Complicating China’s Soft Power: Maria Repnikova on China’s Image-Making Efforts in Ethiopia

Understanding China has become more difficult than ever, yet also more important than ever. Hardening geopolitics has made travel to China more difficult, but not impossible. Join me, Scott Kennedy, for an on the ground look at China, for conversations with people shaping China and scholars exploring the country firsthand. What makes China tick? Where is the country going? How should the US respond to the China challenge? We'll dive into all this and much more on this podcast. Welcome to China Field Notes. China has become a global power. Its economy is number one or number two depending on how you count. China's tech prowess is there for all to see. electric vehicles, batteries, solar, deepsek, drones. Although China is protectionist in many ways in terms of trade and controlling its domestic information space, the country is also outward facing. China is exporting its products and services around the world, investing in a wide range of industries, and Chinese are traveling everywhere and living in countries across the globe. Now, some are worried that this is an exploitative relationship. China obtains raw materials in markets and pushes everyone to be pro-China or pro- athoritarian. And these countries get nothing in return and are defenseless against Chinese power both hard and soft. What's actually happening in China's engagement with the world, particularly in the global south, which is supposedly most vulnerable to China. Is China selling its model? And are people in the global south buying? How's the US and West fist into the picture? Have they basically lost the global south to China? There may be no better person on the planet to discuss these issues with than Maria Repnikovo. She's an associate professor in global communication and the William C. Pate Chair in Strategic Communication at Georgia State University. She's also been a fellow at the Woodro Wilson Center for International Scholars. May it rest in peace. and she's currently visiting at the Australian National University in Canberra which is where she is speaking to us from today. She received her doctorate in politics at Oxford where she was a roads scholar. Maria studies media relations in China including political persuasion and critical journalism, Chinese soft power and public diplomacy especially in the African context. China, Russia relations and comparisons. And she has just published a terrific book, dare I say a must- readad, competing for soft power, China's image making in Africa, which is published by Cambridge University Press. Maria, welcome to China Field Notes. >> Thank you so much for having me, Scott. It's a pleasure to be in conversation with you. >> I am really so excited to have this chance to talk to you. I've been following your work for a long time about understanding China's communication system, propaganda, media, and how it operates there. And now you've gone on the road to understand how China is trying to affect the discussion about China elsewhere and which is something that everyone is really interested, but we don't know a lot about. So before we talk about your book, Competing for Soft Power, which we'll dig into, I know you're in Camber at the moment as I said, but you live in Atlanta, Georgia. That's not your hometown as I understand it though. So tell us a little bit more about you, Maria, where you're from, how you ended up in Atlanta. >> Okay, it's a bit of a long journey, but I can try to summarize it briefly. So I was born in Latvia in Ria and I moved to Vermont as a teenager with my family and that was quite a transition. I come from a Russian speaking Jewish, you know, cultural background and I grew up partially in Vermont and then I ended up going to do my undergrad in Washington DC which I love. I always see it as one of my hometowns. I studied at the school of foreign service in Georgetown and initially was uh inspired to pursue a career in diplomacy but then somehow ended up shifting towards a track in research. I got very excited about research and I spent a year as a fullb bread fellow on the China Russia border right after my undergrad which was a very strange place to be in Harbin but also traveling to small towns and outposts you know speaking of movement of people at that time already Chinese people were moving you know to all kinds of locations including Russian far east very uninhabitable seemingly but yet they were coming there for all kinds of work so I was tracking these people and following them and interviewing them in Russia as well and that was my first foray into field work was in part challenging sometimes a a little dangerous but also very exciting and inspiring. So from there I went on to Oxford and I studied uh with Vivian Shu there focusing on domestic Chinese politics. Initially was going to pursue more of an IR direction but Vivian told me very clearly that if it's international relations I will not advise you. So she was you know very tough advised supervisor who stopped me in a hallway and just told me that it's either me or IR. So I wasn't quite sure as a young person what what exactly I want to do. uh but I figured out my path you know as I went and I continued with this fieldwork oriented journey you know starting with the focus on Chinese journalism education then focusing on media politics journalists themselves and propaganda as you mentioned and then shifting towards global China and stepping into this very new territory for me especially in the context of Africa which is a whole other place Ethiopia in particular very complex place to learn about so it's been a really fascinating journey and yes I've been in Atlanta for a while I've been based there for 9 years or so but I've traveled quite often and it's been a wonderful base for that. >> Yeah, that's awesome story. I do think whenever I hear about you, you are not in Atlanta, you are someplace else. But that is the life of a scholar and someone trying to understand communications. So for all of us who work on China, you know, you have to read Chinese media, People's Daily, China Daily, Shin Hua, but there's all this new kind of Chinese