Kenya's and Zambia's Relations with China 1949-2019 1847013392, 9781847013392

Citation preview

Eastern Africa Series KENYA’S AND ZAMBIA’S RELATIONS WITH CHINA 1949–2019

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019 JODIE YUZHOU SUN

James Currey is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge Suffolk IP12 3DF (GB) www.jamescurrey.com and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue Rochester, NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com © Jodie Yuzhou Sun, 2023 The right of Jodie Yuzhou Sun to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2023 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library ISBN 978-1-84701-339-2 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-80010-662-8 (ePDF) ISBN 978-1-80010-663-5 (ePUB) Cover photograph: Kenyans holding Chinese flags to welcome Premier Li Keqiang’s visit at the National Youth Service Technical and Vocational Education and Training Programme, 2014 (Photo: Lin Qi) Cover design: riverdesignbooks.com

Contents

List of Illustrations

vi

Note on Currencies

xi

Acknowledgements

ix

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms xii

Introduction 1 1 Decolonisation, the Cold War, and Afro-Asian Solidarity: China, Kenya, and Zambia at a Crossroads, 1949–1964

2 Caught in between: Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975 3 ‘All-Weather Friendship’? Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

4 Political Transition and Multifaceted Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s 5 China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

22 46 79 111 143

Conclusion 176 Appendix I: African Trade with China, 1960–1974 (US $million) 187 Appendix II: Kenyan Trade with China, 1962–1980 (KSh)

189

Bibliography

193

Appendix III: Kenyan Trade with China, 1964–1976 (K £’000) Index

191

231

Illustrations

MAPS 1 Kenya  2 Zambia

xiv xv

PHOTOGRAPHS 1

The closed gate of the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi 

3

KANU members hold their posters outside the Chinese Embassy69

2

4 5 6 7 8 9

67

The Nairobi branch of KANU march towards the Chinese Embassy69

A Chinese diplomat meets KANU demonstrators

Chinese embassy staff watch from the windows during the KANU protest A Chinese folk song and dance troupe performs in Zambia, 18 October 1967

70 70 98

Levy Mwanawasa University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka

162

Zheng He statue at Mombasa Station

171

The reception room of a Chinese clinic in Lusaka

163

10 Passengers enter Nairobi station to take the Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway 172

Illustrations

FIGURES 1

Graph of African trade with China, 1960–1974 (US $million)

188

3

Graph of Kenyan trade with China, 1964–1976 (K £’000)

192

2

Graph of Kenyan trade with China, 1962–1980 (KSh)

190

TABLES 1

African trade with China, 1960–1974 (US $million)

187

3

Kenyan Trade with China, 1964–1976 (K £’000)

191

2

Kenyan Trade with China, 1962–1980 (KSh)

189

vii

Acknowledgements

‘Why do you study Africa, why African history?’ This is a question I have frequently been asked over the last eight years, whenever I attended academic events or family gatherings. While I once struggled to justify my somewhat ‘unconventional’ choice of academic trajectory, I have since found the confidence to simply provide an anecdote: ‘My Chinese name, “Yuzhou”, means “meeting a continent”. So, I guess I was born to know Africa’. In fact, my journey to become a historian of Africa would not have been possible without ceaseless support and generous contributions from those who have helped me both in the school and in the field. There are only a few places in the world like Oxford where a graduate student can benefit from such enormous opportunities to thrive intellectually. In October 2013, a curious Chinese girl (as the only East Asian!) was anxious to start her Master’s programme at 13 Bevington Road. This address, the African Studies Centre, would become her home base for future endeavours. Besides learning about research methodology and major debates in the contemporary study of Africa, I paid my first ever visit to an African country – Zambia – to conduct research for my thesis. In both Lusaka and Kitwe, I was able to test my thoughts amid a range of people working intensively under the umbrella of ‘China-­A frica relations’. Having spent a year working as a research assistant in China, I returned Oxford in 2015, this time, at the city’s more touristy George Street. Most of the ideas in this book were generated during my doctoral studies at the Faculty of History. Above all, I would like to express my great gratitude to Miles Larmer who, as the supervisor of both my masters and doctoral dissertations, has provided not only intellectual enlightenment but also patience and encouragement. More than simply an academic supervisor, he is a true mentor who always inspires me to pursue the kind of research I feel most passionate about, and guides me through both practical and mental challenges. Over the years, I have had the chance to discuss my ideas and learn from David Anderson, Ian Archer, Gordon Barrett, James Belich, Paul Betts, Gregg Brazinsky, Peter Brooke, Eric Burton, Stephen Chan, Nic Cheeseman, the late Jan-Georg Deutsch, John Darwin,

x

Acknowledgements

Marja Hinfelaar, Gernot Klantschnig, Anshan Li, Tim Livsey, James McDougall, Rana Mitter, Duncan Money, Jamie Monson, May TanMullins, Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, Sue Onslow, Yoon Jung Park, David Pratten, Andrea Purdeková, Sergey Radchenko, Richard Reid, George Roberts, Sishuwa Sishuwa, and Johnny Steinberg. Jocelyn Alexander and Daniel Branch as my viva examiners also provided helpful suggestions to improve the integrity of my arguments. My research has taken me to four continents and a dozen countries. The project was made possible by a China Scholarship Council-­ University of Oxford Scholarship. In addition, I have received generous travel funding from the Beit Fund, the Keble Association, and the British Institute in Eastern Africa. During my overseas fieldwork, many people have offered hospitality and help. I would like to thank those archivists and staff who made my archival research less complicated, as well as my interviewees for sharing their fascinating life stories and useful insights. The time I spent in Zambia and Kenya will forever be a fond memory. The thoughts and understandings expressed in this study have been shaped by global audiences in Oxford, London, Birmingham, Brussels, Leipzig, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Nairobi, Lusaka, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, and Washington, D.C. Without those stimulating discussions, this journey would have been solitary and tedious. Portions of Chapter 2 have been published as ‘“Now the Cry was Communism”: the Cold War and Kenya’s relations with China, 1964–70’, Cold War History 20, 1 (2020): 39–58. The start of the year 2020 caught all of us by surprise. The COVID19 global pandemic disrupted my plans to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of the Free State in South Africa. Instead of completing this manuscript in Bloemfontein, I spent most of my time typing at home in China. But I nevertheless received useful feedback on draft chapters from my supervisor Ian Phimister and other colleagues at the International Studies Group. Since joining Fudan University, I have received a warm welcome and hospitality from my colleagues at the Department of History. Jaqueline Mitchell, Commissioning Editor of James Currey, has greatly assisted my preparation of the manuscript. I would like to thank her and three anonymous readers for their most useful feedback. My friend Elizabeth Smithrosser proofread the manuscript with great care and professionalism. Finally, I owe thanks to all my friends and family. They are the ones who remind me to search for the inner light. My parents have always been supportive of the single child of the family. My gratitude for their love and care goes beyond words. Shanghai, China 15 February 2022

Note on Currencies

The Kenyan shilling (KSh) is the currency of Kenya. It is divided into 100 cents. During colonial times KSh 20 was pegged to GBP £1 and large numbers of shillings were often referred to in pounds at that rate thereafter, even in government calculations. The Zambian kwacha (ZMW) is the currency of Zambia; prior to 2013 the currency code was ZMK. It is subdivided into 100 ngwee. During colonial times the Zambian pound was pegged to GBP.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

The abbreviations and acronyms listed below cover the main text and footnotes, but exclude abbreviations for archival materials, which are detailed in the bibliography. Non-English names are translated, and the relevant state is mentioned where otherwise unclear. ALNK

Cameroonian National Liberation Army

CAF

Central African Federation

BRI

CCP

CFMA

CHICOM CHINAT CIA CIF

C&F

CMT CO

DO

EAS

FAZ

FCO

FIFA FLN

FNLA FOB

FOCAC KANU KNA

One Belt and One Road Initiative – China Chinese Communist Party

China Foreign Ministry Archives Chinese Communist Chinese Nationalist

Central Intelligence Agency – United States of America Cost, insurance, and freight Cost and freight

Chinese medical teams

The Foreign Office – UK

Dominions Office of The National Archive – UK East African Standard (newspaper) Football Association of Zambia

Foreign and Commonwealth Office – UK

Fédération Internationale de Football Association National Liberation Front – Algeria

National Liberation Front of Angola Free on board

Forum of China-Africa Cooperation Kenya African National Union Kenya National Archives

Abbreviations and Acronyms

KPU

Kenya People’s Union

MMD

Movement for Multi-Party Democracy – Zambia

KMT

MPLA NAM

NARA OSDE PF

PLA PRC

SGR

SMA SOE

TAZARA ToZ

TNA UDI UN

UNIP

UNITA UoN UPC UPP US

USSR

ZANC ZAPU ZCCZ ZNA

ZCCM

Kuomintang/Chinese Nationalist Party – Taiwan People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola Non-Aligned Movement

National Archives and Records Administration – United States Oriental Song and Dance Ensemble – China Patriotic Front – Zambia

People’s Liberation Army – China People’s Republic of China

Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway – Kenya Shanghai Municipal Archives State-owned enterprise

The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Times of Zambia (newspaper)

The National Archives – United Kingdom

Unilateral Declaration of Independence – Rhodesia United Nations

United National Independence Party – Zambia

National Union for the Total Independence of Angola University of Nairobi

Union of the Peoples of Cameroon

United Progressive Party – Zambia United States of America

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Zambia African National Congress Zimbabwe African People’s Union

Zambia-China Economic & Trade Cooperation Zone Zambia National Archives

Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Limited

xiii

Map 1 Kenya.

Map 2 Zambia.

Introduction

Everyone knows that Africa is very far away from us. But emotionally, it is so close to us. We all want to learn more about Africa, despite how little we knew in the past … We are meeting many people for the first time, yet the friendship born of a shared struggle had long bound us together.1 Han Beiping, 1964

Han Beiping’s comment captures the paradox of dominant Chinese perceptions towards Africa and its people. A journalist and member of China Writers Association, he had visited Africa twice in the early 1960s, which made him a rare first-hand Chinese observer of newly independent African countries. Han vividly recalled the moment he stepped down from the aeroplane in Cairo: ‘a cold gust of wind hit my face and I started to shiver … Did you presume everywhere in Africa was hot?’ Another kind of warmth he went on to be impressed by was that with which he was received by the locals, who had made him feel at home and at ease. He portrays the bond between Chinese and Africans as forged through a shared struggle against imperialism and colonialism along with courageous nation-building efforts. Such claims, which tend to be dismissed as mere propagandist slogans by today’s media, in fact reflect the historical baggage that contemporary actors in China-Africa relations must shoulder in their engagements with each other. Few topics on China’s remarkable ascension to the status of global superpower have captured the interest and imagination of both popular and academic audiences more than China’s renewed levels of engagement with the African continent. Africa has become a major platform from which to analyse and understand China’s growing influence in the global South. Since the mid-2000s, research on ‘China in Africa’ has generated a wide body of scholarship ranging across a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, including political science, international relations, economics, anthropology, and sociology. 2 Even so, the history 1 Han Beiping, 非洲夜会 [Nights in Africa] (Tianjin: Baihua Edition, 1964), pp. 239–41. 2 For a summary of the vast corpus of literature on this topic, see: May

2

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

of Chinese relations with Africa remains largely under-­represented. Considered either too recent to constitute ‘factual history’ or insignificant to the formation of contemporary metanarratives, historical relations between China and Africa during the Cold War are often discussed briefly and in reductionist ways before paying lip service to the presence of ongoing changing dynamics. 3 Western scholars like David Shinn, Joshua Eisenman, and Donovan Chau have recently used English language newspapers and US government documents to revisit Chinese policy-making towards Africa during the Mao Zedong era, but little effort has been made to examine its effects on implicated African nations.4 Why does China’s rhetoric on its involvement with Africa exhibit substantial continuities with the Maoist past? And in what ways has a shared sense of anti-imperialist nostalgia shaped the contemporary relations between China and African countries? This book will, I hope, add historical depth and rich texture to the study of China-­ Africa relations. First described by George Yu in 1968 as a ‘dragon in the bush’, earlier studies of ‘China in Africa’ have since been criticised for painting the picture of ‘a monolithic Chinese dragon in an un-variegated African bush stripped of historical and political content’. 5 The gigantic size, dense population, geographical remoteness, and, above all, ideological inclination, of Communist China presented postcolonial Africa and its people with a challenge of comprehension. A moral disposition shaped Tan-Mullins, ‘China and Africa’, Oxford Bibliographies (Oxford University Press, 2016), www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199920082/ obo-9780199920082-0137.xml, accessed on 18 February 2022; Meine Pieter van Dijk, ‘China in Africa’, Oxford Bibliographies (Oxford University Press, 2017), www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199846733/ obo-9780199846733-0192.xml, accessed on 18 February 2022; ‘Course Outlines & Bibliographies’, China-Africa Knowledge Project Resource Hub, http:// china-africa.ssrc.org/teaching-research-resources/course-outlines-readinglists-bibliographies, accessed on 18 February 2022. 3 Ian Taylor, China and Africa: Engagement and Compromise (London: Routledge, 2006); Chris Alden, China in Africa (London: Zed Books, 2007); Robert Rotberg (ed.), China into Africa: Trade, Aid, and Influence (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2008); Chris Alden, Daniel Large, and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa: A Rising Power and A Continent Embrace (London: Hurst and Co., 2008); Chris Alden and Daniel Large (eds), New Directions in China-Africa Studies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019); Daniel Large, China and Africa: The New Era (Cambridge: Polity, 2021). 4 David H. Shinn and Joshua Eisenman, China and Africa: A Century of Engagement (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012); Donovan C. Chau, Exploiting Africa: The Influence of Maoist China in Algeria, Ghana, and Tanzania (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2014). 5 George T. Yu, ‘Dragon in the Bush: Peking’s Presence in Africa’, Asian Survey 8, 12 (1968), pp. 1018–26; Daniel Large, ‘Beyond ‘Dragon in the Bush’: The Study of China–Africa Relations’, African Affairs 107, 426 (2008), pp. 45–61.

Introduction

both by Africa’s troubled colonial past and the historically significant Western fear of the ‘Yellow Peril’ and communism made this an even bigger challenge.6 Since the vast majority of the literature on China in Africa is still dominated by a Eurocentric, mostly white, narrative, it is impossible to imagine a shared conception of modernity alternative to the Western ideal. With only a few exceptions such as Jamie Monson, the linguistic challenges African historians must face to explore Chinese sources are formidable.7 As a Chinese national who received training in African history overseas, I have proudly borne witness to and personally experienced the growth of African studies within China over the past decade. This book represents one of the attempts made by a new generation of young Chinese scholars who have joined their predecessors in promoting African history in Chinese universities and society. 8 Generalisation is something that authors are often warned against but rarely avoid. Though it agrees with the ‘continental policy framework’ of China’s Africa policy, this book stands out for both its Africa-­ centred and in-depth comparative approach.9 Situated at the nexus of African, decolonisation, and Cold War history, it supplies a detailed and finely nuanced analysis of postcolonial Zambia and Kenya’s foreign relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from the early 1960s right up until the late 2010s. With a primary emphasis on the dynamic interplay between domestic and foreign politics, it explores ‘African agency’ from the contrasting perspectives of two states. Kenya and Zambia achieved independence in 1963 and 1964 respectively after having been subject to British rule since the late nineteenth century. While Kenya’s transfer of power was complicated by the Mau Mau uprising between 1952 and 1960, both ruling parties – the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) of Zambia – came to the fore through the election process and oversaw a relatively peaceful transfer of power.10 Although Kenneth 6 Jodie Yuzhou Sun, ‘The Two Challenges of Writing China-Africa Relations’, Oxford University China Africa Network, Official Blog, 3 February 2016, https://oucan.politics.ox.ac.uk/index.php/blog/14178-the-two-challengesof-writing-china-africa-relations, accessed in February 2019. 7 Jamie Monson, Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese Development Project Changed Lives and Livelihoods in Tanzania (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009). 8 Established in 1980 at Peking University with over 160 registered members at the time, the Chinese Society of African Historical Studies is the leading research network for historians of Africa based in China. For an updated summary of African studies in China, see Li Anshan, ‘African Studies in China in Global Context (1950–2020)’, Brazilian Journal of African Studies 6, 12 (2021), pp. 107–69. 9 Large, China and Africa: The New Era, p. 10. 10 David Birmingham, The Decolonization of Africa (London: UCL Press, 1995).

3

4

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Kaunda (president of Zambia from 1964 to 1991) and Jomo Kenyatta (president of Kenya from 1963 to 1978) both clung to non-aligned principles and Afro-Asian solidarity, their countries’ international outlooks were strikingly different: Zambia became known as a country on the frontlines in support of southern Africa liberation, while Kenya preoccupied itself with economic development, relying heavily on Western aid and trade. This is partly explained by the role of material incentives and the effective distribution of patronage in particular, in either de facto or de jure one-party African states. As ‘a weak party in which several semi-corporate groups competed for influence’, KANU tended to favour a system tolerant of diverse points of view within, of course, certain parameters.11 Its adoption of harambee (‘Let’s pull together’ in Swahili) as a form of ‘self-help development’ allowed Kenyan MPs to reward party loyalists in their respective constituencies as the basis of the party’s drive for social and political control in Kenyan society. But in UNIP’s case, ‘a certain ideological commitment from organisers and members’ prevented the effective allocation of material incentives to UNIP loyalists, and MPs were ‘relatively marginal in party decision-­ making’.12 This was especially true after the declaration of a one-­ party state in 1972 which saw Kaunda ascend to supreme leader of both party and state. The lesser-known elite connections between Zambia, Kenya, and China help us understand the visions and the practices of famous African statesmen vis-à-vis a rising power during much of the Cold War era. In general, Kenyan politicians have shown themselves to be pragmatic policy-makers who opted to adapt to rapid changes afoot in the foreign environment. They also tend to prioritise economic interests and domestic development instead of strictly confining themselves within ideological alliances. Tom Mboya’s leadership in the trade unions did not make him a Communist sympathiser but did inspire him to look for a Kenyan style of socialism. Oginga Odinga’s alliance with Beijing did not spring entirely from a shared radical ideology but was instead concerned with counterbalancing his main rival, the US-backed Mboya. Daniel arap Moi, who as Vice President launched attacks against Communist ideological subversion, upon becoming President embraced Chinese domestic achievements. Zambian statesmen, on the other hand, have been more ideologically steadfast in their engagement with Cold War powers. Less motivated than their Kenyan counterparts to secure foreign patrons for domestic political struggles, 11 Jennifer A. Widner, The Rise of a Party-State in Kenya: From ‘Harambee!’ to ‘Nyayo!’ (Berkeley: University of California, 1992), p. 30. 12 Miles Larmer, Rethinking African Politics: A History of Opposition in Zambia (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), p. 93.

Introduction

they have made a collective contribution to the narrative of building peace and justice in southern Africa and beyond. Kaunda was certainly more ambitious than Kenyatta when it came to global affairs. But this did not exempt him from domestic pressures. When relations between China and the West – especially with the US – softened in the late 1970s, Zambian technocrats in UNIP’s Research Bureau became critical of China’s geopolitical ambitions. A paradox was thus born: while a country like Kenya which has been commonly perceived as pro-­ Western has maintained robust economic relations with China despite ideological differences, a non-aligned country such as Zambia did not necessarily enjoy an ‘all-weather friendship’ with China on issues such as southern African liberation movements. The idea of writing this book came to me in 2014 while doing fieldwork on Chinese mining in Zambia. I was fascinated by the fact that historical memories of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA) and liberation struggles were frequently brought up by both state and nonstate Chinese and Zambian actors while discussing the footprint of Chinese copper mining in this landlocked southern African nation. As Deborah Brautigam has rightly pointed out, ‘for decades afterwards the world knew of China’s aid program through the Tan-Zam railway. Many were surprised to learn that China had done anything else in Africa’.13 Kaunda was a regular guest at the Chinese Embassy. His personal friendship with earlier Chinese leaders including Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai was highly praised for having contributed to a ‘favourable environment’ for Chinese investment in Zambia.14 At this time, a question took root in my mind: does this particular image of a China-Africa ‘benign past’ appear in other African nations? The year 2013 saw the inauguration of a new president in eastern Africa. For Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Jomo Kenyatta, China was among the first countries outside Africa be paid a state visit. However, the historical discourse plays a more ambivalent role in bilateral relations between China and Kenya. Recently, when invited to the Chinese Embassy, a handful of older Kenyan politicians who had visited China during the Cultural Revolution started to sing the ‘red’ songs of their memories. The Chinese officials were not amused in the slightest.15 With the total 13 Deborah Brautigam, The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 41. 14 ‘罗涛总经理出席中赞建交50周年暨赞比亚前总统卡翁达阁下90寿辰庆祝会’ [General Manager Luo Tao Attends the Celebration of 50 Years Anniversary of China-Zambian Relations as well as 90 Years Birthday of the Former President of Zambia Dr Kaunda], CNMC, 22 April 2014, www.cnmc.com.cn/zsgj/ detailtem.jsp?column_no=090302&article_millseconds=1398144270046, accessed in May 2021. 15 Interview with Edward Oyugi, Commissioner, Commission on Revenue Allocation and Professor, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, 23 November 2016.

5

6

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

absence of Sino-Kenyan relations in the 1960s and 1970s from the official discourse, this anecdote serves as a reminder that not every piece of history is viewed as an asset in China-Africa relations. Therefore, a comprehensive investigation into what Julia Strauss called ‘historical and rhetorical lineages in China relations with Africa’, is of both historiographical importance and huge contemporary significance.16 The ways in which an older Afro-Asian solidarity discourse is used (and not used) to legitimise more recent political, economic, and cultural connections between former ‘Third World’ allies remains an under-researched topic. This book examines the encounters, conflicts, and dynamics of China-Kenya/Zambia relations from the late 1950s until the present, which form the basis of constructed historical narratives regarding Chinese encounters with Kenyans and Zambians. In doing so, it traces the development of these relationships and sheds light on the historical underpinnings – or lack thereof – of contemporary China-Africa relations.

Interconnectivity between Foreign and Domestic Policy beyond National(ist) Histories

The field of ‘China and Africa’ has been dominated by an international relations approach, which is primarily preoccupied with the nation-state as hegemonic actor in global politics, stripped of its domestic context. Formed in the cradle of African nationalism in the 1950s and early 1960s, the professionalised field of African history was initially driven by the urge to write back against a long tradition of racist, imperialist European scholarship that denied the continent any meaningful, authentic past worthy of the historian’s craft.17 Yet such nationalist approaches fell under heavy critique from the 1970s onwards. A group of so-called ‘radical pessimists’ reverted to structuralist methodological approaches such as class analysis, dependency theory, and neo-Marxism to explain their disappointment in the situation of African political economies in terms of global capital.18 Neocolonialism, the continued economic dominance of the West over former colonies, was a common accusation.19 In light of this, both Zambia and Kenya found themselves under criticism for their openness towards 16 Julia C. Strauss, ‘The Past in the Present: Historical and Rhetorical Lineages in China’s Relations with Africa’, The China Quarterly 199 (2009), pp. 777–95. 17 Terence Ranger (ed.), Emerging Themes in African History: Proceedings (Nairobi: East Africa Pub. House, 1968). 18 Bill Freund, The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society Since 1800 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). 19 See for example, Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, 1972).

Introduction

engagement with the world economy and multinational corporations.20 For example, Zambia’s heavy reliance on foreign trade, capital, technology, and skills had only benefited a small segment of the country’s population.21 Kenya, on the other hand, was considered ‘a sub-imperial state at the centre of the “periphery”, a “client” which is able to exert dominance in the region of the Third World’.22 Although postcolonial African states tended to be dependent on other states in the global economy, even taking the inevitable power asymmetry into account, in their interactions with a socialist country like China their level of agency cannot be reduced to the typical neocolonial set-up. When Kenya and Zambia liberalised their political and economic systems, China also reformed its economic structure but remained controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). If we fail to conduct careful analysis of these dramatic and multifaceted transformations, China would appear only as a new chapter in global capitalism, with African countries at the footnotes. Some political scientists went further to explore the nature of African states through comparative approaches. Kenya and Tanzania have been counterposed particularly often on account of their respective ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’ trajectories.23 Tanzania and Zambia have also been compared for their respective emphases on rural development and the role played by foreign aid.24 Nevertheless, these studies tend to separate foreign policy from the domestic political environment in a 20 Colin Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya: The Political Economy of Neo-­ Colonialism 1964–1971 (London: Heinemann, 1975); Ian Taylor, Review Article, ‘Zambia’s Foreign Policy: Themes and Approaches’, Politikon 24, 2 (1997), p. 59. 21 Timothy M. Shaw, ‘The Foreign Policy of Zambia: Ideology and Interests’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 14, 1 (1976), p. 97. 22 Timothy M. Shaw, ‘International Stratification in Africa: Sub-Imperialism in Southern and Eastern Africa’, Journal of Southern African Affairs 2, 2 (1977), p. 145. 23 Lionel Cliffe, Underdevelopment or Socialism? A Comparative Analysis of Kenya and Tanzania (Brighton: UK: University of Sussex, 1973); Joel D. Barkan, Politics and Public Policy in Kenya and Tanzania (Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya, 1984); Joel D. Barkan (ed.), Beyond Capitalism vs. Socialism in Kenya and Tanzania (London: Lynne Rienner, 1994); Maria Nzomo, ‘The Foreign Policy of Kenya and Tanzania: The Impact of Dependence and Underdevelopment, 1961– 1980’ (Dalhousie University, PhD thesis, 1981). 24 Dean E. McHenry, Jr., ‘The Struggle for Rural Socialism in Tanzania’, in Carl Rosberg and Thomas Callaghy (eds), Socialism in Sub-Saharan Africa (Berkley: University of California, 1979), pp. 37–60; Stephen A. Quick, ‘Socialism in One Sector: Rural Development in Zambia’, in Rosberg and Callaghy (eds), Socialism in Sub-Saharan Africa, pp. 83–111; Gary Gappert, The Prospects for Regional Development and Planning between Tanzania and Zambia (Syracuse, NY: Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 1968); H. White, Import Support Aid: Experiences from Tanzania and Zambia (The Hague: Institute of Social Justice, 1994).

7

8

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

way that distorts the actual history of Zambia and Kenya’s relationship with both regional and global actors. Their inherently linear understanding of human history, and obsession with grand meta­narratives of modernisation are also problematic. This book not only recognises the discomforting tendency to characterise Africa as a whole but also proposes to historicise the interconnectivity of the domestic and foreign policy of postcolonial African states, as well as that of their Chinese counterpart. There has been a recent wave of scholarship that emphasises and complicates how postcolonial African states engage in foreign politics through empirically grounded historical narratives. One of the mechanisms by which African elites coped with more powerful external actors, ‘extraversion’, was identified by Jean-François Bayart as an effective method of consolidating their own authority through access to external resources.25 But his was by no means the only explanation. While Andy DeRoche perceives Kaunda’s contribution to US relations with southern Africa from 1975 to 1984 as generally very positive, 26 Miles Larmer’s history of opposition politics in Zambia highlights Kaunda’s negotiation of a ‘constructive’ relationship with apartheid South Africa, sometimes against the wishes of the regional liberation movements themselves.27 In a similar vein, Daniel Branch’s account of Kenyan politics since independence shows how the country’s ambiguous path was chosen, and how political uncertainty has prevailed until today.28 Unlike the earlier characterisation of Kenyan foreign policy as ‘quiet diplomacy’, 29 Poppy Cullen’s recent research on Anglo-Kenyan relations suggests that the deployment of Cold War rhetoric helped rather than harmed Kenyatta’s bargaining of arms sales with the British. 30 The significance of nationalism as a political ideology and force in Africa outside the boundaries of the postcolonial African state can also be found in Matteo Grilli’s work on Ghana’s Pan-African foreign policy. 31 This book builds on but also interrogates some of the above Jean-François Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (London: Longman, 1993); Jean-François Bayart and Stephen Ellis, ‘Africa in the World: A History of Extraversion’, African Affairs 99, 395 (2000), pp. 217–67. 26 Andrew DeRoche, Kenneth Kaunda, the United States and Southern Africa (London: Bloomsbury, 2016). 27 Larmer, Rethinking African Politics, p. 10. 28 Daniel Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2011 (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011). 29 John J. Okumu, ‘Some Thoughts on Kenya’s Foreign Policy’, The African Review 3, 2 (1973), p. 263. 30 Poppy Cullen, Kenya and Britain after Independence: Beyond Neo-Colonialism (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Poppy Cullen, ‘“Playing Cold War Politics”: The Cold War in Anglo-Kenyan Relations in the 1960s’, Cold War History 18, 1 (2018), pp. 1–17. 31 Matteo Grilli, Nkrumaism and African Nationalism: Ghana’s Pan-African 25

Introduction

contributions by highlighting a previously underestimated actor: Communist Party–ruled China. China’s active search for status and supporters throughout most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America is better able to exemplify the entanglement of the global ideological confrontation with processes of decolonisation than that conducted by former colonial powers or Cold War superpowers. Africa’s relatively limited or narrow engagement with Communist China has much to offer our understanding of the potential of the continent’s ‘local resonance’ vis-à-vis an alien presence, secular but no less multifaceted. 32 The varied forces and factors that have shaped the complex and contested engagements between independent African countries and China can be explained by the structural differences in Kenya’s and Zambia’s domestic and foreign politics that were informed but also shaped by the global ideological confrontation of the Cold War period.

Global Cold War and Decolonisation

Between 1949 and 1979, the main task facing China was to break out of isolation and to secure international recognition and support, a mission which culminated in its (ultimately) successful accession to the United Nations. Writing in the era of Mao Zedong, Bruce Larkin, Alaba Ogunsanwo, George Yu and Alan Hutchison studied the evolution and effectiveness of China’s anti-imperialist revolutionary agenda towards Africa in the conventional framework of foreign policy analysis. 33 Taken collectively, these contributions did much to counter­balance prevailing racist and anti-Communist sentiment in the West. Aid and economic assistance was considered a key aspect of China’s policy towards Africa, often as a point of comparison with the Soviet Union. 34 The case of the TAZARA railway also received special attention in the 1970s. 35 A decade later and before the end of the Cold War, Philip Foreign Policy in the Age of Decolonization (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). 32 Christopher Clapham, ‘Fitting China In’, in Alden, Large, and Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa, pp. 361–9. 33 Bruce Larkin, China and Africa, 1949–1970: The Foreign Policy of the People’s Republic of China (Berkley: University of California Press, 1971); Alaba Ogunsanwo, China’s Policy in Africa, 1958–1971 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); George Yu, China’s Africa Policy: A Study of Tanzania (New York: Praeger, 1975); Alan Hutchison, China’s African Revolution (London: Hutchinson, 1975). 34 Warren Weinstein (ed.), Chinese and Soviet Aid to Africa (New York: Praeger, 1975); Warren Weinstein and Thomas H Henriksen (eds), Soviet and Chinese Aid to African Nations (New York: Praeger, 1980). 35 George T. Yu, ‘Working on the Railroad: China and the Tanzania-Zamia Railway’, Asian Survey 11, 11 (1971), pp. 1101–17; Martin Bailey, Freedom

9

10

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Snow sought to bridge the gap between revolutionary China and the China of Deng Xiaoping’s reform era through the prism of win-win and South-South cooperation. 36 Constrained by limited access to archival documents and oral testimonies from China and many African countries, such analyses tended to reach dogmatic and facile conclusions about both African and Chinese elites, with the former often portrayed as opportunists embroiled in endeavours to persuade their distant and non-white comrades to sponsor their political interests. The old, conventional narrative of the Cold War history as in essence an East-West confrontation driven by Washington, Moscow and their respective allies has since given way to a ‘new international history of the Cold War’. 37 The leading figure in this revolutionary movement, Odd Arne Westad, took the previously ignored ‘peripheries’ seriously, arguing that the most important aspects of the Cold War were neither military nor strategic, nor Europe-centred, but rather connected to the political and social development of the ‘Third World’. 38 First used by French journalists to describe developing areas in the early 1950s, the term ‘Third World’ became a ‘convenient political catchphrase’ following the landmark Bandung Conference on Afro-Asian solidarity in 1955. 39 This predominantly poor, non-white, and initially non-aligned area of the globe belonged ideologically to neither West nor East, which in itself presents a challenge to the bipolar characterisation of the global order. The PRC enjoyed ‘the most complicated relationship to non-alignment’: while continuously casting itself as member of the ‘Third World’, it was undeniably inclined to gain influence in similar manners to the US and the Soviet Union.40 Although both Jeremy Friedman and Gregg Brazinsky included Africa in their discussion of China’s ‘Third World’ foreign policy, their work could be said to exaggerate the role of global geopolitical dynamics in determining the nature of interactions between China and individual African counRailway: China and the Tanzania-Zambia Link (London: Rex Colins, 1976); Richard Hall and Hugh Peyman, The Great Uhuru Railway: China’s Showpiece in Africa (London: Gollancz, 1976). 36 Philip Snow, The Star Raft: China’s Encounter with Africa (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988). 37 For introductory overviews, see John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin, 2005); Odd Arne Westad, ‘The New International History of the Cold War: Three (Possible) Paradigms’, Diplomatic History 24 (2000), pp. 551–65. 38 Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Makings of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 39 Robert J. McMahon, ‘Introduction’, in Robert J. McMahon (ed.), The Cold War in the Third World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 3. 40 Mark Atwood Lawrence, ‘The Rise and Fall of Non-Alignment’, in McMahon, The Cold War in the Third World, p. 145.

