Liu Haifang

Research fellow of IWAAS

liuhf@cass.org.cn

   In recent years, in media ranging from newspapers to individual blogs, and from high-ranking officials to academic and ordinary people, the Chinese have begun to talk loudly and eagerly about China’s cultural diplomacy[1]. This has been especially so since 2004, when President Hu Jintao publicly put forward cultural diplomacy as priority of diplomatic work[2]. Some Western scholars describe China's African diplomacy as a “charm offensive”, while Chinese scholars seem to prefer to identify it as “soft power” with a strong traditional cultural background; both emphasize that China's cultural diplomacy is very important in developing its relations with Africa, and that it dovetails with the booming interest in China’s economy and its presence in the African continent (Anver Versi 2006, Joshua Kurlantzick 2007, Yu Xintian 2006, Wang Huning1993). There is a need for a comprehensive study of China’s use of soft power over time in its relations with African countries, one that uses a wide-angle view that can thoroughly investigate both continuities and transitions in the relationship.

   Culture is a complex concept; almost no single definition until now has been unanimously acknowledged in literature. According to Raymond Williams, Culture is used to describe the basic things in human mentality and behaviour such as language, tradition, ideology, approaches and style; there are three general categories in the definition of culture, from the perfection of art to records of human beings and their way of life (Raymond Williams 1961:41). This study will borrow Guy Fauré’s idea as a working definition: “culture is a set of shared and enduring meanings, values, and beliefs that characterize national, ethnic, or other groups and orient their behaviors” (Guy Olivier Fauré 1993:3). That is to say, in this study, culture is not only defined narrowly, as arts performance with the function of education and entertainment, but is also used as a general term to describe a system of widely accepted beliefs, values, meanings and so on, combined with a set of self-justified, self-legitimized assumptions which are represented by all kinds of discourses, in particular the official discourse in the Chinese context.

   This paper will therefore trace China's cultural diplomacy in specific international and domestic contexts, using this viewpoint to contextualize cultural diplomacy towards African countries. Secondly, this research will make extensive use of the “discourse analysis” method, to analyse how different kinds of discourses, especially at the official level, act on or react to cultural diplomacy and China's African policy. And finally, this research will use several case studies to reflect the recent initiatives of China's cultural diplomacy towards African countries, in order to understand the underlying rationale.  

I will argue here that there has been continuity in cultural relations between China and Africa over time, yet this form of “soft power” relationship has shifted as China has reformed domestically and as China has re-evaluated its overall foreign relations in a succession of political stages. The significance of this study is that China’s cultural diplomacy towards African countries can be usefully seen as a “prism” for understanding changes in China-Africa relations (and even the whole landscape of Chinese international relations) from diverse and interdisciplinary viewpoints.  

        1.  Culture as a forerunner for foreign relations

        ---“Culture serves for socialism, culture serves for the people”

    In April 1951, Mao Zedong raised “Baihua Qifang (Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom), and Tuichen Chuxin (Drive the Old to Bring Forth the New)” as domestic cultural policy (Fu Jin 2004). In 1956, in his “On the Ten Major Relationships”, Mao Zedong formally elaborated this domestic cultural policy as “Shuang Bai (Double Hundred)”, namely “Baihua Qifang (Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom) and Baijia Zhengming (Let a Hundred Schools of Thoughts Contend)”. The first policy represented the new government‘s intention to carry out cultural ideas suitable to the Marxist ideology by resorting to necessary political means; while the “Double Hundred” policy referred to the increased enlightenment and openness that the new Chinese government would practise. This openness would acknowledge the existence of other cultures out of the mainstream of ideology, and would even encourage the competition between different styles of thoughts and cultures, in order to “Fanrong Shehui Zhuyi Wenhua (bring forth a flourishing socialist culture)”.

   Ideally, this policy embodied “the New People’s Republic China's dialectic thinking of the relationship between adherence to inheritance and reformation of tradition, and that respect of the tradition .” (Zhang Geng 1994:16) But in reality, the action-based philosophy of the Chinese government was to transform everything and to make a totally brand new society. The assumption underlying this philosophy was just what Mao Zedong wrote in 1956,

    China’s weaknesses are first 'poor' and second 'blank', by ‘poor’ I mean we do not have much industry and our agriculture is underdeveloped. By ‘blank’ I mean we are like a blank sheet of paper and our cultural and scientific level is not high. From the standpoint of potentiality, this is not bad. The poor want revolution, whereas it is difficult for the rich to want revolution.

    Countries with a high scientific and technological level are overblown with arrogance. We are like a blank sheet of paper, which is good for writing on.” “Being ‘poor’ and ‘blank’ is therefore all to our good.” (Mao Zedong 1964:726)[3]

   As a logical reflection of this spirit in the cultural arena, functions of culture were prescribed as “Shuang Wei (double directions)”, namely “Culture serves for Socialism, and Culture serves for the People” (Op.cit 727).. Thus “to Drive the Old to Bring Forth the New” turned out to be the more dominant and important practical principle of the Chinese government. For example, “Reform Opera, Reform People, and Reform System” became the motto of governmental work on operas. As a result, traditional Beijing Opera was transformed into Modern Beijing Opera, the most important form of “Revolutionary Literature and Arts” at the moment[4]. As the reform extended from traditional operas into the whole cultural arena, the more enlightened “Double Hundred” policy became an empty talk. Consequently, traditional cultures were entirely transformed from a self-disciplined, spontaneous space into a government-dominated ideological tool,[5] while the function of government became a producer of culture, instead of a provider of a freely-competitive platform as had been intended by the “Double Hundred” policy.