media, Sai, other sort of commercially oriented. And then you've got sort of social media that has exploded. How did you get interested in looking at communication in China? >> So my initial interest was in ideology of kind of propaganda in the context of how journalists are educated. That was my master's thesis at Oxford. I was trying to understand how you know those professionals going into this career are getting socialized into this work. So I was looking at materials you know how they're being taught. I interviewed journalism students uh faculty and trying to understand the curriculara you know how is this kind of educational process working finding a very contradictory picture at the time there were textbooks assigned that were both focusing on the media's role as the party's mouthpiece but also very western conception of media as you know helping society or journalistic ethics you know a lot of this work was actually assigned in those universities was coming from the west so there was a really mixed picture of this party materials and western materials which I think at this point has changed more towards the party materials but there was a really fascinating kind of angle because I got to meet investigative reporters who were guest speakers in these various universities and at that time this was still a career that was somewhat inspiring to students. So I started to become curious about what's possible in Chinese media system that's quite constrained but yet as you said very dynamic. So what is feasible to do that's alternative or somewhat critical. I call it critical because it's hard to find kind of the right word to capture these various alternative formations. you know, they talk about corruption or environmental degradation, all kinds of topics that are sensitive and really important for Chinese society, but they might not sound as political to us in the west because we often think about political as directly critiquing government or the party, which happens very rarely as you know in China. So, so I was intrigued by these people, why they're doing their work, how are they doing it, what are the techniques they're using to bypass restrictions, what are their aspirations, and then how does the party actually see them? Does the party care about internal criticism from these journalists or their reporting? Does it matter? Does it make a difference? That's how I got interested in this topic. >> I think that's really fascinating. I also meet lots of Chinese reporters and I do think that even those who are quite serious about the profession, I wouldn't call them dissident. I would call them people who want to do what journalists do, but in a very complex environment and negotiate that space to try and bring information and analysis to the wider public, not an easy task. So to do that when you were studying journalism and how journalists became trained and how they reacted to that you had to do field work in China you mentioned that what was that experience like for you in China especially since you're investigating something that's sensitive >> the experience you know it was really fascinating because a lot of these people were inspiring to me in a sense that they were like very savvy and curious but also very ambitious about making change you know they really pursued this vision of China that you know it's a country they really care about. They want to improve it and so they had really kind of committed their destiny almost to writing on these issues to make it better. So there was this almost like a I don't know not ideological commitment but there was something that they really believed in which I thought it was you know the passion really was interesting to learn about but the experience itself as is in any fieldwork project you start to find certain networks of people and individuals who are courageous enough I guess to introduce you to other people in this context because they take certain risks to take you under their wing or to bring you to certain places. At the time when I was starting this field work, I met some professors, educators who were also kind of semi-activists, semi involved in this journalistic space. They would set up big conferences that would train journalists and media ethics and expose them to all kinds of discussions. And those professors are very well connected. One of them, he no longer teaches. He started to call his friends and say, "Hey, you know, Maria's here and she's okay. She's safe. She's not what you think. She's all right. She's just a graduate student. You can talk to her." I remember just like hearing that conversation as I was sitting next to him at a restaurant as he was trying to explain um someone they can actually meet with and that was extremely generous of him to be able to make those introductions. Some of these introductions were made through those university connections that I initially started making as a master student. And so one by one I started to collect this kind of network of people that were mostly working for commercialized as you mentioned those media that are not quite as fully party stateowned and that have more diverse visions about the media that are quite professionalized. Many of them are trained in the west and through various trips and continuous introductions I got to speak to quite a lot of them. I think that first book there were over 100 interviews and also speak to some officials who were in charge of regulating the media from different departments. So how they thought about the media what their perspective was you know how do they perceive this journalists and then I focused on some crisis events and how that was reported by this professionals and spoke to them about the reporting as well. So it was a really rich data gathering. I don't know if it's feasible to do today for different reasons, but it was at the time was actually possible and the fieldwork involved many in-depth conversations. Sometimes they would last multiple hours. It could be like 45 minutes or 3 hours depending on this person's time and disposition. And some of the moments were also uncomfortable like some of these conferences on media ethics and so forth. I remember showing up at