Introduction

tries.41 This book will instead focus on direct engagement of Zambia and Kenya with China through the prism of the interplay between domestic and foreign politics. The global Cold War meant unequal relations of power among political communities that pursued or were driven to pursue a specific path of progress within the binary structure of the global order.42 While the ‘contest of power’ has been an explicit theme of the Cold War, the extent to which it rested on the ‘relation-of-domination’ has been given less attention. In this regard, the ways in which less powerful Cold War actors such as Cuba and Eastern European countries engaged with postcolonial Africa is particularly revealing. According to Piero Gleijeses, Havana did not intervene in Congo and later in Angola as a ‘proxy’ of Moscow, as is usually stated, but instead as an independent global actor in pursuit of its own distinctive revolutionary vision.43 Through a study of the motivations of individual Cubans who participated in military and civil engagement in Angola, Christine Hatzky likewise regarded Cuba as an autonomous driving force.44 Quinn Slobodian’s edited volume brings in a representative range of examples that document the diverse breadth of interactions between East Germany and its partners in Africa.45 The question of how the ‘global’ is revealed and remade through the ‘local’ is as crucial as that of how global forces shape local experiences. The lived experience of southern African liberation movements and their forces in Eastern Europe, Tanzania, Zambia, and Angola was another example of the transnational and global nature of African decolonisation.46 Therefore, the history of postcolonial Africa 41 Jeremy Scott Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015); Gregg Brazinsky, Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017). 42 Heonik Kwon, The Other Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010). 43 Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa 1959– 1976 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); Piero Gleijeses, ‘Moscow’s Proxy? Cuba and Africa 1975–1988’, Journal of Cold War Studies 8, 2 (2006), pp. 3–51. 44 Christine Hatzky, Cubans in Angola: South-South Cooperation and Transfer of Knowledge, 1976–1991 (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2015). 45 Quinn Slobodian (ed.), Comrades of Color: East Germany in the Cold War World (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015). 46 Lena Dallywater, Chris Saunders, and Helder Adegar Fonseca (eds), Southern African Liberation Movements and the Global Cold War ‘East’: Transnational Activism 1960–1990 (Oldenbourg, De Gruyter, 2019); Jocelyn Alexander, JoAnn McGregor, and Blessing-Miles Tendi, ‘The Transnational Histories of Southern African Liberation Movements: An Introduction’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 43, 1 (2017), pp. 1–12; Christian A. Williams, National Liberation in Postcolonial Southern Africa: A Historical Ethnography of SWAPO’s Exile

11

12

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

needs to be understood within the ‘historical intersections’ of ongoing decolonisation, global waves of social mobilisation, and Cold War realpolitik.47 This book represents one of the first attempts to bring the Chinese perspective and archival material to bear in analysing encounters between Africans and people of the East. These Chinese language sources and oral histories disaggregate the motivations, interests, and even tensions, within the Chinese state. China’s ‘alternativeness’ in engaging with African actors will also challenge the conventional understanding of the divisions of East and West, North and South in African decolonisation. While this book is above all a conventional history of international relations and diplomacy, it does not ignore the roles played by ideas, cultures, and social mobility in shaping the development of high politics. In response to Vijay Prashad’s conceptualisation of the ‘Third World’ as a project rather than a place,48 this book analyses the ways in which a range of state and non-state actors facilitated the ‘local’ perception of Mao’s China as both ‘revolutionary’ and ‘professional’, all the while generating curiosity and debate about Chinese society among ordinary Africans. The discourse of the ‘brotherly’ nature of Communist solidarity is also complicated in this book by the specific case of female Chinese dancers in Zambia, whose attire and mere presence challenges the masculine trajectory of modernity. In this way, it is a history of China and Africa relations, but also a history of Chinese and African people.

African Agency: Two State Perspectives

The issue of human agency exercised by Africans, especially against the odds, has been heavily debated. Mainly aiming to counter the rise of a ‘radical pessimism’ in the late 1960s, Terence Ranger used to characterise such creative potential into ‘three magnetic fields of socially bargained experience’: religious belief, cultural or moral community, violent conflict and its reconciliation.49 Though the narrative and initiative of ‘African agency’ was initially contextualised in relation to European conquest or colonisation, it has more recently gained prevalence in international politics, in possession of an overarching Camps (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Stephen Ellis, External Mission: The ANC in Exile 1960 –1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 47 Jeremi Suri, ‘The Cold War, Decolonization, and Global Social Awakenings: Historical Intersections’, Cold War History, 6 (2006), pp. 353–63. 48 Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (London: New Press, 2007), p. xvii. 49 Quoted in John Lonsdale, ‘Agency in Tight Corners: Narrative and Initiative in African History’, Journal of African Cultural Studies 13, 1 (2000), pp. 12–13.

Introduction

mission to explain ‘how far, and in what ways, African political actors are impacting on, and operating within, the international system’. 50 Scholars of ‘China-Africa’ have also used examples of the Angola, Ghana, and Nigeria to demonstrate the capacity of African actors to wield ‘agency’ in their own favour. 51 These works, by focusing on economic relations such as aid and bilateral investments, assume that these financial institutions have always existed and operated in the same way as they do today. This book, through a detailed comparative study of Kenya and Zambia, demonstrates the diversity through time and space of the much-cited but little-explained concept of ‘African agency’. Facing similar challenges of state-building and economic development, both Kenya and Zambia approached, deepened, and negotiated their relations with China as they searched for ideological and material support towards these goals. China’s changing global image, from a leader of the ‘Third World’ to an economic superpower was subject to interpretation and engagement by African states and elites that were simultaneously experiencing their own processes of historical change. Nationalism emerged in both colonial Kenya and then-Northern Rhodesia following the end of the Second World War. Beijing’s essentially class-based analysis of world revolution did not distinguish significantly between the two, and its initial support of their anticolonial struggles was primarily channelled through its established contacts in the Eastern Bloc. Soon after independence, Kenyan and Zambian governments adopted forms of African socialism as a guide to national development in the mid-1960s. 52 In terms of foreign policy, both Kenya and Zambia declared themselves non-aligned and were active participants in Afro-Asian solidarity conferences. In reality, however, Kenya’s international outlook was largely pro-Western: it was heavily reliant upon global markets and especially the British for military support. Zambia, although also dependent on global mineral sales, was 50 William Brown and Sophie Harman (eds), African Agency in International Politics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), p. 1. 51 Kweku Ampiah and Naidu Sanusha (eds), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Africa and China (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008); Giles Mohan and Ben Lampert, ‘Negotiating China: Reinserting African Agency into China-Africa Relations’, African Affairs 112, 446 (2012), pp. 92–110; Lucy Corkin, Uncovering African Agency: Angola’s Management of China’s Credit Lines (London: Ashgate, 2013); Jon Phillip Jon, ‘Who’s in Charge of Sino-African Resource Politics? Situating African State Agency in Ghana’, African Affairs 118, 470 (2019), pp. 101–24. 52 For further comparative studies, see Jodie Yuzhou Sun, ‘Historicizing African Socialisms: Kenyan African Socialism, Zambian Humanism, and Communist China’s Entanglements’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 52, 3 (2019), pp. 349–74.

13

14

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

ideologically more sympathetic towards the Communist Bloc, though not as radical as its neighbour Tanzania. China’s launch of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 quickly led to a deterioration in its diplomatic relations with Kenya, which were frozen until the 1970s. 53 China’s ties with Zambia during the same period grew stronger and more robust: China helped Zambia to build its transnational railway to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam and lent its support to southern African liberation movements active in the region, particularly those based in Zambia. 54 The late 1970s witnessed China’s great transformation from a socialist state to a liberal economy. While Kenyan elites perceived this as a positive move, the ideological shift was viewed more suspiciously by Zambian leaders, who felt somewhat abandoned by China’s new international orientation. 55 The end of the Cold War had an enduring impact on both Kenya and Zambia, as the two countries experienced the dual liberalisation of their political and economic systems. 56 China’s ‘return’ to Africa, this time driven more by economic than political motives, provided opportunities but also challenges for Kenya and Zambia. China’s unique historical trajectory from a ‘Third World’ leader to a leading global economy makes it an attractive model for many African leaders, and the hybridity of its socialist and capitalist features is best exemplified by the discourse of anti-imperialist nostalgia in China-Africa relations.57 As ‘a practice of coincident temporalities’, it denotes a specific way of enfolding the past into the present, and indeed the future. 58 But this is a discourse which can only partly conceal the inherent contradictions in these relationships. The experience of China-Kenya/Zambia relations over five decades shows us how history has played a significant role in the construction, reshaping, and negotiation of both sides’ expectations towards their contemporary engagements. To represent this more fully, this book has sought to recapture the missing voices of the many ordinary Chinese and Africans who experienced, participated in, and shaped these hisHutchison, China’s African Revolution, p. 116; Wang Qinmei, ‘中非关系中的 一个曲折起伏’ [Twists and Turns in Sino-African Relations], in 《北大非洲研 究：中国与非洲》[Peking University African Studies Series: China and Africa] (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2000), pp. 59–71. 54 Ogunsanwo, China’s Policy in Africa, 1958–1971, pp. 204–13. 55 Zheng Kejun, ‘八十年代初期中国对非洲政策的调整’ [Adjustments of China’s Policy towards Africa in the Early 1980s], in Peking University African Studies Series: China and Africa, pp. 87–99. 56 Paul Nugent, Africa since Independence: A Comparative History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 411–22. 57 Jennifer Wenzel, ‘Remembering the Past’s Future: Anti-Imperialist Nostalgia and Some Versions of the Third World’, Cultural Critique 62 (2006). 58 Eric Worby and Shireen Ally, ‘The Disappointment of Nostalgia: Conceptualising Cultures of Memory in Contemporary South Africa’, Social Dynamics 39, 3 (2013), p. 458. 53

Introduction

torical trajectories. It analyses the ways in which the past has been variously deployed by diverse actors in order to comprehend the present and contrast it with a desired future. The unproblematic past we see deployed in public rhetoric, while successful in facilitating official relations between China and Zambia, has had consequences whereby the daily encounters of Chinese and Zambians are affected by their perceptions of each other, shaped as these have been both by history as it was experienced and the contemporary deployment of history as myth. On the other hand, historical Sino-Kenyan relations would appear to have been less benign than the present rhetoric would suggest, given their diplomatic deterioration in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s, which helps to explain the predominantly profit-driven and present-­ minded dynamics of both state and individual interactions today.

Methodology and Sources

This project is testament to the fact that strong levels of preparation and training in African history combined with the linguistic capacity to consult Chinese sources holds great potential for the future of the history of China-Africa relations. Few scholars who focus on Communist China’s foreign policy have made an effort to engage with the rich world of African historiography. 59 Africanists, on the other hand, rarely involve the Chinese language in their research.60 This book brings together scholarship from multiple disciplines including international relations, politics, and history, as well as several related fields of historiography such as Cold War history, African history, and Chinese history. It makes innovative use of a wide range of archival sources (from national, provincial, municipal, party, and private archives), and the press, as well as oral histories (elite interviews, memoirs, and participant observations). Taking the idea of ‘knowledge production’ into account, this book considers the archive as a political entity, whose contents, organisational structures, and (in)accessibility are determined by the postcolonial state.61 Historians writing on post-1960 Africa generally struggle with the ‘scattered, contingent and partial’ nature of the ‘postcolonial This issue has been partly addressed by the construction of a digital archive of documents, the most famous of which being the Cold War International History Project of Wilson Center. See: www.wilsoncenter.org/program/ cold-war-international-history-project. 60 There are however a few exceptions such as Jamie Monson, Solange Guo Chatelard, and Yan Hairong. Also, a new generation of young Chinese scholars (including the author herself) are being trained as Africanists. 61 Ann Laura Stoler, ‘Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance’, Archival Science 2 (2002), p. 87. 59

15

16

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

archive’, which demands visits to multiple locations in order to access the relevant archival documents.62 This book is no exception. It draws upon material from five national archives: the Kenya National Archives (KNA), the Zambia National Archives (ZNA), China’s Foreign Ministry Archives (CFMA), The National Archives (TNA) of the United Kingdom (UK), as well as the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). I have also made use of the United National Independence Party Archives (UNIP) in both London and Lusaka, as well as the Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA). Unlike some African countries where postcolonial archives are virtually non-existent, both Kenya and Zambia have functional state archives that contain documents concerning their foreign relations with China. The ZNA holdings on Zambia’s relations with China concentrate on formal state visits and agreements, but also cover trade, cultural activities, and propaganda. The National Archives Act 1969 stipulated that all records transferred to the ZNA for safekeeping ‘remain closed to the members of the public for twenty years’, but scholars have noted that some, ‘owing to their nature of confidentiality continued to remain closed to members of the public’.63 Notably, China’s relations with Zambia’s Second Republic (1972–90) are completely missing from the state archives, except for the files on TAZARA. This limitation was mitigated in part through access to the no less significant records of the United National Independence Party (UNIP). Following UNIP’s removal from power in 1991, however, the depository suffered from ‘almost complete neglect and rapid decay’.64 Most of the UNIP records were, however, digitised and made available by the Endangered Archives Programme of the British Library. The most useful records for the purposes of this study concern UNIP’s contacts with China from 1960 until 1980. This material has enabled a novel analysis of Zambian perceptions of China’s economic transition of the early post-Mao era. The digitised KNA, ‘a reservoir and living example of historical and ethnographic knowledge’, also suffers from operational challenges such as a lack of staff expertise.65 Many of the documents I had requested were reported as ‘lost’ or ‘misplaced’. Despite this, I managed to amass Luise White, ‘Introduction – Suitcases, Roads, and Archives: Writing the History of Africa after 1960’, History in Africa 42 (2015), p. 266. 63 P.M. Mukula, Information About the National Archives of Zambia: A More Than Three-Decade Service of the Memory of the Party, its Government and the Nation, 1947–1981 (Lusaka: National Archives of Zambia, 1982), p. 7. 64 ‘Preserving the Archives of the United National Independence Party of Zambia (EAP121)’, Endangered Archives Programme, British Library, https:// eap.bl.uk/project/EAP121. 65 Matthew Carotenuto and Katherine Luongo, ‘Navigating the Kenya National Archives: Research and Its Role in Kenyan Society’, History in Africa 32 (2005), p. 445. 62

Introduction

many useful and revealing documents on Kenya’s relations with China, especially bilateral trade figures, and materials concerning economic and technical assistance. The majority of documents on Kenya-China relations were produced by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs only making occasional appearances in inter-ministerial communications. This fact itself is revealing as to the primarily commercial nature of the relationship between Kenya and China. As for archival research in China, I made use of documents in China’s Foreign Ministry Archives (CFMA) in Beijing and the Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA). The gradual opening of archival collections on post-1949 China gained speed in the 1990s and peaked in 2007 when, for the first time, the CFMA was opened to the public.66 However, there has been a recent tightening of governmental control: the CFMA withdrew 90 per cent of its documents and was temporarily closed in May 2014.67 My last visit to the CFMA after it reopened in December 2016 echoed the experience described by Kazushi Minami: those entries related to Kenya and Zambia belonged to ‘two conspicuously uncontroversial’ divisions of the Foreign Ministry: the International Organizations Division and the Protocol Division.68 When the archives of both postcolonial Africa and the PRC are limited for either accessibility or organisational reasons, historians explore other possibilities: the so-called ‘shadow’ collections. I have used the public records of the Dominions Office (DO), the Foreign Office (CO), and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) located at the National Archives in London as well as the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at College Park, Maryland. Record Group 59, the General Records of the Department of State has been particularly helpful in understanding Kenya’s and Zambia’s evolving relations with Communist China from the perspective of a Cold War superpower.69 In addition to the telegrams and memorandums produced for bureaucratic purposes, these collections also feature the 66 Arunabh Ghosh and Sören Urbansky, ‘China from Without: Doing PRC History in Foreign Archives’, The PRC History Review 2, 3 (2017), p. 1. 67 Arunabh Ghosh, ‘Urgent Update on Foreign Ministry Archives, Beijing’, Dissertation Reviews, 6 August 2013, http://dissertationreviews.org/ archives/5411; Maura Cunningham, ‘Denying Historians: China’s Archives Increasingly Off-Bounds’, The Wall Street Journal, 19 August 2014, https:// blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/08/19/denying-historians-chinasarchives-increasingly-off-bounds/. 68 Kazushi Minami, ‘China’s Foreign Ministry Archive: Open or Closed?’ Wilson Center, 2 October 2017, www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/chinasforeign-ministry-archive-open-or-closed. 69 Note that the US Department of State referred to the Chinese Communist and the Nationalist government respectively as CHICOM and CHINAT. These terms are preserved in the quotations in this book.

17

18

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

perspectives of a diverse range of political actors driven by different mindsets, ambitions and emotions. This book also draws upon the Kenyan, Zambian, and Chinese press. I surveyed Kenya’s and Zambia’s leading English language newspapers, the East African Standard and the Times of Zambia. The East African Standard is Kenya’s oldest paper, having reported ‘from pre-­ independence, through Uhuru, to post-independence’.70 Together with the Daily Nation, it is one of the two biggest daily newspapers in Kenya, mostly popular in cities. As editors from both papers maintained cordial relations with the British High Commissioner in Kenya, their perspectives on foreign affairs and China in particular are barely indistinguishable.71 Established in the colonial period in the Copperbelt, the Times of Zambia was owned by the London-based conglomerate Lonrho from 1965 until 1972, when the UNIP government appointed its own editor, and finally took over the newspaper in 1975.72 According to Francis Peter Kasoma, the press in Zambia remained relatively free until Kaunda’s ‘tightening grip’ of the 1970s and 1980s; Kenya, in contrast, enjoyed a longer period of relative press freedom until the 1990s.73 More than a state propaganda organ or a basic reiteration of the ruling party’s line, the Kenyan press to a certain degree allowed a dynamic exchange of opinions and ideas. Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) is the main official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which is a source of information on the policies and viewpoints of CCP straight from the Party itself. The media coverage of more recent China-Africa relations in African publications such as the Daily Nation and the Lusaka Times is accessible online. Last but not least, the book benefits from the oral testimonies collected both during the author’s own fieldwork and by other oral history projects. In Zambia in 2014, I interviewed many governmental and non-governmental actors who were working closely with Chinese mining companies. In 2016, I spent three months in Zambia and another three in Kenya, conducting archival research as well as interviews with certain elites. Along with Kenneth Kaunda and Rupiah Banda 70 ‘Uhuru’ is a Swahili word for freedom, used to denote independence. Brian Tetley, ‘Moving into the 21st Century’, East African Standard, 20 February 1995, p. 6, quoted in Michelle Sikes, ‘Print Media and the History of Women’s Sport in Africa: The Kenyan Case of Barriers to International Achievement’, History in Africa 43 (2016), p. 328. 71 Gerard Loughran, Birth of a Nation: The Story of a Newspaper in Kenya (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), pp. 18–19. 72 Francis Peter Kasoma, The Press in Zambia: The Development, Role and Control of National Newspapers in Zambia, 1906–1983 (Lusaka: Multimedia Publications, 1986). 73 Francis Peter Kasoma, ‘The Press and the Multiparty Politics in Africa’ (University of Tampere, PhD thesis, 2000), p. 25.

Introduction

(Zambia’s President between 2008 and 2011), Mark Chona and Vernon Mwaanga were awarded the Chinese Ambassador’s Award of Friendship in 2015.74 This partly explains their willingness to be interviewed by a Chinese researcher. Unlike in Kenya where I struggled to talk to senior politicians, today’s Zambian political leaders are heavily invested in the historical narrative of an ‘all-weather friendship’, which can be a hazard for historians writing the past from the present. In 2017, my target interviewees were non-state actors, such as Chinese aid doctors, private businessmen, as well as Kenyan and Zambian staff who were closely involved in Chinese affairs. This book has also made use of memoirs produced by prominent actors in the Cold War. An enlightening oral history project which has until now been underused by Western scholars focuses on the private journals of Ma Faxian, a retired Chinese military advisor to Zambia between 1972 and 1974, which will be discussed in Chapter 3.75 The sources discussed above are not spread evenly throughout the book but instead determined by their relevance to specific topics discussed in the chapters and the quality of sources for different subjects and periods. Material from state and party archives appears from Chapters 1 to 5 but is of less use for analyses of recent Kenya/Zambia-­China relations. Newspaper articles are used from Chapters 2 to 6. As few people with memories of earlier historical periods now survive, oral histories feature mostly in the final chapter.

Structure of the Book

The chapters that follow this introduction do so in primarily chronological order. Chapter 1 analyses the development of ‘Red’ China’s foreign policy in the historical context of African decolonisation, which set the stage for increasing Afro-Asian engagement during the Cold War. Driven by the Marxist dialectical theories which guided its foreign policy, China advanced what was an essentially an anti-­imperialist global vision as a departure from the Soviet Union’s approach. The Bandung Conference of 1955 allowed Chinese leaders to engage directly with their African counterparts, which would lead to formal diplomatic recognitions as well as bilateral exchanges of delegates. Constrained 74 ‘Chinese Embassy in Zambia Holds the First Award Ceremony of Chinese Ambassador’s Award of Friendship’, The Chinese Embassy in Zambia, 23 November 2015, www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/zwjg_665342/ zwbd_665378/t1317393.shtml, accessed in January 2019. 75 Li Danhui (with Zhou Na), ‘非洲丛林中的新使命—马法贤’ [New Mission in the African Jungle – Ma Faxian], Cold War International History Studies, 2008– 2019. The project takes the form of an ongoing series of articles published in this journal from 2008.

19

20

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

by its access to local intelligence and human resources, China initially struggled to identify and win over prominent African nationalists as trustworthy allies, and its early connections with major political parties such as KANU and UNIP could be said to be rather passive. China had hoped that Kenyan nationalists would adopt a more radical line in their country’s foreign outlook, but unfortunately this did not materialise. In eastern Africa, even limited expressions of Communist sentiment raised concern and vigilance on the part of the decolonising British authorities. It argues that the political culture of post-­independence Kenya and Zambia continued to live in the shadow of earlier manipulations of opinion, which had repercussions that China struggled to shake off. Chapters 2 and 3 compare the Chinese relations of post-­i ndependence Kenya and Zambia during the 1960s and 1970s. Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive study of the relationship between Kenya and China between 1964 and 1975. Kenyan elites took active measures to develop and deepen relations with China shortly after independence. The Sino-Soviet competition for influence in the ‘Third World’ lent a degree of bargaining power to African countries that have commonly been perceived as ‘weak’, such as Kenya. The growing relevance of the global Cold War in post-independence Kenya was evident in the tri-dimensional politics of the ruling party KANU. The British, Americans, and Chinese respectively financed the political factions led by Kenyatta, Mboya and Odinga. Driven by its domestic social mobilisation, China’s international outlook became overtly aggressive from mid-1966 onwards. Chapter 2 provides a detailed analysis of how verbal attacks such as protest notes escalated into physical confrontations in both Beijing and Nairobi. Despite a strong political backlash, trade relations between Kenya and China remained robust. From 1968 onwards, Kenya’s succession struggle became a fierce battlefield for potential candidates and their respective foreign patrons. The low tide in Sino-­ Kenyan relations would remain until the death of Jomo Kenyatta. Chapter 3 focuses on the intertwined nature of Zambia’s domestic and foreign policy. Compared with Kenya, Zambia’s engagements with Communist China between 1965 and 1974 were deeper and multifaceted. The overall imbalance in the depth and diversity of the engagements, coupled with the availability of source materials for this period, challenges notions of a monolithic ‘Chinese dragon’ in the ‘African bush’. Chapter 3 begins with an analysis of China’s moral and material contribution to southern African liberation movements. Today’s Zambian leaders express much appreciation for this gesture when deploying the grand narrative of the China-Zambia ‘all-weather friendship’. It then analyses the combined impact of ideological and geo­political thinking in Zambia’s dealings with China through the prism of military training. At this time, people-to-people exchanges were held between

Introduction

artists, doctors, and athletes, whose diverse interactions contributed to more complex state-to-state relationships. As illustrated by the case of a 1967 maize deal, this chapter shows how Zambia’s geographical constraints played a significant role in its trade relations with China. Compared to their Kenyan counterparts, Zambian statesmen were less pragmatic in that they were less inclined to view national interests in purely economic terms. Chapter 4 analyses the trajectory of Kenya’s and Zambia’s relations with China in the last two decades of the Cold War. Tracing the profound changes underway in Kenya, Zambia, and China, it foregrounds the diversity of influences on their relations, which arose both from ideological concerns and pragmatic calculations. China’s foreign policy towards Africa during the reform era was increasingly pragmatic, a position best exemplified by Premier Zhao Ziyang during his 1982–83 tour of African countries. As China’s international outlook shifted from Soviet alignment to a Western orientation, its asserted leadership in the ‘Third World’ also came under considerable challenge. Closely following Kenyatta’s footsteps by keeping close ties with the West, Kenya’s new generation of leaders under President Moi engaged positively with China’s reform agenda and initiated bilateral cooperation based on material benefits. Over in Zambia, however, the fact that China’s Maoist model had lost credit at home by the end of the 1970s along with the issue of competing southern African liberation movements caused tensions between two countries. This demonstrates that ideology-­ driven political friendships could be hazardous for bilateral relations in a fast-changing and unpredictable international environment. ‘Global’ China’s renewed interests in Africa in the new millennium has been less driven by a pronounced socialist political agenda than by a search for economic profits and resources. It is in this context that the bulk of the literature on ‘China in Africa’ has neglected the importance of historical connections and discourses in understanding the complexity of these relationships. Drawing from three case studies – Chinese copper mining, China’s medical practices, and the recent SGR railway project – Chapter 5 examines the ways in which the past has been variously deployed by diverse actors to comprehend the present and contrast it to a desired future. In Zambia, where mining dated back to the colonial period, the expectations of Chinese investors and Zambian workers towards each other have been greatly influenced by China’s historical presence in Zambia. While the historical trajectories of China’s medical aid took distinct paths in Kenya and Zambia, a sense of socialist solidarity has survived in a health sector otherwise marked by capital-driven market economies. A flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya generated intense public debate about African agency vis-à-vis emerging powers with regard to indebtedness and neocolonial dependency.

21

1 Decolonisation, the Cold War, and Afro-Asian Solidarity: China, Kenya, and Zambia at a Crossroads, 1949–1964

It is the East Wind which is swaying the forests of Asia, Africa and America, aiding their peoples and mobilizing them against the enemies of human freedom.1 Mamadou Gologo, 1965

Mamadou Gologo, a Malian minister and novelist, recounted his 1963 travels in China in La Chine, un peuple géant au grand destin (China: A Great People, A Great Destiny), which expresses a deep appreciation for the country. The above remark invokes British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s 1960 speech in Cape Town, in which he famously used the phrase ‘wind of change’ to describe the rapid growth in national consciousness.2 With seventeen African nations achieving independence, the year 1960 was dubbed the ‘Year of Africa’. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, few had predicted that a country located in the Far East would contribute significantly to that wind throughout the coming decades. Despite the prevalent perception that Communist China was a natural supporter of Africa’s anticolonial struggles, the early years of China-Africa relations were characterised by indifference, ambivalence, and estrangement, as much as by solidarity and friendship. ‘Brotherly strangers’ is my term for this intrinsic paradox. To write the history of Kenya’s and Zambia’s relations with China is to do more than simply amalgamate their respective nationalist historical trajectories. Indeed, there are three major dynamics to be observed in this transnational history. One of these is naturally the Chinese view of global events, which was translated into practical foreign policy. There is also a history of how China engaged with African actors on the ground. But what tends to be overlooked, and what Mamadou Gologo, China: A Great People, A Great Destiny (Peking: New World Press, 1965), pp. 1–2. 2 ‘Harold Macmillan: Winds of Change’, in Jussi M. Hanhimäki and Odd Arne Westad (eds), The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 357. 1

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

is key to this study, were perceptions of ideas and values about Chinese engagement with Africa, especially when these concerned and were influenced by the anti-Communist fears of the late-colonial period. This chapter analyses the development of ‘Red’ China’s foreign policy in the historical context of African decolonisation, which set the stage for increasing Afro-Asian engagement during the Cold War. It first discusses the Maoist dialectics which shaped China’s foreign policy and the changes they underwent over the course of practical experience with Africa and the wider world. It then traces the origins of AfroAsian solidarity and unpacks China’s activities in Africa in the wake of the Bandung Conference of 1955. China’s radical outlook following its eventual split from the Soviet Union made it a desirable destination for African revolutionaries. During Premier Zhou Enlai’s African tour in 1963–64, China released its pivotal ‘eight principles for China’s aid to foreign countries’, which sought to consolidate a role of leadership in the global South. Yet its subsequent failed diplomatic endeavours in the run-up to the Second Afro-Asian Conference demonstrated the limits of its role in the non-aligned movement. Against a backdrop of wider geopolitical contestations and motives, the second part of the chapter analyses the relationship between Chinese Communist leaders and political elites in late-colonial Kenya and Zambia. By portraying the Mau Mau rebellion as a model anticolonial struggle, China had held high expectation for Kenyan nationalists to take a more radical line when it came to their country’s foreign outlook, which never materialised. Its pursuit of Odinga Oginga as its ally over Tom Mboya would leave an imprint on China’s bilateral relations with Kenya which endured for the subsequent decade. While it is beyond doubt that white supremacy was the paramount political priority in any settler colony, anti-communism was also extremely influential in eastern Africa, with even very minor expressions of Communist sympathies raising concern and therefore vigilance on the part of the decolonising British authorities. I argue that the political culture of post-independence Kenya and Zambia lived in the shadow of the prior manipulation of opinion, which resulted in a backlash that China struggled to effectively tackle. Before drawing conclusions, the chapter will also analyse the contrasting rationales behind Kenya’s and Zambia’s approach to the controversial issue of the recognition of the PRC over Taiwan as the only legitimate Chinese government.

Defining China’s Foreign Policy and Africa’s Position (1949–1954)

China’s foreign policy is regularly characterised by dichotomies, such as ‘practice/theory, ideology/power, evolutionary/revolutionary, long range/short range, nationalism/universalism, activistic/quiescent,

23

24

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

ideology as a rationaliser/ideology as a motivating force’. 3 Instead of being mutually exclusive, however, these categories in practice coexist and interact with each other. According to Mao Zedong’s famous speech ‘The question about correctly processing the contradictions among the people’, there is always a principal contradiction that decides the progress of society due to its particularity.4 Since anti-imperialist victory depends on the contradictions supposedly inherent to capitalism, it is essential to identify the principal contradiction in order to break the chain of imperialist power. 5 In the case of Africa, China proposed to resolve this principal contradiction through ‘a socialist and revolutionary direction’ under Mao’s leadership.6 In parallel to African decolonisation, however, emerged a clash of two socialist blueprints in light of the Sino-Soviet split. Jeremy Friedman characterises them as the ‘anti-capitalist’ revolution advanced by Moscow versus Beijing’s ‘anti-imperialist’ revolution.7 Both agendas would be challenged and reshaped by the demands, ideas, and interests of the ‘Third World’ in ways that redefined the geopolitical environment. In the first years of the PRC, its revolutionary leaders adopted a foreign policy of ‘Leaning to One Side’, based on the belief that China naturally belonged to the Soviet camp, which represented the advanced side of the principal contradiction, that is, proletarian regimes against capitalist imperialists, the latter led by the United States. The contestation of power on the Korean peninsula reinforced China’s binary view of the world, according to which the clash of ideologies would deteriorate into the worst form of conflict: war. The Communist government also faced the challenge of Taiwan, whose Kuomintang (KMT) or Chinese Nationalist Party regime was still considered by many Western countries to be the only legitimate Chinese regime. 8 The issue of China’s representation in the United Nations (UN) remained the central focus of China’s foreign policy until 1971.9 The diplomatic slogan ‘sweep 3 Jack Bermingham and Edwin G. Clausen, Sino-African Relations 1949–1976 (Michigan: Munger Africana Library, 1981), p. 14. 4 Mao Zedong, ‘On Contradiction’, Selected Works of Mao Zedong, volume 1 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), pp. 311–47. See also Wang Yunsheng and Guo Xingjuan, ‘Commentary Review of Studies on “The Question about Correctly Processing the Contradictions Among the People”’ (近年来《关于正确 处理人民内部矛盾的问题》的研究述评), Journal of University of Science and Technology Beijing 23, 3 (2007), pp. 108–13. 5 Ogunsanwo, China’s Policy in Africa, 1958–1971, p. 16. 6 Govind Purushottam Deshpande and Harmala Kaur Gupta, United Front against Imperialism: China’s Foreign Policy in Africa (Bombay: Somaiya Publications Pvt. Ltd., 1986), pp. 1–2. 7 Friedman, Shadow Cold War, pp. 1–2. 8 Note that except for direct quotations, all mentions of China in this book refer to the People’s Republic of China. 9 For studies of China and the UN, see Samuel S. Kim, China, the United

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

the house before inviting guests’ reflected Beijing’s determination to prevent foreign affiliations with Taiwan. Eager to break the economic embargo and diplomatic isolation of China by the US and its allies in Asia in the 1950s, Mao developed the concept of an ‘intermediate zone’ which denoted the vast majority of Asia, Africa and Latin America that belonged to neither bloc – Communist nor Capitalist.10 ‘Apart from the question of geographical distance’ from Africa, as Ogunsanwo rightly argues, Beijing was not yet ‘strong enough to adopt any meaningful policy towards Africa’.11 In September 1954, however, China’s annual Government Work Report declared that developing de facto relations with Africa was essential to enhance mutual understanding and create the conditions to establish de jure relations.12 The Sino-Soviet split 1956–66 was driven by opposing interpretations of orthodox Marxism. China and the Soviet Union had diverged on the way to achieve socialism domestically as well as on the direction of the global socialist camp against the capitalist world.13 China’s support for independence struggles in Africa throughout the Cold War can be partly explained by its own historical trajectory. While the Russian Revolution aimed primarily to remove class inequalities and build socialism within Russia, debates on the Chinese revolutionary path were at the outset centred around a nationalist impetus to defeat those foreign invaders at whose hands the country had endured ‘a century of humiliation’. During the time that China was under Japanese occupation during the Second World War, Mao criticised the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.14 China’s revolutionary outlook was thus inherently anti-imperialist. The CCP’s successes in overcoming both foreign and domestic enemies owed much to a united front across region, class, and ethnicity. Hence, its leaders believed it was imperative that the people of the ‘Third World’ united against imperialist enemies. Nations and World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); Wei Liu, China in the United Nations (Hackensack, NJ: World Century, 2014). 10 Mao Zedong, ‘Talks with Anna Louise Strong’, in Selected Works of Mao Zedong, volume 4 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), pp. 1191–2. 11 Ogunsanwo, China’s Policy in Africa, 1958–1971, p. 4. 12 Ai Zhouchang and Mu Tao, 中非关系史 [History of Sino-African Relations] (Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1996), p. 218. The translation of ‘事务性的关系’ learns from the legal term ‘de facto’ relations (正式关 系), meaning a state of affairs that must be accepted for all practical purposes despite being illegitimate or lacking legality, as opposed to ‘de jure’ relations. Here it refers to the fact that the PRC did not have formal, diplomatic relations with those African political bodies or governments. 13 Lorenz M. Luthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). 14 Wang Qinmei, ‘毛泽东与中非关系’ [Mao Zedong and China-Africa Relations], Foreign Affairs Review 4 (1996), pp. 4–8.