   Following same train of thought on the function of government in domestic culture, the new Chinese government formalized the external cultural policy, with similar political characteristics and expected functions. Responding to the direction “Guwei Jinyong (making the past serve the present)” in domestic cultural policy, Mao Zedong brought forth the direction, “Yangwei Zhongyong (making foreign things serve China)” in external cultural policy.[6]

However, in reality, when beginning to have contact with the outside world, the Chinese government was very prudent to avoid any potential foreign cultural influence[7]. It was not difficult to understand, in the result of total foreign policy “to clean house thoroughly, as a precondition for making a fresh stove (to establish new foreign relations)”, almost all of the cultural and educational institutions “left by imperial powers” were banned immediately after the new Chinese government was established.[8] Just before this time, Mao Zedong fixed 3 tasks for Chinese Cultural and Arts delegations travelling abroad on official visits: to publicize (the great success of Chinese Revolution); friendship (to reinforce the friendship with youth from other countries) and Study (an idea adopted from Soviet Union). Of the three, “to publicize” was the most important. Zhou Enlai later elaborated the three principles into “desires for friendship, peace and knowledge”. Thereafter, “to publicise” and “three desires” became the principle guidelines for Chinese cultural workers who visited other countries. Cultural exchanges had thus been staked out as political tasks from the beginning; exchanges for the benefit of culture itself therefore became ever rarer.

  In 1951, a Sino-Polish cultural co-operation agreement was signed as the first formal cultural agreement of the new Chinese government. Since then, socialist countries rapidly became the priority recipients of China’s cultural diplomacy. The goal of cultural diplomacy towards socialist countries was to introduce the great success of Chinese Revolution, with the intention to consolidate the socialist camp. Human exchange and academic exchange with all socialist countries consequently took place in all areas, from literature, arts, education, physical education, publishing, to media, broadcasting, movies, libraries, museums, and the preservation of relics.

   By the end of 1954, only 19 socialist and neighbouring countries had established foreign relations with the Chinese government. In this isolating context, Premier Zhou strongly advocated civil diplomacy (or people’s diplomacy), which aimed to increase civil economic relations and cultural exchanges with those countries that have not yet established diplomatic ties. Thus the lean-to-one-side route began to change, and the goal of cultural diplomacy---consolidating diplomatic relations and publicizing China’s great success of revolution--- also began to change (Miao Kaijin 2006:70).   In 1956, at the Second Conference for Chinese Diplomats, Zhou Enlai pointed out the necessity of cultural diplomacy again, and emphasized that the most imperative work for all Chinese diplomats should be the improvement of cultural (and trade) relations, in order to address this international isolation (Song Enfan 1997:255) . In other words, cultural diplomacy was expected to go ahead as a forerunner to promote the normalization of China’s foreign relations. 

   Thereafter, cultural diplomacy developed very quickly. By the end of 1958, within all the delegations sent and received by the Chinese government, over 1700 cultural and arts delegations (more than 17,400 people involved) represented more than 70 per cent (Ge Shenping 2000:32) . No wonder that on many occasions, Zhou Enlai emphasized that cultural relation was one of the two wings of foreign affairs (the other one was economical relations) (Zheng Yan 1999) [9].

   It is worth noting that at the time, the assumption advocating and justifying went as: “we only could place hope on the People”[10], to build up cultural relations therefore means to develop civil (people) diplomacy[11]. Until today, civil (people) diplomacy is still identified as a special creation of the Chinese government by Chinese scholars (Song Enfan 1997:255)[12]. To choose cultural diplomacy as an imperative resort was therefore not a spontaneous choice, but very convenient for the Chinese leaders to combating China’s isolating international surroundings.

   Equating cultural relations with civil (people) relations obviously was the reflection and logical extension of Mao Zedong’s domestic culture policy: culture serves socialism, and culture serves the people. An even more important point is that China’s foreign cultural policy has intertwined with China’s domestic cultural policy, and the underlying assumptions to justify both external and domestic policies were the same, particularly in the view of the functions of culture and the role government was supposed to assume.

     2.  New Prominence of Cultural Diplomacy since 1990s

     --From “stage set” for business to “culture walk out” strategy

From 1978 on, along with the changing domestic political and cultural policy, the whole chess board of external cultural relations has been reconfigured. This sea change has been most visible in cultural relations with western countries, because the “Four Modernizations” policy triggered a move to adopt Western, mainly European ideas (Werner Meissner 2002), for the exchanges in the fields of science-technology and business management have greatly increased, while political emphasis shank greatly, and traditional culture and value have been highlighted more and more. Ancient art forms including bronze utensils, ancient paintings, Terra-Cotta, and traditional musical instrumental performances, began to be exhibited more often through all kinds of cultural exchanges, especially through all types of national and local art festivals (for example tours to view ancient sites and relics like the silk road; and opportunities to practice art forms such as calligraphy and brush painting). The initial intended function of these programmes was to attract overseas Chinese, and thereby to build a platform for investment and business. Recently, official discourse has explicitly stated this function as: “Wenhua Datai, Jingji Changxi (culture setting up the stage, and economy putting in the show)” .