one of them in southern China and just getting kicked out. You know, there were there were security people patrolling that space. It was me and another friend who were both non-Chinese looking obviously and they just kind of told us to leave. So despite going all the way there I think I flew all the way from Oxford to this particular event just to observe it. I was just sitting in a hallway. So you know it was really frustrating to sit there and watch everybody go by and you think my gosh there are all these conversations taking place like this is so exciting and I'm sitting in a hallway. So you know at first I was very frustrated but then you get to talk to people who are passing you. Sometimes they were curious about you too. Then you get to speak to them outside of the conference. So there all kinds of flexible ways to bypass frustration, find meaningful conversations even if things are restricted. It was a really interesting time. >> That's so cool. Yeah. Trying to figure that out. And I guess a big lesson is networking first. Having people who are mentors or others with connections introducing you, working through the official Chinese system probably is not going to yield that kind of network and information that will really help you understand the true story. So it sounds like negotiating that process that's something that all of us who do field work whether it's on journalism or business have to figure out. So your new book competing for soft power you do field work in China as well but you spend most of the time in Africa and in Ethiopia. And for many of us who work on China we know about China in the world broadly maybe some of us have traveled to Southeast Asia or other places but we don't get to the global south. So why Ethiopia? Why did you choose Ethiopia as the place to focus on as opposed to another country or say looking at one issue of communication across multiple countries? >> Yeah, thank you for that question. My project has evolved from different directions. At first I was going to focus on China model and how it gets appropriated by different autocratic regimes. So I was going to focus on several countries including Russia, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan. and I was going to spread out to different regions and then I went to Russia way before the invasion so a couple of years prior and I found that I don't know if you've traveled much to Russia or had experience they were just not very forthcoming about learning anything from China so my conversations would just end very quickly they were like no China we came up with everything ourselves there's nothing to talk about here so I found the space for that kind of research to be not very enriching so I was like well okay I'm going to go to my next case Ethiopia that's going to be where I'll you know try things next and it turned out to be that China's presence is absolutely visceral you know everywhere from the physical space itself, whether street signs or unfinished buildings or Chinese migrants wandering around the streets, the microchin town, Adisaba, the airport you exit from, it just felt like the physicality of China was just incredible. And then, you know, starting to speak to officials, journalists, I learned that China's influence is just very, very strong at every level. So, when it comes to so-called image making or soft power, Ethiopia provides a really interesting case to see the full scope of what's possible as well as limitations. Because if in this case China is limited then it's going to be probably limited almost every case because Ethiopia really is the closest one of the closest partners for China in Africa even yesterday at the conference here at a A&U while the Chinese participants said it's one of our core models you know it's kind of one of this core partners that we really treat with such such regard and importance because if it works there we can kind of say that hey we can apply the same principles or practices elsewhere and Ethiopia received tons of BRRI projects you know it's been kind of a symbol of belt and road initiative and it's home to the African So it's also a diplomatic hub for influencing the rest of the continent. So for these reasons, I chose to stick to Ethiopia and to go deeper into that case to understand various mechanisms of China's influence in this diplomatic space as well as how they're being responded to on the ground. So it's a case that's in some ways a little bit exceptional, but in other ways I think it teaches us a lot of what's possible for China, but also what are the frictions that are likely to be present across many many cases in the global south. >> That's a great point. So I guess what you're saying is if China doesn't have the ability to fully effectively shape its image in Ethiopia, it's going to have a harder time everywhere else. So this is kind of like a critical case where it should be the most effective in Ethiopia. We'll get to the response of Ethiopians to Chinese efforts, but first maybe next is just to say, how do you conceive of and how do the Chinese try to improve their image in Africa? What are the ways that they go about doing so? >> Yeah. So, in this book, I take a bit of a different approach from the way that this topic has been studied in international relations or in communication studies or in policy debates. You know, we often think about Chinese soft power or sharp power. You know these are two kind of very loaded concepts and ideas. One is somewhat positive and one is quite negative. So and I think both of them have a bit of an ideological underpinninging as well. So in this case I started from the ground up to map out what they're doing diplomatically looking at Confucious institutes elite trainings media diplomacy some infrastructure diplomacy as well relationship building and trying to conceptualize what are the core tactics you know what are the mechanisms here that are at play. So I I break it down into three core strategies that became apparent to me over my fieldwork time. And one is tangible enticement which basically means attracting participants especially leads through all kinds of material benefits. Not surprising given that Chinese vision