25

26

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Nevertheless, direct involvement in African decolonisation entailed obvious practical difficulties for China. Not unlike the US or the Soviet Union, the PRC had to build up a set of contacts and connections from scratch. Contacts were assembled sporadically by organising and attending international conferences with African delegates. Among them, events for youth groups, student unions, women’s organisations and labour unions were crucial. For instance, against the backdrop of the Korean War, the Third World Festival of Youth and Students was held in 1951 in East Berlin. At this conference, Chinese youth delegates met their counterparts from Nigeria, Ghana (then the Gold Coast), Tunisia, and Algeria.15 Since decolonisation had taken place earlier in North Africa, Algeria and Tunisia were among the first African countries to send formal delegations to China. In April 1956, China signed its first cultural cooperation agreement with Egypt, one month before diplomatic relations were formally established. Subsequently, African students began to study in China.16 In Africa, specific distinctions were made between social class and nationalism. Populated by a largely illiterate and rural population, Africa was not an ideal location for a Soviet-style working-class revolution. In 1946 Stalin personally denounced indigenous political elites in the colonies, claiming ‘[t]hese leaders … in their majority are corrupt and care not so much about the independence of their territories, as about the preservation of their privileges regarding the population of these territories’.17 It was only during the Khrushchev era that Moscow formed a meaningful Africa policy, whose underpinning was the ‘socialist model of development’. This was based on the belief that ‘a faster and better modernity would allow for the final victory of Soviet socialism over Western capitalism’.18 In contrast, Maoist thought was attractive to many African leaders, eager as they were to mobilise their large rural population in the nation-building process. In Tanzania, Julius Nyerere adapted this ‘ruralisation of Marxism’ into local practices by launching Ujamaa schemes.19 From the mid-1950s, the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’ formed the underlying basis of Chinese foreign policy. First outlined in 15 Lu Ting’en, 非洲问题论集 [Treatises on Africa] (Beijing: World Knowledge Press, 2005), p. 554. 16 Li Anshan, ‘African Students in China: Research, Reality, and Reflection’, African Studies Quarterly 17, 4 (2018), pp. 5–44. 17 Stalin to Molotov, 20 November 1946, quoted in Westad, The Global Cold War, p. 60. 18 Alessandro Iandolo, ‘The Rise and Fall of the “Soviet Model of Development” in West Africa, 1957–64’, Cold War History 12, 4 (2012), pp. 683–704. 19 Priya Lal, ‘Maoism in Tanzania: Material Connections and Shared Imaginaries’, in Alexander Cook (ed.), Mao’s Little Red Book: A Global History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 96–7.

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

the context of India’s trade with Tibet, they were officially written into Sino-Indian and Sino-Burmese Joint Statements in June 1954: 1. Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; 2. Mutual non-aggression; 3. Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; 4. Equality and cooperation for mutual benefit; 5. Peaceful co-existence.20 In retrospect, it is clear that the promulgation of the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’ took place at a pivotal moment. As decolonisation from Western European powers progressed, the potential for nationalist advancement emerged in most former colonies. Yet, along with these decolonising processes came the threat of fresh foreign intervention in the context of the Cold War. Non-alignment therefore became the favoured path of many leaders of newly independent countries, both to avoid being dragged into proxy wars and to take advantage of funding and resources from both blocs.21

The Rise of the ‘Third World’ in the Bandung Era (1955–1964)

The five principles would soon be incorporated in modified form in a statement at the historic first Afro-Asian Conference held in Indonesia, which later became known as the Bandung Conference. Attended by twenty-nine countries including the PRC, the Conference took place on 18–24 April 1955. It sought to boost the solidarity among Asian and African countries in the struggle against imperialism and colonialism, to achieve and maintain national independence, and to secure world peace. Divisions of political orientation, race, colour, class, education, and national identity among delegates nevertheless made it difficult to reach an agreement. It was recognised that the common ground shared and frequently discussed by delegates was ‘the history of Western imperialism in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East since the sixteenth century’.22 But this unifying factor of an anti-imperial history was

20 ‘China’s Initiation of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-Existence’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of People’s Republic of China, www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/ ziliao_665539/3602_665543/3604_665547/t18053.shtml, accessed in January 2016. 21 John W. Burton, ‘Introduction to Nonalignment’, in John W. Burton (ed.), Nonalignment (London: Andre Deutsch, 1966), pp. 11–27; Lawrence, ‘The Rise and Fall of Non-Alignment’, pp. 139–55. 22 Christopher J. Lee, ‘Between a Moment and an Era: The Origins and

27

28

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

also constrained by ‘institutionalized acts of law, diplomacy, and the structural legacies of colonial rule’.23 The residual romance of revolution could not be extricated from the realpolitik of a new world order in the making. China’s diplomatic aims at Bandung were to ‘enlarge the world peace united front, promote national independence movements, and provide the conditions to establish and strengthen diplomatic relations with several Asian and African countries’.24 Due to its close ties with the Soviet Union, Communist China was widely viewed as a proxy for the interests of the former.25 Zhou Enlai, however, demonstrated his charisma and diplomatic acumen in advancing Beijing’s autonomous position through his key message of ‘seeking common ground while reserving differences’.26 Through the posited narrative of a history of colonial subordination shared with Africa, China succeeded in presenting itself as an autonomous ‘Third World’ leader. China’s ‘modern debut onto the world stage’ would not have been possible, however, without intellectual support from its political leadership.27 In early 1960 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs established a separate department to deal with African affairs.28 Dubbed the ‘Year of Africa’, 1960 represented a turning point during which seventeen countries became independent. China had at that point established diplomatic relations with eight African countries: Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, Morocco, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and Somalia.29 Among the ‘Africa hands’ in the Ministry, He Ying, ambassador to Tanzania, and Huang Hua, ambassador to Ghana, were among the most capable. 30 Chinese diplomats not only dealt with political affairs in their host country but also made preliminary visits to those still-colonised countries with a mind to establish links with the various nationalist movements. The embassy staff were also responsible for the recruitment of around 500 African students to enrol in courses at the Institute of Foreign Afterlives of Bandung’, in Christopher J. Lee (ed.), Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and its Political Afterlives (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010), p. 10. 23 Ibid., p. 3. 24 Lu, Treatises on Africa, p. 563. 25 Lee, ‘Between a Moment and an Era’, p. 13. 26 Huang Hua, 亲历与见闻: 黄华回忆录 [Experiences and Knowledge: Huang Hua’s Memoir] (Beijing: World Knowledge Press, 2007), pp. 111–15. 27 John K. Cooley, East Wind over Africa: Red China’s African Offensive (New York: Walker and Company, 1965), p. 11. 28 The National Archives, UK (hereafter TNA), FCO 141/7090, Kenya: Chinese communist activities in the Middle East and Africa, 1959–1962, ‘Chinese Activities and Influence in Africa’, December 1961. 29 Lu, Treatises on Africa, p. 573. 30 Snow, The Star Raft, p. 89; see also Huang, Experiences and Knowledge, pp. 322–36.

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

Languages in Beijing by the end of 1960. 31 In this regard, a 1960 British diplomatic report on Chinese Communist activities in Africa expressed concern and reported speculations among both Western and Soviet Bloc observers about the increasing size of the Chinese Embassy in Conakry. 32 Back home, Chinese communist leaders were keen to publicly celebrate ‘revolutionary’ progress in colonial Africa, inviting nationalists and other African representatives to Beijing on various occasions. China’s ‘revolutionary friendship’ with Africa is best illustrated by the case of Algeria. 33 China was the first non-Arab country to recognise the Algerian Provisional Government in 1958 led by the National Liberation Front (FLN), whose political orientation exhibited a strong Maoist influence. Non-state actors from Algeria, including football teams, labour unions, journalists, and women’s delegations, also paid frequent visits to China between 1958 and early 1960. 34 These were warmly received in Shanghai by various Chinese civil groups under the direction of the municipal government. China’s adeptness when it came to social mobilisation is clear to see in these visits. The CCP was famous for using every conceivable medium to influence their foreign 31 Compiling Group of China-Africa Education Cooperation and Communication, 中国与非洲国家教育合作与交流 (China-Africa Education Cooperation), (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2005). 32 TNA, FCO 141/7090, ‘Chinese Communist Activities in Africa’, 28 March 1960. 33 For studies of Chinese-Algerian relations, see Kyle Haddad-Fonda, ‘Revolutionary Allies: Sino-Egyptian and Sino-Algerian Relations in the Bandung Decade’ (University of Oxford, PhD thesis, 2013); Kyle Haddad-Fonda, ‘An Illusory Alliance: Revolutionary Legitimacy and Sino-Algerian Relations, 1958– 1962’, The Journal of North African Studies (2014), pp. 1–20; Chau, Exploiting Africa. 34 Shanghai Municipal Archive (hereafter SMA), B126-1-495-9, ‘国家体育运动 委员会国际司关于阿尔及利亚国家足球队接待工作情况简报’ [Report of the International Department of the National Sports Committee on the Reception Work of Algerian National Football Team], 18 December 1959; SMA, C1-2-3463-30, ‘上 海市总工会联络部关于阿尔及利亚工人总联合会代表团名单’ [Liaison Department of the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions on the List of the Delegation of Algerian General Confederation of Workers], 27 May 1960; SMA, C1-2-346368, ‘上海市总工会联络部关于乍得、伊拉克、桑给巴尔、马达加斯加、刚果、阿尔及利亚 等工会代表在沪活动日程表’ [Liaison Department of the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions on the Shanghai Event Calendar for the Union Representatives from Chad, Iraq, Zanzibar, Madagascar, Congo, Algeria, etc.], May 1960; SMA, B92-2-1044-1, ‘上海人民广播电台关于接待阿尔及利亚新闻工作者代表团访沪工作的 计划’ [Shanghai People’s Radio on the Reception Work for the Visit of the Algerian Journalists Delegation to Shanghai], 4–23 April 1966; SMA, H1-12-4-211, ‘1959年8月23日阿尔及利亚、突尼斯、新加坡三国妇女代表团代表在上海市妇联座 谈’ [23 August 1959 Discussion of Three Women’s Delegations from Algeria, Tunisia, Singapore at Shanghai Women’s Federation], 23 August 1959.

29

30

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

guests, including but not limited to newspapers, radio, school education, cadre training, and cultural facilities. 35 The slogans chanted by Algerian visitors all followed a logical thread that linked support of Algerian independence to protesting against French colonialism, then to a critique of American imperialism, and finally to Chinese-­A lgerian/ Arab friendship. 36 Although it is hard to assess the degree of success of Chinese propaganda in winning the hearts and minds of Africans, it was certainly believed to be influential by the British, whose intelligence operations sought to be a ‘real and perceived bulwark against communism’. 37 In 1961, the African Section of the British Foreign Office’s Research Department prepared two pairs of maps which visualised Communist activities in Africa, and stated: ‘While the Chinese effort in Africa is on a smaller scale than that of the Russians, particularly in regard to technical assistance, it is nevertheless formidably efficient and well directed, and appears to be making considerable progress.’38 What worried Britain most were ‘subversive’ activities by the Chinese and Soviets which included ‘supplying material, moral and in some cases military, support to selected African regimes and most fiercely anti-colonialist in attitude, or most radical in their domestic policies’. 39 Labelled as ‘terrorists’ by the British, African radicals like these posed a great threat to colonial or apartheid rule; and there is no doubt that the Chinese were great teachers when it came to such matters. The Nanking Military Academy was a major provider of military training for African nationalists in the 1960s.40 As the Chinese government has never publicly 35 David Shambaugh, ‘China’s Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes and Efficacy’, The China Journal 57 (2007), p. 28. 36 SMA, C36-2-67-16, ‘中国人民保卫世界和平委员会上海市分会关于上海市各界人 民支援阿尔及利亚人民争取民族独立斗争大会’ [Shanghai Branch of the Chinese People’s Committee for Defence of World Peace on the List of Presidium Participated in the Mass Assembly of Shanghai People from all Walks of Life to Support the Algerian People’s Struggle for National Independence], 25 March 1958. 37 Caroline Elkins, ‘Archives, Intelligence and Secrecy: The Cold War and the End of the British Empire’, in Leslie James and Elisabeth Leake (eds), Decolonization and the Cold War: Negotiating Independence (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), p. 269. 38 TNA, FCO 141/7090, ‘Chinese Activities and Influence in Africa’, December 1961. 39 TNA, FCO 141/7090, ‘Memorandum: Sino-Soviet Propaganda in Africa’, 1961. 40 Snow, The Star Raft, p. 79. For later studies of the military training of these liberation movements, especially by the Soviet Union, see: Vladimir G. Shubin, The Hot ‘Cold War’: The USSR in Southern Africa (London: Pluto Press, 2008); Vladimir Shubin, ‘Unsung Heroes: The Soviet Military and the Liberation of Southern Africa’, Cold War History 7, 2 (2007), pp. 251–62; Jocelyn Alexander

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

admitted this provision of guerrilla training, the only contemporaneous information comes from the testimonies of African trainees. In June 1961 for example, British intelligence reported that six nationals of the Cameroon Republic were arrested on their way home after having taken courses in sabotage and guerrilla warfare in Beijing.41 The Cameroonian authorities interrogated this group and seized their notebooks and other relevant documents. In general, these young trainees were selected for their general intelligence rather than their scholastic abilities. Prior to travelling to China, the six had been active members of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC), a radical nationalist party that aimed to overthrow the French administration by force.42 After the UPC was outlawed in 1955, its leaders went into exile and continued to support, both in spirit and financially, the UPC’s Cameroonian National Liberation Army (ALNK), which had officially been declared a terrorist group. Acting as a crucial intermediary between African nationalists and Communist countries, the Algerian FLN had helped send at least a hundred ALNK instructors to China and the Soviet Union since 1959.43 With the independence of French Cameroon in January 1960, the six arrested trainees planned to return home to take up roles as military and political instructors attached to ALNK training camps operating against the pro-Western Cameroonian government. Since the southern part of the British Cameroons would soon merge with this new country in 1961 to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon, the British were deeply concerned about what consequences guerrilla warfare would have for its newly independent government. But interpreting such intelligence reports demands great caution from historians. Colonial archives, as Ann Stoler argues, are not ‘sites of knowledge retrieval’; instead, scholars need to move from ‘archive-assource’ to ‘archive-as-subject’, to analyse knowledge production under state authorities.44 In this case, the notebook entries of one trainee referenced in the UK archives provides a glimpse of a highly personal perspective that illuminates social restrictions and opportunities. This and JoAnn McGregor, ‘African Soldiers in the USSR: Oral Histories of ZAPU Intelligence Cadres’ Soviet Training, 1964–1979’, Journal of Southern African Studies 43, 1 (2017), pp. 49–66; Jocelyn Alexander and JoAnn McGregor, ‘Adelante! Military Imaginaries, the Cold War and Southern Africa’s Liberation Armies’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 62, 3 (2020), pp. 619–50. 41 TNA, FCO 141/7090, ‘Chinese Train African Terrorists’, June 1961. 42 For a history of the UPC, see: Meredith Terretta, Nation of Outlaws, State of Violence: Nationalism, Grassfields Tradition, and State Building in Cameroon (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2014); Joseph Takougang, ‘Nationalism, Democratisation and Political Opportunism in Cameroon’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies 21, 3 (2003), pp. 427–45. 43 TNA, FCO 141/7090, ‘Chinese Train African Terrorists’, June 1961. 44 Stoler, ‘Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance’, pp. 87–109.

31

32

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

trainee characterised political action in light of discussions with the local ‘Peace Committee’ during a visit to Shanghai as follows:

Terrorist activities must be carried on, killing off all the puppet agents and traitors and carrying the struggle into the country. The country can do without the towns, but the towns cannot do without the country. We must be prepared to wait in hiding in the towns, developing our strength and waiting until the time is ripe. The Party members must then infiltrate into the various concerns and even work there and become friends with the workers – their behaviour must be exemplary – they should plant agitators under various forms. The masses must be mobilized and trained in strike methods … Once we have established a firm foothold among the masses, it will be difficult to locate us and still more, to put an end to our activities.45

While the Chinese teaching approach was very conceptual, it can be observed that Mao Zedong’s military thought was well received by foreign disciples: guerrillas operating in an underdeveloped country should win the support of the local peasantry, and Party leadership should be embedded into the masses.46 It should be said that China’s involvement in nationalist activities in Africa was not exclusively military in nature: unlike the cases of Algeria and Cameroon, China’s financial support in Kenya and Zambia was channelled through nationalist parties and their leaders by peaceful means. In parallel to the increasing number of visits by African delegations to China, Beijing was also active in approaching many newly independent African countries from the start of the 1960s. From 13 December 1963 to 5 February 1964, Premier Zhou Enlai and Vice Premier Chen Yi toured ten African countries: the United Arab Republic (today’s Egypt), Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana, Mali, Guinea, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. Immediately thereafter, 14–26 February 1964, they visited Burma and Pakistan and, together with Vice Chairperson Soong Ching-ling, Ceylon 26–29 February. This tour was characterised by the Chinese Foreign Ministry as ‘a major milestone in the development of friendly relations between China and other Asian and African countries’.47 One of the major motivations behind this grand tour was to garner support for the upcoming Second Afro-Asian Conference.48 As China had severed its relations with the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, the question of where and when the Conference would be held became a battle between the two communist superpowers. Upon meeting TNA, FCO 141/7090, ‘Chinese Train African Terrorists’, June 1961. Snow, The Star Raft, p. 81. 47 ‘Premier Zhou Enlai’s Three Tours of Asian and African Countries’, Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, www. fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/ziliao_665539/3602_665543/3604_665547/200011/ t20001117_697814.html, accessed in July 2018. 48 Ogunsanwo, China’s Policy in Africa, 1958–1971, pp. 122–3. 45 46

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

with President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, widely respected as a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, Zhou argued that the prospects of the anti-imperialist struggle depended on the ‘further strengthening of Asian-African solidarity’. While Zhou’s efforts turned out to be of less avail in North Africa, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana expressed hearty support. But the greatest legacy of these visits was probably the publication of the following the ‘eight principles for economic aid and technical assistance to other countries’: 1. The Chinese Government always bases itself on the principle of equality and mutual benefit in providing aid to other countries. It never regards such aid as a kind of unilateral alms but as something mutual. 2. In providing aid to other countries, the Chinese Government strictly respects the sovereignty of the recipient countries, and never attaches any conditions or asks for any privileges. 3. China provides economic aid in the form of interest-free or low-interest loans and extends the time limit for repayment when necessary so as to lighten the burden of the recipient countries as far as possible. 4. In providing aid to other countries, the purpose of the Chinese Government is not to make the recipient countries dependent on China but to help them embark step by step on the road of self-­ reliance and independent economic development. 5. The Chinese Government tries its best to help the recipient countries build projects which require less investment while yielding quicker results, so that the recipient governments may increase their income and accumulate capital. 6. The Chinese Government provides the best-quality equipment and material of its own manufacture at international market prices. If the equipment and material provided by the Chinese Government are not up to the agreed specifications and quality, the Chinese Government undertakes to replace them. 7. In providing any technical assistance, the Chinese Government will see to it that the personnel of the recipient country fully master such techniques. 8. The experts dispatched by China to help in construction in the recipient countries will have the same standard of living as the experts of the recipient country. The Chinese experts are not allowed to make any special demands or enjoy any special amenities.49 49

‘The Chinese Government’s Eight Principles for Economic Aid and Technical

33

34

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

In essence, these eight principles formed the basis for Communist China’s economic and cultural cooperation with the newly emerged countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America throughout the decolonisation period. By the time Zhou’s delegation had completed its official mission, six out of ten of the African countries visited had expressed open support for China’s position with regard to the Second Afro-Asian Conference. This led to a ‘tactical success’ for China in excluding the Soviet delegation from the Preparatory Meeting for an Asian-African Conference to take place in Algiers in April 1964. 50 The Sino-Soviet split deepened as the two sides criticised each other for dividing the anti-­i mperialist forces at the Meeting. On 19 June, a coup took place in Algeria, overthrowing Ahmed Ben Bella’s government. Most African leaders expressed a preference for postponing the planned conference, while Beijing feared that this would increase the likelihood of Soviet participation. Eventually, African representatives decided that the Foreign Ministers’ meeting scheduled for 26 June would be postponed. As Ogunsanwo notes, two lessons were learnt from this incident: African countries were politically sensitive to domestic turmoil and retained significant agency on issues concerning global ideological confrontations. 51 He concludes thus: Chinese efforts in Africa – economic, political, military and diplomatic – would have been in vain if the conference had taken place without her. She was still seen as militantly and materially anti-colonialist and this by itself was enough to prevent her isolation at Algiers.

Li Qianyu draws a similar conclusion: China made a difficult compromise to indefinitely delay the conference in order to avoid becoming isolated in international politics. 52 China, as the weakest of the Cold War superpowers, had the most complicated relationship with non-­ alignment. 53 It can be argued that China’s allegedly ‘grand’ African policy was in practice far from coherent and had to be continually negotiated with African counterparts in a fast-changing international environment. Assistance to Other Countries’, January 15, 1964, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Chinese Foreign Ministry and Chinese Communist Party Literature Research Centre (eds), 周恩来外交文选 [Selected Diplomatic Papers of Zhou Enlai] (Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 1990), p. 388. 50 Ogunsanwo, China’s Policy in Africa, 1958–1971, p. 126. 51 Ibid., p. 130. 52 Li Qianyu, ‘试论中国对第二次亚非会议政策的演变’ [China’s Policy towards the Second Afro-Asian Conference], International Politics Quarterly 4 (2010), pp. 115–33; Li Qianyu, 从万隆到阿尔及尔—中国与六次亚非国际会议 (1955–1965) [From Bandung to Algiers: China and the Six Asian-African Conferences, 1955– 1965] (Beijing: World Knowledge Press, 2016), pp. 167–238. 53 Lawrence, ‘The Rise and Fall of Non-Alignment’, p. 145.

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

China and Decolonising Kenya: The Mau Mau and the KANU Nationalists (1960–1963)

Having laid out the broader historical context of the 1950s and early 1960s, this section focuses on the specific decolonising processes of Kenya, and the next on what became Zambia, where China’s influence was most effectively materialised through increasingly vigorous propaganda activities. British officials recorded that Chinese propaganda materials, mostly Mao Zedong’s own writings and books on other Communist doctrines which favoured Beijing’s line, were regularly posted to youth organisations, labour unions, and even influential politicians. 54 The complications involved in British decolonisation in the 1950s and 1960s are best exemplified by the case of Mau Mau in Kenya. 55 Almost no other topic in the history of Sub-Saharan Africa has provoked more controversy, scholarship, and public fascination than the Mau Mau war, the conflict that consumed Kenya during the 1950s. 56 Far from being a simple black-versus-white war, Mau Mau fighters targeted both the British forces and ‘loyalist’ African allies in and around the forests of central Kenya. Between 1952 and 1960, the British were preoccupied with the task of counter-insurgency but also preparing for a controlled process of decolonisation. In 1960, with the formal end of the Kenyan emergency, two Kenyan nationalist parties, the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU), were established. Jomo Kenyatta, who had been detained by the British authorities on the charge of instigating Mau Mau, was widely viewed as Kenya’s future leader. Once released, he led KANU to secure victory for the formation of a new government. To the surprise of British and other external observers, as the first president of Kenya, Kenyatta would prove moderate in terms of his political views and foreign policy orientation. Though playing no role in the actual struggle, China’s relationship with decolonising Kenya was shaped by its interpretation of the Mau Mau in particular, a legacy that continued into the early years of Kenya’s national independence. In the preface to his translation of songs by the 54 TNA, FCO 141/7090, ‘Memorandum: Sino-Soviet propaganda in Africa’, 1961. 55 Birmingham, The Decolonization of Africa, p. 43. 56 There has been a vast literature on Mau Mau, most recently: Huw C. Bennett, Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in the Kenya Emergency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Daniel Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Caroline Elkins, Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005); David Anderson, Histories of the Hanged: Britain’s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2005).

35

36

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Mau Mau fighters, an experienced Chinese diplomat and journalist Gao Liang, described their mission as ‘expelling the Europeans from Kenya, taking back the land grabbed by the whites’. 57 It was held that the Mau Mau uprising was a patriotic anticolonial struggle that gained support from ‘all’ ethnic groups. Its senior military and spiritual leader, Dedan Kimathi, was also constructed as a fearless nationalist who was arrested and executed by brutal British colonisers. At a gathering prior to Kenya’s independence, Kimathi’s wife even recounted to Gao how the jungle fighters ‘sang cheerful songs’ after the bombings. 58 Indeed, the Mau Mau must have seemed very familiar to the then Chinese revolutionary leaders, given its advocacy of violent means, connections with the landless population, and eventual suppression by the militarily powerful West. China’s interest in the Mau Mau was reflected in a 1963 article featuring the ‘Kenya Land and Freedom Army’, as Mau Mau was known in English. 59 The guerrilla army led by Kimathi refused to accept the peaceful transfer of power, and continued to fight in the forests following independence.60 In China’s later engagement with Kenyan nationalists, there always lingered an unmet expectation that a more radical approach to the issue of land could be implemented by Kenyan politicians. China’s direct contact with Kenya in the years immediately prior to its independence was extremely limited and had to be facilitated through Chinese embassies in the Eastern Bloc. Students from Kenya first studied in China as early as 1957.61 In December 1960 the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia received three Kenyan visitors, who requested financial help as well as invitations to visit China. One of them was known as ‘Munyi’, who acted as the Chairman of the African Anti-­ Colonial Movement. While the Embassy was instructed to reject the request through an ‘excuse that they have not heard back from the Ministry’, the actual reason was doubt over Munyi’s political stance.62 The Chinese played it safe when directly involving themselves in late-­ 57 Gao Liang, ‘肯尼亚茅茅战歌’ [Songs by Kenyan Mau Mau Warriors], World Literature, 7 (1964), p. 44. Gao Liang used to report for the Chinese Xinhua News Agency in New Delhi, Dar es Salaam and Brazzaville, before heading the Foreign Publicity Bureau of the CCP International Liaison Department. 58 Gao Liang, ‘森林中的战斗之歌—介绍肯尼亚茅茅战士的歌谣’ [Fighting Songs in the Forest], World Literature, 7 (1964), p. 50. 59 Zhang Heng, ‘土地自由军’ [Kenya Land and Freedom Army], World Knowledge, 8 (1963), p. 19. 60 Christopher Leo, Land and Class in Kenya (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1984). 61 Li, ‘African Students in China: Research, Reality, and Reflection’, p. 9. 62 China’s Foreign Ministry Archives, Beijing (hereafter CFMA), 108-0012603, ‘肯尼亚三人要求来华事’ [Three Kenyans Requested to Visit China], 18 December 1959.

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

colonial Kenyan politics, and preferred to meet Kenyan nationalists only on formal occasions such as the Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference. The widening split within the Eastern Bloc also had an adverse impact on these contacts. For instance, two Kenyan students who had been invited to study in China were arrested by Soviet police in November 1959. Although oral permission had been granted by the Soviet authorities to a Kenyan leader named ‘Johnny’ (translated by author from his Chinese name), they subsequently changed their minds. ‘Johnny’ reported to the Chinese Embassy in Sudan that the Cairo office of his organisation had been infiltrated by a Western intelligence agency. According to the Chinese Embassy, although it was unclear if the Kenyan students had been ‘taken advantage of’ over the course of their arrest, the invitation to study in China should not be rescinded as they were ‘still young’ enough to be ‘educated in our favour’.63 In retrospect, Chinese influence in Kenya was far too limited to win over prominent nationalist leaders such as Tom Mboya. Having ‘earned his stripes in the bitter arena of trade union politics during the 1950s’, Tom Mboya acted as ‘a spokesman for moderate nationalism’ in front of audiences in New York and London.64 In May 1960 he received an invitation to visit China, but never took it up on account of ‘work pressures’.65 Courtesies aside, it is unclear if he would have chosen to engage with communists in any case. From the perspective of a global socialist revolution, Mboya made a potentially attractive ally given his leadership of urban workers in the anticolonial struggle. No doubt, his clear articulation of modernity was appealing to foreign patrons. The United States was certainly keen to finance Mboya, whose Pan-Africanist nationalism transcended ethnic politics and sectarianism, and resonated with the supposedly American value of freedom. Through such channels as American labour organisations and the centrist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the CIA paid a monthly sum of as much as US $1,000 (c. $10,000 in 2022) to Mboya throughout the early 1960s.66 Given Mboya’s clear inclinations towards the US, the Chinese government started to criticise his anti-Communist stance, instead sponsoring his primary opponent within KANU, Oginga Odinga. There is no doubt that Oginga Odinga played a critical role in the connections between China and the decolonising of Kenya. His early contacts with the Eastern Bloc led to the sending of Kenyan students to study overseas in the 1950s.67 The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, North 63 CFMA, 108-00150-01, ‘关于肯尼亚两名学生来华学习事’ [Two Kenyan Students to Visit China], 31 December 1959. 64 Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2012, p. 5. 65 TNA, FCO 141/7090, ‘Chinese Influence on Africa and in Particular in Kenya’, 1960. 66 Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2012, p. 69. 67 Daniel Branch, ‘Political Traffic: Kenyan Students in Eastern and Central

37

38

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Korea, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the German Democratic Republic all offered generous scholarships to these Kenyan students – a few of whom went assumed high positions after the country’s independence, such as Mukiria Muturi who later became chief economist in the office of the Vice President, and Matthew Ogutu who became an MP in 1969 – and to Odinga’s most loyal disciples throughout his later political battles with the Kenyatta administration. Odinga described his first visit to socialist countries in the late 1950s as motivated both by his curiosity as to Communist solutions to social problems and his suspicion of Western colonialists.68 On several occasions, leaders such as Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito and Egypt’s Nasser promised rhetorical and financial support for his nationalist cause. At the Anti-­Atomic Bomb Conference in Japan in August 1960, Odinga was able to meet with the Chinese delegation, and made his first trip to Beijing direct from Tokyo. The visit was successful for both sides. Odinga returned home with a substantial amount of money (approx. GBP £10,000, worth almost £350,000 in 2022) and a positive impression of Chinese industrialisation, social cohesion, and education.69 Beijing was also satisfied: its successful pursuit of an influential Kenyan nationalist as a political ally was a sign of diplomatic success.70

Nationalism and the Discourse of ‘Communist Threats’ in Northern Rhodesia (1958–1964)

In a similar way, contact between Chinese statesmen and Zambian nationalists was initiated prior to independence in 1964. Between 1953 and 1963, Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) was part of the Central African Federation (CAF) along with Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Nyasaland (Malawi). As the CAF, led by Prime Minister Roy Welensky, had been created to protect the interests of the white settlers and to hold this part of the British Empire together, the colonial authorities were vigilant when it came to ensuring its own political stability against radical social forces. Frequently updated security reports dealt with ‘Communism’, although there was little actual evidence of communist activities or views among Zambian nationalists. For example, according to a June 1954 security report, ‘Communist threats’ amounted merely to the fact that Justin Chimba, Acting General President of the General Workers’ Union, had been Europe, 1958–69’, Journal of Contemporary History 53, 4 (2018), pp. 811–31. 68 Jaramogi Oginga Ajuma Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru: The Autobiography of Oginga Odinga (London: Heinemann, 1967), p. 188. 69 Ibid., p. 190. 70 Snow, The Star Raft, p. 97.

