Maxwell Zeken is a 16-year-old Liberian who lives in rural Nimba County. Asked where he dreams of studying, he says: “I want to study engineering in China and come back to Liberia to build our roads and our cities. They say you must visit the Great Wall of China. I regret that my country didn’t build something like that.”
Western governments like to imagine that they have all the soft power in Africa. After all — if you put aside 100 years or so of colonial predation — for decades they have been providing emergency relief and supporting health, education and transparent institutions. What’s more, they are democracies, with systems worth emulating.
China, so this narrative goes, elicits no such goodwill. It has only ratcheted up its presence in Africa for what anyone can see is a naked grab for resources and influence. Sure, China has built roads, railways, sports stadiums and airports across Africa. But, according to this mostly self-delusory narrative, such projects are of shoddy quality and alienate Africans because they employ mainly Chinese workers.