even of soft power from my previous work in the element book that I've written a few years ago is really arguing that the material part is just the underbelly kind of Chinese soft power. They always talk about combining material and cultural. So in this case what does it look like? means offering free trips to China, access to lowcost education, right? The Confucious Institutes are nearly free for students and faculty at universities, offering all kinds of infrastructure benefits for media outlets, you know, free equipment, a new building, uh, as well as media agreements like the again the harder side of this. It's not all about narratives. It's also about signing agreements, allowing these outlets to use Chinese content for free. There's all sorts of techniques to kind of entice these individuals and entities to participate in the Chinese orbit in its diplomacy by making it somehow exciting on a practical term, sustainable, it's real, it's applicable to their interests, it's appealing to them. And I'll talk about how it really resonates with the reception on the ground. And then the second pillar is more ideological, but I quote ideational because I don't think there is a very coherent ideology that China is exporting or trying to promote through its so-called diplomatic power, soft power. But there are definitely ideals and values and principles that are also being streamlined through all kinds of channels whether it's media or trainings or just interpersonal communication. We see that there are certain ideals that being communicated over and over visav African and global south audiences. So in this case I look at elite trainings in particular and try to understand what they're being taught as part of this trips to China, what they're not being taught, how are they being administered and what are people learning about China and what it stands for domestically and internationally. So that's the second key pillar. And the third one which is a little bit surprising but I included it nonetheless. I call it sensorial power but it's really about China guarding its image. It's not just promotion but it's also control containment. And for all of us who study domestic China, Chinese politics, it's clear that you know any form of promotion whether it's propaganda or material promotion often comes with some degree of containment some degree of censorship or guarding what's allowed to be talked about. So here I talk about how silence and various means of information flooding are also characterizing China's image building. So it's not just about saying something, but it's about how something is said, who gets to tell the China story on the ground. And that's a fairly contentious issue, but it's very subtle. So it's not so much again complete kind of out of coercion. It's about subtle ways to contain the storytelling. I think it really applies to many contexts because I found examples of this everywhere and not only in Ethiopia. So those are the three things, tangible enticement, ideological, ideational power, and sensorial power. And they work of course together interchangeably across the space. >> Super. Okay, we're building up to the climax to let us understand how this stuff works. But before we talk about how the African and Ethiopian reactions to these three strategies, I got two little questions. The first is about doing fieldwork in Africa and in Ethiopia and Ethiopia is also authoritarian. It also tries to manage its media. So is it just the same as doing field work in China? I guess some elements are similar in terms of secrecy and I I was quite prepared for doing field work in some ways in another authoritarian system after being in China for so long. But in some ways it was a little bit easier. I think Ethiopian political system didn't strike me as being as institutionalized or as controlled as let's say the Chinese system for instance I was able to walk into some of these ministries and just sitting in a waiting room and after you know my name is called sometimes those officials would actually talk to me which is really I think it's impossible to imagine in China sitting in some waiting room right and then being called out to actually meet this person and so I was very distressful of the strategy and but my research assistant had several Ethiopian um you know graduate students working with me he said that's actually it can work you know, we have to go and take a seat and put our name down and then we'll see what happens. And I was a little bit frustrated with him. I said, there's no way. I'm like, this is impossible. But then in some cases actually it worked. I was like, this is incredible. I mean, some of it speaks to positionality, you know, coming from the west, maybe being seen as somehow maybe worth talking to or something like this. So, I think I had some privilege for sure in this context. But at the same time, I was just struck by yeah, the relative degree of openness. You know, authoritarian systems are so different and this system was softer and when I started doing my field work, it was also starting to open up more. It was shifting a little bit towards a more democratic model under Prime Minister Abi Ahmed. But of course things have changed since he took powers. But at the beginning there was a sliver of openness. So it was easier to speak to journalists and officials and there was a bit of you know hopeful attitude towards the future. My last trip to Ethiopia in 2023 the hopefulness has faded but the access was still feasible. So a lot of it was also similar to China. You start meeting people from various networks. It takes a long time to build them. For my first visit I had maybe 10 or 12 contacts from different places. people in the US, some of them were Ethiopians, some were state department officials, you know, all kinds of different individuals. Some were Chinese journalists and then I started with that, you know, list of 12 people and went from there starting to build up my network. I was also a visiting fellow at the university there at Adisaba University in the political science department. It was really important to have the affiliation and their support and they made introductions as well and then the research