China and Africa Jointly Building a Community of Shared Future Communication: The Role of African Think Tanks in the Strategic Partnership between Africa and China

Nkolo Foe

Professor of the University of Yaounde 1, Cameroun

Full member of the International Institute of Philosophy, France

1 The new international vocation of China

For many foreigners, a visit to China today is a bit like a pilgrimage to the future! Trip to Utopia Island! Humanity in the making! Far from the obscuring clichés that once encumbered the minds of the inhabitants of Solomon’s House of the New Atlantis of Bacon, proud censors of “the Chinese, a singular, ignorant, cowardly and stupid people” (Bacon, New Atlantis). It is interesting to see how history itself is in charge of correcting hasty and self-confident talkers. Because, China of this new millennium, is in itself the Salomon House realized. It is the sublime “Foundation [which] aims to know the causes, and the secret movement of things; and to push back the boundaries of the Human Empire in order to achieve all things possible” (Ibid.).

Here, beats the heart of a new world in the making. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia and keen observer of the profound changes of our world, Sergueï Lavrov, dared a projection: We are witnessing a “change of world” and more of the advent of the “post-Western World”! According to Lavrov, all the disorders orchestrated by the West across the planet (demolition of entire states, looting of nations, a massacre of peoples, sacking of territories, multiplication of hotbeds of tension, etc.), do not prevent the rest of the world from growing and co-operating. Evidence of this progress is numerous. Two significant examples follow for illustration: the “Greater Eurasia Partnership” and FOCAC.

This new world, open to peace, cooperation and exchanges, is becoming more and more specific. In search of a new universal moral leadership, a significant part of the intellectual elite of this world meets in Beijing from August 13 to 20, 2018, as part of a scientific and cultural event of global scale: the 24th World Congress of Philosophy. Coming from all over the world, more than 3,000 philosophers and thinkers are determined to give symbolically to the Chinese people, the torch of civilization, as a tribute to their illustrious past and present thinkers, whose contribution to universal harmony is significant. Irrespective of the evaluation of world philosophy, hasty ideologues once wondered how an “Empire without idea” could merit carrying the torch of Civilization, in the name of all mankind. This question does not arise anymore. But, as Samir Amin wanted, three imperatives impose themselves on China: 1. Completely master new technologies; 2. Strengthen the country’s military capabilities; 3. Rebuild international politics on the basis of the recognition of the sovereign rights of peoples to choose their political and economic system ”.

Let us return to the philosophical and civilizational question of the Idea. With regard to China, this crucial question was probably legitimate as long as the content of the Great Idea of the West had not yet exhausted itself. For three centuries, the West had nourished the claim to embody the idea of “Liberty” and “Democracy.” It is this idea that Europe and America managed to impose on the rest of the world either as an ideal or as a fantasy.

In the enchanted atmosphere of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama, an American thinker from Asia, still celebrated the “End of History.” Among the thinkers of the West, this idea was unanimous. That’s why Thomas Friedman could say that globalization is first and foremost the great work of America. If we Americans were made responsible for this evolution, he wrote, it is because globalization is above all America! Undoubtedly, this globalization is a “crazy horse,” but it is only America that is best able to ride this horse and direct it, having raised it since its childhood. In the name of America, Friedman could then invite the rest of humanity to follow America, clinging to the wagon and freeing the way.

Friedman’s views are consistent with John McDermont’s. This thinker endeavored to define America’s global vocation from the principles of “global philosophy.” The problem posed by McDermont is that of structuring a new world, by identifying the dimensions of American culture that are likely to be operative factors in the formulation of world culture.

Under President Donald Trump, America seems to have abandoned such a claim. 30 years after Fukuyama’s claim, the trumpets of victory have been permanently silenced, the “End of History” seems to have lived, as is now proven by the violent challenge by the US, the main agreements of globalization and the back to the foundations of the Monroe Doctrine.

On the other hand, under Xi Jinping’s presidency, China’s emerging power has had the ability to offer a viable ideological and political alternative to the regression that the West now incarnates. This is the meaning of the Confucian concept of Universal Harmony and Consensus, with its economic, political and cultural counterpart, the Belt and Road Initiative.

