernity.
On my last day I joined families strolling past the faculty buildings of Peking University. A young girl of perhaps eleven years detached herself from her family with clear nudging from her parents. Her image in a tradition-inspired dress walking towards me in a manner I can only describe as regal is still vivid. With precision she said to me, “Good afternoon. I speak English.” I was startled. I mumbled something to encourage her to continue learning the English language. But I wondered: Is that what China brings to universal modernity: dignity and courage? Will Africa bring similar qualities to universal modernity?
But these are first impressions. They are subject to revisions as I learn more about China.