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

funded by a ‘Communist penetrated’ labour union in the UK to attend an overseas conference.71 Through its presence at the All-African Peoples’ Conference in Accra in December 1958, Beijing briefly engaged with Kenneth Kaunda and his Zambia African National Congress (ZANC).72 Mineworkers on the Copperbelt, while regularly expressing their discontentment with associational and religiously influenced forms of protest, played a prominent role in violent demonstrations against British colonial rule in Northern Rhodesia.73 Particularly powerful was the African Mineworkers’ Union (AMWU), whose leaders were also involved in ZANC. Established in 1958 following a split from the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress (NRANC), ZANC was more radical in its demands for a rapid transition to independence and was therefore regarded by Beijing as progressive. The organisation, even through the suspicious lens of the Federal authorities, was not, however, under communist influences. Simon Ber Zukas, of Lithuanian origin and active in South African communism, was found to have maintained contact with and offered advice to his former African nationalist associates after he was deported from Northern Rhodesia in 1952.74 Zukas was notorious as the ‘most dangerous outside influence in regard to the Federation’ and known for his ‘direct communist work’.75 Additionally, the General President and the General Secretary of the ZANC had been prosecuted for being in possession of Communist literature in 1955. The United National Independence Party (UNIP) was founded in October 1959 as a successor to the ZANC, which had been banned earlier in that year. Led by Kaunda upon his release from detention in 1960, the party emerged as the largest nationalist party in the 1962 general elections.76 As the authorities had banned the activities of some Zambian nationalists, UNIP’s foreign contacts were facilitated primarily through its international offices, of which London and Cairo were particularly crucial. For China, too, Egypt had proven the means to gain access to the African continent following the Bandung Conference: its 71 Oxford Bodleian Library (hereafter OBL), Papers of the Rt. Hon. Sir Roy Welensky, 237/1, ‘Northern Rhodesia’, 15 June 1954. 72 ‘赞比亚统一国家独立党’ [Zambian African National Congress], Renmin Ribao 人民日报 (hereafter People’s Daily), 14 March 1959. 73 R.I. Rotberg, The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa: The Making of Malawi and Zambia 1873–1964 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 156. 74 OBL, Papers of the Rt. Hon. Sir Roy Welensky, 237/6, ‘External Influences Affecting the African National Congress of Northern Rhodesia’, 15 November 1955. 75 OBL, Papers of the Rt. Hon. Sir Roy Welensky, 237/7, ‘Security Intelligence Review: Rhodesia and Nyasaland No. 6, October-November 1955’, 16 December 1955. 76 ‘Zambia: History’, The Commonwealth, http://thecommonwealth.org/ our-member-countries/zambia/history, accessed July 2018.

39

40

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Cairo Embassy became ‘the first basis for Chinese activity in Africa’.77 In late 1959, a self-declared ‘political representative’ for various African nationalist parties, including the Congolese National Movement, All People’s Congress (Sierra Leone), Pan African Congress (South Africa), and KANU, reached out to UNIP’s London Office to offer financial assistance. Claiming to be connected with the Chinese Embassy in Guinea, Jonathan D. Makota suggested he could act on its behalf to authorise the transfer of Chinese aid to UNIP.78 As he told Mainza Chona, who headed UNIP’s London Office, he had travelled from his hometown in Northern Rhodesia to various places, including China. At a time when official communication was largely restricted, personal connections such as these served as the major channel by which African nationalist parties established foreign contacts. UNIP’s Regional Secretary in Choma, Vernon Mwaanga also recalled a difficulty he had encountered while attending the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement’s conference in Algeria in early 1964. His visit had been facilitated by UNIP’s Cairo representative Wilted Phiri, who was responsible for publishing literature and broadcasting news of UNIP to the wider world. Mwaanga’s first personal encounter with the Chinese was an unusual one: when he did not have the money to pay his hotel bills at the conference, Phiri introduced him to the Chinese delegates, who generously offered him US $500.79 This incident surely left a strong, positive impression in the eyes of man who would one day become Foreign Minister of Zambia. Beijing’s support of the UNIP cause in the early 1960s was extended gradually and cautiously. As a nationalist party that advocated for the peaceful transition of power rather than armed struggle, UNIP was not a priority ally for CCP. While considered radical by British officials, Chinese analysts saw Kaunda as ‘right-wing’ due to his engagement with the US.80 On 1 September 1960, the representative of UNIP’s new Cairo Office, Reuben Kamanga, contacted the local Chinese Embassy with a request of GBP £20,000. The money was to be used to purchase ten cars and a printer, as well as to cover local costs. On the one hand, Kamanga had acknowledged the significance of China’s moral and material support in Northern Rhodesia’s independence struggle; on Chau, Exploiting Africa, p. 38–9; Cooley, East Wind over Africa, p. 155. United National Independence Party Archives, The British Library, London (hereafter UNIP BL), EAP121_2_5_5_3, United National Independence Party Northern Rhodesia (London Committee), 1960–1961, ‘Correspondence Letter to the United National Independence Party Northern Rhodesia (London Committee)’, 30 December 1960. 79 Vernon J. Mwaanga, An Extraordinary Life: A Passion for Service (Lusaka: Fleetfoot Pub. Co., 2009), p. 122–3. 80 CFMA, 108-00100-01, ‘北罗得西亚民族联合党要求援助事’ [UNIP’s Financial Request], 1 December 1960. 77 78

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

the other hand, his reiteration of Nkrumah’s famous declaration that ‘We are looking neither East nor West, but forward’ had not satisfied the Chinese.81 Although Kamanga was invited to China for a general visit, he could not attend in person due to the constitutional conference, scheduled for December that year. In his stead, UNIP decided to send its vice president and London representative, Mainza Chona. China’s background check on Chona, who had studied law in London, was administered via a British Communist Party member who worked in an Africa-related local organisation. This source acknowledged that UNIP was the ‘only political party popular among the African masses’, and that Chona concurred with Kaunda’s stance that the ongoing constitutional struggle based on the principle of non-violence was the only viable path to independence. Another factor was the dearth of left-wing opponents within UNIP.82 As this was the first visit of a major nationalist leader from Northern Rhodesia, the Chinese government’s strategy was reminiscent of that adopted for the Bandung Conference: it sought ‘common ground’ with Chona’s anti-imperialism while ‘reserving differences’ when it came to his moderate anticolonialism. Practically speaking, this would be achieved through three main aims: firstly, to reveal the imperialist nature of the UK and US in controlling the copper mines in Northern Rhodesia and intervening in the Democratic Republic of Congo; secondly, to clarify China’s sympathy towards the struggles in Northern Rhodesia and elsewhere in Africa through the careful introduction of the Chinese revolutionary experience; and finally, to prevent UNIP from recognising Taiwan.83 After six days’ stay in China, Chona left Beijing with a financial assistance package of US $3,000 and the promise of four scholarships. The Chinese Foreign Ministry concluded that Chona was ‘Western influenced’ and still held doubts about ‘China’s achievements, people’s life and democratic freedom’.84 It was therefore necessary to continue the ‘influencing’ activities. These efforts would however soon be rewarded, as the general elections in January 1964 witnessed the success of Kaunda and UNIP to lead the newly self-governed country towards independence. If rumours in colonial Africa can serve as first-hand materials from which to infer the nature of Africans’ everyday encounters with colonial power, as Luise White argues in Speaking with Vampires, the dis81 CFMA, 108-00100-01, ‘赞比亚民族联合党副全国主席卡曼加访华（未成行）及我 提供援助事情’ [UNIP Vice President Kamanga’s Visit (Did Not Happen) and His Financial Request], 1 September 1960. 82 CFMA, 108-00263-05, ‘报告关于北罗得西亚乔纳的情况’ [Report on Chona from Northern Rhodesia], 13 January 1961. 83 Ibid. 84 CFMA, 108-00263-05, ‘北罗联合民族独立党副主席乔纳访华情况’ [UNIP Vice President Chona’s Visit to China], 30 January 1961.

41

42

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

course of ‘Communist threats’ in the decolonisation period provide us with a picture of how ideologies could be imported, accommodated and reconstructed into African contexts. 85 Such discourses frequently found expression in British intelligence reports. Neither superficial nor peripheral, anti-communism was increasingly recognised as integral to white Rhodesian governance. 86 Among white settlers more generally, the fear of an alien ideology that threatened to overthrow the establishment was exacerbated by US propaganda. Interviewed in the Rhodesia Herald, Roy Welensky warned that communism was a real threat to Central Africa. The prospect of handing over of power ‘prematurely’ to undeveloped African nation-states represented the gravest of dangers, since it would allegedly enable communism to gain a real hold in these territories. 87 In his study of 1950s Northern Rhodesia, Jan-Bart Gewald illustrates perfectly how rumours of Mau Mau sparked widespread fears among the white settlers. 88 Morris Malaya from Ndola, had ‘mentioned privately that he would like to form a communist party branch’ because it ‘provided a better government for people who were poor like Africans’. 89 This comment from an ordinary young man was picked up by intelligence reports not because of its influence, but because of that extraordinarily strong fear of communism. Mau Mau fighters, such as Northern Rhodesian urbanites, had of course not been indoctrinated by communism. But the popular appeal of the communist discourse may be inferred from the fact that one of its prominent leaders, Waruhiu Itote, assumed ‘an Asiatic nom de guerre’ – General China.90 The manipulation of discourse in the late-colonial periods would ultimately contribute to the post-independence political culture with which China had to engage in both Kenya and Zambia. Under the heavy influence of white settlers, newspapers such as the East African Standard presented China’s presence in Kenya as more of a threat than an opportunity. 85 Luise White, Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p. 1. 86 Donal Lowry, ‘The Impact of Anti-Communism on White Rhodesian Political Culture, c. 1920s–1980’, in Sue Onslow (ed.), Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power, Black Liberation (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), pp. 84–109. 87 OBL, Papers of the Rt. Hon. Sir Roy Welensky, 247/1, ‘Communism a Threat to Federation – Sir Roy’, Rhodesia Herald, 1 April 1960. 88 Jan-Bart Geward, ‘Rumours of Mau Mau in Northern Rhodesia, 1950–1960’, Afrika Focus 22, 1 (2009), pp. 37–56. 89 ‘Northern Rhodesia Political Intelligence Report, April 1954, no. 3’, quoted in Geward, ‘Rumours of Mau Mau in Northern Rhodesia, 1950–1960’, p. 50. 90 Snow, The Star Raft, p. 72. The name General China probably derived from Itote’s involvement in the fight against the Japanese during the Second World War. See: Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, p. 230.

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

The ‘Two Chinas’ Issue

The issue of China’s political recognition was a contentious one in Cold War politics. Newly independent African countries were no doubt influenced by colonial legacies, as two major European powers took opposite positions: while the UK recognised the PRC as the government of China and posted a ‘Chargé d’affaires ad interim’ in Beijing in January 1950, France made the equivalent recognition only in 1964. In the cases of Kenya and Zambia, both countries recognised the PRC on the eve of their independence, but probably for different reasons. Kenya’s decision to recognise and support the PRC as the only legitimate government of China was partly down to economic considerations. Under British rule, it had trade connections with both the mainland and Taiwan. The trade figures in 1959, 1960, and 1961 showed that Kenyan exports to Taiwan had ‘not been of any significance’, except for some ‘irregular trade’ of sugar.91 When businessmen from Taiwan proposed to open a shipping line between Taiwan and East Africa, the British trade official in charge was worried that its own diplomatic relationship with Communist China would pose challenges to any formal representation. He therefore recommended that ‘neither of the Chinese countries should be encouraged to set up missions here’.92 As long as the British could do business with both trading partners, it was better not to stimulate any political controversy by switching sides. This sense of pragmatism in approaching the issue was inherited by Kenyan leaders. As the Chairman of Kenya’s independence preparation committee, Mboya affirmed that the new government would recognise the PRC while, at the same time, considering the possibility of a ‘two Chinas policy’.93 Kenya’s new Minister of Natural Resources Lawrence Sagini led a goodwill delegation to Taiwan in July 1963, possibly to discuss its representation at the independence ceremony scheduled for December that year. Odinga, however, succeeded in convincing Kenyatta to adopt the PRC’s ‘One China Principle’.94 The rift between Mboya and Odinga is evident in their position on this issue. In the case of Kaunda’s government in Zambia, recognition of the PRC was fairly straightforward. In February 1964, He Ying, a revolutionary 91 Kenya National Archives, Nairobi (hereafter KNA), C/I&E/2/11, ‘Trade with Formosa (Taiwan)’, 1956–1965, ‘Letter by J.H. Martin, Department of Trade and Supplies, Nairobi’, 15 February 1962. 92 Ibid. 93 The US National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland (hereafter NARA), RG 59, Box 3963, 1963, ‘Incoming Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 27 July 1963. 94 The ‘One China Principle’ is a common term in China’s official communications. It refers to the diplomatic acknowledgement of its position that there is only one legitimate Chinese government.

43

44

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

veteran and then Chinese ambassador in Tanzania, proposed to visit Northern Rhodesia. Due to UNIP’s busy schedule making preparations for the country’s independence, this visit was delayed until June that year. Above all, Beijing was eager to hear Kaunda’s position on the ‘two Chinas’ issue and its implications for the upcoming independence ceremony.95 During He Ying’s visit, Kaunda and other ministers confirmed on several occasions that Beijing’s delegation alone would be invited to the ceremony, a decision that had been made in a Cabinet meeting in April. But the possibility of an alliance switch still hung in the air. Yang Hsi-kun, a leading diplomat in African affairs from Taiwan, was at the time paying visits to several Central African countries and planned to visit Northern Rhodesia in the near future. Thus, He Ying strongly advised Beijing to approve Kaunda’s request for GBP £20,000 for UNIP in advance of Yang’s visit in order to secure the PRC’s already firm foothold.96 Although both Kenya and Zambia ultimately recognised the CCP government, the issue of ‘two Chinas’ proved more controversial in Kenya due to the dynamics of its domestic politics and the global Cold War. Chapter 4 will return to this issue with a discussion of the PRC’s success in obtaining UN membership and the role of African states in this process.

Conclusion

Rather than a simple reiteration of the nationalist histories of China, Kenya and Zambia, this chapter has analysed the intersections of decolonisation, the Cold War, and Afro-Asian solidarity that are exemplified by China-Africa relations in the 1950s and early 1960s. Africa’s position in China’s foreign policy must be understood in terms of Mao’s strategy for approaching the principal contradiction. It was held that the sweeping trend towards self-rule in the former colonies had great potential to contribute to a socialist, and above all, anti-­imperialist agenda. The lack of a robust working class in decolonising Africa was less of a concern to the Chinese leaders than their Soviet counterparts. Through its involvement in Afro-Asian solidarity conferences, Communist China actively pursued leadership in the wider ‘Third World’. I argue that the early exchanges of personnel between China and Africa, which occurred across a range of spheres from the military to the cultural, had both foreign and domestic implications. On the one hand, they paved the way for China to establish diplomatic relations CMFA, 108-00563-01, ‘关于何大使访问北罗事’ [Ambassador He’s Visit to Northern Rhodesia], 11 February 1964. 96 CFMA, 108-00563-01, ‘关于何大使访问北罗的简况’ [Brief on Ambassador He’s Visit to Northern Rhodesia], 14 June 1964. 95

Decolonisation, the Cold War and Afro-Asian Solidarity, 1949–1964

with independent African nations. On the other hand, the propaganda helped in mobilising the popular masses in China. China’s involvement in African decolonisation was gradual and cautious. Constrained by limited access to local intelligence and human resources, China initially struggled to identify and win over prominent African nationalists as trustworthy allies. Contrary to the popular perception that Cold War powers could easily manipulate African actors, China’s early connections with major political parties such as KANU and UNIP was to a certain extent rather passive. Viewing the Mau Mau as a missed opportunity, China reached out to both Mboya and Oginga in 1960, but only the latter accepted the invitation. In the case of Northern Rhodesia, where anti-communist sentiment was widely propagated by the colonial authorities, China took advantage of its diplomatic bases in places like Egypt to facilitate contact with UNIP nationalists. The examples of Mwaanga and Chona have also shown us how the significance ascribed to personal connections was a characteristic feature of China-Zambia relations. In terms of China’s political recognition, Kenya and Zambia developed contrasting rationales: while trading partnerships were crucial to the diplomatic thinking of Kenyan politicians, Zambian elites firmly rejected the proposal of a ‘two Chinas policy’, a gesture that was to be appreciated by Beijing for the decades to come.

45

2 Caught in between: Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

China’s policies in Kenya too were opportunistic, badly conceived and not successful.1 Alan Hutchison, 1975

Writing in the 1970s, Alan Hutchison proclaimed his conclusion with confidence: China’s foreign policy goals in Kenya had failed. However, many contemporary observers would be surprised by this verdict. The standard account of Sino-Kenyan relations begins in December 1963 when China became the fourth country to open an embassy in Nairobi, then leaps abruptly to September 1980 when President Daniel arap Moi paid his country’s first state visit to Beijing. This leaves the period of time between 1963 and 1980 almost entirely out of the picture. Terence Ranger has discussed how the ‘the usable past’ can be effective in legitimising nationhood, 2 but it could be said that most of what took place in the 1960s and the 1970s did not conform to the preferred nationalist histories of either Kenya or China. This chapter tackles this omission through an attempt to answer the following questions. Did African countries such as Kenya always submit to powerful Cold War actors? What role did ideology play in Kenyan foreign policy and its relations with Communist China? To what extent did domestic and local politics play into the dynamics of Sino-Kenyan relations? And, driven by Mao’s radical outlook, did China attempt to orchestrate a regime change in Kenya? This chapter will provide a comprehensive study of the relationship between Kenya and China from 1964 to 1975. Shortly after independence, Kenyan elites continued to develop and deepen relations with China. Nairobi dispatched two delegations, the first to the US in late December 1963, and the second to the USSR and PRC in April–May 1964. Both Communist giants signed economic and technical cooperation Hutchison, China’s African Revolution, p. 116. Terence Ranger, ‘Towards A Usable African Past’, in Christopher Fyfe (ed.), African Studies Since 1945: A Tribute to Basil Davidson (London: Longman, 1976), pp. 17–30. 1 2

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

agreements with Kenya in the wake of these visits, the Sino-Soviet competition for global influence enabling a relatively small country like Kenya to negotiate a better overall aid package for its own development. The second part of this chapter will analyse the tri-dimensional nature of post-independence Kenyan politics through the lens of party factions and their respective foreign backers. China’s preference for the most ‘advanced/progressive’ forces in the ‘Third World’ influenced its decision to finance the faction within KANU led by Oginga Odinga. Kenya’s official adoption of African socialism as its economic blueprint in 1965 was a reflection of the intervention of global ideologies in the ‘Third World’. Contrary to the conventional understanding of Kenya being a natural Western ally, 3 this chapter questions the inevitability of the Sino-Kenyan diplomatic crisis in the late 1960s. I argue that this crisis resulted from a complex as well as unpredictable process that was shaped by a series of historical contingencies. Incidents such as the assassination of Odinga’s most capable advisor and the discovery of arms imported from Communist countries deserve particular attention. In the context of the increasingly dominant one party-state approach to post-independence African politics, neither Odinga nor the opposition party Kenya People’s Union (KPU) had the capacity to challenge their country’s political establishment, and therefore turned to China for further financial support. Driven by domestic social mobilisation, China’s international outlook became visibly aggressive from mid-1966 onwards. This chapter will provide a detailed analysis of how verbal attacks such as notes of protest escalated into physical confrontations in both Beijing and Nairobi. A pivotal event was the August 1967 march by the Nairobi branch of KANU outside the Chinese Embassy. Despite the evident political backlash, trade relations between Kenya and China remained robust. Finally, this chapter will address the struggle between three Kenyan political factions to succeed Kenyatta, supported as they were by various foreign powers. In contrast to China’s constant alliance with Odinga throughout the period, the US transferred its support from Tom Mboya to Daniel arap Moi in response to changes in domestic Kenyan politics and its own foreign policy agenda. As the first US Ambassador to Kenya between 1964 and 1966, William Attwood’s professional background as a journalist and writer imbued American diplomacy with a ‘down-to-earth’ yet also indiscreet flavour, a legacy which caused problems for his successor. This situation illustrates how individual personalities could have profound and unforeseen influences on foreign relations. For the first half of the 1970s, Nairobi and Beijing maintained minimal contact, such as athlete exchanges. It was only in 1978 that 3 Charles Hornsby, Kenya: A History Since Independence (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), p. 103.

47

48

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

the new Kenyan President Moi started to recognise the political and economic opportunities which could come from collaboration with post-Mao China.

Kenya’s Foreign Policy

There are many scholarly works on the foreign policy of Kenyatta’s regime, most of which were published in the 1970s and 1980s. Kenya’s openness towards engagement with the world economy and multi­ national corporations drew resounding criticism from dependency theorists in accordance with Kwame Nkrumah’s thesis of neocolonialism in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the much broader leftist analyses of the time.4 Timothy Shaw labelled Kenya ‘a sub-imperial state at the centre of the ‘periphery’, a ‘client’ able to exert dominance in the region of the Third World’.5 While understandably critical of an unjust and unequal post-war order, ‘sceptics’ like these nonetheless downplayed the agency of African governments and elites in forming multilateral, multifaceted diplomatic strategies on the world stage.6 Scholars of international relations often presume dichotomous distinctions between systems and individuals, theory and practice, domestic and foreign relations, and radical and conservative political perspectives. However, historical realities defy these binary frameworks. John Howell rightly described Kenya’s international outlook as double-faced in essence: on the one hand, it aligned with other ‘Third World’ countries in support of a peaceful and equal world order; on the other hand, it prioritised political stability in the East African region.7 Kenyatta’s call for the preservation of the ‘territorial status quo’ at the Cairo Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit in 1964 presents a sharp contrast with Nkrumah’s vision of Pan-African unity. Howell’s emphasis on national consciousness and national integration was later criticised by John Okumu: KANU members generally lacked a sense of loyalty in projecting a unified public image before the electorate, and foreign policy issues were barely discussed in most political campaigns of the 1960s.8 He further challenged the validity of Kenya’s ‘long-­ standing commitment and genuine radical persuasion’ given that the Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya. Shaw, ‘International Stratification in Africa’, p. 145. 6 Katete Orwa, ‘Foreign Policy, 1963–1986’, in William R. Ochieng (ed.), A Modern History of Kenya 1895–1980: In Honour of B A. Ogot (London: Evans Brothers, 1989), pp. 219–44. 7 John Howell, ‘An Analysis of Kenyan Foreign Policy’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 6, 1 (1968), p. 29. 8 John J. Okumu, ‘Some Thoughts on Kenya’s Foreign Policy’, The African Review 3, 2 (1973), pp. 264–5. 4

5

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

influence of KANU’s Odinga-led left-wing dissidents had dwindled by 1968.9 However, the extent to which ostensibly socialist leanings had shaped Kenya’s initial ‘radical’ foreign policy before this time is itself questionable; and the precise meaning of this ‘radicalness’, if it ever existed, was perceived and assessed by contemporaneous actors in various and contrasting ways. Other studies have directly examined the East-West tensions in Kenya in terms of propaganda or foreign aid. According to Okumu, Kenya’s ‘quiet diplomacy’, a diplomatic posture that aimed to ‘promote economic and social modernisation’, was in reality constrained by a ‘poor’ nation’s ability to attract foreign aid.10 Mboya and Odinga had, for example, secured scholarships for Kenyan students in the United States and the Soviet Union respectively. Their personal rivalry also seems to map onto the ‘proxy war’ hypothesis. Godfrey Okoth portrayed US policy in Kenya as a source of conflict and instability, leaving the country ‘with virtually no right to determine its own form of government and economy’.11 A major limitation of such analyses, however, is the ‘centre-periphery’ model on which they are premised, whereby self-interested Kenyan elites struggled to cope with (presumably) well-trained, goal-oriented Western diplomats. Poppy Cullen’s recent research on Anglo-Kenyan relations instead suggests that the deployment of Cold War rhetoric helped, rather than harmed, Kenyatta’s arms sales bargaining with the British.12 Last but by no means least, another significant body of literature in this area is that by Kenyans themselves and experts on Kenyan politics. Those who have studied Kenya’s post-independence history have expressed keen awareness of the impact of the East-West confrontation.13 An edited volume by Gertzel, Goldschmidt, and Rothchild contains statements from Kenyan leaders on issues such as the ‘danger of colonialism’, ‘non-alignment’, and those that make specific allegations with regard to Communist China.14 Critical of the state-level analysis in most investigative reporting, Jennifer Widner gives substantial Ibid., p. 265. Ibid., p. 263. 11 Godfrey Okoth, United States of America’s Foreign Policy toward Kenya 1952– 1969 (Nairobi: Gideon S. Were Press, 1992), p. 113. 12 Poppy Cullen, ‘“Playing Cold War Politics”: The Cold War in Anglo-Kenyan Relations in the 1960s’, Cold War History 18, 1 (2018), pp. 1–17. 13 Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2012; Hornsby, Kenya: A History since Independence; W.O. Maloba, The Anatomy of Neo-Colonialism in Kenya: British Imperialism and Kenyatta, 1963–1978 (New York: Springer, 2017). 14 Cherry J. Gertzel, Maure Leonard Goldschmidt, and Donald S. Rothchild, Government and Politics in Kenya: A Nation Building Text (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1969), pp. 577–83. 9

10

49

50

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

credit to Kenya’s political parties in designing or implementing political strategies during the Kenyatta era.15 In order to fully break down the realities of the US position in relation to Kenya, it is necessary to consult primary sources from beyond the official archive. The Reds and the Blacks, written by the first US Ambassador to independent Kenya, William Attwood, offered ‘an eyewitness account of Communist tactics in a vast, turbulent and largely unreported continent’.16 Policy documents and intelligence reports by the US Department of State, plus routine telegrams from Nairobi containing information provided personally by Kenyan ministers, can help to reconstruct a consistent analysis of US involvement – if not interference – in Kenyan affairs. In response to questions such as African socialism or Kenya’s global position, prominent Kenyan politicians frequently drew on their personal experiences of historical events. Both Mboya and Odinga published their autobiographies in the 1960s, whose titles carve out a sharp contrast: Mboya had envisioned a bright future to be enjoyed by Kenyans in Freedom and After, while Odinga responded with a simple statement, Not Yet Uhuru.17 John Lonsdale, commenting specifically on Waruhiu Itote (‘General China’) but making a point of relevance for historians of modern times, states: ‘we are ignorant strangers when we first meet historical actors’.18 It follows that caution must always be exercised in the interpretation of reminiscences of the recent past, be they oral or written in nature.

Kenya and the Sino-Soviet Competition

Almost immediately after Kenya’s independence ceremonies, in late December 1963, the new government dispatched a senior ministerial delegation to the US. The main purpose of this visit was to reassure American policy-makers and investors that Kenya would prove a stable, trustworthy partner in the international community. Washington was clearly unhappy about Odinga’s ‘vague and often inaccurate view of US’.19 In the February of the following year, the General Secretary Widner, The Rise of a Party-State in Kenya. William Attwood, The Reds and the Blacks: A Personal Adventure (London: Hutchinson, 1967). 17 Tom Mboya, Freedom and After (London: Andre Deutsch, 1963); Odinga, Not Yet Uhuru. 18 John Lonsdale, ‘Foreword’, in Myles Osborne (ed.), The Life and Times of General China: Mau Mau and the End of Empire in Kenya (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2015), p. xiv. 19 NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 2 June 1964. 15 16

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

‘Orland’ of the Nyanza KANU branch, Vice President Odinga’s constituency, visited Beijing.20 Likely arranged through Odinga’s connections with the Sino-African Friendship Association, this was an unofficial and predominantly secret visit. Over his extensive travels to Beijing, Hunan Province and Guangxi Province, Orland made it clear that Odinga believed in a ‘socialist path’ and supported China in its stance on the Sino-Soviet split. Despite his relatively low rank, Orland was treated with great respect and with the clear expectation that he would contribute positively to China’s anti-imperialist influence in Africa. However, the Chinese government did not limit its invitations to radical figures like Orland. Jomo Kenyatta’s eldest son, Peter Magana, who was considered by the Chinese to be ‘a British imperialist stooge’, also visited Beijing at Odinga’s recommendation.21 This visit was intended to win over ‘middle forces’ including President Kenyatta himself. Those same ministers who had led the delegation to the US paid their official visit to Beijing, 3–11 May 1964, ‘arriving and departing via Moscow’.22 Kenyatta’s choice of Odinga to head this delegation had been strongly opposed by another delegation member, Finance Minister James Gichuru, who insisted that his own ministry be more directly involved.23 Despite his distaste for Odinga’s political ambitions, Kenyatta did not go so far as to openly challenge his deputy. The resulting compromise was that Odinga was not ‘allowed’ to meet with foreign heads of state without other government members present. Minister of State Joseph Murumbi did report to the US Embassy in Nairobi that he was present at all meetings between Odinga and their hosts in Moscow and Beijing.24 In reality, however, it is hard to prove the level of compliance, as hardly any such meetings were recorded. Much to the consternation of the West, Odinga managed to slip his minders’ ‘leash’ during his Beijing visit. Perhaps impressed by the Note that only his Chinese name is recorded in the document, thus his name has been rendered as ‘Orland’ in English by the author. CFMA, 108-01001-02, ‘中国对外文化联络委员会交际司以及湖南、广西外事办公室接待肯尼亚非洲民族联 盟尼安萨省支部总书记奥论德访华工作简报’ [Brief on the Visit by KANU Nyanza General Secretary ‘Orland’, administered by the Chinese External Cultural Contact Commission with the Hunan and Guangxi Offices for External Affairs], 27 February 1964. 21 CFMA, 108-00463-06, ‘中国对外文化联络委员会接待肯尼亚总统肯雅塔之长子 彼德.肯雅塔访华计’ [Plan by the Chinese External Cultural Contact Commission for the Visit by Peter Kenyatta, eldest son of Kenya’s President Kenyatta], 30 April 1964. 22 TNA, DO 213/214, Ministerial Delegation from Kenya Visiting China via Soviet Union, 1964, ‘Visit of Kenya Delegation to China’, 27 May 1964. 23 NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 4 May 1964. 24 NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 21 May 1964. 20

51

52

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

fulsome welcome from his Chinese hosts, Odinga explicitly blamed British colonial rule for exploiting African labour and warned of the dangers of neocolonialism for the Kenyan economy. Commenting on the specific issue of China’s exclusion from the UN, he directed his criticism at the US, a country he had visited only five months previously:

Before I end, I might refer to your position in the international field … The America of today is just over 300 years old. China and her civilization goes to several thousands of years. Let me remind you that our government on being admitted to the United Nations made it categorically clear that we will continue to give your government all the support for membership to the U.N. 25

The US Embassy followed Odinga’s activities in China closely throughout the delegation’s visit. In a meeting with embassy officials, Gichuru described the trip to the Eastern Bloc as ‘purely exploratory’, given that any decision to accept Chinese or Soviet assistance had to be made in Nairobi through the authority vested in himself, not Odinga.26 He guaranteed to the US that Kenyatta would be ‘most reluctant to approve any deal involving [an] influx [of Eastern] bloc technicians’.27 The practical result of the visit was the ‘Agreement Concerning Economic and Technical Cooperation’ signed between Odinga and Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi on 10 May 1964. The Chinese government promised a five-year interest-free unconditional loan of US $15 million in the form of ‘complete sets of equipment, individual pieces of equipment and technical assistance’, while Kenya would repay the loan within a period of ten years.28 The Kenyan Cabinet quickly discussed and approved the agreement. Merely two weeks after the delegation returned to Kenya, Minister of State Joseph Murumbi told the Chinese Ambassador Wang Yutian that a Ministerial Commission chaired by Odinga would soon propose a list of engineering projects to be financed by the Chinese loan, and Chinese technical experts who came to Kenya would be taken care of by the Kenyan government.29 ‘奥金加·奥廷加团长的讲话’ [Speech by Head of Delegation Oginga Odinga], People’s Daily, 7 May 1964; TNA, DO 213/214, ‘The Speech Delivered by the Leader of the Kenya Government Delegation’, 6 May 1964. 26 NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 7 May 1964. 27 Ibid. 28 KNA, ABM/2/3133/91/01, ‘Technical Assistance Agreement with PRC’, 1964, ‘Agreement Concerning Economic and Technical Cooperation’, 10 May 1964. 29 CFMA, 108-00472-12, ‘中国驻肯尼亚大使王雨田同农业部长麦克凯齐、国务部 长穆隆比、工程、交通和动力部长姆挖永姆巴的谈话记录’ [Minutes for the Meeting of the Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Wang Yutian with Kenyan Minister for Agriculture McKenzie, Minister of State Murumbi, and Minister for Engineering, Transport and Power, Mwamyumba], 13 May - 24 June 1964. 25