The world is tired of wars and competition, confrontation and predation, violence and destruction. Africa shares with China the idea of Consensus and Universal Harmony, as attested by the place of Maat (Truth-Justice) in its most ancient thought. Competition and war are not inevitable. In the same way, competitive multiparty politics is not the only way of managing social and political contradictions. There is an alternative to permanent civil war, in society and in the world. The Belt and Road Initiative is a carrier of this alternative, thanks to the idea of connectivity. By giving a human dimension to globalization, the Belt and Road Initiative will bring greater rapprochement between cultures and civilizations through shared prosperity.

The Belt and Road is an issue of civilization. It is important for the social sciences to seize this concept. The role of Think Tanks is therefore crucial.

2 Shaping a new global partnership order and the role of think tanks in China-Africa relations

According to etymology, think tanks literally mean “tanks of ideas.” As such, they play an increasingly important role in the management of international relations.

Dating back to the end of the 19th century, with the creation in 1884 in London of the Fabian Society, and at the beginning of the 20th century, with the establishment in 1910 of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, think tanks are used today, effective links between academic research and the world of political and economic decision-making.

With the essential vocation of scientific research, the mixing of ideas, the experimentation of new concepts and the dissemination of knowledge among the most innovative to deepen understanding of the problems facing societies, and support public policies, these institutions have been able to assert their role when it became clear that the study of social, economic, cultural and security problems required the imperative lighting of science and the support of the world of research and the academy.

The question of innovation is at the very heart of any think tank activity. It is a question of producing new and original ideas while nourishing the discussion on the conceptual and theoretical offers being experimented.

Some think tanks give themselves the essential task of forming high-level expertise, ready to support state institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international institutions, etc. Expert advice is becoming increasingly important both in the conduct of domestic policies and in international relations. Today, for example, it is difficult to dispense with expert advice from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International, the International Crisis Group, the World Economic Forum, the Heritage Foundation, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, etc. In the absence of directly directing state policy, these think tanks issue opinions that States and international institutions are sometimes obliged to take into account in the conduct of their affairs.

Representing barely 7% of think tanks in operation worldwide (against 30% for North America, 28% for Europe and 17% for Asia), Africa, with 7% of think tanks, begins to become familiar with these new institutions. It can not be. Otherwise, the States of this continent being subjected to the permanent pressure of these organizations which give opinions on all the same in the matters relating to the domestic policy, or from their bases installed essentially in the countries of the North or from their local relay of the South.

Africa does not lack high-level expertise. The problem is the lack of bridges between the world of higher education and research on the one hand and the world of political decision-making, economic, social, cultural and security activity on the other. For example, the bulk of China-Africa strategic partnership activities take place in the ministries’ offices, unlike China, which, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, has been able to rely, on its African policy, on a wide variety of international-level think tanks, just like CICIR.

The multiplication of think tanks in China is explained because this emerging power has felt the need to equip itself with authentic soft power instruments. It is a persuasive approach, involving the appeal and influence that China not only within but also beyond national borders. The exercise of economic, political and cultural influence is an essential component of Chinese soft power, which must accompany, for example, the bold and gigantic enterprise that is the Belt and Road Initiative launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013.

Chinese think tanks are beginning to penetrate the African continent. At the forefront of these structures on African university campuses, there is first and foremost the Confucius Institutes which play a decisive role in China-Africa partnership policy, through the teaching of Mandarin and the familiarization of young Africans with the basic elements of Chinese culture.

The China Foreign Affairs University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), play an important role in the scientific and academic rapprochement between scientists from both continents, by the multiplication of study trips and the organization of forums during which African and Chinese scholars learn to know each other and to work together. These relations have evolved very rapidly, in the sense of their institutionalization. This is the case, for example, of the CASS which, on March 2017 in Addis Ababa, signed an important Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), known as the leader of African think tanks in the field of social science research.

3 The structural constraints of African think tanks: the example of CODESRIA

The example of CODESRIA is interesting to show the role that African think tanks can play and the type of problems they are often faced with, in defining strategic choices, for example, their relationship with African governments and Emerging countries at the forefront of which is China.