   Since the late 1990s, as China’s economy has boomed at an accelerated pace, culture has become a real keyword in both official and academic discourse. All kinds of discourses on culture have come out at in a sudden and incessant way. Ordinary people talk more about “Great China’s culture”, indicating that China’s economic rising evokes the cultural Nationalism of common Chinese, and the pride of an imagined “China’s culture”[13]. In 2000, President Jiang Zemin brought forth “the orientation of advanced culture in China” as one of the “Three-Represents (Ye Duchu 2000)”, which was explained as “coming from the need of culture- building and the necessity of revealing China's own cultural achievements (The Party Literature Research Centre of the CPC Central committee 2003:37)”. The intention to re-explore the political functions of culture both domestically and externally has therefore begun to manifest itself by and by, while the emphasis of “letting culture be a bridge for business” continued. Official discourse, thereafter, constantly refers to “big culture (Sun Jiazheng 2007)” or “Cultural China”, a term coined by American Chinese scholar Du Weiming (1996, 1999), and recently has obviously steered towards China’s “Cultural world view” and aspiration for Harmonious world.

.  The first goal of this culture-building movement is to present China’s positive image. Under this guideline, large-scale cultural activities (such as all kinds of Chinese cultural festivals) have become the important stages for “presenting China's positive image”, aiming at “setting up a strongly-supportive international public opinion matching with China's prestige and position (Jiang Zemin 1997)” [14].

  The second official goal of culture-building is to anchor China’s “peaceful rising” in the ideal of “harmonious world”. In short, culture diplomacy is equated to “peaceful rise”, or the special way to make China “Zouxiang Quanqiu (going global) (Anonymity 2005)”. In 2004, when the huge gap between rich and poor in China became an ever more serious problem, Chinese leaders brought forth “harmonious society” as a slogan; at almost the same time, faced with the critical external criticism of “China’s threat”, the Chinese “peaceful rising” (later changed to “peaceful development”) discourse took shape and cultural diplomacy was put forward as a strategic policy. The following year, President Hu Jintao put forward “harmonious world” as China’s philosophy of the world of 21st century, as well as the essential principal of the Chinese government’s foreign policy. During this process, the academic discourse on cultural diplomacy began to take the most important role in the interpretation of cultural approaches for foreign and domestic audiences[15].

   The third political goal is rather integrated with the economic interest of developing China's cultural industry, while the goal is expressed as “culture walk out” strategy. From 1978 until now, China's reform of the cultural system was divided into three episodes (Cao Pu 2007). In the mainstream of official discourse, this kind of reform was explained as “give sovereignty back to culture, and let culture develop according to its inherent law of culture”. In October 2002, when the Chinese Communist Party held its 16^th Congress, Cultural Building and “remarkable strategic reform of Cultural System” were raised to “an urgent strategic position”, while the reason given was that “serious excess of imports over exports” and the “extremely high deficit” in external cultural exchanges have made “severe challenge to the Chinese government (Ibid)”. Cultural Industry, which was emphasized as different from cultural public affairs, is “one important element of any country's total national power”, promoting the development of cultural industry therefore was regarded almost unanimously as the right solution to the difficult situation, especially in the speeches of high-rank officers (Li Changchun 2004). All of these views were summed up in the White Paper on Programs of Culture Development during the 11^th “Five-year Plan” issued by the State Council in September, 2006.  

       3. Cultural diplomacy towards African Countries

                 ----Love you little, love you long

    In the mid-1950s, the Chinese government started to develop relations with developing countries, and the hot trend of developing cultural relations inevitably followed[16]. To all Asian, African and Latin American countries, cultural exchange per se were intended “to make friends at first, then to reinforce understanding, and finally to establish official relations naturally (The ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Party Literature Research Centre of the CPC Central Committee 1990:406)”. Indeed, during the process through which the Chinese government established foreign relations with all these developing countries, cultural exchanges played a function as forerunners. For example in African countries, in 1956, Chinese cultural and arts delegation visited four countries of North Africa and Ethiopia, and in the next year Chinese acrobatics delegation visited North Africa and Ghana. These cultural events made enough public-opinion preparation for the establishment of formal relations between China and more and more newly independent African countries (Miao Kaijin 2006:70).

Meanwhile, as the number of independant countries was increasing, the

Asian-African Conference in 1955 provided a catalyst to the Chinese government to develop cultural diplomacy from general cultural exchanges into cultural cooperation. Just as Zhou Enlai pointed out in the conference, “We Afro-Asian countries needed to develop economic and cultural cooperation with each other, in order to eradicate the lagging behind status from the long-term exploitation and oppression by colonialists (Song Enfan 2004:314). Finally, his calling for the cultural cooperation was written into the Final Communiqué of Afro-Asian Conference.