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

The British saw it was vital to stifle radical voices within the Kenyan elite, and counterbalance any Communist penetration that might result from the provision of this kind of aid. Aware of Kenya’s willingness to accept assistance from both the Soviet Union and China, China’s ‘quick, cheap and effective aid’ was a source of particular discomfort. 30 Terence Garvey, the British Chargé d’Affaires in Beijing, reported that the Chinese deal was said to be centred around a ‘single worthwhile project’: an irrigation scheme on the Tana River. 31 But the Chinese package had actually promised much more: a spinning, weaving, printing, and dyeing mill, as well as a sugar-refinery, would be provided as complete sets of equipment. In terms of technical cooperation, the Chinese government would dispatch three experts on bamboo weaving to provide technical guidance; meanwhile, the Kenyan government would send trainees to China to study ivory carving. 32 It is interesting to notice that the Kenyan Ministry of Commerce and Industry stressed that only ‘pure’ or advisory experts should be selected, which is indicative of an intention to exclude Chinese political agents. 33 China’s generous response to the Kenyan government’s demands can only be understood in the context of its ideological and increasingly geopolitical conflict with the Soviet Union. In Moscow, the Kenyan Ambassador had insisted that his country refused to choose sides in what he described as a ‘family affair’. 34 But his counterpart in Beijing admitted that the Chinese leaders tried hard to convince him that ‘Soviet aid is fraudulent and that acceptance of it spells disaster for all but the most circumspect recipient’. 35 Shortly before the Sino-Kenyan agreement on economic and technical cooperation was drafted, there had been discussions over a comparable agreement in Moscow during Odinga’s visit. On 3 June 1964, Odinga chaired a ministerial committee meeting to discuss the two offers. Seven Kenyan ministers were in attendance, together with a secretariat from the Treasury. 36 While most studies of about the Sino-Soviet split tend TNA, DO 213/214, ‘Visit of Kenya Delegation to China’, 27 May 1964. Ibid. 32 KNA, ABM/2/3133/91/01, ‘Protocol to the Agreement Concerning Economic and Technical Cooperation between the Government of Kenya and the Government of the People’s Republic of China’, 10 December 1964. 33 KNA, AE/19/70, ‘China Aid Policy’, 1964–1965, ‘Correspondence from the Permanent Secretary for Commerce & Industry to the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury’, 26 August 1964. 34 NARA, RG 59, Box 2396, 1964–1966, ‘Conversation with the Kenyan Ambassador in Moscow Regarding the Odinga Visit, Sino-Soviet Rivalry, Kenyan Students, and Kenya’s Northeast Region’, 5 June 1964. 35 TNA, DO 213/214, ‘Visit of Kenya Delegation to China’, 27 May 1964. 36 KNA, AE/19/70, ‘Minutes for the Meeting Held on Wednesday 3rd June 1964 in the Office of the Minister for Home Affairs’, 3 June 1964. 30 31

53

54

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

to emphasise issues like the respective understandings of Marxism or relations with the West, 37 I would argue that the two countries’ different approaches to economic and technical aid, as well as foreign trade, carried more weight for African countries. Kenya’s ultimate preference for Chinese aid over the Soviet equivalent came down to economic rather than ideological reasons. The Soviet ‘aid’ was offered in the form of grant commitments that needed to be repaid. Since the ‘concessionary’ nature of the repayment conditions usually meant more liberal conditions when it came to ‘interest rates, amortization periods, and/ or prices (for the aid goods and services or for the exports offered by the aid recipient as repayment)’, it was simply less attractive than China’s unconditional aid. 38 According to John Esseks, the Soviet aid on offer did not furnish ‘turn-key’ projects, which meant that the responsibility for ‘organizing and financing the actual construction, the installation of equipment, and the starting up of the facility’ lay with the recipient government. 39 Kenyan trade delegates complained and demanded that the Soviet government cover the local costs of the projects they funded. Soviet officials, instead, proposed supplying goods which Kenyans could sell both locally and globally, then use the resulting earnings to finance aided projects at home.40 This proposition was in fact similar to a conventional Western economic cooperation and trade agreement, in which both parties committed to goods exchange either at ‘market prices’ or ‘the prices in the principal markets’.41 At the Cabinet meeting, Commerce Minister Julius Kiano went over a list of goods offered by the USSR: ‘agricultural machinery and implements’, ‘motor cars and tractors’, ‘watches’, ‘cameras’, ‘textiles’, ‘chemicals’, and possibly, ‘crude oils’. However, only machinery, watches, textiles and chemicals were judged to be profitable. The Kenya National Trading Company, which was tasked with overseeing the sale of the Soviet imports, produced a comprehensive report that compared the Soviet and Chinese aid programmes. It calculated that Kenya would need to purchase ‘about 15,000 tons of sugar each year’ from the USSR in order to pay back the total loan of GBP £5 million over the next 12 years.42 While there was 2.5 per cent annual interest on the Soviet aid, For examples, see Li Mingjiang, Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split: Ideological Dilemma (London: Routledge, 2012); Peter Dally, The Sino-Soviet Split: A Trap for the West (Cheltenham: British Anti-Communist Council, 1984). 38 John D. Esseks, ‘Soviet Economic Aid to Africa: 1959–72’, in Warren Weinstein (ed.), Chinese and Soviet Aid to Africa (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975), pp. 88–9. 39 Ibid., p. 89. 40 KNA, AE/19/70, ‘Minutes for the Meeting Held on Wednesday 3rd June 1964’. 41 Esseks, ‘Soviet Economic Aid to Africa: 1959–72’, p. 90. 42 KNA, AE/19/70, ‘USSR and Chinese Aid – National Trading Company’, 5 November 1964. 37

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

the Chinese offer was interest-free, and Kenya’s trade with China would likely reach as much as £400,000 to £500,000 (c. £7.5 million to £9.5 million in 2022). Calling the Soviet aid ‘a confidence trick’, the Kenya National Trading Company encouraged the government to pursue the Chinese offer.43 It is often assumed that there was a tendency for ideological or political considerations to override practical calculations based on national interests during the Cold War. Certainly, the US government’s primary concern was whether there were political strings attached to Communist aid. Impressed that ‘both Soviet and Chinese wanted Kenya [to] loosen ties to West’, Murumbi sensed much stronger anti-American attitudes among Chinese leaders, who had even attempted to ‘push [a] racist line about Chinese and Africans being colored brothers’.44 Yet this did not prevent him concluding, along with the other six ministers, that Chinese aid was favourable to that of the Soviets. The British also viewed the generous gesture as ‘a long awaited first step of [a] serious Communist economic offensive in East Africa’ and particularly Zanzibar (see below). However confident of the ‘experienced personnel and financial strength’ of the West, the British High Commissioner showed little interest in the mechanisms involved in Chinese aid beyond its propagandist aims.45

Kenyatta, the ‘Kenya Group’ and the Odinga Faction

The national effort to counter Communist infiltration was frequently debated by the Kenyan Cabinet. Odinga’s public praise of China should be understood in the context of domestic political competition in Kenya. It was clear from the summer of 1964 that three factions had started to diverge within Kenya’s ruling party: that of Kenyatta, which was closely aligned with Britain, while Odinga and Mboya occupied the respective left and right ends of the spectrum in terms of political orientation. Since Chinese Communist leaders used class analysis to identify the most progressive force, Kenyatta was grouped in with the ‘right forces’, in a way that barely distinguished him from the likes of Mboya. However, Odinga’s alliance with Beijing was not based exclusively on a shared radical ideology, as Mboya’s prior closeness with the US government had pushed Odinga and his followers further towards the Eastern Bloc than they might otherwise have ventured. The US Ibid. NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 21 May 1964. 45 NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 23 May 1964. 43 44

55

56

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

appraisal of Mboya saw him as ‘by far the most skilled and brilliant political leader on the scene’.46 On 21 July, the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi sent urgent word to Beijing that Odinga’s fierce struggle with the ‘imperialists and their running dogs’ had intensified.47 The report blamed the personal conflict between Kenyatta and Odinga entirely on the former, tracing it back to Kenyatta’s attempts to exclude his old friend from the coalition government in 1962. Odinga’s disagreements with Kenyatta on events such as the Zanzibar Revolution, military mutinies in East Africa, and Kenya’s military deals with Ethiopia were also presented as political manipulations by Odinga’s opponents. Despite their differences on specific political ideas, Bildad Kaggia, a dissident Kikuyu leader from the Central Province, and Paul Ngei, an elder of the Kamba ethnic group, found praise from the Chinese for their anti-imperialist position on land policy, and their stance on land restitution was seen to be of considerable resonance. Overall, the Chinese assessment of the political situation in Kenya was a very positive one: ‘the union of Odinga, Kaggia and Ngei has been rather close, and to some extent has become the leading force of every party’.48 While Beijing expressed strong confidence in Odinga, London and Washington viewed him with wary eyes. Earlier in Beijing, during a meeting with Terence Garvey, Odinga had praised Chinese development in comparison to his ‘dreadful’ experience of India, which he had found to be full of ‘crawling beggars’. But when questioned about what brand of socialism Kenya had chosen, he avoided referencing Marxism-­ Leninism directly. Garvey subsequently wrote: ‘I would greatly prefer to do business with them [the Chinese] than with this ophidian creature [Odinga], who, frankly, gave me the creeps’.49 Two months later, Odinga paid a private visit to US Ambassador to Kenya William Attwood, in one of few instances of a meeting between an American official and an alleged Communist sympathiser. Attwood was impressed by Odinga’s outspoken character: ‘You Americans remind me of the Chinese. We can talk frankly together and we can laugh. But the Russians – well, they are different – they are too much like the British’. 50 For Attwood, Odinga’s ‘curious’ joke and ‘seemingly genuine and even emotional defence of Chinese Communist policies’ confirmed only his ‘naiveté’. 51 NARA, RG 59, Box 2392, ‘Internal Political Balance Sheet’, 6 August 1965. CFMA, 108-00465-02, ‘肯目前形势和我们的看法’ [The Current Situation in Kenya and Our View Thereof], 1 July 1964. 48 Ibid. 49 TNA, DO 213/214, ‘Letter from Office of the British Chargé d’Affaires, Peking to the Commonwealth Relations Office’, 19 May 1964. 50 Attwood, The Reds and the Blacks, p. 242. 51 NARA, RG 59, Box 2392, 1964–1966, ‘An Evening with Oginga Odinga’, 21 July 1964. 46 47

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

The African Socialism Debate

In the decolonisation period, many African leaders poured effort into ‘localising’ socialist ideas. As ‘a philosophical disposition or identity’, African socialism is crucial to understanding the diverse African experiences of initiating, deepening or negotiating relations with Communist China at a time of global ideological contest. 52 On the one hand, the global facet of the Cold War ideological confrontation facilitated the exchange of socialist ideas and practices between Kenyan and Chinese actors in the 1960s; on the other hand, as Daniel Speich argues, the controversy that surrounded African socialism in Kenya should not be ‘reduced to a third world instance of the global Cold War’. 53 Following a heated debate over which ideological route post-independence Kenya should take, Mboya’s Ministry for Economic Planning and Development released ‘Sessional Paper No. 10 (1963–1965): African Socialism and its Application to Planning in April 1965’. Driven by what Ahmed Mohuddin terms a ‘teleological view of the development of societies’, the paper argued that ‘all societies aim ultimately at achieving the same goals; and that all societies will, in fact, achieve these objectives’. 54 African ‘tradition’ was important in the sense that modern Kenyans ought to be motivated to ‘contribute willingly without stint to the development of the nation’.55 Virtuous ideals such as political freedom, shared interests, and mutual social responsibility were fed into a consequentialist framework which promised specific rewards (or punishments) based on an individual’s contributions. African socialism in Kenya is better understood as an economic blueprint than a political or social ideology. Daniel Branch characterises it as ‘a development strategy based on private property and private foreign investment’.56 Emphasising its practical advantages, Information Minister Achieng Oneko also argued that Kenya must bring socialism into the discussion as ‘a way of solving [the country’s] problem’. 57 Both the design and implementation of African socialism in Kenya were largely in the hands of those who had received their economic education under British rule. 58 Between 1961 and 1963, foreign 52 Priya Lal, African Socialism in Postcolonial Tanzania: Between the Village and the World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 42–3. 53 Daniel Speich, ‘The Kenyan Style of “African Socialism”: Developmental Knowledge Claims and the Explanatory Limits of the Cold War’, Diplomatic History 33, 3 (2009), p. 451. 54 Ahmed Mohiddin, African Socialism in Two Countries (London: Croom Helm, 1981), p. 68. 55 Ibid., p. 89. 56 Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2012, p. 54. 57 NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Arms Smuggling’, 5 April 1965. 58 Paul A. Mwaipaya, African Humanism and National Development: A Critical

57

58

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

experts from West Germany, Switzerland, and the United States all offered advice to the soon-to-be independent Kenyan government. 59 Jacob Oser, an American economist from Syracuse University, worked closely with Mboya to promote economic growth in Kenya.60 ‘Sessional Paper No. 10’ proposed a threefold strategy: 1) reform of the colonial economy towards the construction of a viable mixed economy; 2) Africanisation of all economic sectors to ensure wider local participation; and 3) encouragement of foreign investment from a variety of countries.61 Rejecting the Marxist principle that class was the key division in society, Kenya’s African socialism sought to prevent the emergence of class antagonism between Kenyans, reflecting the present reality that non-Africans controlled a disproportionate share of the national economy.62 Thus, if there was to be class struggle, it should be waged between the poor Kenyans and the rich foreigners by the means of Africanisation. Doctor Julius Gikonyo Kiano, Minister for Commerce and Industry, however, rejected the idea of ‘nationalisation for nationalisation’s sake’: ‘This exercise is of no substantial help to the country because in terms of development it is more practical to use our resources to create new development, new industries and new employment opportunities for our unemployed people.’63 There were, of course, ideological considerations at play. On 5 May 1965, Mboya spoke at the Kenyan National Assembly: ‘Nationalisation has been resorted to as a weapon against dangerous foreign influence. This kind of decision is political and not economic. It has nothing to do with socialism as such and the need has not arisen in our country’. 64 Only two days later, Kiano asserted that Kenya would prove ‘once and for all that Africans can totally reject ideologies based on the historical experiences of alien races’.65 In this way, justifications for national models of socialism were made with reference to indigenous identity and the rejection of foreign ideologies, a category from which foreign socialisms were not excluded. Partly to disguise its ambiguous but implicitly pro-Western outlook in the international arena, the Kenyan government deployed a calculated Analysis of the Fundamental Theoretical Principle of Zambian Humanism (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981), p. 1. 59 Speich, ‘The Kenyan Style of “African Socialism”’, p. 458. 60 Jacob Oser, Promoting Economic Development: With Illustrations from Kenya (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967). 61 Mohiddin, African Socialism in Two Countries, p. 76. 62 Ibid., p. 72. 63 KNA, MIS/17/4/62, ‘African Socialism in Kenya’, 1965, ‘Statement Issued by the Hon. Dr. J.G. Kiano’, 7 May 1965. 64 ‘Debate Opens on African Socialism: Confusion Costly to Kenya – Mr. Mboya’, East African Standard, 5 May 1965. 65 KNA, MIS/17/4/62, ‘Statement Issued by the Hon. Dr. J.G. Kiano’.

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

rhetoric that exaggerated the threat of superpower interference in its domestic politics. In this context, the issue of China would soon become a key battleground between the ‘moderates’ and the ‘radicals’ within the ruling party.

The Anti-Chinese Motion

The spring of 1965 marked an escalation in the level of violence of the Kenyan political struggles. The assassination of Pio Gama Pinto illustrates that the entanglement of Kenya’s domestic politics in the global Cold War had begun to have dangerous, even fatal, results. As the first Kenyan politician to be assassinated since independence, Pinto’s murder came as a shock to the public. Born in Kenya but raised in India, Pinto had participated in union movements in Bombay, the heart of the Indian struggle for national independence. Upon his return to Kenya in 1949, he became involved in anticolonial activism. After joining KANU, Pinto soon gained recognition for his ‘formidable organizational skills and tactical nous in parliament and beyond’.66 However, Pinto’s Asian ethnicity sparked distrust and even hatred among some Kikuyu leaders, who referred to him as ‘the most dangerous man’.67 Although he rarely made public appearances, Pinto was perceived by the US as ‘the organizer, tactician and paymaster and possibly the link with the Chicoms [Chinese Communists]’.68 He had, however, tried to mitigate the tension between the radicals and the West by suggesting that a US Embassy official tag along for Odinga’s trip to Central Nyanza so as to ‘know him in his own background’.69 On 24 February 1965, Pinto was shot dead by unknown assailants in Nairobi. Murumbi – half Goan himself and a close friend – recalled that on the day the news broke, Nairobi was flooded by competing rumours about who was responsible: the Americans, Chinese Communists, or Kikuyus.70 In contrast to Murumbi’s posthumous praise of Pinto that he ‘lived his socialism’,71 Washington’s understanding was that his radicalism had been provoked by racial discrimination under British colonial rule, and that he had been pushed further towards the East in reaction to Mboya and Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2012, p. 45. NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Assassination of Pinto: Brains and Organizer of Odinga Forces’, 5 March 1965. 68 ‘Chicoms’ indicates Chinese Communists in US official documents. See NARA, RG 59, Box 2392, ‘Odinga Presents Views on National and International Problems; Pinto Urges More US Contact with Odinga’, 24 December 1964. 69 Ibid. 70 Anne Thurston, A Path not Taken: The Story of Joseph Murumbi (Nairobi: The Murumbi Trust, 2015), p. 218. 71 Ibid., p. 214. 66 67

59

60

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Kikuyus’ alliance with the West.72 One US official described Pinto as ‘basically an opportunist and probably not ideologically committed to communism’, who might switch allegiance if he saw political advantage in doing so.73 Pinto’s death was certainly a considerable loss to Odinga’s faction and the political scene in Kenya changed significantly as a result. A group of KANU leaders formed an anti-Odinga alliance called the ‘Kenya Group’ in June 1965. The tension between the ‘Old Man’ Kenyatta and his deputy reached boiling point in April when arms were found in Odinga’s properties in Kisumu and Nairobi. The Chinese Communists were alleged to have supplied arms to overthrow Kenyatta’s government. The Minister of Health and Housing, Joseph Otiende, addressed the House of Representatives indignantly: We did not fight the British Government and the White people in order to make way for the yellow people to become colonists of this country. If they came like the British, with guns, it would not be so bad. The British just shot down a few houses and took control. But if the Chinese worked underground and supplied arms to overthrow the popular Government, there was very real danger to the country.74

In support of the anti-Chinese motion propounded by the ‘Kenya Group’, Otiende presented to the House a supposed Communist propagandist document – a magazine called ‘African Revolution’, which called Kenya’s African socialism ‘a fool’s dogma’ and welcomed the revolution in East Africa. This came despite the fact that the Chinese Embassy in Dar es Salaam had already denounced a similar document as ‘a very crude forgery’ designed to distort China’s policy towards Africa.75 Against the majority of speakers in the House that day, Vice President Odinga spoke in favour of China and the East. He criticised ‘a rising sense of emotionalism in the House’ that had created a mythical enemy simply for scapegoating purposes. ‘At one time “Mau Mau” was the cry’, said Odinga, and ‘now the cry was “Communism”, but when people were asked where it was and what it was like it could not be found’.76 The ways in which Kenyan politicians intentionally engaged with global ideological debates in active search of foreign patronage prove that the Kenyan government was no passive victim of the Cold War: we are looking at political strategists.

NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Assassination of Pinto’. Ibid. 74 ‘Smuggling of Arms Denied: Members not Present to Back up Claim’, East African Standard, 3 April 1965. 75 ‘Source of “Forgery” Now Known by Chinese’, East African Standard, 2 April 1965. 76 ‘Smuggling of Arms Denied’, East African Standard. 72

73

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

Despite the widespread allegations of Communist penetration, Kenyatta was cautious of siding with the ‘Kenya Group’. Njoroge Mungai, Kenyatta’s first cousin and then Minister for Internal Security and Defence, simply denied the allegation of arms smuggling and called for calm in the House. Kenyatta’s moderate response came as a disappointment to the US, which had at very least expected Odinga be put under house arrest.77 To safeguard his own prestige and the unity of KANU, the President opted to maintain the balance of power.78 Even Communist sympathisers like Odinga and Oneko were careful when it came to the potential introduction of the Communist party-state model.79 Washington believed that Beijing had pressed Kenyan radicals to conduct more aggressive counter-attacks against the ‘Kenya Group’. Regardless, the public confrontation of KANU members was not singlehandedly caused by this alleged Chinese pressure. Officially, Chinese leaders continued to maintain communications with Kenyatta’s government. When Zhou Enlai passed through Kenyan territory on his way through Tanzania in June 1965, he sent greetings to President Kenyatta via telegram but did not receive a response.80 To some, the fact that the Chinese Embassy could be located next to Kenya’s armed forces headquarters was indicative of trust; 81 while in certain periods of time, this fact only confirmed suspicions of Communist infiltration. After realising a military training ground was visible to the Chinese Embassy staff from their office window, Kenyatta ordered the expulsion of Wang Teming, a reporter from the Chinese news agency Xinhua. His charge was ‘infringing [upon] the national interests’ of Kenya.82 The Xinhua Agency soon responded to this ‘regretful’ decision by blaming the behind-the-scenes ‘imperialists and colonialists old and new’.83 77 NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Why there Has Been No Conclusive Confrontation between Kenyatta and Odinga; The Relationship between the Two Leaders’, 21 May 1965. 78 Widner, The Rise of a Party-State in Kenya, p. 32. 79 ‘Cold War the Danger to African Unity’, East African Standard, 5 April 1965; ‘Socialism to Solve Problems – Minister’, East African Standard, 5 April 1965. 80 ‘在途经肯尼亚和埃塞俄比亚的领空时 周总理分别致电问候两国领导人’ [Premier Zhou Greets Leaders of Kenya and Ethiopia Using the Plane’s Radio System], People’s Daily, 6 June 1965; ‘在访问坦桑尼亚后飞过各国领空时 周总理致电问候肯尼 亚等国领导人’ [Premier Zhou Greets Leaders of Kenya and Others while Passing through Kenyan Airspace to Visit Tanzania], People’s Daily, 10 June 1965. 81 Interview with Professor Vincent Simiyu, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, November 2016. 82 NARA, RG 59, Box 2394, ‘Chinese Communist Embassy Site Provoked Kenyatta’s Suspicions; Other Aspects’, 13 August 1965. 83 ‘肯尼亚当局采取不友好行动无理要求我记者离境’ [Kenyan Authorities Demand our Journalist Leave the Country without Reason], People’s Daily, 5 August 1965.

61

62

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

From the mid-1960s onwards, the Chinese authorities directed an increasing amount of resources towards Tanzania, where President Nyerere had adopted a more radical political orientation. Attwood’s counterpart in Tanzania warned that Zanzibar could become ‘a base for subversive and insurgency operations against [the] mainland from Kenya to the Cape’. 84 At least two informants from the ‘Kenya Group’, Charles Njonjo and Jeremiah Nyangah, reported that the Chinese were continuing to finance Odinga via their embassy in Dar es Salaam. 85 Abdulrahman Mohamed ‘Babu’, a committed Marxist with contacts in China, used his position as the Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs and later of Economic Planning to arrange meetings with Odinga. 86 A month after Odinga had reportedly met with Babu in Mombasa, the Chinese Embassy received Odinga’s request for funding of a total of GBP £5 million (c. £90 million in 2022). China was also briefed on the prospects for the Kenyan presidential succession: the conservatives were divided into the pro-Mboya US-backed camp and those who were supported by Britain, including Kenyatta himself. 87 As one of the few Africa specialists in the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Ambassador He Ying proposed that it was not appropriate to impose Communism in Kenya, where ‘complete national independence’ was yet to be realised, owing to the right-wing forces now under the leadership of Kenyatta. The best chance lay in a united front that could take advantage of the internal conflict of its adversaries. 88 Ultimately, with the onset of the Cultural Revolution in China, He’s recommendations were never addressed.

Amid the Cultural Revolution

In May 1966, an unprecedented kind of revolution swept Mao’s China. The ‘spill-over’ of the Cultural Revolution into Chinese foreign policy was astonishing. As Marshal Lin Biao described, Maoist thought was ‘a powerful ideological atomic bomb’ which sought to universalise China’s revolutionary trajectory ‘in the age of complete breakdown of imperialism and victory of socialism across the whole world’.89 Within 84 Roberts, ‘Politics, Decolonisation, and the Cold War in Dar es Salaam c. 1965–72’ (University of Warwick, PhD thesis, 2016), p. 38. 85 NARA, RG 59, Box 2394, ‘Memorandum to United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency: Conversation with Jeremiah Nyagah’, 20 August 1965. 86 Roberts, ‘Politics, Decolonisation, and the Cold War in Dar es Salaam c. 1965–72’, p. 37. 87 CFMA, 108-01117-01, ‘奥廷加对肯形势看法及对我要求’ [Odinga’s Take on the Kenyan Situation and his Requests of China], 20 September 1965. 88 Ibid. 89 Lin Biao, ‘Preface to the Reprint of Quotations from Chairman Mao’, in Mao

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

a year, over thirty out of the roughly forty countries in a diplomatic relationship with China suffered diplomatic degradation or deterioration, including six African countries.90 Chinese embassies in African countries were either controlled by Red Guards who intentionally distributed publications by Mao and badges, or in a state of ‘laissez-faire’ whereby diplomats disengaged from local affairs in the host countries. Long Xiangyang pointed out that exporting revolution in the postcolonial African context not only went against the protocol of international relations, but also challenged the legitimacy of new African leaders who pushed for political independence and economic development more than any further ends.91 In the case of Kenya, ‘tribal or faction struggles’ and the country’s ‘close relations with the West’ also contributed to this alienation.92 The inadequacies of Chinese Foreign Ministry archives for this period mean that it falls to the state-run press to provide an alternative, consistent coverage of China’s foreign affairs. The People’s Daily featured a total of 275 reports about Kenya in 1964 and 87 in 1965, all of which were positive in tone. But from August 1965 onwards, the number of Kenya-related news stories decreased sharply: 1966 saw fifteen articles, with only eleven in 1967 and barely any by 1970. In contrast, the number of articles about other African countries remained relatively stable. This situation was a reflection of a dramatic reshuffle within KANU. From 11 March 1966 onwards, party delegates met for a national convention in Nairobi and nearby Limuru. A key motion was proposed by Mboya to decide the fate of the post of vice president of the party, then concurrently held by Odinga alongside his position as Vice President of the country.93 Despite Odinga’s efforts to ‘buy votes’ with a great deal of (presumably Chinese) money, as Alan Hutchison noted, the motion was passed without difficulty.94 Competition then arose over nominations to fill out posts at the KANU national headquarters. Again, Odinga’s radicals were unequivocally beaten by Kenyatta’s key allies, such as Mwai Kibaki and Ronald Ngala. As a result, Odinga was obliged to resign from both the party and government, along with his followers Kaggia and Oneko. Together they formed a new party, the Zedong, Chairman Mao on World Revolution (Nanjing: Nanjing Revolutionary Committee, 1970). 90 Barbara Barnouin and Changgen Yu, Chinese Foreign Policy During the Cultural Revolution (London: Kegan Paul International, 1988), p. 66; Wang, ‘Twists and Turns in Sino-African Relations’, p. 59. 91 Long Xiangyang, ‘1966–1969年中国与非洲关系初探’ [An Initial Investigation of Sino-African Relations, 1966–1969], in Peking University African Studies Series: China and Africa, p. 79. 92 Wang, ‘Twists and Turns in Sino-African Relations’, pp. 65–7. 93 Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2012, p. 58. 94 Hutchison, China’s African Revolution, p. 119.

63

64

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Kenya People’s Union (KPU), which vowed to reclaim ‘KANU’s abandoned mantle as the party of redistribution’.95 When asked about the conflict between the KANU and the KPU, a renowned Kenyan history Professor Godfrey Muriuki recalled, ‘to me, [they] were really proxies fighting for Cold War battles’. But equally, he pointed out that Odinga and Kaggia had ‘very good arguments’ to advocate for the distribution of land that had been ‘stolen by the white men’.96 As an opposition party with limited state resources, KPU’s socialist identity held a certain attraction for would-be allies who had long been marginalised under Kenyatta’s rule. Although some radicals felt African socialism was ‘merely a device imposed on Kenya to buttress western capitalism’, Odinga reaffirmed his faith in ‘Sessional Paper No. 10’, which had set ‘Kenya on the road to socialism’ prior to his departure from KANU.97 But he now faced a dilemma. Since the ruling party followed an ostensibly socialist creed of which he had previously approved, Odinga was forced to identify with the radical left and its revolutionary agenda. This fell in line with Mao’s ongoing ‘challenge for the mantle of leader of the world revolution’ in reaction to the Soviet policy of peaceful coexistence.98 The context is important here: the mid-1960s saw Africans frequently express their frustration with the stagnation of decolonisation (e.g. in southern Africa) as well as the overthrowing of some of African leaders who were friendly to the East (e.g. Nkrumah in Ghana). As Branch argues, ‘unified, one-party states charged with delivering development rather than democracy’ became the prevailing political orthodoxy in sub-­Saharan Africa.99 No doubt, the presence of the KPU with its communistic background was a potential nightmare to those in the Kenyan political establishment. On several occasions, KANU spokespersons made it clear that any attempts by foreign forces to ‘meddle in affairs of African states’ would be in vain.100 Harsh warnings like these, issued by a foreign country, may have been taken seriously by the Chinese authorities, were Chen Yi and Zhou Enlai, the two leading figures in Chinese foreign affairs, not currently under attack by Red Guards in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. In fact, through the summer of 1966, as the head of the Communist Party Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2012, p. 59. Interview with Professor Godfrey Muriuki, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, November 2016. 97 NARA, RG 59, Box 2394, ‘Press Interview of Vice President Oginga Odinga’, 5 October 1965. 98 Friedman, Shadow Cold War, p. 148. 99 Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2012, p. 59. 100 NARA, RG 59, Box 1970, ‘Principal Points March 15 Statement by Governing Party KANU’, 16 March 1967; NARA, RG 59, Box 1970, ‘Reaction to Plans for Revolutionary Chinese Communist Diplomatic Activity’, 22 March 1967. 95

96

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

work committee in charge of the Cultural Revolution in the Foreign Ministry, Chen Yi prevented forty-four radical young translators from overthrowing the ministry hierarchy.101 There was a brief delay for China’s overseas embassies in feeling the impact of the political upheaval at home. Nevertheless, in August 1966, the Foreign Ministry received two letters from self-professed ‘Chinese sympathisers abroad’, which criticised the ‘bourgeois’ behaviour of Chinese diplomats as doing damage to the ‘egalitarian ideals’ advanced by the Cultural Revolution at home.102 Not long after, Mao issued an instruction ordering embassy staff to return Beijing for political education. The turmoil within the CCP also meant that Odinga was deprived of further Chinese patronage. At this point, it looked likely that a much more radical campaign against Kenyatta’s government was about to be launched.

Tit for Tat: Reciprocal Diplomatic Protests

Amid the heated debates on the Communist threat in parliament in the summer of 1965, the Chinese Embassy had carefully managed its response. Most of its attacks were directed vaguely at ‘colonialists’ or ‘imperialists’ instead of the Kenyan politicians themselves. But this would change dramatically in June and July 1966, when Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki were criticised in an Embassy protest note for ‘subjecting the PRC to slander, vilification and grave provocation’.103 With reference to China’s Five Principles in dealing with African countries, the Embassy Note declared: The words and deeds of the Kenya Ministers can only be regarded as an effort to cater to the needs of imperialism. The Chinese Embassy holds that the foregoing statements of the Kenya Ministers have seriously damaged the normal relations between China and Kenya.104

On the day following its report of the ‘Peking protest’, an editorial entitled ‘Chinese crackers’ appeared in the East African Standard (hereafter EAS).105 It claimed the Chinese mission in Nairobi had breached diplomatic protocol by trying to ‘impugn other countries and political ideologies’.106 The editor sarcastically expressed his disappointment that the newspaper itself had not been named in the protest note. The EAS was Barnouin and Yu, Chinese Foreign Policy during the Cultural Revolution, p. 5. Friedman, Shadow Cold War, p. 151. 103 ‘Kenya Answers China Note: Peking Protest over “Hostility of Ministers”’, East African Standard, 13 July 1966. 104 Ibid. 105 The East African Standard (EAS) was the leading English language newspaper in Kenya at the time. 106 ‘Editorial: Chinese Crackers’, East African Standard, 14 July 1966. 101

102

65

66

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

viewed with distaste by Chinese leaders at the time, mostly on account of its ‘British ownership’, which perhaps explained its ‘attacks of China and violation of Sino-Kenyan relations’.107 Meanwhile, the political revolution underway in China was watched closely in Kenya. Between July and September 1966, the EAS published no less than five editorials on Chinese subjects. In its 16 July editorial, the famous ancient Chinese teacher, politician and philosopher, Confucius, was constructed as a wise man of all times, in explicit contrast to the Chinese Communist Party in the shadow of Chairman Mao’s personality cult.108 In this way, the very nature of ‘Chineseness’ implicit in the undiplomatic language of the Embassy’s protest note was questioned. To illustrate the principle of ‘reciprocity’, it quoted Confucius’s ‘Golden Rule’ that ‘what you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to others’. Its editorial of 24 August highlighted the potential dangers of ‘excess population settlement’ by aggressive Communists ‘under the guise of technical aid and artisan assistance’.109 Kenya’s concerns over foreign influence articulated through Chinese experts dated back to the 1964 Economic and Technical Agreement discussed earlier in this chapter, whereby the Ministry of Commerce and Industry specified that only ‘pure’ or advisory experts be selected.110 In 1967, the antagonism between two countries escalated. On the night of 27 January, the glass showcase hanging on the wall of the Chinese Embassy was smashed by a rock thrown by an unidentified individual.111 Today, the Chinese Embassy, equipped as it is with a guardhouse, high walls and fences, is no longer an easy target. On my first visit to the embassy in 2016, I almost missed its front gate, as there were no conspicuous showcases or slogans. Back in 1967, however, the embassy prominently displayed pictures of peoples from different parts of world studying the thought of Chairman Mao along with images of Red Guards (Photo 1). Following the vandalism of the glass frontage, the Chinese Embassy demanded the Kenyan government punish the perpetrators, compensate for the damages caused, and take immediate action to counter anti-Chinese activities.112 This request was rejected. In March, Beijing was reported to have encouraged Chinese diplomats Wang, ‘Twists and Turns in Sino-African Relations’, p. 66. ‘Editorial (Saturday Essay): The Sayings of Confucius’, East African Standard, 16 July 1966. 109 ‘Editorial: Chinese U.N. Membership’, East African Standard, 24 August 1966. 110 KNA, AE/19/70, ‘Correspondence from the Permanent Secretary for Commerce & Industry to the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury’. 111 NARA, RG 59, Box 1970, ‘Incident at Communist Chinese Embassy in Nairobi’, 12 February 1967. 112 ‘我驻肯尼亚大使馆正告肯尼亚政府’ [Our Embassy in Kenya’s Official Warning to Kenyan Government], People’s Daily, 4 February 1967. 107

108

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

Photo 1 The gate of the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi, 29 July 1967 (Source: East African Standard, 29 July 1967; Kenya National Archives).

to engage in ‘revolutionary activities’ in African countries.113 This document led directly to an anti-China motion in the Kenyan parliament. On 29 June, China’s Chargé d’Affaires in Nairobi was declared persona non grata and asked to leave the country immediately.114 A few days later, a letter signed by a Chinese Embassy official, along with Mao badges and quotations from his works, was discovered in a secondary school in Njoro. Given that this agricultural town south-west of Nakuru was a stronghold of the KPU, the involvement of the opposition party was deemed likely. Disclosing that he had information on the origin of the KPU’s funds, Vice President Moi subsequently characterised the behaviour of this embassy official as ‘gross interference in domestic matters’.115 In October, the Kenyan government issued the Prohibited Publications (no. 7) Order, which formally prohibited publications by the Foreign Language Press of Peking.116 113 NARA, RG 59, Box 2255, ‘Reaction to Plans for Revolutionary Chinese Communist Diplomatic Activity’, 22 March 1967. 114 ‘Envoy Who Attacked Kenya Told to Go: Ambassador Recalled from Peking’, East African Standard, 30 June 1967. 115 ‘Sedition in Kenya Must Stop – Mr. Moi Warning to Chinese’, East African Standard, 3 August 1967. 116 NARA, RG 59, Box 1970, ‘Kenya Bans Literature from Foreign Languages Press of Peking’, 27 October 1967.