CODESRIA was created in 1973 on the initiative of African researchers grouped around the Egyptian economist Samir Amin. Since its founding, this pan-African organization specializing in social science research has set itself some major goals that should be summarized here:

- The development of social sciences by encouraging African researchers to engage in basic research and research focused on the solution of development problems

- Promotion and support of comparative research in a perspective that includes the whole of the African continent

- The publication and dissemination of the results of the research work

- The creation on the continent of a well-structured network for the dissemination of scientific information

To these basic objectives were added more specific objectives such as:

- The defense of freedom of thought and academic freedom within research and higher education institutions

- Encouraging cooperation and collaboration between African institutions of higher education and research on the continent

- The promotion and development of collaboration with similar international organizations, in particular, those of Latin America and Asia

In the years since its inception, CODESRIA had quickly established a solid reputation, thanks to the quality of its programs and activities. For example, these activities focus on:

- Regular holding of methodological workshops

- The organization of thematic institutes (gender, governance, health, etc.), scientific writing workshops, etc.

- Granting of scholarships and research grants to young researchers for the research and writing of dissertations and dissertations

- Publication and dissemination of research work in the form of articles, books, periodical scientific journals, etc

One of the main ideas behind CODESRIA was to contribute to the intellectual emancipation of the African continent. The pan-African organization thus emerged as an effective “intellectual weapon” in the service of the struggle against colonialism and Western imperialism. This is why an anticolonial and anti-imperialist orientation appeared clearly in the choice of programs, themes, and methodologies. The objective was to explain the condition of the capitalist peripheries, marked by oppression and inequality, compared to the Western countries.

During these times, a crucial question was raised in social science debates that of uneven development, which quickly emerged as a major issue of social science policy in Africa. This question means that the world is structured in two great antagonistic poles opposing the Hegemonic Center and the dominated Capitalist Peripheries. The uneven development explains that the inequalities between the Center and the Periphery are of an economic and historical nature. It is thus the mechanisms of domination that the social sciences are therefore invited to elucidate.

During the years 1970-1980, the concrete application of the doctrine of Third Worldism attracted to CODESRIA progressive scholars and intellectuals not only from Africa, Latin America, and Asia but also from Europe and North America. These were the beginnings of a partnership that could involve mainly the countries of the North.

Promoting anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist scientific objectives, and privileging partnership with Global South committed to the same objectives: all of this implied on the part of CODESRIA fairly broad independence from an intellectual, political, financial and diplomatic point of view.

The President of the Republic of Senegal vouched for this independence of CODESRIA. This is the meaning of the headquarters agreement that the State of Senegal signed with CODESRIA. This agreement confers on the Pan-African institution a diplomatic status, with all the immunities and facilities attached to this status in terms of traffic, customs, and taxes.

Since its creation, the question of the financial independence of CODESRIA has been constantly raised, since internal resources are extremely limited since they come mainly from the sale of the publications produced. Most of its funding comes from donations and grants that CODESRIA receives from international donors such as DANIDA (Danish International Development Agency), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, FINNIDA (Finnish International Development Agency), Ministry of Foreign Affairs from Finland, the Ford Foundation (United States of America), the African Capacity Building Foundation, NORAD (Norwegian Agency for International Development), Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs), SIDA / SAREC (Swedish International Development Agency / Department for Research Cooperation).

There is another category of donors who periodically collaborate on CODESRIA programs. Examples include the Carnegie Corporation, the International Development Research Center (IDRC), the Rockefeller Foundation, the McArthur Foundation, the Prince Claus Foundation, the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), etc.

The list above allows some basic remarks:

1. Apart from the Republic of Senegal, no African State participates in the financing of CODESRIA, although this Pan-African body actively contributes to the training and financial support of African researchers, research centers, and universities.

2. No major Southern Hemisphere State is among the donors of CODESRIA.

3. The major donors are almost all from the North.

It is, therefore, reasonable to wonder about the financial independence of CODESRIA and, consequently, about the room for maneuver of its leaders and the researchers involved in its programs, particularly in terms of thematic, theoretical and methodological choices. The fear often expressed is that the “generosity” of international donors influences the intellectual agenda of CODESRIA.

African think tanks carry a congenital tare, that of being, more or fewer emanations or excrescences of Western think tanks, North America in particular.

In a document titled “Note on the Creation of CODESRIA,” Samir Amin, for example, tells how the Rockefeller Foundation took the initiative in creating the body that would later become CODESRIA.

In 1964, the American foundation had invited some directors of research institutes in sub-Saharan Africa to Italy. Following the decolonization of the continent, the Western powers feared to lose their influence in the direction of research activities. In their opinion, the research institutes present in Africa had to align themselves with the objectives of international cooperation.