To African, Asian and Latin American countries, the content of cultural diplomacy

tended to be traditional culture and performances with local colours, and the underlying reasons were explained that these countries’ political systems and international surroundings differed from one another, and there were still lots of ideological divergences (Miao Kaijin, Ibid). But in terms of the symbolic significance of the relations with Africa, more often using local minority cultural resources has an unspoken reason behind it: more affinities with people means more meanings of international proletariat solidarity.

Until now, most parts of the Chinese government's cultural diplomacy to African countries that were pioneered in the 1950s remain, while new forms are shaping as the new drivers coming to the forefront (Liu Haifang 2006). Among all the continuities, the old style of “Permanent running water, non- broken line”[17] remains almost completely intact. As early as the 1950s, Premier Zhou put this idea forward as one of the 3 principles to maintain the relationship with African, Asian and Latin American countries[18]. In details, the Chinese government allots RMB 400,000-500,000 every year as the official budget (excluding the expenditures of big events like the Summit of 2006) for financing cultural diplomacy with African Countries.[19]

This sum of money is normally divided into 2 parts, the first part is for people-to-people exchange (including cultural official, performing troupes, academic exchanges, artists and performers sent to each other) and the second for a small amount of regular cultural aid (including books, booklets, DVD players, stage stereo systems, light apparatus and small amounts of funds). From late 1980s, the number of Chinese performing troupes has obviously been reduced for the sake of cost and no direct financial profit, and now the Chinese government only sends 2-3 troupes to visit 3-4 countries per year[20]. No more, but no less either, the so called “love you little, love you long” approach.

   Since the end of the 1990's, in pace with the brewing and convening of Sino-African Forum and the ever-advancing economic relation, Cultural diplomacy has been steered into many new channels, apparently hurriedly and energetically. Big symposiums and forums attended only by African scholars, artists, officials or diplomats and their Chinese counterparts are increasing[21]. These conferences ranging from academic to musical, journalism, environmental issues, education and even human rights, obviously have contributed to the establishing all-around relationship in a soft yet possibly stronger and longer-lasting way at least than older time when ideology attached too often, especially the ever-increasing people-to-people contacts.

   Secondly, as China’s National Volunteer Project following the Overseas Chinese Project begins to be implemented, Chinese volunteers, undoubtedly as the most important medium for propagating Chinese culture in Africa, are bringing about more people-to-people contacts. In 2005, the first 11 Chinese Youths went to Ethiopia. According to the Declaration of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation publicized in 2006, China planned to send 300 Chinese volunteers to Africa by 2010. In sum, now there are 87 volunteers living in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Seychelles, serving in Chinese teaching, industrial technology, medical, agricultural and country building jobs. [22]

Thirdly, generally most initiatives have been government-supported, yet non-governmental factors are increasing. Some singers and actors affiliated with some philanthropy organizations have started to go to Africa. Some individual entrepreneurs have also started charitable and environmental contributions. Luo Hong, CEO of Chinese company Holiland, makes a good example. He traveled in many African countries as an amateur photographer, making friends with African local people, also donating money to public interest groups, such as an environmental protection project of Lake Nakuru in Kenya.

   Fourthly, sister cities have become another important way to strengthen cultural relations in recent years[23].

Lastly but not unimportantly, a newly-rising element was the emphasis on market. On Oct. 24th-25th, 2000, just in the wake of the first Sino-African Forum, “Symposium of Sino-African cultural exchange in the new century” was held, attended by cultural officials coming from 22 African governments and the OAU, and their Chinese counterparts. At the conference, Chinese representatives emphasized the cultural aid without any political conditions attached as usual (Meng Xiaosi 2000). There was a great impetus to send expert teams to Africa and to make a survey of the cultural marketplace and exchanging experiences in the field of cultural industry,. Also, the intention to introduce African arts and culture to Chinese audiences in an intensive and comprehensive way was very obvious in the symposium’s conclusion.  

4.   Case Studies on new cultural diplomacy to Africa

4.1 Popularising Africa to Chinese ---Approaching to Africa

In March of 1999, a year ahead of the Sino-African Forum, a “Great Exhibition of

African Arts”, with 100 pieces of wooden sculptures, stone sculptures, bronze sculptures and paintings from 11 African countries, was kicked off in the Chinese National Art Gallery[24]. Given that China has no African museum currently and this was the first time for this scale of exhibition of African art, this exhibition proved to be sensational among the Chinese common people. Thereafter, more African art works have appeared in some art shops in China, and the remote continent has become an ever more familiar term among the Chinese audience as consequence.

   The more influential event to popularise Africa among Chinese audiences is the serial TV program “A Passage to Africa”, from shooting to playing in 2003. In 97 days, the film crew[25], travelled to 30 countries and experienced more than 80,000 miles, making the biggest reportage of Africa in the history of Chinese media. Generally speaking, as a real eye-opener for Chinese audiences, this report was very different from those suffering images viewed from other media's cameras. Through the lens of these Chinese media workers’ cameras, Africa is a huge savage garden, full of national amorous feelings, marvelous spectacles of natural scenes, diverse flavours of various human beings and life styles[26]. The numbers of Chinese tourists to Africa have increased greatly thanks to this program. According to the leader of the group, since “China’s economic capacity now could support this kind of avant-garde and pioneering event, the original aim of this action was to show Chinese Telecast worker’s new ambition by representing a real and a bright Africa with Chinese eyes, which would be rather different from the common impression of wars, starvation and sickness in Western media. And thus the focus of this report was “not the political situation, but long-standing cultural things (CCTV BBS 21.2.2003) ”. In view of Chinese media’s constant principle on reporting friendly countries--the more positive, the better, this “cultural flavour” was quite understandable.