67

68

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

While the Chinese Embassy constantly condemned Kenyatta’s government, in China the rebel group organised by the Gang of the Four was spiralling out of control. Under the banner of ‘seizure of power’, they claimed the right to lead the Cultural Revolution in the Foreign Ministry.117 A military insurrection challenged Chairman Mao’s leadership, and the Head of State, Liu Shaoqi, became the target of a mass criticism campaign. Ambassador Theophilus arap Koske was recalled to Nairobi.118 In August, Red Guards began to attack foreign embassies in Beijing. Before long, this radicalism hit the Kenyan Embassy. Triggered by a car accident that had reportedly involved a Kenyan diplomat, a demonstration was organised to demand a formal apology. This time, the KANU Nairobi branch responded similarly with a protest outside the Chinese Embassy on 22 August.119 KANU marchers carried placards emblazoned with such slogans as ‘Chinese should behave like other countries’, ‘Chinese keep your Communism in China. We don’t need it here!’ and ‘Red Guards are behaving like hungry dogs’ (Photo 2). Separated by the grille gate, they confronted a Chinese diplomat (Photo 3). Now with arms crossed, the same Chinese diplomat standing by the gate was pictured by the EAS displaying what the newspaper described as an ‘inscrutable gaze’ (Photo 4),120 while his colleagues watched from the embassy windows (Photo 5). On the same day, the Kenyan Foreign Ministry met with the Chinese Chargé d’Affaires to discuss the protest in Beijing. However, the Chargé d’Affaires was accused of ‘deliberately and cunningly’ taking advantage of this meeting to present his protest note.121 According to this protest note, the Chinese Embassy had provided Chairman Mao’s works and badges ‘upon the request of Kenyan people’, which ‘should have been an extremely normal practice by the Embassy in order to enhance the friendship between the Kenyan and Chinese peoples, in accordance with international conventions’.122 The Kenyan government rejected this claim and criticised the earlier protest in Beijing as ‘contrary to the accepted norms of international practice, diplomatic decorum and civilised behaviour’.123 It demanded therefore that China ‘forthwith repair Barnouin and Yu, Chinese Foreign Policy during the Cultural Revolution, p. 2. ‘Envoy Who Attacked Kenya Told to Go’, East African Standard. 119 ‘KANU March on the Embassy: Protest Note Refused by Chinese Diplomats’, East African Standard, 22 August 1967. 120 Ibid., photo caption. 121 ‘Peking Envoy “Tried to Plant Note”’, East African Standard, 22 August 1967. 122 ‘我大使馆就肯尼亚副总统亲自出马反华向肯政府提出最强烈抗议’ [Our Embassy Strongly Protests the Anti-China Actions of Kenyan Vice President], People’s Daily, 23 August 1967. 123 ‘Kenya Warns China “Stop Hooligan or Face the Consequence”’, East African Standard, 24 August 1967. 117

118

Photo 2 The Nairobi branch of KANU march towards the Chinese Embassy (Source: East African Standard, 22 August 1967; Kenya National Archives).

Photo 3  KANU members holding their posters outside the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi (East African Standard, 22 August 1967; Kenya National Archives).

Photo 4 A Chinese diplomat meets KANU demonstrators at the grille to the Chinese Embassy (East African Standard, 22 August 1967; Kenya National Archives).

Photo 5 Chinese embassy staff watch from the windows during the KANU protest (East African Standard, 21 August 1967; Kenya National Archives).

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

the damage to Kenya’s Embassy in Peking, and bring the misdirected and malicious offenders to justice’; otherwise, ‘swift reciprocal action’ would be taken.124 The question raised by these events is: why should China have forfeited her diplomatic connections in such a violent and disruptive way, given their evident usefulness? Bruce Larkin has argued that the Chinese government regarded this rupture as a reasonable risk in exchange for the revolutionary benefits, defined mainly by ‘her image as a revolutionary state’.125 China’s protest note clearly supports this thesis. By asserting the indisputable status of Chairman Mao in leading the world revolution, China stood firmly against the so-called ‘revisionist’ Soviet Union and its allies. Yet the physical attacks on foreign embassies were clearly catalysed by the radicals who had seized power. According to Ambassador Koske, who was declared persona non grata by China at the end of June 1967, the Cultural Revolution depicted in the foreign press was far more violent than it was in reality. Koske’s exposure to China as an African diplomat gave him a unique perspective on the country and China’s accomplishments in terms of the redistribution of wealth.126 This contrasted sharply with the general perception of China and Chinese politics at that time, which the EAS editorial summarised as follows:

Kenya certainly has its troubles, notably over unemployment and land problems, but it is fundamentally sound and above all united in a policy of nation-building. China is plunged in civil war, with its leaders at each others’ throats, the Army and the Communist Party at loggerheads, and millions of people suffering misery as a consequence.127

As Kenyan radicals’ connections with Beijing suffered during the most turbulent periods of the Cultural Revolution, negative portrayals of the ‘red terror’ became even more pronounced. The diplomatic deterioration between Kenya and China in 1966/67 was at the time considered a major threat to their bilateral trade. According to a US government analysis, 1967 witnessed ‘a hostile pattern’ between the Kenyan and Chinese governments. The Chinese Embassy in Nairobi even transferred its funds to the National Bank of Commerce in Dar es Salaam in early September.128 However, official figures from the Kenyan Ministry of Commerce and Industry 124 ‘Kenya Warns China: We Will Hit back: Note Demands Safety for Peking Embassy’, East African Standard, 24 August 1967. 125 Larkin, China and Africa, 1949–1970, p. 174. 126 NARA, RG59, Box 2257, ‘Conversation with Mr. Theophilus A. Koske, Kenya Ambassador to Peking’, 4 July 1967. 127 ‘Editorial: Sabotage from Peking’, East African Standard, 24 August 1967. 128 NARA, RG 59, Box 1970, ‘China and Kenya Trade Hostages’, 18 October 1967.

71

72

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

(Appendix II) show that the volume of Sino-Kenyan trade rose steadily from KSh 1.2 million in 1961 to KSh 156 million in 1978. The balance of this trade was mostly in favour of the PRC except for the period prior to Kenya’s independence and the three years 1966, 1973, and 1974. Another authority, the Kenyan Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, probably using a different calculation system, provides data showing much smaller trade volumes (Appendix III); yet the level of Sino-Kenyan trade is still shown to rise in a similar pattern. The drop in Kenyan imports from China in 1967 might be suggestive of this intense period of diplomatic hostility, but if so, there was no enduring impact. Meanwhile, the 1964 bilateral trade agreement discussed earlier in this chapter was revised and reaffirmed in 1978. Although the years in between witnessed dramatic changes in both Chinese and Kenyan politics and diplomatic relations, trade – as these figures show – was in general treated as a technical issue and was maintained despite the changes in each side’s ideological orientation. For example, in response to China’s concerns about an imbalance in trade in 1966, as well as allegations of Chinese goods being dumped in Kenya, the Senior Assistant Secretary of the Kenyan Commerce Ministry offered the following reassurance: ‘The Kenya Government has neither raised any question nor made any complaints to the Chinese side about the trade between the two countries. We have never complained that China has exported too much to Kenya.’129 In November that year, Mbiyu Koinange, Minister for State in the Office of the President, met with the Chinese Ambassador to negotiate the sale of white maize from Kenya to China.130 Trade received continual encouragement despite the growing sense of national grievance against Communist China at that time.

Kenya’s Succession Struggle and the Superpowers

By May 1968, when President Kenyatta suffered a serious stroke, it was already clear that the nomination of his successor would be a determining factor in Kenya’s future path. This section will focus on foreign powers and their influence on post-Kenyatta Sino-Kenyan relations. Not long after the KANU convention in Limuru and the formation of the KPU in 1966, Moi (a Kalenjin) was promoted to Vice President, with the support of Kikuyu members of KANU close to Kenyatta. Njonjo, who 129 KNA, KETA/7/17, ‘External Trade – Trade with China’, 1963–1980, ‘Correspondence from the Chinese Embassy in Kenya to the Kenyan Ministry of Commerce and Industry’, 18 September 1966. 130 KNA, KETA/7/17, ‘Resume of the Meeting held in the Hon. Mbiyu Koinange’s Office Harambee House at 2.30 P.M. on Monday 28th November 1966 to Discuss Sale of Maize to China’, 28 November 1966.

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

served as the Attorney General, pressed for a constitutional amendment that would allow the Vice President to succeed automatically to the presidency in the event that it was vacated mid-term.131 This proposal was intended to strip the power to select the President from the National Assembly, over which Mboya held strong control. Although Mboya was perceived as the ‘enforcer’ of KANU’s anti-Odinga campaign, Kenyatta had sought to weaken political competition from Odinga’s Luo people to his Kikuyu base. Now that Odinga had been obliged to remove himself from the ruling party, Mboya had emerged as the most pressing challenge to Kenyatta’s inner circle, while Odinga and his KPU remained a significant opposition force. As already noted, it was widely believed that each of the three factions competing to succeed Kenyatta had received some level of foreign backing. While Odinga was clearly connected to the Communist East, it is not always straightforward to distinguish American interests with regard to KANU from those of the British. One of their evident divisions, however, concerned the issue of China’s representation in the UN, as the US government, at odds with the British, sought to persuade Kenya to ‘understand the position of the Chinese Nationalists’.132 ‘A fundamental assumption underlying our policy for Kenya’, recorded the 1968 US Embassy’s Annual Policy Assessment, ‘has been that it is in the US’ interest to keep the country within the free-world strategic and economic orbit’.133 But in the view of the Americans, Kenyatta’s closest associates and advisors were the allies of the British business community in Kenya and to a lesser extent the British government.134 Mboya, in contrast, acted as an important ally in extending US influence in Kenya as well as East Africa more generally. Although the US government had switched its support from Mboya to Moi by early 1968, this was not, as Okoth argues, down to Mboya’s ‘controversial character’.135 During Attwood’s ambassadorship in Nairobi, Mboya was granted considerable ideological and material support in service of ‘anti-­ Communism’. But with Odinga no longer part of KANU and the worsening relations with China, the credibility of a Communist threat to Kenya’s alignment with the West had evaporated by 1968. As a result, the dynamics of the Cold War were not as immediately relevant to 131 NARA, RG 59, Box 2256, 1967–1969, ‘Intelligence Note: Kenya: Solving the Succession Issue?’ 20 December 1967. 132 NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 20 June 1964. 133 NARA, RG 59, Box 2255, ‘Annual Policy Assessment – Kenya II FAM 212.35’, 17 August 1968. 134 NARA, RG 59, Box 2257, 1967–1969, ‘Research Memorandum: Kenya: Will the Establishment Survive?’ 9 December 1968. 135 P. Godfrey Okoth, ‘US Foreign Policy Impact on Kenya’s Domestic and Foreign Policies’, Journal of East and West Studies, 18, 1 (1989), p. 173.

73

74

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Kenyan politicians, who were preoccupied with political campaigns in their own communities, usually defined in ethnic rather than ideological terms. In that sense, Mboya was at a disadvantage. Despite his stronghold in the trade unions and National Assembly, he lacked a stable ethnic base: the majority of Luo people saw Odinga as their leader.136 Even the US government was aware of Mboya’s weakness in this regard, which led it to the following conclusion: On the basis of present trends, the establishment should be able to obtain the election of Moi as Kenya’s next president. Under the terms of the constitution, he will be acting president for the three months following Kenyatta’s departure and immediately before the presidential election. This advantage – together with the establishment’s control of the government and at least part of the party machinery – should be sufficient to give Moi the edge.137

In May 1969, President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger received Moi warmly in Washington. As ‘heir apparent to President Kenyatta’, Moi was key to the future of US-Kenya relations and therefore viewed with high regard by the US government.138 The assassination of Mboya on 5 July 1969 removed the final obstacle: Moi was now the clear de facto successor to President Kenyatta.139 Another reason the American government had started to distance itself from Mboya was the backlash in the wake of the controversial publication of Attwood’s memoir The Reds and the Blacks in 1967, which had revealed the astonishing extent of US influence at the heart of the Kenyan political establishment. For example, Attwood claimed that when there were demonstrations outside the US Embassy, Moi reassured him that ‘you have many friends – America has many friends – both in and out of the government’; and even Odinga, the ‘Communist stooge’, had spoken frankly with him to share his distaste of their Russian ‘friends’.140 Despite Attwood’s optimism, Kenyan politicians disliked his book. For instance, Odinga used quotes from the book to introduce a motion which criticised the external manipulation of Kenya’s foreign policy. If the likes of the memoir had come from an Eastern Bloc diplomat, the government of Kenya ‘would have been trembling and shivering’.141 In May 1967, KANU was forced to issue a Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, p. 74. NARA, RG 59, Box 2257, ‘Research Memorandum: Kenya’. 138 NARA, RG 59, Box 2256, ‘Meeting of Vice President Moi of Kenya with President Nixon – Action Memorandum’, 3 May 1969. 139 Nahashon Njoroge, Mboya’s assassin, asked the police after his arrest: ‘Why don’t you go after the big man?’ – a famous quote that raised suspicions that Mboya’s shooting had been a political assassination. 140 Attwood, The Reds and the Blacks, pp. 218–36. 141 NARA, RG 59, Box 2255, ‘National Assembly Debate on Kenya’s Foreign Policy’, 2 April 1967. 136 137

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

public statement. The book was labelled the ‘most shallow and casual treatment of Africa, nothing but cheap Cold War propaganda’.142 The US Ambassador at the time Glenn W. Ferguson was pressed to clarify his position. To many Kenyans, anti-Communist publicity had become tiresome; on the other hand, the Americans were seen as ‘too friendly’ and had been given ‘too much freedom’ in Kenya.143 Attwood’s casual ‘then-Jomo-told-me’ treatment of the country’s president offended the conservatives.144 With the KPU launching continuous attacks at a government it claimed had ‘sold Kenya to the foreigners’, the US was forced to make amends for the disrespectful manners of its ex-ambassador.145 Odinga remained a powerful contestant for the presidency before and after Mboya’s assassination, but the issue of Communist influence in Kenyan politics had already become marginal. Attempts to boost Odinga’s reputation in China through, for example, issuing a commemorative stamp, did not help win him the support of Kenyan politicians.146 And the refusal of the Chinese Embassy to fly its flag at half-mast following the death of Tom Mboya sparked public controversy.147 Reflecting on these events, the US authorities concluded that Sino-Kenyan relations that were ‘never high at the best of times – are now lower than ever’.148 After three years of political harassment and detention of its party leaders, the KPU was banned on 30 October 1969, and Kenya became a de facto one-party state.149 By the beginning of the 1970s, Sino-Kenyan relations had gone cold in comparison to Kenya’s increasingly robust ties with the West across the political, economic, and cultural fields. But Kenyan leaders were never beholden to a simple Western alignment in any of these spheres, certainly not the economic one. It was clear that, from independence onwards, Kenya’s rulers had no interest in sacrificing its global reputation in support of the US position against China entering the UN, a decision that the future generation of Chinese leaders would remember and appreciate. Nairobi and Beijing maintained minimal contact for the first half of the 1970s. Their engagements in 1971 were for example limited to a donation to Kenya from the Red Cross Society of China and an Afro142 NARA, RG 59, Box 2256, ‘KANU Statement on The Reds and the Blacks’, 21 May 1967. 143 NARA, RG 59, Box 2257, ‘The Reds and the Blacks – A Kenyan’s View’, 2 July 1967. 144 Ibid. 145 NARA, RG 59, Box 2257, ‘The Attwood Book’, 8 November 1967. 146 NARA, RG 59, Box 2255, ‘Political Note #6’, 19 July 1969. 147 NARA, RG 59, Box 2255, ‘Political Note #8’, 9 August 1969. 148 Ibid. 149 From 1966 to 1969, the KPU was the most supported party among the Luo people in Nyanza province.

75

76

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Asian Table Tennis delegation to China.150 In April, a team of US table tennis players and journalists arrived in Beijing, which was, famously, the first American delegation to visit Communist China. By contrast, the use of what has become known as ‘Ping Pong diplomacy’ in Asian and African countries is less well known. In November 1971, the AfroAsian Table Tennis friendship invitational tournament kicked off in Beijing, with more than 600 players from fifty-one countries in Asia and Africa, including Kenya.151 In return, China dispatched a team to Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania the following year. During a reception, the Mayor of Nairobi encouraged the visiting Chinese athletes to engage in extensive contact with Kenyan youths to enhance the countries’ friendship.152 Although the team was not formally received by any senior Kenyan officials, the exchange certainly helped break the ice between two governments. While China was recovering from the Cultural Revolution, Kenyan authorities re-evaluated their foreign policy towards China under the new Foreign Minister Munyua Waiyaki. In August 1975, Waiyaki spoke to Wang Yueyi, the Chinese ambassador who had been stationed in Nairobi from 1974, on the need for closer relations. It was not however until 1978 that a Kenyan Embassy reopened in Beijing. According to Waiyaki, this was a direct response by Kenya to the Sino-American normalisation of relations: We can see that there is a great deal of cooperation between the West and the East far away from Kenya. This trend is being observed by Africa. We in Kenya certainly know which side our bread is buttered on, perhaps more so than most.153

With the move towards Sino-American rapprochement and the persistence of the Sino-Soviet rivalry, it would seem that Kenya had indeed accurately identified the buttered side of its bread. Late 1978 finally witnessed the transition of the Kenyan presidency from Kenyatta to Moi following the death of the former. While this new president had in the 1960s warned of the threat of Communism and Maoism, he was 150 ‘我驻肯尼亚使馆临时代办 把我红十字会捐赠物资交给肯政府’ [Our Charge d’Affaires in Nairobi Hands in Red Cross Society of China Donation to Kenyan Government], People’s Daily, 5 May 1971; ‘前来参加亚非乒乓球友好邀请赛 七个 亚非国家乒乓球代表团到京’ [Seven Table Tennis Delegations from Asian and African Countries Compete in Friendlies], People’s Daily, 30 October 1971. 151 ‘Afro-Asian Table Tennis Friendship Invitational Tournament: Gala Opening in Peking’, Peking Review 14, 45 (1971), pp. 10–12. 152 ‘肯尼亚内罗毕市市长接见我乒乓球队 肯尼亚乒协举行招待会欢迎我乒乓球队’ [Mayor of Nairobi Receives Our Table Tennis Team], People’s Daily, 10 October 1972. 153 Africa Report, March–April 1977, p. 40, quoted in Nzomo, ‘The Foreign Policy of Kenya and Tanzania: The Impact of Dependence and Underdevelopment, 1961–1980’ (Dalhousie University, PhD thesis, 1981), p. 450.

Kenya’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1964–1975

quick to recognise the political and economic opportunities that collaboration with post-Mao China could bring, a theme which will be dealt with in Chapter 4. Mao died in 1976.

Conclusion

Instead of allowing themselves to be manipulated by external powers driven by ideological and geopolitical interests, Kenya and its leaders approached, deepened and even negotiated their relations with Communist China in a proactive manner. The successive visits by Kenyan delegations to China in the mid-1960s not only facilitated a better understanding of China’s domestic situation and geopolitical vision, but also secured material benefits for the country. The decision by the Kenyan government to opt for Chinese rather than Soviet economic and technical aid is better explained by its careful, dispassionate study of their respective terms than any ideological considerations. The chapter suggests that the Sino-Soviet competition for influence in the ‘Third World’ offered a degree of bargaining power to countries such as Kenya that had commonly been perceived as ‘weak’. The growing relevance of the global Cold War in post-independence Kenya was manifest in the tri-dimensional politics of the ruling party KANU. The British, Americans, and Chinese respectively financed the factions of Kenyatta, Mboya, and Odinga. China’s preference for Odinga was based primarily on the ideological consideration that left-wing politicians should unite to fight an anti-imperialist war that was fundamentally universal in nature. But it was also true that Mboya, Odinga’s major adversary both in parliament and with regard to the support of his Luo ethnicity, had already established close relations with the US government. This had the effect of pushing Odinga and his followers further towards the Eastern Bloc than they might otherwise have ventured. Backed by the British, President Kenyatta pursued relative levels of neutrality in the first few years after independence. Yet a number of pivotal developments in 1965, some unpredictable in nature, shifted the balance of power. African socialism was adopted as Kenya’s economic blueprint; Pinto, a crucial figure in the radical group and a man well connected with Communist countries, was assassinated; and the discovery of arms in Odinga’s home resulted in an anti-Chinese motion being passed by the Kenyan parliament. Odinga’s forced resignation from KANU and his establishment of the opposition party KPU heightened his need for Chinese financial support. Contrary to the assumption that China was pressing the Kenyan radicals hard to deliver revolutionary gains, the Chinese Foreign Ministry had in fact advised its embassy in Nairobi not to push for regime change. However, this level of restraint on the part of

77

78

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Chinese diplomats was disrupted by the onset of the Cultural Revolution back home. Driven by this ultimate calling to spread Mao’s revolutionary thought throughout the world, the Chinese Embassy produced increasing numbers of protest notes criticising Kenyatta’s government and his conservative ministers, which invited reprisals in return by KANU leaders. From the start of 1967, verbal attacks escalated into physical conflict in Beijing and Nairobi alike: the Nairobi branch of KANU marched outside the Chinese Embassy on 22 August in retaliation to a similar protest carried out in Beijing. However profound the impact of the Cultural Revolution was, though, it should be pointed out that China’s bilateral trade with Kenya was little affected. Even at the height of political controversy, Kenyan officials were clear that Chinese exports were warmly welcomed. From 1968 onwards, Kenya’s succession struggle turned into a fierce battlefield for potential candidates and their respective foreign patrons. Having shifted its support from Mboya to Moi, the US showed evident awareness of the ethnic rather than ideological facet inherent to Kenyan politics and the broader Kikuyu-Moi coalition which had been bolstered by an updated constitution that protected automatic succession. The fact that Kenyans were becoming increasingly tired of anti-Communist propaganda was another contributing factor. The memoir published by the first US Ambassador Attwood in Kenya irritated the Kenyan politicians to the extent that the US had to disassociate itself from its earlier ‘red terror’ campaign. Since the KPU barely secured any seats in either the national or local elections, China’s involvement in Kenya’s presidential succession was minimal. This low tide in Sino-Kenyan relations would linger until the death of Kenyatta and the ascendancy of the Moi presidency in 1978.

3 ‘All-Weather Friendship’? Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

Our relations with China were warm and uncomplicated.1

Vernon Mwaanga, 2009

Laughing cheerily in our interview, Vernon Mwaanga painted a sunny picture of Sino-Zambian relations from the late 1960s to early 1970s. 2 A seasoned diplomat who had served at the United Nations (1966–72) and the Zambian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1973–75), Mwaanga represented the first generation of Zambian elites, who were eager to boost the country’s international profile through engagement with powerful Cold War actors. Due to the fact that postcolonial Zambian history has until now primarily been understood through the prism of its regional context, China’s relations with Zambia have been packed into a grand narrative of an ‘all-weather friendship’ which could liberate southern Africa from both colonial and white minority rule. 3 It is therefore necessary to understand not only Sino-Zambian relations during the Cold War but also the effect these relations had on Zambia’s foreign policy thinking and practices. How did ideology and geopolitics factor into Zambia’s relations with Communist China? Did the internal politics of the United National Independence Party (UNIP) adversely affect Sino-Zambian relations as we have observed in the case of KANU in Kenya? In what ways can non-state actors contribute to our understanding of China-Africa relations during the Cold War era? 1 Vernon Mwaanga, An Extraordinary Life: A Passion for Service (Lusaka: Fleetfoot Pub. Co., 2009), p. 308. 2 Interview with Vernon Mwaanga, Ambassador to the United Nations (1966–1972) and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zambia (1973–1975), Lusaka, 19 August 2016. 3 Andrew DeRoche, Kenneth Kaunda, the United States and Southern Africa (London: Bloomsbury, 2016); Hugh MacMillan, The Lusaka Years: The ANC in Exile in Zambia, 1963–1994 (Auckland Park: Jacana Media, 2013); Clarence Chongo, ‘Decolonising Southern Africa: A History of Zambia’s Role in Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle, 1964–1979’ (University of Pretoria, PhD thesis, 2016).

80

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

No event was as significant in shaping Zambia’s foreign policy as Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). On 11 November 1965, the Cabinet of Rhodesia announced that that country (formerly Southern Rhodesia), a British territory in southern Africa that had governed itself since 1923, now regarded itself as an independent sovereign state. From then on, Zambia was implicated in the turbulent process of a struggle for liberation across southern Africa, made ever more difficult by ambitious, manipulative foreign patrons with conflicting global interests. There has been a tendency in existing literature to portray local liberation movements as ‘proxies’ for superpowers.4 Andy DeRoche emphasised the key role of President Kenneth Kaunda in influencing US policy in southern Africa, but his analysis takes as its starting point 1975, the year after Gerald Ford replaced Richard Nixon as US President. 5 This chapter shines a spotlight on the earlier period from Rhodesia’s UDI in 1965 to 1974, to examine how Zambia defined and developed its position in relation to the global ideological confrontation, a position that frustrated many Western leaders. Zambia’s engagement with Communist China was deeper than that of Kenya. It was also more multifaceted, ranging from high politics like military training to on-the-ground people-to-people exchanges. The overall disparities in the depth and diversity of the engagements, which is discernible in some of the source materials available for this period, successfully challenges the narrative of a monolithic ‘Chinese dragon’ in the ‘African bush’. As Chapter 2 has clearly demonstrated, the Cold War offered a strategic opportunity for Kenyan leaders to denigrate dissidents and their domestic opponents. In contrast to the ‘introverted’ nature of Kenyan politics, in Zambia domestic and foreign policy were ‘inextricably entwined’; Kaunda faced greater levels of criticism from ‘the more radical elements within his own party’ which were pushing for a harsher stance on Rhodesia.6 Mark Chona, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1965–68 and Kaunda’s Special Advisor for Political Affairs 1968–80, outlined three prominent considerations in Zambia’s foreign policy: the country’s unique geographical position as a frontline state against apartheid and UDI Rhodesia; its just cause, namely supporting liberation movements in the region; and the international organisations into which he and Kaunda poured tireless 4 Chris Saunders and Sue Onslow, ‘The Cold War and Southern Africa, 1976– 1990’, in Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 222–43. 5 DeRoche, Kenneth Kaunda, the United States and Southern Africa, p. 7. 6 Sue Onslow, ‘The Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power, Black Nationalism and External Intervention’, in Sue Onslow (ed.), Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power, Black Liberation (London: Routledge, 2009), p. 22.

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

diplomatic effort.7 Kaunda had sought aid from both superpowers immediately after Zambian independence, but had been disappointed by their indifference and subsequently turned to pursue more constructive relations with other Cold War powers. According to Chona, China was a ‘much, much safer ally’ than the USSR, since it ‘did not evoke emotions’ in the West.8 This positive view of China’s moral and material support of Zambia’s cause was in fact the consensus among Zambian elites. That is to say, unlike in Kenya, intra-Zambian political differences did not map onto the global East-West division. The second part of the chapter will analyse how ideological and geopolitical thinking played a role in Zambia’s dealings with China through the prism of military training. We shall explore the personal diary of a Chinese military advisor in order to uncover this quiet yet significant episode in Sino-Zambian relations in the early 1970s. While the existing literature has devoted much attention to the Chinese training of exiled liberation activists in Zambia (and Tanzania),9 it remains to be said that this training scheme mirrored the extent to which Maoism could be integrated into a ‘bourgeois’ African army outside the communist sphere. This emphasis on the social history of Africa’s Cold War carries into the next section’s discussion of the diplomatic exchange of citizens and how this was used to complement traditional and formal diplomacy. Various cultural delegations from China, such as artists, doctors, and athletes, visited Zambia during this period, and this captured the attention of the press and sparked debate in parliament. Generally speaking, Zambian leaders tended to downplay any political controversy brought about by the Chinese presence. The coverage of China and Mao in the state-controlled Times of Zambia (ToZ) was also relatively positive compared to that in Kenya’s East African Standard. Finally, this chapter will provide a detailed case study of Zambia’s 1967 negotiation of a maize deal with China, which has much to contribute to our understanding of the vulnerability of the Zambian economy as well as the geopolitical constraints of its ideological vision. Both its landlocked location and colonial legacy meant that Zambia was 7 ‘Interview with Mark Chona – Commonwealth Oral History Project’, Institute of Commonwealth Studies (22 March 2016), https://commonwealthoralhistories.org/2016/interview-with-mark-chona (10 January 2019). 8 Interview with Mark Chona, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1965–68 and Special Advisor for Political Affairs 1968–80, Lusaka, 24 August 2016. 9 See for example: Steven Jackson, ‘China’s Third World Foreign Policy: The Case of Angola and Mozambique, 1961–1993’, China Quarterly, 142 (1995), pp. 388–422; Christian A. Williams, ‘Living in Exile: Daily Life and International Relations at SWAPO’s Kongwa Camp’, Kronos, 37 (2011), pp. 60–86; Stephen Ellis, External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960 –1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

81

82

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

heavily reliant on Rhodesia for transportation, yet this southern route was no longer tenable in light of UDI. Although its bilateral trade with China was limited in scale, Zambia negotiated a deal to export as much as one million bags of white maize to China. However, in the end, transportation difficulties spelled huge practical problems for the deal. The situation might well have contributed to Zambia’s decision to pursue a transnational railway with Tanzania. Compared to their Kenyan counterparts, Zambian statesmen were less pragmatic, not defining their country’s national interests in purely economic terms.

Zambia’s Foreign Policy

Two key features distinguished Zambia’s foreign policy circumstances from that of Kenya: its geopolitical position, surrounded as it was by non-majority ruled states, and the personality of President Kenneth Kaunda.10 The birthmarks left by the country’s founding father continue to influence Zambian politics today, and are noted in contemporary foreign affairs when they are seen to have had a positive impact.11 Zambia’s foreign policy measures under Kaunda and his ruling UNIP party have been divided by Ian Taylor into three approaches – idealist, structuralist, and realist – each of which subject to the realities of the respective historical context.12 While this chapter deals only with the mid-1960s and the 1970s, analysis of these approaches over a longer durée has helped to transcend narrowly defined national interests to better situate Zambia in relation to the changing global geopolitical context. The rise of the so-called ‘idealist approach’ was profoundly shaped by the nationalist leanings of African studies in the 1950s and 1960s. Hence, Zambia’s foreign policy was well intentioned yet still constrained by (post)colonial legacies. Following UDI, ‘survival’ became Zambia’s most immediate task, under ‘conditions of extreme vulnerability to economic pressure from Rhodesia’.13 In order to maintain economic independence, Kaunda’s government reached out to the international community in an explicitly non-aligned manner, in a quest for both political and material support. The adoption of ‘Zambian Humanism’ in 1967 was an elaboration on Kaunda’s governing philosophy, one that 10 Ian Taylor, Review Article, ‘Zambia’s Foreign Policy: Themes and Approaches’, Politikon 24, 2 (1997), pp. 57–65. 11 Kenneth Kaunda, along with Robert Mugabe and Daniel arap Moi, used to be among the oldest living former head of states in Africa. He passed away on 17 June 2021, aged 97. 12 Taylor, Review Article, ‘Zambia’s Foreign Policy’, p. 58. 13 Jan Pettman, Zambia: Security and Conflict (Lewes: Julian Friedmann Publishers Ltd, 1974), p. 26.