Samir Amin claims to have engaged in this debate to defeat these plans. Nevertheless, he pointed out that it was the Rockefeller Foundation and the OECD that had imagined the acronym of the institution, CODESRIA, then understood as “Conference of Directors of Institutes.”

The struggle led by Samir Amin, and some of his friends was to limit as much as possible the influence of the dominant thinking of “international cooperation.” Subtle, the “coup d’Etat” operated for this purpose consisted of preserving the acronym of the new institution, as Rockefeller had thought while diverting the words in favor of the different objectives. Thus, rather than “Conference of Directors,” CODESRIA was renamed “Council for the Development of Social Sciences Research in Africa.” It is in these conditions that the new think thank started its activities, with the funds allocated by the Swedish International Development Agency / Department for Research Cooperation (SIDA / SAREC).

Despite this external support, the Pan-African institution managed to maintain, for several decades, certain intellectual independence, thanks to the powerful personality of Samir Amin and the support of the Senegalese government.

In his note, however, Samir Amin emphasizes that “CODESRIA is facing a difficult new conjuncture, Africa being the designated victim of the momentary triumph of the new imperialist globalization. He recalls how African universities had been devastated before being subjected to the demands of international donors.

4 A North-American intellectual agenda

The point raised here by Samir Amin is crucial. Indeed, taking advantage of the weakening and / or dismantling of African states under structural adjustment programs, donors and institutions of research and higher education in North America and Europe of the in the West, allocated large grants to African and Africanist researchers, which enabled them to conduct research, teaching and cultural research oriented towards the theoretical and ideological legitimization of neoliberal policies driven by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, etc. This enterprise ended in Africa with a complete reorientation of research and teaching programs.

At the CODESRIA level, for example, it was at this time that an intellectual, scientific and “cultural” agenda of the North American type prevailed, in particular, under the then Executive Secretary’s mandate.

Such an intellectual agenda involved the introduction of methodological and theoretical approaches of postmodern / postcolonial inspiration. The aim was to put an end to the theories and doctrines of emancipation. Indeed, a few decades earlier, these last doctrines had theoretically and ideologically supported the national liberation struggles and the anti-imperialist struggle in Africa and Asia.

It was at this time that “postcolonial theory” emerged, known for its visceral anti-Marxism and its fierce criticism of nationalism and Pan-Africanism. Post-colonialism advocates breaking with the ideologies of independence and national sovereignty.

At the global level, and in the name of globalization, postcolonial doctrines ignore the question of the “negative unity” of the current world dominated by imperialism. From this point of view, they elude the fundamental question of historical antagonism between an oppressive North and an oppressed South. On the contrary, postcolonial doctrines require the immediate and unconditional insertion of Africa and Asia into the postmodern Empire, dominated by the US superpower and NATO.

The ideological hegemony of hermeneutics, poststructuralism and pragmatism (with the vogue of thinkers like Nietzsche, Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Michel Maffesoli, etc.), means the end of the intelligibility of our world (that is, the understanding of the mechanisms of oppression and capitalist exploitation), the end of the contradiction (between the North and the South, the rich and the poor, the exploiters and the exploited) and the rejection of the socialist ideal.

Because the postmodern philosophical and ideological matrix served to mold it, the generation of intellectuals and African researchers of the 1980s-2000 develops a “theoretical” discourse oriented either towards the praise of the dependency or towards a tightening of the links with West. It is this intelligentsia fascinated by the mirages of the Empire that serves as docile relays for Western propaganda on the alleged looting of Africa by China.

Clichés of this nature undeniably testify to a clear ideological bias. At the same time, they alert us to the efforts still to be made in the field of knowledge production and the dissemination of reliable information on the reality and the real issues of the Sino-African partnership. Think tanks have a crucial role to play.

With regard to Africa, the crucial problem remains: the main think tanks operating on the African terrain remain prisoners of old mental frameworks and theoretical schemes of Western and liberal inspiration. The truth is that, consciously or unconsciously, these think tanks merely sounding boards for their international donors, especially on the issues of “democracy”, “human rights”, “freedom of expression”, “good governance”, “political alternation”, “gender”, minority rights (religious, cultural, sexual linguistics), all of which being the favorite themes of these think tanks. In recent years, new imperatives have emerged. They relate to “decentralization,” “federalism” and even “separatism.”