   Noticeably, from this TV program, a new proud feeling coming with China's rise in the world and ever-advancing engagement in Africa was emerging, which manifested itself not only from the leader talking about telecast worker's ambitions and the quite stimulating title “Zongheng Feizhou (to sweep through the length and width of Africa) (CCTV BBS 21.2.2003)” , but also from the interviews with those Chinese living in Africa, who were thought having had legendary lives in Africa, and thus could be good models for other Chinese. Two good examples: One was on the harsh life a Chinese Medical team experienced; the other with a touching subtitle “Love in Niamey”, was on a Chinese lady coming to Niamey 12 years ago just for falling in love with an African guy Abu Barker. The national pride and the self-confidence to be a Chinese in an ever-stronger China, here were exposed very well to appeal for contemporary Chinese to seek for a worthwhile life in a “real Africa”, despite how much the hardship might be.

    A similar version of a “popularizing Africa” story has appeared on line in 2006 and been circulating since then from virtual space to most big media, including CCTV, China Daily, Xinhua News Agency, etc. That is the story of over 7000 Chinese farmers from Baoding (Hebei Province) moving to Africa, and building 28 “Baoding Villages” as making success[27]. Ironically, more and more media stand out to investigate the truth of this serial report, while warning all Chinese people that Africa is not a land full of gold and risk has to be taken if one dares to go to imitate the story of “Baoding Village”.[28] No matter how much truth lies in the story, what is noticeable is the magnetic power that made so many big media vie with each other in reporting and investigating the story: Approach to Africa, a dreamland full of potentialities.

       4.2 Why Inviting in? Cultural variety = Affinity to the People  

The large-scale getting-together activity “Meet in Beijing” started in 2000, and till 2007 has been held seven times, which respectively inviting a main guest continent or country, such as in 2004, 9 African performance troupes coming to China. In the official discourse of the Chinese government, this once-a-year program stresses the subject of “affinity to the People”, because of its richness in cultural variety and universality, exemplifying the unification of creation, communication and cooperation, and also the organic oneness of harmoniousness, concordance and peacefulness, which are the pursuits of the Chinese government, and the embodiment of spirit of “People’s Olympics (Beijing municipal’s official website 2007)”. 

This is a noticeable narration between “cultural variety” and “theme of affinity to the People”, which has repeated the same underlying logic equation of cultural diplomacy with civil (People) diplomacy in 1950s. As a set of self-justified assumptions, “affinity to the People” as a slogan rediscovered from the history of China’s international relations, re-emerged to be the core theme of the political culture of the Chinese government, especially as the huge gulf between rich and poor became more serious and CCP brought forth “People-oriented” as core value of ideal of “Harmonious Society (Xie Xiaorong 2007)”.

Interestingly, the domestic slogan “People’s Olympics” as a criterion was taken to expound why to give the program “Meet in Beijing” “political correctness” and the right reason. This no doubt signifies another significant truth that the rising civil society is demanding to increase openness, including in areas of foreign affairs and diplomacy. The cultural diplomacy towards African countries therefore has two functions: introvert and extrovert. Meanwhile, inviting in African countries bestowed the event more validities with more affinities to People. From the same reason, in the current Chinese context, the discourse of cultural diplomacy and that of public diplomacy apparently coexist in an overlapping way, and justify each other[29].  

  4.3  “Inviting in” story I: The African Cultural Visitors Programme

- From ‘Culture in its own right’ to ‘cooperation on cultural industry’

   The African cultural visitors program, initiated by China's Ministry of Culture, started in 2006, when 4 Africans with “cultural fame”[30] were invited to China to visit many cultural sites in Beijing and other cities, to feel culture of mass and entertainments in theatres, and also visit some cultural industries.

   In 2007, this programme was officially named as “cultural visitor programme” designed for 10 countries covering Senegal, Benin, Mali, the Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, Botswana and Uganda[31], with “Cultural Policy and Its Implementation in Market Economy” as the theme. From each country, 2 cultural officials were recommended as candidates, one from central government and one from the provincial level. As a prerequisite, candidates were asked to submit an article on their own countries’ cultural management system, cultural policies and cases illustrating the results of implementing the cultural policies. Besides some cultural relics and “folk culture villages” ranging from southern Shenzhen to historic Buddhist grottoes in western China, the more important visiting sites were many cultural industries, and the journey turned out to be "a great learning experience" for African cultural officials (MOFCOM 2007).