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

placed the emphasis on morality as opposed to self-interest. This idealist approach helps to explain Zambia’s transformation into a one-party state as well as its nationalisation of the mining sector in 1972. Meanwhile, scholars influenced by the Marxist tradition of structuralism considered Zambia’s foreign policy a negative result of the global capitalist system, and criticise Kaunda for deliberately collaborating with this system for the benefit of a small segment of the country’s population.14 Humanism was not intended to supersede Zambia’s ‘inheritance of dependence on foreign trade, capital, technology and skills’, and only those practices deemed ‘accommodative’ were carried out in the national economy.15 According to the class-based framework to which such analyses adhere, Lusaka’s advocacy for the peaceful end to settler colonialism and apartheid in southern Africa was driven by a ‘new national bureaucratic bourgeoisie’ with a preference for regional coexistence.16 President Kaunda, his Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the parastatals, and UNIP acted together as the single architect of foreign relations.17 Zambia was also criticised for betraying its non-alignment principle by leaning towards relations with the West. China has been described as a noteworthy ‘positive’ exception, whose funding of the TAZARA railway represented a ‘non-imperialistic Third World model’.18 The major limitation of these works is that they all presume a unified ‘Third World project’ and neglect Zambia’s alternative approaches to this restrictive structuralist framework. The Zambian elite was not always intentionally collaborating with world capitalism through its capacity as a comprador class.19 Besides, the interests of the elite did not necessarily conflict with those of the wider public, as through Zambianisation, access to public housing and other kinds of social welfare was improved. Even more fundamentally, in practice it is difficult to delineate the ‘elite’ of Zambian society according to Marxist class analysis with its emphasis on economic determinism. It is fair to argue that Zambian Humanism was more successful as a moral agenda against racial politics in southern Africa than as a practical guide for the country’s development. However, it is important not to characterise Zambian Humanism, as is the case for other African socialisms, as derivative and therefore to be judged as either ‘authentic’ or ‘revisionist’. Taylor, Review Article ‘Zambia’s Foreign Policy’, p. 59. Shaw, ‘The Foreign Policy of Zambia: Ideology and Interests’, p. 97. 16 Ibid., p. 105. 17 Douglas Anglin and Timothy M. Shaw, Zambia’s Foreign Policy: Studies in Diplomacy and Dependence (Boulder: Westview Press, 1979), p. 357. 18 Ibid., p. 364. 19 Stephen Chan, Kaunda and Southern Africa: Image and Reality in Foreign Policy (London: British Academic Press, 1992), pp. 121–7. 14

15

83

84

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

The third approach – realism – addressed these issues more effectively. ‘Realists’ or ‘sceptics’ regard Zambian foreign policy as ‘multi-­causal, essentially reactive and centred around the personality of Kaunda’.20 As the most prominent advocate of this approach, Stephen Chan combines this with the ‘idealist’ understanding of Kaunda as a noble man who made miscalculations in specific cases with limited options.21 International prestige was the single most important goal of Kaunda’s foreign policy.22 By downplaying the relevance of the class aspect of foreign policy-making, it is possible to explain the inconsistency of its delivery, particularly in the 1980s. However, since all such studies take pre-established political perspectives as their starting point, they fail to offer new insights into the particular meanings and significance of Zambian politics in the context of global Cold War. This chapter, by examining Zambia’s evolving relations with China as both a Communist regime and a ‘Third World’ leader, aims to offer a more complex understanding of the rationale behind Zambia’s foreign policy, recognising the central role played by the regime and by Zambian elites personally. Any adequate account of Zambian political history must acknowledge Kaunda’s unique personality traits and ideological pursuits, as well as the dynamic interplay between domestic and international pressures. Nevertheless, the nature of the Zambian state remains absolutely central. However ‘idealist’ in his international vision, however pressurised by party politics, Kaunda pursued a constructive relationship with China throughout his presidency, often against the wishes of the West. A range of institutions and individuals in Zambia closely facilitated this exchange, all the while enriching the legacy of the Chinese presence in the country.

Zambian Humanism, Non-alignment and the Ideological Battleground

It is almost taken for granted that China provided considerable rhetorical and material support in the name of Zambia’s anticolonial cause.23 But this does not reflect the reality of Zambia’s relationship with the Taylor, Review Article, ‘Zambia’s Foreign Policy’, p. 62. Stephen Chan, ‘The Decline of Kaunda: Essays of Praise and Complaint, 1983–1991’ (Canterbury: Kent Papers in Politics and International Relations, 1991), p. 1. 22 Stephen Chan, ‘The Search for Peace – The Basis of Zambia’s Regional Policy’, Contemporary Review 248, 1444 (1986), p. 250. 23 Deborah Brautigam, The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 41; Ian Taylor, China and Africa: Engagement and Compromise (London: Routledge, 2006); Chris Alden, China in Africa (London: Zed Books, 2007), Chapter 9, pp. 164–6. 20 21

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

socialist world in the immediate aftermath of its independence. As Zambia was about to establish its first embassy in the Communist world in Moscow, the new Ambassador Vernon Mwaanga did not feel comfortable being interviewed by the BBC about the ideologies of capitalism and communism. At that time, his mission was to understand ‘the complexities of the big powers’ politics and particularly the EastWest conflict’. He later complained that at this time he could only rely on ‘textbook knowledge provided by biased Western “experts”’.24 But one thing was clear: Zambia would be seeking some much-needed development assistance from both superpowers. In December 1965, Kaunda sent two almost simultaneous delegations to Moscow and Washington.25 The outcome of these visits, however, was disappointing. For the US, Zambia was valuable for two main reasons: ‘its potential economic and political importance in East-Central Africa’, and its ‘desire to expand its relations with small and middle-sized Western-­ oriented powers’.26 Zambia’s non-alignment was judged by G. Goundrey, a UN-recruited advisor to Zambia’s Ministry of Finance, to be based ‘as much on isolationism and parochialism as on political analysis’. Though ‘any significant move to the East’ on Lusaka’s part seemed unlikely, Western reluctance to provide capital assistance could induce the Cabinet to ‘turn more and more to the Bloc’.27 Due to his ‘active, close relationship with most of the top Zambian leaders’, Goundrey’s ‘highly personal’ opinions carried weight for the Americans. In December 1965, Minister of Local Government and Housing Sikota Wina expressed his concern to US officials about the flow of arms from Beijing to ‘refugee political groups’ in Zambia, as ‘bribes totalling about $200’ had been given to Zambian politicians by the Chinese Embassy.28 It took post-independence Zambia three whole years to adopt an official position in the great ideological battle between East and West. Expressed via a series of letters to his friend Colin Morris, an English Methodist minister who had helped found the United Church in Zambia, Mwaanga, An Extraordinary Life, pp. 149–50. Andrew DeRoche, ‘“You Can’t Fight Guns with Knives”: National Security and Zambian Responses to UDI, 1965–1973’, in Jan-Bart Gewald, Marja Hinfelaar, and Giacomo Macola (eds), One Zambia, Many Histories: Towards a History of Post-colonial Zambia (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 82–4. 26 NARA, RG 59, Box 3040, 1964–1966, ‘Diplomatic Representation in Lusaka – and the Importance of Encouraging an Expansion of Free World Missions’, 13 August 1965. 27 NARA, RG 59, Box 3038, 1964–1966, ‘Report of Conversation with Professor G. Goundrey’, 1 August 1965. 28 By ‘refugee political groups’, Sikota Wina is referring to southern African liberation movements, which in 1965 had not yet received permission to operate through military force from Zambia. See NARA, RG 59, Box 3038, ‘Memorandum of Conversation with Sikota Wina, Sean Kelly, William Jones’, 29 December 1965. 24 25

85

86

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Kaunda first articulated his understanding of Humanism in the book A Humanist in Africa in 1966.29 In April 1967, Humanism was officially rolled out as the national philosophy and ideology of Zambia. 30 The transition of Zambian Humanism from a theory into a national ideology would not have been possible without Kaunda’s leadership of both the party and the country. On 15 August 1967, Kaunda presented ‘A Guide to the Implementation of Humanism in Zambia’ before an audience of 6,000 delegates and guests at UNIP’s landmark Mulungushi Conference. He made a passionate call for an ‘agrarian revolution’ that would involve ‘the re-grouping of all villages, and a complete reorganisation of UNIP’. 31 There followed a series of attempts to institutionalise Zambian Humanism across the country: schools were instructed to include the philosophy in their instruction; civil servants were mandatorily trained and examined on the subject; and written matter on Humanism was published, first under the direction of the Kenneth Kaunda Foundation and then UNIP’s Research Bureau during the one-party state period. 32 The pragmatic and eclectic nature of Humanism was a reflection of Kaunda’s determination to ‘draw on the economic systems of both East and West, and harness them to [Zambia’s] purpose’. 33 Yet this did not mean that Zambian Humanism was a simple hybrid of capitalism and communism. The defining characteristic of Zambian Humanism is its emphasis on the humanity rooted in the soil of African ‘traditional’ communities. This was not a new idea. Dugald Campbell had identified an indigenous form of socialism in Central Africa as early as the 1920s. 34 The irony is that Henry Meebelo, ‘the leading party theoretician’ who served as the first director of UNIP’s Research Bureau 1973–76, 35 was drawing on the research of the British explorer Dugald Kenneth Kaunda, A Humanist in Africa: Letters to Colin Morris from Kenneth Kaunda (London: Longmans, 1966). 30 ‘Humanism – The New Philosophy: President Presents Socialist Manifesto’, Times of Zambia, 28 April 1967. 31 ‘KK Makes Stirring Call for “Revolution”’, Times of Zambia, 16 August 1967. 32 J.M. Mwanakatwe, End of Kaunda Era (Lusaka: Multimedia, 1994), p. 50; Raymond Mwangala Mwangala, ‘Found a Modern Nation-State on Christian Values? A Theological Assessment of Zambian Humanism’ (University of KwaZulu-Natal, PhD thesis, 2009), pp. 5–51. 33 Kenneth Kaunda, Towards Complete Independence: Address by H.E. the President, Dr. K.D. Kaunda at the UNIP National Council Held at Matero Hall (Lusaka: Government Printer, 1968), quoted in Henry S. Meebelo, Main Currents of Zambian Humanist Thought (Lusaka: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. xiii– xiv. 34 Dugald Campbell, In the Heart of Bantuland: A Record of Twenty-Nine Years Pioneering in Central Africa among the Bantu People (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1922), quoted in Meebelo, Main Currents of Zambian Humanist Thought, p. 3. 35 M.C. Musambachime, ‘The Archives of Zambia’s United National Independence Party’, History in Africa 18 (1991), pp. 291–6. 29

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

Campbell whose understanding of precolonial African societies was probably quite shallow, and also far from an authority as to the potential of this variety of ‘socialism’ as an alternative mode of governance to colonial rule. Humanism manifested itself across Zambia’s foreign policy and its influence is especially clear when it comes to the country’s relations with China. When articulating his understanding of Humanism, Kaunda simultaneously responded to Western speculation over his closeness to China by pointing out that he had made a total of four visits to the West since independence, compared to one three-day trip to Beijing, which obviously did not make him a Communist. 36 According to Kaunda:

Non-alignment to us simply means being able to deal with countries of the East and of the West as fellow human beings. First and foremost, whether they are believers or non-believers is none of our business. We see in each of them one common thing. They are God’s children made in His own image. We are, therefore, prepared to deal with them as brothers and sisters provided they accept us in the same spirit of the brotherhood of man, East, West, North and South. 37

Such a statement resonated with a 1965 Zambian delegation’s verdict of China’s model as ‘peculiar onto itself, requiring neither Capitalism nor Communism to explain it’. Secretary to the Delegation I.R.B. Manda further commented: ‘The fact of [the] survival of China’s 650,000,000 people has dictated this’. 38 Though the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Zambia was wary of making any concrete statement on the Sino-­ Soviet split, China’s protracted war strategy to effectively mobilise the masses on military lines may well have been attractive for a country like Zambia, engaged as it was on the frontline in the struggle against southern African racist regimes.

Kaunda’s Visit to China in 1967 and the Politics of UNIP

Certainly, there were not many African heads of state who were as keen on global affairs as Kaunda. Prior to his departure on a state visit to China in 1967, Kaunda made sure to have ‘an advance word’ with the US Embassy. He suggested that he could act as an intermediary between Beijing and Washington on the situation in Vietnam. This was declined, as the Sino-American clash was fundamentally about ‘how [the] world ‘Some Call Me a Communist – President’, Times of Zambia, 16 August 1967. Kenneth Kaunda quoted in M.A. Ranganathan, The Political Philosophy of President Kaunda of Zambia (Edinburgh: Holmes McDougall, 1985), p. 43. 38 ZNA, FA/1/94, ‘Relations with China’, 1965–1968, ‘In the Opinions of the Chinese’, 1965. 36 37

87

88

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

should be organised to preserve peace’. 39 For realists, it was naïve for the president of a country like Zambia to think himself capable of influencing the superpowers. But for those familiar with Kaunda and his political philosophy, this was not surprising. Colin Morris called him ‘a strange mixture of genuine personal humility and driving ambition’, who frequently talked about his future retirement and his dream of becoming the UN Secretary-General.40 While Kaunda never mentioned such an aspiration publicly, his intention to lead international organisations such as the Commonwealth and Non-Aligned Movement was well known. En route to Asia in 1967, Kaunda gave a press statement at Nairobi Airport. He urged powerful states to ‘leave small countries’ out of their ideological conflicts, and reiterated the importance of consolidating the efforts of international organisations to solve the Rhodesian crisis.41 Today, Chona admits that China’s experience with the Vietnam issue inspired Zambia’s handling of its own relations with Rhodesia.42 The fact that China and Zambia both faced (albeit different) geopolitical challenges on their southerly borders was likely a factor in their shared position on the issue of nuclear monopoly (see below). In China, Kaunda received ‘the full red carpet treatment’ wherever he went. The famous Chang’an Avenue, which runs in front of Tian’anmen Square, was decorated with Chinese and Zambian flags. Crowds held up portraits of Kaunda together with ones of Chairman Mao, and shouted slogans such as ‘Long live the friendship of China and Zambia!’43 The Chinese press coverage was also exceptional for a visit from an African head of state. While the visit did see the formal signing of an economic and technical cooperation agreement, it was the broader significance of Zambia’s ‘opening to the East’ that really mattered. In a press statement following his return, Kaunda reflected on his first-hand observations of Communist China: a peace-loving country under frequent threat by the US-backed Taiwanese regime, it demonstrated military preparedness and technology to resist against external attacks and insisted on pursuing its UN membership. He was equally impressed by the country’s ‘disciplined, hardworking and capable people’.44 39 NARA, RG 59, Box 2847, 1967–1969, ‘Outward telegram from the Department of State to Amembassy Lusaka’, 8 June 1967. 40 NARA, RG 59, Box 2848, 1967–1969, ‘Insights into Kenneth Kaunda by Colin Morris’, 17 July 1967. 41 NARA, RG 59, Box 2847, ‘Kaunda’s Nairobi Press Statement of June 13, 1967’, 18 June 1967. 42 Interview with Mark Chona, Lusaka, 24 August 2016. 43 ‘卡翁达总统到京受到数十万群众欢迎 周恩来总理举行盛宴欢迎赞比亚贵宾’ [President Kaunda is Welcomed by Hundreds of Thousands in Beijing, Premier Zhou Enlai Hosts Banquet to Welcome this Esteemed Zambian Guest], People’s Daily, 22 June 1967. 44 NARA, RG 59, Box 2847, ‘President Kaunda’s June 28 Press Statement’, 3 July 1967.

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

On the most globally contentious issue of Vietnam, Zambia did not follow China’s stance in condemning US ‘imperialism’, and recognised only the fundamental right of the Vietnamese people as arbiters of their own national issues.45 This was a continuation of Zambia’s advocation of a peaceful conclusion for the Vietnam War and the involvement of the Organisation of African Unity in pushing for this.46 Nevertheless, the US government remained anxious: Kaunda had openly praised the Chinese leadership for its successful detonation of an H-bomb, and following his return, had protested against the superpower monopoly over atomic weapons.47 This near U-turn in Kaunda’s position on nuclear non-proliferation was, according to the CIA, an indication of Chinese influence. The Rhodesian UDI had increased Zambia’s concerns over national security, and nuclear technology was seen as necessary to prevent the country from being attacked by South Africa.48 In view of the ‘rapidly expanding’ number of world issues on which Lusaka and Washington differed, the US State Department prepared a new position statement on the nuclear issue to be passed to Kaunda.49 By the end of 1967, Zambia’s professed non-alignment was thought by the US government to mask de facto leanings towards the East. 50 Unlike Kenyan politicians who, as we have seen, sought foreign assistance in support of their domestic struggles, divisions within UNIP were driven mainly by domestic issues such as the ‘regionally biased’ distribution of development expenditure and the leadership’s ‘unfair provincial representation’. 51 After Simon Kapwepwe defeated Reuben Kamanga to become UNIP’s vice president in 1967, the conflict between Northern Province and Eastern Province was widely recognised as the key division within UNIP. 52 In his meeting with US Ambassador Robert Good the following year, Minister of Finance Arthur Wina characterised the political differences among Zambian leaders as ‘a conflict of cultures’ between ‘the essentially stable, farming and cattle-heading’ in Barotse, Southern and Eastern Provinces, and the ‘nomadic TNA, FCO 95/251, Zambia: Chinese Aid, 1967–1968, ‘Joint Communiqué of People’s Republic of China and Republic of Zambia’, 1967. 46 ZNA, FA/1/94, ‘Minutes for the Meeting of the 19th Aug. (morning) with Vice-Premier Li Hsien-nien’, 19 August 1965. 47 NARA, RG 59, Box 2847, ‘President Kaunda’s June 28 Press Statement’. 48 DeRoche, ‘“You Can’t Fight Guns with Knives”’, pp. 87–8. 49 NARA, RG 59, Box 2847, ‘Telegram from the Department of State to Lusaka’, 30 June 1967. 50 NARA, RG 59, Bureau of African Affairs, Office of East African Affairs, Box 1 Records relating to Malawi and Zambia, 1967–1975, ‘Vice President’s African Trip’, 21 December 1967. 51 375 Miles Larmer, Rethinking African Politics: A History of Opposition in Zambia (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), p. 63. 52 Ibid. 45

89

90

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

(the “slash and burn” method of agriculture)’ practices of the Bemba. 53 Although Wina himself did not explicitly link these two traditional cultures to current ideological debates, Ambassador Good speculated that the values and institutions of the global West must be more attractive to southern Zambian groups than ‘the more volatile peoples of the north’ who he presumed were predisposed to Communist radicalism. 54 However, in reality these intra-Zambian political differences did not map neatly onto the global East-West division. Friendly as he was to the West, Arthur Wina was a conservative economist who argued strongly against Zambia’s reliance on foreign aid. 55 Neither did radical Bemba leader Kapwepwe’s ‘bitter feelings about white racist colonialism’ make him a Communist. 56 One aspect that is often neglected in studies of Zambia’s foreign policy was its relative wealth – officially, a middle income country – arising from Copperbelt minerals which, to a large extent constrained Zambia’s radicalism, dependent as it was on global mineral markets and the Western corporations that controlled access to them. 57 Wina and Kapwepwe were equally committed to the government’s efforts to translate Zambia’s national mineral wealth into economic prosperity, and any rifts that arose were concerned with which provincial base should receive a greater share of the consequent benefits. 58

Military Training from China

China’s support for African liberation movements sprung largely from its own analysis of the African revolutionary process. The Chinese believed that successful national revolutions would ‘multiply and speed up the continental revolution’, and that the Chinese revolutionary experience could provide useful lessons for Africans. 59 Guided by Mao’s theory of consolidating the ‘intermediate zone’, China dispatched military advisors to African countries, together with arms supplies. In the early 1960s, China started to provide military training for freedom 53 NARA, RG 59, Box 2847, ‘Arthur Wina on the Zambian Political Situation’, 22 November 1968. 54 Ibid. 55 NARA, RG 59, Box 3038, ‘Report of Conversation with Professor G. Goundrey’. 56 NARA, RG 59, Box 2848, ‘GRZ Foreign Minister Kapwepwe Attacks Foreign Investment’, 6 March 1967. 57 Larmer, Rethinking African Politics, pp. 185–224. 58 Ibid. 59 Larkin, China and Africa, 1949–1970, pp. 167–8.

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

fighters in the territory of Tanzania, Ghana, and Congo-Brazzaville.60 An emerging body of scholarship has examined China’s military assistance to and in Tanzania. Alicia N. Altorfer-Ong has highlighted how such schemes were a ‘double-edged sword’: on one hand, strengthening the Tanzanian military capacity would reduce its dependence on British colonial forces; on the other hand, the militarisation of Zanzibar shifted the internal balance of power.61 President Julius Nyerere’s acceptance of Chinese military aid was consistent with his foreign policy’s motif of ‘diversifying Tanzania’s sources of aid’ while maintaining ‘his credibility as a non-aligned leader’. In this way, the rise of China, instead of posing a clear Communist threat, actually complicated the Cold War into a ‘three-sided’ game.62 A major limitation of existing scholarship on China’s military relations with Africa is its unanimous focus on state-to-state relations. This chapter answers to the need for a more personalised account, through a close examination of the private journals of a retired Chinese military advisor to Zambia between 1972 and 1974.63 Ma Faxian, born in 1926 in Shandong, joined the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in 1940. During his stint as Chief of Staff for the Shanghai garrison of the Nanjing military zone, he was appointed as Deputy Commander to provide military training for the Zambian Defence Force between 1972 and 1974.64 As the only non-Chinese scholar who has made use of this collection, Julia Lovell posits Ma’s experience as a personal embodiment of Mao’s world revolution, whose excitements and frustrations mirror the successes and failures of global Maoist missions.65 However, the perspective of the host country, Zambia, remains more or less ignored. This chapter places China’s military aid to Zambia in its wider regional and global David H. Shinn, ‘Military and Security Relations: China, Africa, and the Rest of the World’, in Rotberg (ed.), China into Africa: Trade, Aid, and Influence, pp. 156–7. 61 Alicia N. Altorfer-Ong, ‘A Historical Re-Examination of Sino-Zanzibari and Sino-Tanzanian Bilateral Relationships in the 1960s’ (London School of Economics and Political Science, PhD thesis, 2014), p. 143. 62 George Roberts, ‘Politics, Decolonisation, and the Cold War in Dar es Salaam c. 1965–72’ (University of Warwick, PhD thesis, 2016), p. 104. 63 Li Danhui (with Zhou Na), ‘非洲丛林中的新使命—马法贤’ [New Mission in the African Jungle – Ma Faxian], Cold War International History Studies, 2008– 2019. This is a series of 15 articles published in this journal from 2008 until the latest issue, and remains unfinished. 64 Huajie Jiang, ‘冷战时期中国对非洲国家的援助研究 (1960–1978)’ [A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978] (East China Normal University, 2014), pp. 80–94. 65 Julia Lovell, Maoism: A Global History (London: The Bodley Head, 2019), p. 130. 60

91

92

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

context while, at the same time, not losing sight of more nuanced social aspects of those state relations. Zambia was among the many newly independent African countries that maintained a military relationship with the former colonial powers. Most notably, Britain had directly intervened at the request of the host governments during the East African mutinies of January 1964 and made plans to put down a rumoured 1965 coup against Kenyatta’s government.66 Zambia’s national army had initially relied heavily on the British for weapons and training. Even the Soviets used to consider Zambia as among ‘Britain’s Blue-Eyed Boys’ and dismissed the country’s initial request for arms on these grounds.67 But this changed dramatically in the late 1960s. Greatly disappointed by Britain’s reluctance to use military force against Rhodesia following UDI, Kaunda realised the need to replace the British officers with officers of Zambian nationality.68 Worse, Britain’s newly elected Conservative government in 1970 was suspected to be considering resuming arms sales to apartheid South Africa.69 Kaunda had every reason to fear potential border conflict. Later that year, Zambian Defence Minister Grey Zulu decided to ‘train the youths in the handling of light weapons in the defence of their motherland’ and approached the Chinese Embassy in Lusaka for help.70 Beijing responded quickly by dispatching two officials to carry out confidential research and to build up a contact base in Zambia. In February 1971, China delivered enough light weaponry to equip as many as 10,000 infantry soldiers, along with a detailed plan for military training. A team of fifteen Chinese military advisors, including Ma Faxian, organised four intensive training programmes undertaken by a total of 1,000 Zambian officers and sergeants over a 30-month period between 1972 and 1974.71 As prior to this only about fifty Zambian military personnel were recorded to have been trained in China between 1955 and 1976, the significance of this covert training mission cannot be overstated.72 Through the aim of empowering Zambian soldiers to 66 Poppy Cullen, ‘Operation Binnacle: British Plans for Military Intervention against a 1965 Coup in Kenya’, The International History Review 39, 5 (2017), pp. 791–809. 67 Alexander Grey Zulu, The Memoirs of Alexander Grey Zulu (Ndola: Times Printpak Zambia, 2007), p. 386. 68 Jiang, ‘A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978’, p. 82. 69 Cullen, Kenya and Britain after Independence: Beyond Neo-Colonialism, p. 181. 70 Zulu, The Memoirs of Alexander Grey Zulu, p. 290. 71 Ma Faxian, 援非日记 [African Aid Diary], quoted in Jiang, ‘A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978’, pp. 83–4. 72 Shinn, ‘Military and Security Relations: China, Africa, and the Rest of the World’, p. 158.

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

‘use Chinese weapons, follow the establishment of Chinese army units, and adopt Chinese training strategies’, Ma and his comrades-in-arms hoped to transform the Zambian Defence Force into ‘a determined anti-­ colonial and anti-imperialist people’s army’, which was loyal to President Kaunda, UNIP, and the people of Zambia.73 This training coincided with the introduction of the one-party state at the end of 1972, which meant ‘the continued centralisation of all meaningful decision-making power in the presidency as an institution and in Kaunda as an individual’.74 Unlike in Kenya, where the proximity of the Chinese Embassy to a military camp had made Kenyatta suspicious, China’s military aid to Zambia in the early 1970s was woven into and helped secure Kaunda’s personal presidential supremacy. The promotion of state ideology – Maoism in China and Humanism in Zambia – was a prominent feature of one-party rule in both countries. The emphasis on ‘ideological and political education’ was a central feature of the Chinese military training scheme. For the Zambian army, the aim was to do away with the ‘apolitical’ tradition inherited from British colonialism by involving Mao Zedong’s thought in the military as part of the training. This was the first time that China had introduced Maoist ideology to a ‘bourgeois’ army or outside the communist world.75 The sessions adopted a ‘democratic means of instruction’, whereby officers and soldiers were encouraged to teach each other and themselves. The training was reported to have progressed in a satisfactory manner: 90 per cent of the Zambian trainees met the Chinese standards by the end of the programme. According to Ma, in 1972 senior Zambian military officers had declared that the combat experience of China’s PLA was relevant to the Zambian context, and recognised that individual human beings would be the determining factor of military success in future conflicts. Defence Minister Grey Zulu spoke highly of Chinese military ideas introduced via the scheme on various occasions. For example, in 1973 he asserted that the Zambian armed forces should learn to unite the popular masses to assist in its battles, through Maoist ideas such as ‘to concentrate power part by part and to destroy enemies one by one’ as well as ‘better to break one finger than to hurt ten fingers’.76 Though the training curriculum had been approved by Defence Minister Zulu and Zambia’s Land Force Commander, during its implementation the ideological and political education was faced with significant Ibid., p. 85. Larmer, Rethinking African Politics, p. 91. 75 Jiang, ‘A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978’, p. 86. 76 Ma, African Aid Diary, volume 3, 28 January 1973, quoted in Jiang, ‘A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978’, p. 90. 73 74

93

94

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

challenges. The Chinese ambassador to Zambia, Li Fenqiang, reminded the Chinese military advisors that ideological indoctrination should bear the local context in mind, especially the fact that ‘Zambians are Christians, from the president to the popular masses’.77 In practice, Chinese advisors tried to avoid using Communist terminology, instead emphasising concepts such as ‘the people’s army’ and ‘people’s war’. The strongest resistance from the Zambian side was towards the CCP’s conviction that ‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’.78 This famous Mao quote characterised the CCP’s rise to power having arisen through military success in the anti-Japanese war and the civil war against the KMT Nationalist government. While the use of violence was seen as more or less justified during the anticolonial struggle, UNIP’s transformation from a nationalist party into the ruling party meant that the purpose of the gun and its barrel was now to maintain rather than destabilise the political order. Zambian officials thus insisted on removing this idea from the curriculum. Without notifying the Chinese experts, they arranged a replacement lecture on the topic of the imperialist invasion of Zambia and the national ideology of Humanism with an emphasis on ‘non-violence’.79 Misunderstandings were common in everyday encounters between Chinese officers and Zambian trainees. For example, Ma mistakenly wrote that Mark Chona was Vice President Mainza Chona’s son (he was in fact his younger brother) as well as labelling the Vice President as ‘anti-China’. In fact, Mainza Chona remained sympathetic to Communist China throughout his vice presidency from 1970 to 1973. For Chinese military advisors during the Cultural Revolution, any challenge to Mao Zedong thought was seen as reactionary. At the level of state diplomacy, China-Zambia relations remained politically amicable. Yet on the individual level, Chinese and Zambians differed greatly in terms of political culture, ideological inclination, and religious belief. ‘Far from being masterful puppeteers of the Zambians’, wrote Lovell, ‘Ma and his comrades were frequently wrong-footed by their hosts’ demands’. 80 The mobility of Chinese advisors was highly restricted and Zambian soldiers were forbidden to make contact with them outside of training activities. The fact that Chinese experts refused to pledge loyalty to Christianity also sparked tension. These dynamics tell us that the ostensible brotherhood at state-level did not naturally lead to personal agreement among ordinary Chinese and 77 Ma, African Aid Diary, volume 2, 2 September 1972, quoted in Jiang, ‘A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978’, p. 90. 78 Mao Zedong, ‘Problems of War and Strategy’, Selected Works of Mao Zedong, volume 2 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), p. 224. 79 Ma, African Aid Diary, volume 2, 2 September 1972, quoted in Jiang, ‘A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978’, p. 90. 80 Lovell, Maoism: A Global History, p. 132.

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

Zambians. Cultural diplomacy or people-to-people diplomacy could be said to be a more significant element of China-Zambia relations in revealing if not mitigating this estrangement.

People-to-People Engagement: Artists, Doctors, and Athletes

In the early 1960s, there were hundreds of professional song and dance groups under the direction of China’s regional, provincial, or municipal governments. January 1962 saw the establishment of the Oriental Song and Dance Ensemble (OSDE), a national-level troupe. Sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, its mission was to ‘study and perform [the] music and dance of the people of Asia, Africa, and Latin America’.81 Emerging in the Bandung era, the OSDE became what Emily Wilcox describes as ‘an aesthetic embodiment of the anti-colonial internationalism’ in the ‘Third World’.82 More specifically, ensembles like these produced cultural shows that commented on the revolutionary changes underway on the African continent. Even during the Cultural Revolution, Chinese creative productions were a familiar sight in Zambia: in July 1966 a 40-strong troupe from Beijing toured Kitwe, Lusaka, and Livingstone. The title of the performance was ‘Militant Africa’ (also known as ‘The Raging Congo River’), a dance-drama about Congolese independence and the assassination of its Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.83 The dance-drama was produced by the Art Troupe of Political Work Department of the PLA. Originally called ‘Battle Drum at the Equator’, it was soon adapted into different regional forms of Chinese traditional opera such as Peking (Beijing) opera.84 During June to September 1965, the Beijing People’s Art Theatre produced its own play, ‘Congo Wind and Thunder’, which depicted the heroic fight of Congolese people against UN and US conspiracies.85 Using costumes and make-up to blacken their faces and bodies, Chinese actors played the Africans who had fought against the colonisers. This show was performed by hundreds of Chinese dancers in Beijing on the occasion of Kaunda’s state visit in June 1967.86 81 ‘Study and Perform Asian, African, and Latin American Countries’ People’s Song and Dance’, People’s Daily, 14 January 1962, quoted in Emily Wilcox, ‘Performing Bandung: China’s Dance Diplomacy with India, Indonesia, and Burma, 1953–1962’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 18, 4 (2017), p. 520. 82 Wilcox, ‘Performing Bandung’, p. 520. 83 ‘Chinese Go African for Tour’, Times of Zambia, 21 July 1966. 84 Art Troupe of Political Work Department of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, 赤道战鼓 [Battle Drum at the Equator] (Beijing: China Drama Publishing House, 1965). 85 Ying Ruocheng, He Tu, and Su Min, 刚果风雷 [Congo Wind and Thunder] (Beijing: China Drama Publishing House, 1965). 86 Anthony Grey, ‘Thousands Welcome President in Peking’, Times of Zambia,

95

96

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

A Sino-Zambian bilateral agreement to promote cultural cooperation had been signed during a previous Zambian ‘goodwill’ visit led by Vice President Kamanga and Foreign Minister Kapwepwe in August 1966. Meanwhile, a separate agreement of cultural cooperation was signed with the Soviet Union in August, in line with Zambia’s professed pursuance of its policy of non-alignment. Along with several other pledges including the offer of a GBP £10 million loan (c. £170 million in 2022), Zambia’s agreement with China identified five spheres of cooperation: 1. Educational – the exchange of experts including visits by various delegations; 2. Student exchanges; 3. Exchanges of artists and art ensembles; 4. Artefacts – literary works, films, broadcasts and other cultural exhibitions, including personnel involved therein; 5. Science and exchange of information in this field by experts from both countries.87 China dispatched its ‘East-Is-Red Song and Dance Ensemble’ to Zambia immediately after signing the cultural cooperation agreement. After its debut in Lusaka, where it was hosted by the University of Zambia, the Ensemble toured the whole country. This caused some anxiety among British officials, who noted the ‘crude type’ of propaganda material used by the Chinese performers.88 China’s cultural offensive should be understood in relation to what Alexander Cook called the ‘Maoist aesthetic of insurgency’. A ‘culturally-­i nflected approach to asymmetrical conflict’, it was in essence ‘the translation of universal theory into local practice through an insurrection of subjugated knowledges on the global stage’.89 Yet this was not the immediate product of the Cultural Revolution. As early as in 1942, when he gave the famous ‘Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art’, Mao had proclaimed that the literature and art should be guided under the banner of ‘revolutionary romanticism combined with revolutionary realism’.90 Cultural activity became increasingly narrow 22 June 1967. 87 ZNA, MFA1/1/155, ‘Cultural Co-operation Agreement with China (Communist)’, 1966–67, ‘Letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the Cultural Co­operation Agreement between Zambia and China’, March 1967. 88 TNA, DO 209/71, ‘China: 10m Loan Offer’, 1966, ‘Chinese Aid to Zambia’, 11 August 1966. 89 Alexander C. Cook, ‘Chinese Uhuru: Maoism and the Congo Crisis’, positions asia critique 27, 4 (2019), p. 572. 90 Mao Zedong, ‘Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art’, Selected Works of Mao Zedong, pp. 69–98.

