Miradie Tchekpo’s biggest dream has come true: she has worked as a interpreter working for a Chinese business company in her country Benin.
“At Middle School, I watched Chinese TV channels and dreamed of traveling to China and knowing the culture,” she told DW. “So I studied Chinese … and participated in courses up to three years to achieve a professional qualification in Chinese,” she connects with an infallible sense of pride in her voice.
After finishing school, Tchekpo enrolled in the government-run institute run by the government of Confucius Institute-China to promote its language and culture-at Azom-Kalvi University in-Kalvi University.
However, she hopes that one day she will be seen back on it because only the big dream will begin:
“I want to realize my dreams of international trade by bringing tropical products from Benin to China and products from China to Benin,” says Tchkepo.
“If possible, also for the whole of Africa.”
Soft power made in China
The expansion of the entire Africa seems to be a dream that it shares with the Chinese government: since 2004, when the Confucius Institute was found first for the first time, Beijing is investing heavily in expansion and export of its culture.
In Africa alone, there are Confucius institutions offering courses in 49 countries.
“One of the methods in which China is expanding soft power on the African continent, not only, but also through the spread of socio-cultural, Chinese language teaching,” is a social scientist and lecturer at Kimberly University in South Africa, Siendershe Guakrum.
Some real career possibilities
But the Annie of countless Confucius institutions has cavities associated with Mandarin learning, which are associated with the Ministry of Chinese Education.
Gunkuum says, while Beijing has given prizes to students in Africa with generous scholarship, there are hardly any job opportunities for the subject in China.
They believe that compared to many Africans, Chinese have better overall language skills, especially with their language and their leading business partners.
Maradi Tchkepo is an exception, even if his job is based in Africa; Chinese companies and government firms are mainly known in the continent for hiring their own workers, which is invested in Beijing for most of the infrastructure projects – such as ports, roads or airports.
Gukurum says that after really graduation, many alumni become Mandarin’s teachers:
“Almost the entire faculty and employees of the Confucius Institute at the University of Zimbabwe are made up of local academics, who teach Mandarin and get some financial assistance for their studies in China.”
Language class mix with Mao, Hu and XI
According to Gukurum, this strength is a more frightening side for the difference: “China benefits from it, as most institutions and other cultural exchange activities are based on bilateral agreements. Access to African resources,” he emphasizes.
They argue that therefore, China’s cultural activities and its lithium and cobalt mining in Africa eventually have two sides of the same coin.
In fact, the Confucius Institute has repeatedly faced criticism, even an attempt to hide its aspirations to help the Chinese government to increase its economic and political influence in Africa:
Compared to the institutions of other countries to promote language and culture, China’s Confucius Institute stands for the fact that its local branches are often based on universities and other higher education establishments.
This has expressed some concerns about the direct impact of the Chinese Communist Party among the educational aristocracy.
“They interfere with academic freedom with universities and motivate students with Chinese politics system that can be seen as a powerist or undemocratic. [will] Adopt undemocratic principles, “Social scientists describe.
Gukurum believes that closure of many confusseal institutions in Europe and the United States is more evidence for an agenda that is built on China’s cultural and politics’s interaction – one that is clearly rejected by western democracy, while tolerated in some parts of the developed world.
China: No longer ‘sleeping huge’ in Africa
In fact, the number of Confucius institutions in Africa is increasing rapidly – and with it, therefore, with the soft power of China: with ten institutions, South Africa is now a major center for learning Mandarin on the African continent.
South African Private Language Schools, which used to use South Americans and Asians to draw with their affordable offerings for English classes, are now bringing variety in Mandarin, often educated in confusing institutions using their skills.
Many private schools in South Africa and even some public now provide Mandarin as a foreign language.
Even with a population of less than 2.4 million people, Lesotho’s landlocked Mountain Kingdom, which is fully covered by South Africa, has not one but two Confucian institutions.
At the same time, China is investing more in theater, museums, exhibitions, film industry and other media enterprises in Africa; The Asian nation, known for burning books during the cultural revolution of Mao Zedong, is even opening libraries in some parts of the continent.
A separate cultural revolution?
A 2023 study “institutional cultural presence of China in Africa”, researcher Everril Joff examined how separate actor sees the role of these growing cultural offerings from China – a vast nation, which was barely of many then independent government of Africa.
Joffe, who is head of the Department of Cultural Policy and Management at Wit School of Arts at the University of Witwattersrand in Johannesburg, says his studies suggest that China’s interests in Africa are beyond economic, political and security issues; She thinks that China’s desire to expand its soft power on the continent can also come at the cost of advancing local culture and material.
“To reduce the potential negative effects of this institutional cultural appearance,” Jofof requires more targeted recommendations, uniquely for governments, “to reduce the potential negative effects of this institutional cultural appearance, uniquely for governments,” Jofof told D.W.
She says an increase in the number of African students enrolled in Chinese universities – from 2,000 to more than 2,000 in 2003 to more than 81.500 in 2018 – so there is no surprise as a consent of China trying African culture, she says.
‘African agency’ for African needs and cultures
Jofof criticized the lacquer of boundaries and engagement rules under the influence of China in Africa, while accepting that “(W) E has no clarity about white China’s opposing-democratic ideology ideology in all thesis investments.”
“These corrective meesures are required to ensure that it does not,” he insisted, highlighting that African countries need to increase their own national funding and cultural scholarships to reduce China’s fines.
Jofof “angered to an integrated policy, which allows every African country to strengthen its bargain power and increase the positive impacts of China’s investment.”
“One way is to ensure that AU [African Union] And other regional bodies in their interactions around investment with China, in their interactions inserted the African agency. ,
Rodrigue Guseodje contributed reporting to this article.
Philip Sandner customized by German
Edited by: Sartar Sanderson