  “Cultural visitor programme ” of China is not exceptional. Certainly the American government invites many musicians, performers, filmmakers, and arts managers to America with aims pronounced as “developing the visitor's artistic talents or arts management skills while promoting understanding of American society, culture and values (Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs 2007)”. According to Chinese official discourse, this programme is “an exchange tailored for cultural personalities of African countries, aiming to enhance mutual understanding and cooperation between China and Africa (Website of China Culture 2007)”. If in 2006, the outline and the intended goal of the programme were ambiguous and unfixed, then in 2007, the intention and the underlying assumption have been very prominent: The Africans with “cultural fame” have been categorized into cultural officials in higher positions, and the agendas concerned are development-oriented cultural industry. The assumption to self-justify the programme manifested itself from the topics on which Chinese and African officials have exchanged ideas: the relation between development and preserving ethnic cultures (on this aspect China is believed to have many experiences to share with Africa), and the possibilities for Chinese and African cooperation towards achieving these goals (Chinese Radio International 2007). Culture in its own right, was discussed when it might go against development; and it deserves putting great efforts to develop in the sense of being a resource of development. This trend is a logical extension of the priority of domestic cultural policy: developing cultural industry. This also explains the distinct difference that China's “cultural visitor programme” shows from that of America. 

   For the African officials’ virgin journey, the Chinese Ministry of Culture bore all expenditure. After this journey, the Nigerian lady in charge of external cultural relations under cultural ministry immediately promised to send a performance troupe to China to make a business performance. And also, she wanted to send some Nigerians to China to learn the skill to produce cartoon movies[32], while the general director of National Theatre of Senegal said in the closing ceremony, “Now I came, I saw, and I was conquered (Chinese Ministry of Culture 2007)!”

   There is no doubt that Africa’s market for Chinese cultural products is still very feckless.[33] What the Chinese government could expect from the programme is the voluntary and willing attitude to cooperate on “cultural development” in the long term, especially on cultural industry. This intention has already been elaborated very clearly by the deputy minister of Culture as early as 2000 (Meng Xiaosi 2000). Now this intention is still struggling to find a good way to be realized as the growth of domestic cultural industry. 

4.4  “Invite in” story II: Intellectual cooperation

—From “poor help poor” to “Development and Cooperation”

   Most countries agree that language teaching and education exchange are important items, and sometimes even main tasks of cultural diplomacy, as Louis Dollot, a pioneering French scholar of International Cultural Relations, said, these two items are concerned with the basic education of local people, and cultural influence could not happen if training and education are not taken as priority tasks, at least in developing countries (Dollot 1964:15). 

   This intellectual cooperation between China and Africa has been embraced for mutual development of South-South from the beginning, or as Philip Snow summed up, “the poor help the poor (Snow 1988).” For the significance to African countries, this cooperation has been expected to contribute to, in words of Amadou Mahtar M'Bow, ensure “the full development of cultural identity”, by overcoming the colonial traces in the content and substance of their educational experiences; China therefore is regarded as holding “the potential to partake in this opportunity and make a significant contribution to an alternative decolonized pedagogical paradigm and rethinking of international academic cooperation (Gillespie, Sandra 2006)”[34].

   In the first stage of the intellectual cooperation, exchanges were rather mutual. Not only many Africans came to China, but Chinese scholars and students, together with Chinese singers and dancers from Oriental Performance Troupe, were sent to Africa quite frequently to learn languages, literatures, cultures, ethnic performances, history and other humanities in Arabian, Hausa and Swahili. Many engineers, teachers, medical workers and agriculture experts were also sent to Africa to contribute to the independent revolution and social buildings, such as when Somalia just gained independence and became a field of “aid race in earnest” among all big powers, the Chinese government offered human resource training on agricultural skills, and helped this country to develop its rice growing on large farms (John K. Cooley 1965:33).

   Since the 1980s, this interactive and balanced bilateral cooperation turned to one-way intellectual aid to African countries, as China seldom sends students and scholars to Africa to either study or do research, and only a few African scholars come to give lectures for Chinese (Li Baoping 2006).

   From 2003 to 2006, China has finished training of more than 10,000 Africans (including 3700 governmental officials, 3000 professionals and others) (Luo Jianbo 2005:44-54). Besides the enormous increase in the number of scholarships (4000 per year), pronounced at the Sino-African Summit held in November 2006, the Chinese government promised to finish the task of training 15000 Africans by 2010. All these apparently hectic and active trainings happening almost every minute need close scrutiny.

   The preferred way right now, is to “invite in” to give intellectual support to African countries, thus all kinds of training centres are mushrooming in many universities and colleges. Some of these training tasks are carried out by some special African Studies institutes, such as the ones in Peking University and Zhejiang Normal University; but in more colleges and universities, having nothing to do with African Studies or educations before, an industrialized chain specializing in training African personnel (initiated by different ministries, but sometimes financed by local governments or big companies) is shaping up. Training is happening in many sectors, from trade, computer, agriculture, medical botany, distance learning, vocational education, nursery education, economic management, military officials to journalist, cultural and tourism officials, even low-interest loan, and so forth (Ibid). As a result, within 3 years, there were 5 national working conferences on Intellectual Aid already[35].