5 The Belt and Road Initiative and the new challenges of African think tanks

For decades, the main think tanks specializing in the field of social sciences remain captive of these themes. They settled in a comfortable thematic routine, under pressure from international donors. The phenomenal scale of the Belt and Road Initiative and the economic, political and cultural changes that this initiative entails, have not yet been enough to get African think tanks out of this sclerosing and alienating routine. The alienation comes from the fact that instead of creating original themes, African think tanks are content to implement, without great originality, the agendas of donors.

The Belt and Road Initiative is launching new challenges in technical, infrastructural, economic, cultural, environmental, legal, anthropological, sociological, philosophical terms. Universities and research institutes throughout the world are beginning to seize the many opportunities offered by this global project.

For example, the British University of Oxford has set up a the Belt and Road Initiative, with several sub-programs: “Constitutional Foundation and Judicial Collaboration,” “Consumers Rights Beyond Boundaries” and “Digital Economy and Society,” Arts and Cultural Heritage, Finance, Trade and Entrepreneurs, Justice and Dispute Resolution.

The Faculty of Law, at the origin of this program, justifies its approach: “The implementation of OBOR requires a legal and constitutional structure that is suited to the complex and a-precedented issues that arise in such a cross-border and international understanding.”

In the same way, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University opened at the Faculty of Business, a whole scientific structure called “Belt and Road Center.”

Original initiatives of this kind are beginning to multiply around the world and can inspire Africa.

The dismantling of the former western area of influence constitutes a major political, geostrategic, economic and cultural upheaval, through the integration policy - by roads, railways, ports, airports, etc. This is an essential aspect of the current geostrategic order.

In geopolitics, the notion of “area of influence” refers to an area or region over which western countries exert a great deal of economic, military, political or cultural influence. Thus, the United States considers Latin America as its natural backyard: their intervention in this region is therefore presented as a legitimate right, to the exclusion of any other power on the planet. In the same way, France insists on jealously guarding its French-speaking “pre-square” of Africa, acquired during the colonial era against Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands, and Portugal in particular. This is called “Françafrique.” The same is true of Belgium, which intends to assert its “natural rights” over the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. Let’s not forget Spain with Equatorial Guinea.

But by the economic, political and cultural unification of the world, by the affirmation that all the peoples of the world are equal and that every nation has the right to defend its sovereignty while trading and freely entering into friendly relations with all nations of the Earth, the Belt and Road Initiative shatters the claims of Western geopolitics. In the Middle East region, for example, there is a parallel project, but complementary to the New Silk Roads project; this project aims to connect Iran, Iraq, and Syria, the aim being to deepen the relations between these sovereign countries, in order to overcome the divisions imposed on them by the Western powers.

For decades, Western powers have been busy provoking conflicts and civil wars, fueling terrorism, directing armed aggression (as in Iraq and Libya) or endless proxy wars as in Syria. In concrete terms, the idea is to connect the railway systems of these countries to a single network. Of course, China supports this project of unifying and pacifying peoples.

In East, Central, and West Africa, the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative are just as clear. Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria play a key role in this process. These three countries occupy an important transregional position in the link between East and Central Africa (for Congo) and between Central and West Africa (for Cameroon and Nigeria).

It is notorious that the role of these countries is decisive in the plans of the Belt and Road Initiative, especially with the project of a Sudan-Chad-Cameroon railway, without forgetting the Port of Kribi, in Cameroon, built with China’s help. Through all these projects, the Belt and Road Initiative is dissolving the old areas of influence, including Françafrique, while contributing to the unification of the continent. The impact of projects carried by the New Silk Roads is important.

In recent times, US researcher Andrew Korybko has revealed that the hybrid war (Proxy war) launched against Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria is aimed primarily at disrupting the transcontinental Silk Road initiated by China (Sudan-Chad-Cameroon) and all related projects, road, rail, airport, etc.

Apart from this point whose issues are important in term of security (management of terrorist groups and separatist movements), diplomacy (the revision of partnership agreements with former colonial masters), geo-strategy (the opening of states to new alliances and to new partnerships), new challenges appear, linked to the economy (the transition from the trading economy to an industrial economy), to demography (the management of migrant flows), to law (adaptation of legislation on protection of persons and property, crime, taxation, etc.), sociology (the integration of migrants in host countries), philosophy and culture (the management of the consequences of the flow of ideas, the meeting of beliefs and customs, the mixing of cultures, the exposure to new languages, etc.

The task ahead of Africans (still to be created) and Chinese think tanks are enormous. From now on, we must tackle it.