assistance part because they speak multiple languages there even though most people at that official level can speak fluent English. Sometimes they will speak a local language. I tried learning Amaric speaking of fieldwork. I was trying to learn the local language. It was extremely difficult. I could not get to the level I had with Chinese. It was a little bit sad. But I had those assistants, you know, helping me to translate for, you know, in some of these context and conversations. >> Well, I know you speak multiple languages. So, if you were having difficulty, no one else would have much hope. >> It was very hard. >> Unless you were there for a lot long. >> Yeah. You have to be there for longer. That's right. >> Your book is about how China is trying to shape views in Ethiopia and Africa and the rest of the world about China. But I'm also curious about how Chinese view Africans and Ethiopians maybe just from the Chinese that you met in Africa. You hear a lot about Chinese racism when you're in China about people from Africa and other parts of the world. Do Chinese who go to Africa carry those kind of stereotypes and views with them or did you find a more diverse impressions from Chinese about Africa? You know, it's a very dynamic sort of mosaic of people who go to these countries. It ranges from entrepreneurs and all kinds of really fascinating characters just somehow choose to go there and start a business to diplomats and journalists, you know, more kind of people who are part of the state apparatus to company workers and officials and managers who live in very isolated compounds to confusious institutes employees who are also quite isolated who live on university campuses but in very specific locations. So it's a real range of groups. They don't always overlap with each other that much. So the perceptions of Africans also really vary. I mean some of these educators for instance the computers institutes again a huge range of opinions. But many of them were quite passionate about being there and I think they had a really positive experience and they were curious about the local culture, cuisine and so forth. You know I didn't sense this racialized sort of attitude towards local students or faculty. I think on the opposite they tried to engage. They found it difficult sometimes but they you know they did their best not but some of these individuals I think really found themselves immersed as much as they could but then you have all kinds of local you know workers who might never have a chance to interact with anybody and they might have a very different attitude towards local people and then you have tensions within companies. I also did a little bit of field work on brokers or translators and how they navigate relationships between Ethiopian government and Chinese companies. For instance, these are local translators. But I sometimes I was part of these conversations and you would just tell that there's so many cultural differences. For instance, the Chinese manager would want the worker to work seven days a week translators like you have to be always at work. He's like I'm paying you. How could you not want to come to work? And this translator would say well I actually have to go to church on Sunday. And there was one moment there was some kind of a funny joke where this manager said you know I'm your church. I'm supplying you with resources. Like who do you think you are? you know, and he was being kind of like he was funny. He wasn't I don't think he was trying to be rude or something, but it came off as inconsiderate because in Ethiopia like most people are quite religious. So, Sunday church is a must. You know, you know, you can't skip that. This is something they actually really care about. But for Chinese manager, it's like, well, we're here to work. Like, come on. I'm giving you extra money. Why wouldn't you show up? So, there was this, you know, tension in terms of pragmatic versus maybe spiritual orientations, not just for work, but about one's life. Like, what matters? So, that was really fascinating. I wouldn't call it racialized per se, but it was just tense. But then it's also important to note that Chinese workers and residents also feel like they're being racialized by local residents, citizens, police, for instance, some of these entrepreneurs. I would travel with them in a car, Chinese entrepreneurs, and they would be stopped by police all the time. And they would tell me, "Hey, look, like I'm stopped third time today." And sometimes they're being fined for having a box in their car. You know, it's ridiculous. Like you have something you're carrying, which makes no sense. It's it doesn't bother anybody on the road. But they would get a ticket. So they felt that they're being specifically targeted because they're seen as wealthy and they're disliked. So they're there to basically make money off. So some kind of references you would hear on the street is like China, China, you know, come here. Bye bye bye. You know, there's a lot of like very monetary attitudes towards China that they also found offensive. They're like, I'm not just a money bank. I'm actually a human being. I'm here to build a life. So that was also intriguing to watch that on both sides there were these stereotypes. On the Ethiopian side also often when they see Chinese workers, they think that they're prisoners. They were exported from Chinese prisons to basically work there by force because they all stick together. They have very strict schedules. Sometimes they even wear similar clothing. They appear as if they're part of a prison. But of course, you know, empirically we have no proof of that. And but that's a stereotype that's being widely, you know, believed across different social level sectors. So that was also, you know, fascinating and a little troubling. >> That's really valuable insights that it's the impressions are complex in both directions. We're dealing with not just cultural norms, but individual human beings that are reacting to the experiences that they're going through. That's really valuable. You wouldn't know that unless you were on the ground observing and seeing it. Okay. So, let's get to the key thing which is about