   In general, African trainees are invited to China from different countries to make up a class with different curricula various according to sectors they are affiliated. For example, recently the Chinese government signed $500,000 with NEPAD to train midwives and nurses for African countries. During the period of the training, these trainees will be guided to visit relevant big companies, enterprises, modernized cities as Shenzhen, as well as sight-seeing. Training courses are thus playing several functions, namely gaining hearts (“come and be conquered”) (Chinese Ministry of Culture 2007), making business exhibition, and disseminating “China’s experience of development”, while expected results from Africans are more business opportunities, traditional political influences, improvement of state prestige by providing courses on China’s notion of win-win for both China and Africa (Kenneth King 2006b) and the guaranty of the non-condition conditionality: Taiwan issue, etc.

   Faced with the asymmetry of power existing so obviously in the relationship with Africa and the ascending demands of development domestically, the self-justified discourse of the Chinese government has changed from the “international proletariat solidarity” to emphasis of “strategic partnership between the largest developing country, China, and the world's largest developing continent, Africa”[36]. In this relationship, the most essential theme is cooperation and development, instead of development cooperation (Kenneth King 2006a), development in its own right, is still China’s biggest theme for the time being.  

4.5  “Walking out” Story: African Confucius Institute

       --“to cross the river by groping rocks”   

   Since “la langue est l’instrument essential des relations culturelles (Dollot 1964:24)”, as early as in 1961, Premier Zhou Enlai instructed to establish a special institution to organize programs of teaching Chinese as a foreign language. By 1964, 86 became professional Chinese teachers for foreigners (Zhou Yongkui 2003). In 1987, the Chinese government had already established The Chinese Language Council International (simplified form is Hanban in Chinese), under the Ministry of Education. By June 2004, after keeping a low profile for 17 years, Hanban was recomposed of members from 12 state ministries and commissions, and Madame Chen Zhili, a State Councilor, was appointed as the president. Under Hanban, in November, the same year, the first Confucius Institute was established in Seoul, South Korea.

      4.5.1  Most open-minded co-operative mode?

According to the Constitution and By-laws of the Confucius Institutes, any foreign applicant having certain instructional space, relevant equipment, and facilities, plus a Chinese counterpart organization, could apply for the permission to establish its own Confucius Institute with full or half financial support. The teachers would be sent from this Chinese counterpart organization, as Chinese volunteers going abroad under Chinese Government’s accommodation (a huge National Volunteer Project thereby started at the same time). Hanban provides part or full seed money for every new applicant, and offers an annual budget for 3-5 years, depending on the local financial status where these institutes are based.

As a non-profit education organization, with the main task “to promote the

teaching of Chinese as a foreign language, and cultural exchanges and co-operations,  such as in the education, culture and economics fields” (Confucius Institute Division 2007), only the tablet tailored by Hanban bearing the inscription of “Confucius Institution” remains the same. Everything else has varied one branch from the other: there are no universal textbooks and teaching programs, and long-term goal and operation mode is very different[37]. Confucius Institute apparently looks like the most open-minded institution China has ever had with this co-operative mode as a distinct characteristic. The latest report said that, altogether, the Chinese government has spent US$ 26,000,000 on Confucius Institutes worldwide (ChineseNews 2007).  According to the deputy president of Hanban, before 2006, every year, Hanban got RMB 70 million from government, and this amount of resource proved to be very limited in reality, which means there must be another operation mode, such as cooperation with big enterprises or a reorientation to a market mechanism (Hu Xiaoxi 2007). Madame Chen Zhili, also pronounced that the operation mode of Confucius Institute should transform into market mechanism, when Headquarter of Confucius Institute was established in April 2007. [38]

   From the brief history of Confucius Institute, it is very clear that the booming phenomenon, is rather another story “to cross the river by groping rocks” (Deng Xiaoping), an experimental and learning-by- doing approach, instead of some initiative promoted by any well-established “grand plan”[39], while Hanban’s vision of this institution at the same time is also increasing as it gains smooth and fast momentum. That is why as late as in 2007, 3 years after the first branch was established, the mission of Confucius Institute was pronounced in idealized terms : to “help the world understand Chinese language and culture, enhance the development of multiculturalism, and contribute to the building of a harmonious world (Hanban 2007)”.

4.5.2   Cultural Centre or Confucius Institute?

-- to borrow a ferryboat and go to the sea

In April 2007, it was announced that the target number of Confucius Institutes

would make a “Great Leap” from 100 (pronounced in 2004) to an ambitious 500 by 2010. But it was only after the mushrooming of 70 Confucius Institutes in other regions, that the first African Confucius Institute finally came into being; and among the 210 existing Confucius Institutes world-wide[40], only the 12^th in the whole African Continent was just started on Nov. 26^th, 2007 in Yaoundé, while the other African Confucius Institutes lie respectively in Egypt (2), South Africa (2), Zimbabwe (1), Nigeria (2), Kenya (2), Madagascar (1), and Rwanda (1). [41]

Given that they are equally funded by the Chinese government, why has the

number of Confucius Institutes in Africa is been much lower than that in other countries and regions[42], if Africa is really singled out as an objective destination to develop some “Grand Geopolitical Strategy” as many literatures are currently assuming and trying to prove? Probably the history of Chinese Cultural Centers in Africa can help answer this question.

