Power Plays and Balancing Acts: The Paradoxical Effects of Chinese Trade on African Foreign Policy Positions
| Author | Slava Jankin Mikhaylov,Pádraig Carmody,Niheer Dasandi |
| Published date | 01 February 2020 |
| Date | 01 February 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032321719840962 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
840962PSX0010.1177/0032321719840962Political StudiesCarmody et al.
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Political Studies
2020, Vol. 68(1) 224 –246
Power Plays and Balancing
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of Chinese Trade on African
Foreign Policy Positions
Pádraig Carmody1,2, Niheer Dasandi3
and Slava Jankin Mikhaylov4
Abstract
There has been substantial focus on China’s influence in Africa in recent years. Some argue that
China’s growing economic ties with African states have increased its political influence across the
continent. This article examines whether trade with China leads African states to adopt more
similar foreign policy preferences to China in the United Nations. We examine foreign policy
similarity using voting patterns in the United Nations General Assembly and country statements
in the United Nations General Debate. The analysis demonstrates that more trade with China
has paradoxical effects on foreign policy positions of African states—it leads them to align more
closely with US foreign policy positions in the United Nations, except on human rights votes.
Our findings suggest that African states are engaged in balancing behavior with external powers
whereby African elites seek to play off rival powers against one another in order to strengthen
their own autonomy and maximize trade.
Keywords
China, Africa, foreign policy preferences, trade, United Nations, General Debate, General
Assembly, text analysis
Accepted: 9 March 2019
Introduction
China’s emergence as a powerful actor in the global economy represents a fundamental
shift in the global balance of power. This has led to questions about the political implica-
tions of China’s growing economic power, and the extent to which it uses this as a tool of
1Geography Department, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
2School of Tourism and Hospitality, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
3International Development Department, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
4Data Science Lab, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany
Corresponding author:
Niheer Dasandi, International Development Department, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham
B15 2TT, UK.
Email: n.dasandi@bham.ac.uk
Carmody et al.
225
foreign policy. This is especially so as China has increasingly sought to play a more active
role in global politics in recent times—resulting in a more dynamic and expansive foreign
policy (Tull, 2006). According to Lanteigne (2015: 9), the primary goal of Chinese for-
eign policy is “to better manage the forces of globalization for the betterment of the state
while ensuring that the Communist Party maintains its paramount role in Chinese govern-
ance.” Indeed, China has sought to gain allies around the world to ward off what are seen
as Western attempts to undermine Communist Party rule, and to lock in sources of natural
resource supply and markets for Chinese production (Lanteigne, 2015). China’s expand-
ing economic ties around the world are seen by some as aimed at serving these foreign
policy objectives, and nowhere has China’s economic engagements come under greater
scrutiny than in Africa.
China–Africa relations have a long history going back to Mao Zedong and Zhou
Enlai’s prominent role in the non-aligned movement in the 1960s (Brautigam, 2009;
Carmody and Owusu, 2007; Mohan and Power, 2008; Taylor, 1998).1 These have
expanded over recent decades, and China is now the single biggest trade partner with
African states (Romei, 2015). Despite, or perhaps because of, China’s stated approach
being based on non-interference in partner countries’ domestic affairs, many view its
growing trade with Africa as enhancing its political influence on the continent (see Tull,
2006). This influence is seen to come at the expense of traditional powers in Africa, par-
ticularly the United States—with different US governments expressing concern over
China’s increasing presence in Africa (Smith, 2012; Wonacott, 2011). Most notably, the
Trump administration unveiled a new strategy for US engagement in Africa in late 2018,
which was designed specifically to counter Beijing’s growing influence across the conti-
nent (Calamur, 2018). This has meant Africa is increasingly seen as the principal site of
the United States’ and China’s struggle for global influence.2
Some, however, question this view of the political effects of China’s economic engage-
ment with African states. Brautigam (2009), for example, argues that China’s economic
involvement in Africa is less about seeking political influence and more about developing
a longer term economic partnership. Furthermore, she argues that China is open about the
nature of this relationship and, therefore, African governments are in a position to shape
the relationship. Others have also highlighted the agency of African governments, par-
ticular regarding relations with China (e.g. Brown and Harman, 2013; Corkin, 2016;
Mohan and Lampert, 2013). In particular, some argue that African governments have, at
times, sought to resist Chinese political influence and to use China’s growing economic
engagement to balance against Western power (Shinn and Eisenman, 2012). This may
suggest that rather than increasing Chinese political influence, growing trade with China
has provided African states with greater room to maneuver regarding their external
relations.
Despite these contrasting perspectives, there has been surprisingly little systematic
analysis of the effect of economic ties with China on the foreign policy positions of
African states.3 This article addresses this gap by examining the impact of increased trade
with China on the foreign policy positions of African states in the United Nations (UN).
Our analysis considers different foreign policy dimensions. Existing analyses of the for-
eign policy impact of China’s emergence as a major economic power have tended to
focus on individual policy issues considered important to China (e.g. Flores-Macías and
Kreps, 2013; Strüver, 2016) or on specific events of particular interest to it (e.g. Kastner,
2016). Less attention has been given to the broader foreign policy consequences of trade
with China, despite it long being recognized that countries’ foreign policy relations may
226
Political Studies 68(1)
differ across issues (Keohane and Nye, 1977). To assess the impact of China’s increased
trade with Africa across multiple foreign policy dimensions, we employ two different
types of measure of foreign policy position. The first is a new measure derived from the
application of text analysis to countries’ annual statements in the UN General Debate
(GD). As we explain, states are more freely able to signal their foreign policy positions in
their GD speeches, providing us with a “softer” measure of foreign policy preference. The
second measure is based on countries’ voting patterns in the UN General Assembly
(UNGA). Importantly, we consider voting similarity across different dimensions, such as
all UNGA resolutions, human rights resolutions, and votes on issues deemed important
by the US government.
Our analysis shows that increased Chinese trade with African countries has a para-
doxical impact, in that it leads African countries to move closer to the United States and
away from China on different foreign policy dimensions. It is only on voting on UN reso-
lutions linked to human rights—where the perceived need to project “hard shell sover-
eignty” against Western intervention is important (Barma et al., 2009)—that more trade
with China is associated with closer alignment between China and African states. These
findings are consistent when we address potential endogeneity between trade and foreign
policy positions. We argue that these results suggest African states use trade with China
to attempt to strengthen their position globally by balancing Chinese against Western
power to achieve greater autonomy and “non-interference” in their internal affairs, and to
maximize policy rents.
Trade, Foreign Policy, and China–Africa Relations
China’s emergence as a major economic power has led to renewed attention to the foreign
policy consequences of trade (see, for example, Flores-Macías and Kreps, 2013; Ross,
2006; Rotberg, 2009). The links between economic relations and political influence have
long been a subject of academic interest. More than 70 years ago, in his influential text,
National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade, Hirschman (1945) argued that trade
between countries would lead to foreign policy convergence. This convergence would
occur, he explained, due to concerns that foreign policy disputes could disrupt trade rela-
tions and therefore interfere with economic growth. Furthermore, he argued that because
countries would differ in their relative dependence in particular trade relationships, the
threat to interrupt them would be “an effective weapon in the struggle for power” for the
less dependent country (Hirschman, 1945: 17). In other words, trade dependence could
provide a state with political influence over another.
This argument has been applied in the context of China’s international trade in recent
years (e.g. Brazys and Dukalskis, 2017; Flores-Macías and Kreps, 2013; Ross, 2006). In
particular, it forms the basis for the view that increased trade has provided China...
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