how effective or ineffective these three strategies that you identified. Tangible enticements, ideational power, defensive image making or sensorial power. Do these work? >> Yes. So in the book I say that this picture is quite uneven. So I call it kind of disjointed image making project for two reasons. One is that within you know the on the implementation side there's a lot of improvisation and a lot of these practitioners on the Chinese side that tend to misdirect kind of official agendas. You know they're not always as committed to their work as they might appear to be and I can give some examples of that. But there's a lot of ad hocness when it comes to Chinese image making. It's not all coherent and organized and monolithic. So in some ways the weakness comes from the Chinese side. bureaucratic weaknesses, motivations and so forth are not always aligned with the top down agendas. But then on the reception side, it's also as we talked about this different perceptions on the ground. It's not just resistance towards China or liking or favoring China. It's mostly kind of an effort to appropriate Chinese power and again kind of directed to their advantage. So does it work? I think it works partially to engage these elites are mostly focused on elites to understand China to consume its various tangible offerings to travel to China and so forth to to be complicit when it comes to censorship. But also there's a lot of push back and negotiation and in some cases also resistance. So in terms of push back for instance or negotiation this tangible approach you know with this tangible enticement piece makes for very transactional relationships. So in Ethiopian side they always ask for more they expect more right. So when you start giving these different trips or confucious institutes programs and so forth they always ask for better deals. So you know one of these Ethiopian deans I interviewed when he first set up a confusious institute in Isaba he asked for a whole building to be constructed as part of this deal where they could house a local library and you know other classes and he didn't get this deal but he never regretted asking he said we always try to squeeze the most out of them. So this idea, you know, it's like we just try to ask for more, squeeze more. It doesn't mean it's not working, but also means it creates a certain transactional approach towards China, which I think puts a lot of pressure on China as well to continue providing these benefits. And we're seeing this also with the larger BarR project shrinking because it's hard to keep up with these expectations. And then the second piece, the the ideational part here, we also see this mixed response. On the one hand, there's softening of perceptions via the Chinese political system. So as part of going on the strips and going through these trainings, a lot of participants say Chinese democracy might work for Chinese people or Chinese political system is more open than we anticipated. So they see and appreciate domestic changes in China and of course the technofuturism of China being able to witness it progress but they also find that they don't buy into this notion that China is a benevolent partner to visav Africa that it's a win-win. They see China still as a fairly exploitative powerful actor in the region. So that part is getting resisted that narrative rather and then when it comes to censorship in publicly all these officials comply and they co-create all kinds of ceremonies and spectacles for Chinese embassy or Chinese companies but then privately they express a lot of resentment um towards China as well you know a lot of resentment about debt about power about their lack of agency and so forth so it's a very mixed picture so I would say it's working only partially it's working when it comes to engaging elites it's working when it comes to shifting their perception somewhat towards accepting China right? Maybe not necessarily building a deep affinity but accepting some of its ideals and values and it's working in terms of creating complicity right this co-ensoring and complying with China's norms when it comes to information norms is working but then when it comes to building deeper ties especially emotional ties attraction deeper affinity towards China I think that part is not working so that's a very different picture depends what success really looks like and I think that's a big question what is success what does it mean for it to work so I think there's definitely partial success partial gain but also the picture is far from complete there's a lot of friction and long ways to go when it comes to building a deeper image and affinity on the ground. >> So as you write in the book and those of us who work on China, Joe Nai is the original book about soft power which you explain why you need to adjust how you think about communication between China and the rest of the world because that concept may not be fit perfectly. But if we go back to the idea of acceptance or admiration as one goal of this, China may want to persuade others to side with it on different positions or accept its model or see its presence as sort of a natural normal thing. Chinese companies are now producing and exporting EVs, television shows, movies. How are Africans reacting to China's economic progress demonstrated through these kinds of things? Is that generating any kind of admiration beyond the sort of transactional view of things? >> Yeah, it's a good question. I think it's a little bit more complicated than just kind of admiration. I think there is some degree of appreciation. I would say that these products especially are being provided. They're available and they're definitely provided at much lower cost than any of these products coming from other countries. So China becomes the only option often times when consuming let's say this vehicles you mentioned or other types of technologies I think when it comes to technological power China is it right it's the number one it's the only choice but does it come with some kind of a deeper inspiration not necessarily I think a lot of the conversations focus groups that I've held in Ethiopia I found that there's also a degree of resentment it's