   In 1988, as foremost bases to expand Chinese Cultural influence, the first two Chinese cultural centres were already unveiled in Benin and Mauritius respectively. After 20 years, another one was built in Africa and another 11 centres built in other continents and regions[43]. The general goals and the main activities of cultural centres in Africa almost completely overlap with those of Confucius Institutes. The only difference is that one is under Ministry of Culture and the other is guided by Hanban. Equally completely funded by Chinese government, why does Confucius Institute seem to be taking the place of Cultural Centre, if both are for propagating China’s culture? Or more precisely, why has Confucianism, which had become one collection in Chinese Historical Museum’s showcase (Joseph Levenson 1969), now begun to be taken as a tool to re-mobilize traditional cultural resource to serve the current strategy of the Chinese government, which “used to hold a strict rejecting attitude towards tradition (John Gittings 2006:2-3)”?

   The simple reason goes back to the domestic situation. Withdrawing old ideology leaves a huge spiritual vacuum for renaissance of traditional culture from grass root level, which actually signified the necessity of re-establishment of national spirit and ethical morality after the absolute revolutionary trial failed.[44] At the same time, CPC is putting great efforts to establish itself as a “ruling party”, and using Confucius as the label to “reinvent” various traditional cultural resources to serve in the present, reflecting the trend of the re-Sinicization of the Chinese government under this Party (John Gittings 2006:4).

On this “booming Confucius Institutes phenomenon”, one undeniable external

factor that should be taken into account is the global “Chinese fever”. As the goal of the Headquarter of Confucius Institute was expressed as “Tongchou Quanqiu Hanyu Jiaoxue (to plan and run the entire project of Chinese teaching in this world) (Xinhua News Agency, 2007”), the Chinese government is trying to take this best time “which might come once 1000 years (Xu Lin 2007) ” to use Confucius Institute as a pre-emptive initiative to occupy global market as well as to dominate the cultural influence.

   The executive director of Hanban, Xu Lin, said, the cooperative mode (to take advantage of other countries’ campus and management) guarantees that Confucius Institute is a best choice for the Chinese government to spend the least money and to gain the most. “Actually we are driven by the great market demand to act so quickly,” she stated (Xu Lin 2007). A fashionable official slogan to describe these tactics is “Jiechuan Chuhai, to go to the sea by borrowed ferryboat (European Studies Team 2006) ”. Africa is obviously still lacking this kind of ferryboat to be borrowed. As a strategy of combination between “inviting in” and “walking out” frequently expressed in official discourse, walking out at first is more important because developing cultural industry and cultural trade with other countries is the main channel for Chinese cultures to go abroad (Meng Xiaosi 2004). But as a national strategy of spreading cultural influence at the same time, Confucius Institute was also constantly idealized in official discourse as a symbolizing initiative of China‘s peaceful rising (Alan Hunter 2006), to have branches in some good-conditioned Africa countries under full financial support needs hardly to be hinted in view of the strategic position of Africa in China’s whole Foreign affairs. 

                      Conclusion

    40 years ago, George T. Yu, pioneer scholar on Sino-African relations, concluded,

     “studying China in Africa is much like pursuing a dragon in the bush. The dragon is imposing, but the bush is dense, so that while one is conscious of the animal’s presence, visible or not, observation becomes difficult (George Yu 1968).”  

    This vivid picture is still partly identical to the contemporary situation, if not completely. It is not only because the dragon is imposing on a vast space, but also its steps are rather puzzling and bewildering, even more so to those older players in the same field. The “informal foreign policy” as Yu tried, or “soft power” as Alan Hunter concluded, or literally, the statecraft, thus deserves a further study to deepen the understanding of this ever-more complicated relationship, as China’s all-around involvement with Africa is unfolding.

   This research starts as a very humble attempt to fill in the gap of knowledge on Sino-African cultural relations. Contextualizing and then comparing the prominence of cultural diplomacy of China’s foreign policy in 1950s and that still ascending prominence since late 1990s, one could easily get the conclusion that the function of cultural diplomacy is transforming from the political forerunner of normalizing state-to-state relations to the stage set up for business to put in the show. Through the study of several cases, a main transforming line could be captured, from popularizing Africa to ordinary Chinese (to “stimulate approach to Africa”), to the two main routes of making cultural relations: inviting in and walking out (to ensure the cooperative attitude and enlarge the trade volume). While no matter how distinct transformation has happened, the continuity in the official discourse is the constant emphasis of “affinity to the people”, which as a label has played, and also is being re-explored to play the role to justify actions happening in the framework of Sino-African relations, which as the best embodiment of China’s value system of the world has always been playing the very important symbolic function.

   Starting from looking at culture with the narrow meaning and how it serves for political and economic functions, finally this study automatically steers into the broader concept of culture, as a belief, a special behaviour or a value system itself and the underlying self-justified assumption. Therefore, this study of China’s cultural diplomacy towards African countries, is precisely the study of China’s diplomacy culture to Africa, with all kinds of official discourses as the assumptions to justify the legitimacy. Or to put in short, it is a study about how China has made success in Africa. Through this prism, Africa’s apparently looming larger and larger in the landscape of China’s international relations could be understood better, so does the relationship between the two sides, with various transmissions and continuities.

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