like well why do we only have this one choice it's like this is only China and because they're exporting lower quality products to Africa to Ethiopia because that's what the market is kind of calling for a lot of these elites in particular, they find that they're getting the worst of what China is producing. So it's kind of like, you know, the West gets the good China stuff and Africa gets the really cheap stuff. And as much as they understand that that might be a circumstance of their economy, they're not happy about it. So they're not seeing it as like, oh, this so inspiring. They're seeing it as like, well, that's the best we can get, I guess, and it's not good quality. There's always a question of quality. And maybe that will change over time because China is producing at so many different levels and margins. And maybe that quality issue will go away. But it didn't go away while I was doing the field work. It was always part of the conversation. The quality piece affected everything whether it's education quality, capacity building quality, the materials, the television sets, everything was somehow deemed as lower quality coming from China still. Part of it could be just stereotypes. Again, we talked about racialization and stereotypical perceptions. But it was just fascinating also in talking about you know moving from kind of technology to human capacity building and professionalization just like going for graduate degrees or going for trainings. When I asked officials and students where would they prefer to go, China was always like a last choice. they would bring up so many other countries before China. It would be, you know, Western Europe and United States and Canada and so many different places. But China was not even mentioned sometimes. But when you asked them, would you go to China if it's free? Like if you get a scholarship, they said of course that's kind of the attitude that you see, I think, across different spaces. So I guess it's working to get people to consume China, but is it working to build a deeper affinity? I still think there's there's ways to go on that front in part because there's a lack of transparency as well, which I talk about when it comes to the sensorial power. there's lack of space to ask questions to have critical debates about China and in part because you know when you have this overloading of kind of Chinese materials and goods it feels almost like it's not something to aspire to it comes to you anyway you know the US if you want to go study there you have to like really try and work hard but China is just accessible so part of it is just because it's accessible it makes it kind of easier and it's less exciting so that could also be just a factor of that but still I think there's something about this picture that doesn't quite add up when it comes to a deeper emotional and attraction type connection to China >> so if we turn to sort of some of the larger implications of your work. I think I know the answer to this, but just to make sure that we put an exclamation on this. Does stronger Chinese soft power some effectiveness of its image making necessarily mean that there's greater support for authoritarianism in Africa and the global south or just for China? A lot of times this is in Washington seen as a zero sum contest where China is trying to push its model and the greater support there is for China, the greater the support for that kind of model. Is that is that your conclusion? >> The conclusion is not that there is greater support for China's authoritarianism. I actually push against this notion that this image making and China's efforts to build yeah it reputation and affinity translates into an export of an authoritarian model and that model is actually being embraced on the ground. In fact, I find that on the one hand there's very little that's coherent about the China model that gets so-called exported. I mean China promotes itself as a type of democracy in these various trainings and as a benevolent power visa the Africa but not really exporting or providing a model for how to become China or what authoritarian China really like should be like and how should it be exported to let's say Ethiopia I did not see that empirically through my field work but then also in terms of affinity which is probably a bigger point I found that there's still a very strong affinity for so-called the west right that's a very broad category I already mentioned that China is often not number one choice for education and so forth but just generally when we think about values ideals what is being aspired towards. You know, when you ask Ethiopian politicians, they're not going to bring up Chinese political system as being aspirational. They're still going to say, well, western style democracy is something we kind of hope to get to eventually. We agree that we're a flawed maybe system for now, but the ideal is not China. So, when it comes to getting towards a different evolution of their system, they're not looking at China as that goal, the aim. And they would often really cut that conversation even short. When I would ask them about the China model, they would say, "No, no, there's no China model. Import here. We learn from many other places." That's the other narrative is that we import or accept or study from so many different places including more kind of developmental type states whether it's Korea right or Japan or you know different types of systems and places that again are more democratic and China does not come to mind as the primary place to learn from when it comes to its political system maybe some governance mechanics right in some spaces like rural governance is really interesting to African officials but I don't think they studied it in a way that could be again importable but it's interesting to them they're excited about that particular facet but as a all I would argue that there is not enough evidence to argue that there's an empirical showing of China's export of an authoritarian model either in terms of their motivations and practices or reception on the ground. So that's something that I find as a big point coming out of this book. >> That's really amazing. For those of us who sit in Washington DC, that's not the kind of thing that we'd expect. So since I do work at a think tank in Washington DC and a lot of the folks listening are in the DC policy community but hopefully more broadly the lesson for the United States for policy makers I think I occasionally hear when I go around DC the global south is lost China's through the belt and road investments EVs not complaining about political systems in Africa and elsewhere they've won the US should basically turn its attention to other parts of of the world. Actually, it it doesn't sound like you agree with that, but it sounds like the US can't just simply sit on its hands that it should do something. So, I'm not suggesting you give advice or a how-to guide for American policy makers, but how should Washington and others in the West think about their potential of expanding their own soft power and image making in countries like Ethiopia? Yeah, I think you really came to the core point here when it comes to these perceptions in western policy circles and I was also recently in Germany speaking to different think tank experts and it was a very similar framing like you know global health is just gone there's nothing to do there should we even engage that was the question that was asked in some of these conversations because there any point in engagement it was really striking and I was asked that same question in many discussions in Washington and sometimes even in Australia they talk about their neighboring region into Pacific developing countries here global south like is there a point how should we compete should we compete I think Australia is actually more eager to compete maybe than other western countries. But still the book really shows that first of all this battle is by far not lost so to speak. It's a very contentious space still. China is still figuring out its so-called image making is still trying to sharpen its tools. The tools are not always working and the reception is very mixed. So that that's already shows you that there's quite a bit of room to continue engagement and the west is still desirable. So that means again that there is still that sense of aspiration towards the west which makes it more competitive. So I think that again shows you that's a second factor reason for continuous space for engagement. But then how should we engage you know what areas and in what ways? I think sometimes the mistake or at least what I'm seeing is that well there are several things. One is that this sitting here in Australia there's a lot of focus on competing in very material terms. It's like okay China is lending a lot of money. We should lend more right let's kind of out compete them. Let's give them more. But China is engaged in so many other subtle ways. I mean they're building relationships. They're offering all kinds of benefits trips um and all sorts of things that are not always just purely material. So I think some of it comes down to also what is your alternative value system you know why should people be aspiring still to quote the west right whether it's the US or Australia or Europe because China presents itself as a type of democracy too it says that they're the future they have the best technology they're working quite well so why should it be aspirational to quote again going back to models to come to the west to learn about our politics to still think that we have hope right as a democratic system I think that's really critical because it's not just all about money and competing in this purely material terms I think a lot of its O comes down to these areas like education and capacity building which are so successful. I think in US diplomacy you see these delegations coming to America through state department and other channels and I'm sure you meet so many of them in DC and they're really excited to be there like they want to learn and the conversations that are being held in the US are pretty open. I mean oftentimes self-deprecating and there all kinds of critical comments that come out about the US political system which you can't really get that in China because it is a lot more controlled. So there's a desire to come to the US, but it's very hard to get here. And I think it's similarly difficult to go to Europe these days for some of these experiences. And they're not that costly. I mean, China is investing so much money into these relationship building. The trainings are expanding from officials to journalists to influencers to students to youth summits. I mean, there's so many things they're doing just to bring people to China. And I think that's actually one of their success stories. But in Western countries, we're doing a lot less of that. We're cutting on these programs, on scholarships, on visiting, you know, fellowships, making it really difficult. So this aspiration, this kind of dream of the west might remain just a dream for many of these people. They might never get here and as a result they just end up going to China and then their world view their kind of you know they get conditioned in basically Chinacentric world. So I think that you know several again takeaways. One there's still room to compete. It's definitely not a perfect sort of conquering of global south. I don't think that's happening at all. And secondly there's still so much space in this kind of human capacity building domain of education. Um and thirdly I think money alone is not going to be the answer. And that's not feasible for Western democracies either. And finally, values. What are we actually offering? What's different? Why should people care about democracy in this day and age? >> Absolutely fascinating. I think in some ways you've ended on one of the more positive notes that I've had in my conversations with guests on China Field Notes recently. It's an absolutely fascinating book. A competing for soft power, China's image making in Africa. Maria, really thank you for being with us on China Field Notes today. >> Thank you for having me. It was a great conversation. >> Thanks for listening to China Fieldnotes. Stay up todate with our latest releases by following us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to great content. Until next time.