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

and dogmatic after 1966, a situation best encapsulated in the popular saying ‘about 800 million people watching eight shows’, namely ‘revolutionary model theoretical works’.91 Nevertheless, scholars influenced by the ‘cultural turn’ have started to recognise it as ‘a time of both brutal iconoclasm and radical experimentation’ in the arts.92 While Communist publications were banned in countries like Kenya during the Cultural Revolution, Zambia adopted Tanzania’s approach in its relative openness towards Maoist propaganda. 93 While there was a general distaste for Chinese propaganda among Zambian ministry officials, the country’s most senior politicians seemed unperturbed. In May 1967, Chinese delegates were found to have distributed thousands of Mao badges together with Maoist literature at the Lusaka Agricultural Show. The Permanent Secretary of Zambia’s Foreign Ministry, Mark Chona, stated mildly that he and Kapwepwe would raise the matter privately on their upcoming trip to China.94 In November, the Ministry of Education issued a circular to all school heads in Lusaka, demanding that the works of Mao Zedong be removed from school libraries.95 It was estimated that the Chinese Embassy had sent several thousand copies of ‘Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung’ and ‘Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-Tung’ to schools. Taking action against the dissemination of Chinese Communist literature in this way, Zambia gave substance to its determination to ‘refuse to be a pawn in the cold war’.96 In October 1967, China sent a song and dance troupe to perform at the celebrations for the third anniversary of Zambian independence (Photo 6). The group, comprised of fifty-three Chinese singers and dancers, stayed in a hotel in Kitwe. Except for taking their meals, they avoided appearing in public spaces. Since most Chinese visitors to Zambia had been diplomats and journalists, this was the first time locals had seen a sizable group of young Chinese women. Curiosity, or ‘mystery’ in the words of a ToZ reporter, hung in the air. These Chinese dancers and 91 Paul Clark, ‘Model Theoretical Works and the Remodeling of the Cultural Revolution’, in Richard King, Ralph Croizier, Scott Watson, and Sheng Tian Zheng (eds), Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966–76 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010), p. 167. 92 King et al., Art in Turmoil, p. xi. See also Jiehong Jiang, Burden or Legacy: From the Chinese Cultural Revolution to Contemporary Art (Hong Kong University Press, 2007); Laikwan Pang, The Art of Cloning: Creative Production during China’s Cultural Revolution (London: Verso, 2017). 93 ‘Humanism – the New Philosophy’, ToZ. 94 ZNA, FA/1/94, ‘From Mainza Chona to the PS of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 14 August 1967. 95 ‘Ministry Recalls Books. Lusaka Schools’ Purge on Mao’, Times of Zambia, 30 November 1967. 96 ZNA, FA/1/94, ‘From H.S. Soko Copied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 19 May 1967.

97

98

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Photo 6 A Chinese folk song and dance troupe perform at the celebrations for the third anniversary of Zambian independence, 18 October 1967 (Zambia Cultural Services to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1 December 1967, China (Communist) Cultural Co-operation Agreement with Zambia, 1966–1967, MFA1/1/155, Zambia National Archives).

singers gave Zambians the impression of being ‘extremely shy’.97 A hotel waiter complained that their Chinese guests were separated from other diners by a curtain and showed no desire to mingle. Interview requests were refused on the basis that talking and being photographed was ‘not good’. In the context of the growing political tensions in China, it is not surprising that the Chinese performers distanced themselves from Zambians in this way: any contact with foreigners could lead to trouble down the road. The literature on China-Africa relations and Africa’s Cold War as a whole has placed a strong emphasis on the male actors. The term used by most Communist propaganda to describe solidarity among comrades was ‘brotherly’, which reflects and assumes the indisputable power held by male leaders. Jamie Monson even described the experience of an East African youth becoming a TAZARA railway worker as ‘part of a masculine trajectory, one that was understood to be modern and “civilised”’.98 Interestingly, however, China-Zambia cultural exchanges, ‘Mystery of the Chinese Dancers’, Times of Zambia, 12 October 1967. Jamie Monson, ‘Making Men, Making History: Remembering Railway Work in Cold War Afro-Asian Solidarity’, Clio. Women, Gender and History 38 (2013), p. 125. 97

98

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

especially in the form of song and dance troupes, allowed a limited degree of mobility for Chinese women. For ordinary Zambians, these visits enabled them to see Chinese women performing at close hand for the first time. The ToZ also paid note to the way the women dressed in ‘loosely-fitting short-sleeved shirts and trousers’ during the day, and ‘neat grey tight-collared tunics and carefully-pressed matching trousers with slippers’ at night.99 Such attire tended to be associated with men both in Europe and Africa. A similar public fascination with Chinese women and their fashion may be observed in the Kenyan case. An EAS report discussed the fashion industry of China in 1965: in contrast to the famous ‘haute couture’ of Shanghai girls up to 1949, reporter Ian McCrone described how ‘baggy slacks and unfashionably cut jackets’ had become a popular outfit for Chinese women, and the first pair of nylon stockings he had seen were on ‘a solidly proportioned interpreter, who has more to do with foreigners than the average Chinese woman’.100 While this supposed lack of fashionable taste could be attributed to ‘the national submergence of sex’,101 it was equally naïve to assume that it had elevated the social status of women in Communist China. In fact, even when it came to this dance troupe, of which the majority of performers were women, the one responsible for public engagements with Zambian politicians and journalists was a Mr Xu. Despite the occasional deployment of ‘first lady diplomacy’ in the form of Madame Betty Kaunda and Madame Jiang Qing, the relationships between Chinese and Zambians were in this period overwhelmingly patricentric. The Chinese visitors’ careful approach was clearly demonstrated in a press conference held the day after the report, at which the leader of the visiting troupe, Mr Xu Bing, sought to dispel any concern about their activities. In response to the article, he announced ‘there is nothing mysterious about us’ and called accusations that they were handing out Mao badges to Zambians groundless.102 He also stressed that the little ‘red books’ of Maoist thought had been given out on request. The ToZ reporter rejected this claim. ‘The two Chinese who offered Mao badges to Zambians did so in the foyer of the Hotel Edinburgh on Wednesday’, he continued, ‘I saw the Zambians reject the offer’.103 In any case, ideological contestation was ubiquitous in the cultural sphere. The Chinese Song and Dance Ensemble had initially refused to perform at the independence anniversary event at the Matero Stadium ‘Mystery of the Chinese Dancers’, ToZ. ‘Chinese Women’s Fashion Choice – Baggy Trousers’, East African Standard, 24 December 1965. 101 Ibid. 102 John Edlin, ‘“East is Red” Men Say no Badges, but Plenty Thoughts of Mao’, Times of Zambia, 13 October 1967. 103 Ibid. 99

100

99

100

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

in Lusaka because artists from the ‘imperialist’ United States and the ‘revisionist’ Soviet Union had been invited to the same event. Their Zambian hosts sought to mollify the Chinese by suggesting that their performance be scheduled before that of the Russian artists.104 In contrast to the highly politicised impact of Communist activities (or alleged activities) in Kenya, Zambian leaders had a tendency to downplay potentially controversial matters. Mark Chona claimed that ‘those who exaggerated those [propagandist] reports were anti-­ Chinese’, suggesting that the Cultural Revolution was a domestic Chinese event with little relevance to the Zambian context.105 This, however, is more of a retrospective judgement than a reflection of the events of the time. Zambia’s rulers clearly wished to prevent their citizens from coming into contact with Maoist teachings and symbols, which in effect acknowledged them as manifestations of a belief system opposed to theirs, while on the other hand striving to prevent local controversy over the propaganda efforts from negatively affecting their relationship with China overall. Unlike artists such as dance troupe members, who generally remained in a foreign country only for a few weeks, most Chinese aid doctors stayed longer and interacted more substantially with Africans – their patients. An official Chinese report released in 1974 noted that the purpose of dispatching aid doctors was to carry out ‘Mao Zedong’s proletarian line of foreign affairs’ against ‘colonialists, imperialists, and hegemons’.106 This ‘honourable mission’ involved the selection, training and dispatch by China’s provincial and municipal hospitals of medical teams to numerous African countries, including Zambia from 1978.107 But Chinese doctors were already present in Zambia beforehand, having been stationed there to treat Chinese technicians during the construction of TAZARA. The initial idea of bringing Chinese doctors to Zambia arose during a goodwill visit led by Sikota Wina, then Minister of Information, Broadcasting and Tourism, in September 1969.108 He was particularly impressed by acupuncture, the traditional Chinese method of using needles to puncture the skin to ease or prevent pain. However, this ‘friendship gesture’ entailed legal complications. According to the Medical Council of Zambia, all doctors had to either 104 ZNA, MFA1/1/155, ‘Record of a Meeting between Mr. Yen, Chinese Chargé d’Affaires, and Mr. Chimuka, Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 20 October 1967. 105 Interview with Mark Chona, Lusaka, 24 August 2016. 106 Jiang, ‘A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978’, p. 228. 107 Li Anshan, ‘中国援外医疗队的历史、规模及其影响’ [Chinese Medical Teams Abroad: Their History, Scope and Influence], Foreign Affairs Review 26, 1 (2009), pp. 25–45. 108 NARA, RG 59, Box 2847, ‘Sikota Wina Returns from Mainland China’, September 1969.

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

register fully with the authorities or acquire a temporary permit while receiving their qualifications at a local medical school.109 The Medical Council, albeit affiliated with the Ministry of Health, functioned independently from government. The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry claimed that Zambian patients would run into trouble due to Chinese doctors’ inability to communicate in English.110 The enduring impact of the language barrier was also highlighted by Doctor Yu Huizhen, who led a Chinese medical team to Africa in 1990–92 and 1996–2001. This will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5.111 Health diplomacy like this was by no means immune from the ideological divisions of the period. In March 1967, someone claiming to be a Chinese Maoist in Zurich sent an anonymous letter to Mainza Chona, the Minister for Presidential Affairs, criticising Zambia’s acceptance of smallpox vaccines from the Soviet Union.112 Described by Chona as ‘excessive’ and ‘cheap’ propaganda, this letter aroused a discussion within the Foreign Ministry. Yet the matter was quickly settled and not publicly exposed. Fifty years later when I interviewed Vernon Mwaanga, who served as Director General of the Zambia Security and Intelligence Services at the time, he said he strongly doubted it was really written by a Chinese person. He explained that the matter was picked up by the Foreign Ministry because certain ministers were inexperienced when it came to handling potentially inflammatory materials like this, and had to be advised not to overreact.113 Sport was another arena of the Cold War battle. After relations with Moscow soured, Beijing lost control of the central bodies of the AfroAsian People’s Solidarity Organisation (AAPSO), including its Cairo secretariat. Held in Jakarta in 1963 to compete with the Olympic Games, the Games of the New Emerging Forces Federation (GANEFO) became a vehicle for China to foster solidarity with the other Afro-Asian and Latin American countries. The determination of Chinese leaders is best captured in Chairman Liu Shaoqi’s joint declaration with Indonesian president Sukarno of the countries’ ‘willingness to contribute in every way possible towards the realization’ of the GANEFO plans.114 In September 1965, two Zambian delegates submitted a provisional 109 ‘Qualifications Doubted by Medical Council: Chinese Doctors Face Ban’, Times of Zambia, 9 September 1969. 110 ‘Nalumango Warns Chinese Doctors’, Times of Zambia, 10 September 1969. 111 Interview with Doctor Yu Huizhen, former member of a Chinese medical team, Lusaka, September 2016. 112 ZNA, FA/1/94, ‘From Mainza Chona to the PS of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 17 March 1967. 113 Interview with Vernon Mwaanga, Lusaka, 19 August 2016. 114 Amanda Shuman, ‘Elite Competitive Sport in the People’s Republic of China 1958–1966: The Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO)’, Journal of Sport History 40, 2 (2013), p. 267.

101

102

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

application for GANEFO membership while they were in Beijing. In the February of the following year, the Indonesian Embassy in London wrote to the Chinese government requesting that the Zambian Foreign Ministry clarify its attitude towards the country’s membership in GANEFO, which was headquartered in Jakarta.115 In a letter to the Chinese Embassy in Lusaka, the Zambian Foreign Ministry stated simply that ‘the competent authorities were unable to recommend [to] the [Zambian] Government the ratification of this provisional application’. But the unspoken reason for this decision was in fact that membership had been deemed ‘a contravention to this country’s non-alignment policy’.116 In January 1967, the Chinese branch of the Afro-Asian Journalists Association somehow received a membership application from Kenya, but the Chief Press Officer rejected this more firmly.117 Unlike Kenya where anti-communist sentiment was pervasive, Zambia is representative of those African countries that sought to avoid expressing their ideological position in fixed organisational terms. Political controversy surrounding another organisation, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), reflected the impact of the deeply seated geo-diplomatic conflict between China and Taiwan. In his study of the political and social history of soccer in Zambia, Decius Chipande argues that Kaunda and UNIP used soccer as ‘a tool for political propaganda’ during the one-party Second Republic (1972–1991).118 While Zambia became a full member of FIFA in 1964, China had withdrawn its membership in June 1958 when FIFA officially recognised the Republic of China (Taiwan) as an independent country. For years the PRC only played friendly matches with those nations that recognised it as the sole ‘China’.119 In 1971, presidents Nyerere and Kaunda issued a joint invitation to China’s national football team to play friendly matches against their respective countries. The team, whose ability was entirely unknown, arrived in Dar es Salaam in late November that year, with three games in Lusaka, Chingola, and Luanshya scheduled shortly after Christmas. However, the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) received a warning from FIFA that Zambia would 115 ZNA, MFA1/1/244, ‘Afro-Asian Activities – General’, 1967–1968, ‘“GANEFO” Federation – Indonesia’, 6 February 1966. 116 ZNA, MFA1/1/244, ‘For the Attention of Mr. P. Banda’, 26 May 1966. 117 KNA, MU/1/8, ‘Press Kenya Embassy-Peking’, 1964–1977, ‘Afro-Asian Journalists Association’, 14 January 1967. 118 Decius Chipande, ‘Chipolopolo: A Political and Social History of Football (Soccer) in Zambia, 1940s–1994’ (Michigan State University, PhD thesis, 2015), p. 114. 119 ‘1949年-1979年中国足球国家队大事记’ [1949–1979 Chronicle of the Chinese National Football Team], Sports 163, 19 March 2007, http://sports.163. com/07/0319/03/39TS1BEK00051C88.html (20 October 2018).

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

face ‘an indefinite suspension’ if these games went ahead.120 Although China had just been readmitted to the UN in October that year, it was not yet a member of FIFA (which it eventually re-joined in 1979).121 For FAZ officials, the consequences of playing against a non-member state were uncertain. Just as in the case of the Chinese doctors, the government had taken the initiative to launch cultural programmes in order to promote bilateral relations without making a careful assessment beforehand of the potential obstacles and consequences. Zambian leaders were faced with a dilemma when it came to achieving material gains in ways that did not damage their country’s international prestige. In the end, it was agreed that a select team of ex-internationals – retired football players who were hence unaffiliated to FAZ or FIFA – would represent Zambia in its matches against the Chinese team.122 The ToZ’s description of these retired Zambian players as ‘old crocks’ echoed a broader unhappiness with the increasingly authoritarian nature of the UNIP government. In 1975, a series of defeats of the Zambian team in regional matches prompted anger and dissatisfaction from the public. In response, Minister of Labour and Social Services Dingiswayo Banda dissolved both the National Football League and FAZ.123 From that point onwards, football administration was squarely in the hands of UNIP officials. Cultural diplomacy and people-to-people exchange constituted an important element of China-Zambia relations. In addition to the obvious role of politicians or social elites in developing foreign relations, a range of non-state actors – artists, doctors, and athletes – travelled from China to this landlocked country in east-central Africa. Notably, few if any such Zambians travelled in the opposite direction. The physical presence of the Chinese, together with the ideas, performances, and expertise that they brought with them, and Zambians’ perceptions thereof, generated surprise, curiosity, and debates about the nature of Chinese society. On the one hand, these visits created cultural representations of Mao’s China as ‘revolutionary’, ‘brotherly’, and at times ‘professional’; on the other hand, individual experiences sometimes generated tensions or revealed the contradictions that underlay state relations. In Christine Hatzky’s study of the strategies of the Cuban government to recruit volunteers, the social transformation of these ‘subjects’ proved crucial in creating the vision of ‘a permanent, global revolution’.124 Jiang Huajie asserted that China’s 120 ‘Don’t Play China, FIFA Warn Zambia, Tanzania’, Times of Zambia, 4 December 1971. 121 ‘1949–1979 Chronicle of Events of Chinese National Football Team’, Sports 163. 122 ‘China Will Play “Old Crocks”’, Times of Zambia, 21 December 1971. 123 Chipande, ‘Chipolopolo’, p. 114. 124 Christine Hatzky, Cubans in Angola: South-South Cooperation and Transfer

103

104

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

aid to Africa in the educational, agricultural, military, industrial, infrastructural, and medical sectors was in reality ‘an experiment to test the rationality and universality of China’s own development road’.125 Such initiatives, then, arguably reveal as much or more about China than about Africa.

Trade and Politics in the 1967 Maize Deal

In the period immediately after independence, Zambia was not considered economically significant by the Eastern Bloc, and trade was minimal. As Zambia’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1965, Mwaanga recalled his disappointment over the Soviet unwillingness to provide substantial assistance to Zambia after UDI in Rhodesia.126 This was also true of China. A delegation headed by China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Trade paid an exploratory visit to Zambia to identify trade possibilities in May 1966. However, he was disappointed to find that ‘a great deal of the commerce of this country seemed to be already in British hands’.127 One of the major ways to facilitate bilateral trade was to participate in Zambia’s annual shows, especially the Lusaka Agricultural Show organised by the Agricultural and Commercial Society, and the commercial and industrial exhibition in Ndola, which was later renamed the Zambia Trade Fair.128 China participated in the Zambia Trade Fair from 1965 onwards, in that year winning first prize for its exhibit. The 1967 Lusaka Agricultural Show was financially successful, and the Jubilee Hall filled with Chinese ivory carvings was reportedly a sight to behold.129 When asked about his impression of the Chinese pavilion, one Zambian teacher called it ‘fabulous’, as all the other foreign exhibitions tried to do was ‘sell you tyres and sewing machines’.130 In general, however, China-Zambia trade in this period was limited in both scale and breadth. British diplomats estimated that, in 1966, the of Knowledge, 1976–1991 (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2015), p. 91. 125 Jiang, ‘A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978’, p. 228. 126 Mwaanga, An Extraordinary Life, pp. 151–68. 127 TNA, DO 209/101, ‘Visit by Chinese Trade Delegation’, 1966, ‘From the British High Commission in Lusaka to London’, 24 May 1966. 128 Dick Hobson, Showtime: A History of the Agricultural and Commercial Society of Zambia, 1914–1976, (Lusaka: Agricultural and Commercial Society of Zambia, 1979), p. 157. 129 Ibid., p. 158. 130 NARA, RG 59, Box 1513, 1967–1969, ‘Chicoms Feature Mao at Zambia Trade Fair’, 5 July 1967.

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

value of Zambian exports to China was GBP £205,000, three times the value of its imports from China; in 1967, however, the value of Zambian exports to China rose to £3.127 million, eleven times the value of its imports from China.131 Following copper, maize was Zambia’s second largest export to China, at a total value of £557,000. China’s exports to Zambia were more wide-ranging, from manufactured goods such as bicycles and sewing machines to clothing, textiles, crockery and tinned foods. One major limiting factor for Zambian exports was the challenge of transportation. Via ports in Hong Kong and Kenya, goods from mainland China could reach East Africa despite the embargo imposed by Western countries.132 Zambia, in contrast, suffered on account of its landlocked location, as well as ‘the legacy of a transportation system that was never intended to serve its broader economic and social development needs’.133 By 1966, UDI and the resulting boycott of Rhodesia had exacerbated the situation as Zambia’s reliance on Rhodesia Railways became problematic. The alternative routes to the ports of Beira (Mozambique) and Lobito (Angola) were still under equally illegitimate Portuguese colonial rule. Although Zambia’s reliance on these routes had declined by 1966, the ‘poor condition’ of the roads linking Zambia with Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) was still a huge problem, especially in the rainy season.134 Through a case study of Zambia’s 1967 negotiation of a maize deal with China, this section will demonstrate the vulnerability of the Zambian economy to these transport problems, which in turn contributed to China’s decision to help Zambia build its transnational railway. Maize has long been the dominant food crop in eastern and southern Africa. In today’s Kenya and Zambia, its production occupies at least 75 per cent of the cereal-growing area.135 With a huge population to feed, China has historically been a major global maize importer. As we have seen in Chapter 2, in late 1966 it approached Kenyan trade officials with a request to import white maize. At the start of 1967, it expressed interest in purchasing up to 100,000 tons (equivalent to one million bags) of 131 TNA, FCO 29/336, ‘Zambia’s Relations with China’, 1968–1969, ‘Chinese Activity in Zambia’, 17 December 1968. 132 KNA, AE/3/844, ‘Kenya Supply Board, Export Control, China’, 1967, ‘From the Director of Trade & Supplies to the Secretary for Commerce and Industry’, 5 June 1967. 133 Jamie Monson, Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese Development Project Changed Lives and Livelihoods in Tanzania (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), p. 21. 134 TNA, DO 209/101, ‘From the British High Commission in Lusaka to London’, 24 May 1966. 135 Melinda Smale and Thom Jayne, ‘Maize in Eastern and Southern Africa: “Seeds” of Success in Retrospect’, EPTD Discussion Paper No. 97 (Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2003), p. 4.

105

106

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

maize from Zambia. Zambia, for its part, was eager to sell the massive stock of maize it had amassed during the previous season as soon as possible.136 The original price offered by Zambia’s Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Foreign Trade was GBP £20,15s. per long ton either via Beira or Lourenco Marques in Mozambique, excluding the cost of delivery and shipment to China.137 This offer was accepted by China almost immediately, and a bilateral meeting was thereupon proposed to negotiate the details. Although Beijing intended to invite a Zambian trade delegation in March or April 1967 to sign the contract, Zambia’s Ministry of Finance strongly suggested the first meeting should take place in Lusaka.138 Zambia’s Minister of Commerce Justin Chimba ‘reluctantly’ agreed to not ‘proceed with the conclusion of a sale agreement’, and ‘presumed’ that the responsibility of negotiation would rest with the Finance Ministry through its parastatal, the Grain Marketing Board.139 Until 1989, maize marketing in Zambia was controlled and subsidised by the Grain Marketing Board, and during the Second Republic by the National Agricultural Marketing Board (Namboard), administered by the Ministry of Agriculture.140 The close involvement of senior political figures would prove to be a prominent feature throughout the negotiation and implementation of this maize deal with China. In April–May 1967, Commerce Minister Chimba led a Zambian trade and economic delegation to the Far East. In Beijing, a trade agreement was signed to promote bilateral trade relations on the basis of equality and mutual interest, with conditions guaranteed to be no less favourable than those accorded by either party to a third country.141 Despite the positive outlook of these general agreements, the specific negotiations on the maize contract proved complicated. China had recently offered between GBP £18 and £19 FOB per metric ton for Argentinian maize, lower than the price it had offered to Zambia.142 This convinced ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘Trade with China’, 1967–1968, ‘Export of Maize to China’, 24 January 1967. For a detailed study of Zambia’s maize industry in the 1960s, see The Industrial Development Corporation of Zambia Limited, Maize Industry in Zambia: A Feasibility Study (Lusaka: INDEC, 1968). 137 ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘From Ministry of Commerce, Industry & Foreign Trade to Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 6 February 1967. 138 ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘From Ministry of Finance to Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 22 March 1967. 139 ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘From Ministry of Commerce, Industry & Foreign Trade to Ministry of Foreign Affairs’. 140 Nicole Mason, ‘Smallholder Supply Response to Marketing Board Activities in a Dual Channel Marketing System: The Case of Zambia’, Journal of Agricultural Economics 66, 1 (2015), pp. 36–65. 141 ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘Trade Agreement between Zambia and China’, 13 July 1967. 142 FOB is ‘free on board’, which means that the seller covers the cost of transportation of the goods to the port of shipment, plus loading costs. See ZNA, 136

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

Chimba to favour the price of £20,15s. fairly early on in the discussions. However, the Chinese and Zambians differed on the contract’s actual terms on the issue of delivery. Zambian officials insisted the C&F or CIF price should apply to Chinese ports, which would result in greater costs for China.143 When this was rejected, Zambian delegates felt as if they were being exploited. One Zambian legal advisor was also diplomatically excluded by the Chinese. ‘Our [Chinese] friends are certainly very shrewd’, complained one delegate in a handwritten note to Mark Chona, the then Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a few days after the meeting.144 Nevertheless, L.S. Muuka, an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reported that ‘[o]n the whole, the contract ultimately agreed upon was a reasonable one’. But, at the same time, he noted that Chimba had ‘overruled the strong objections of his officials’, a fact that led him to conclude that ‘not much team spirit was evidenced throughout the trip’.145 In early June, the ministries of Commerce and Foreign Affairs met again in Lusaka. They realised that the export capacity of the Dar es Salaam route was already saturated by copper transportation and that it would be completely impossible for Zambia to transport as much as 10,000 tons of maize per month.146 The report of the meeting concluded that ‘practical issues outweigh our good intention’.147 The Ministry of Commerce thereupon proposed two alternatives for the perusal of the Chinese government: either Zambia would arrange for the maize to be shipped to China at an increased price of GBP £23.10 (CIF); or Chinese ships could call at Portuguese African ports to collect the maize at the contracted price of £20.10 (FOB). The difficulty facing both governments was how to maximise mutual interests without damaging their political friendship. MFA1/1/241, ‘Maize Export Contract with the China National Cereals, Oils & Foodstuffs & Export Corporation’, 8 June 1967. 143 C&F stands for cost and freight, which means that the price invoiced or quoted by a seller for a shipment does not include insurance charges, but includes all expenses up to a named port of destination. In comparison, CIF refers to cost, insurance and freight, which means that a seller also has to cover insurance costs. 144 ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘Handwritten Note to Mark’, 4 May 1967. 145 ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘Observations on the Zambian Trade and Economic Mission to the PRC, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong Led by the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Foreign Trade, from the 7th of April, to the 20th of May, 1967’, August 1967. 146 The rich deposits on the Copperbelt, mining in British-ruled Northern Rhodesia, and during the early years of Zambian independence, were owned and managed by two private companies, Rhodesia Selection Trust and the Anglo-American Corporation, until 1969. 147 ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘Maize Export Contract with the China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs, Import & Export Corporation’, 8 June 1967.

107

108

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

In August, the Chinese National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs, Import and Export Corporation agreed to pay GBP £23.10.-d. per metric ton CIF as well as to bear the extra cost of stowed and trimmed maize.148 The reason was simple: China’s ‘strained political relations’ with the Portuguese made collection in Mozambique impossible.149 China also made it clear that Indian, South African, American, or Israeli ships must not be contracted to deliver the maize.150 Affected by the Middle East Crisis and the subsequent closure of the Suez Canal, costs of freight and insurance were rising dramatically. Political instability also discouraged many ship owners from sailing into Chinese waters.151 The Zambian Cabinet, meanwhile, found itself sharply divided on the maize deal. While President Kaunda and his senior ministers prioritised political friendship with China, most middle-ranked Ministry of Commerce officials defined Zambian national interests in economic terms. In a July 1967 parliamentary debate, Cecil Burney MP challenged Chimba to accept that Zambia would lose GBP £1.2 million because of the high shipping costs. As an independent MP for Ndola, Burney was notable for his outspoken criticism of UNIP when it came to the economic interests of Zambians in the post-UDI era.152 In reply, Chimba requested the patience of MPs, claiming he was not yet able to supply the finalised cost of transportation.153 G.H. Mutale, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, expressed his concern in a handwritten note:

My attention was irresistibly drawn to the TZ article of July 13, 1967 in respect of the maize deal. If Mr. C. Burney’s statistics can be relied upon one can’t see much economic benefit to Zambia out of the deal, unless the whole thing is political in which case other factors would come into play. I note that though Mr. Chimba refuted Mr. Burney’s allegations he was either unable or unwilling to furnish the House with any new figures.154

The Cabinet report characterised the revised maize deal contract as ‘not per se an economic proposition’: at best it ‘represented less loss’ compared to earlier maize exports to Japan and Scotland.155 The Ministry of Commerce had sharp words for the Grain Marketing Board, which, in its view, had shown ‘bad faith to the Government’ for not

ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘Zambia-China Maize Sale’, 4 August 1967. ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘Trade Agreement between Zambia and China’, 13 July 1967. 150 ZNA, MFA1/1/64, ‘Communist China –Technical Assistance’, 1965–1967, ‘Trade: Maize Sale to China’, July 1967. 151 ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘From Ministry Commerce to Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 31 August 1967. 152 DeRoche, ‘“You Can’t Fight Guns with Knives”’, pp. 89–90. 153 ‘£1.2m. May be Lost on Deal’, Times of Zambia, 13 July 1967. 154 ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘Note from Mutale to Muuka’, 15 July 1967. 155 ZNA, MFA1/1/64, ‘Trade: Maize Sale to China’. 148 149

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

advising on the issue of shipping costs.156 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, criticised the Ministry of Commerce for having tried to discuss the issue with the Chinese ‘before they even discussed with us’, as well as unfairly blaming ‘we politicians’ for trying to ‘please the Chinese by sacrificing money’.157 In December 1967, Permanent Secretary Mutale again complained about the ‘tendency by the Chinese to include unnecessary articles’ in the deal and their preference for the ‘international price structure’ over that of Zambia.158 The debates surrounding the maize deal with China encapsulate the complex, and sometimes, conflicting values which underlay the implementation of Zambian foreign policy. In general, Zambia and Kenya followed similar procedures in their negotiation of trade agreements with China. A goodwill mission, preferably led by a senior politician, would initiate the process; then the Ministry of Commerce would explore the feasibility of such agreement; and finally, a specified institution such as the Kenya National Trading Company or the Grain Marketing Board of Zambia would negotiate the final terms of the agreement. Politically and ideologically more divided than their Zambian counterparts, Kenyan politicians nonetheless tended to prioritise concrete economic gains, for instance, in choosing the Chinese over the Soviet aid offer. In Zambia, however, a situation with the semblance of ‘an intra-ministerial crisis’ in the Cabinet ended up favouring senior UNIP politicians loyal to President Kaunda.159 The politically charged nature of trade negotiation contributed to the failure of Zambia’s 1967 maize deal. Even the British concluded that Zambians had ‘learnt their lesson’ and would not export maize to China in the future.160

Conclusion

The unprecedented event that was Rhodesia’s UDI led Zambia’s domestic and foreign policy to become closely entangled shortly after its independence. In 1967, Zambia adopted Kaunda’s philosophy of Humanism as a national ideology, and non-alignment as a guide for its external relations. It was in this context that China provided some urgently needed moral and material support for Zambia’s advocacy of liberation in southern Africa. Despite their political differences, Ibid. ZNA, MFA1/1/64, ‘Under Secretary (2)’, 9 June 1967. 158 ZNA, MFA1/1/241, ‘From the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 8 December 1967. 159 NARA, Box 3038, ‘Report of Conversation with Professor G. Goundrey’. 160 TNA, FCO 29/336, ‘Chinese Activity in Zambia’. 156 157

109

110

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Zambian elites maintained a widely held consensus that any Chinese Communist threat, alleged or otherwise, would not be permitted to fuel power struggles within the ruling party UNIP. In contrast to Kenya’s troubled relations with China in the second half of the 1960s, Sino-Zambian relations survived even the most disruptive years of the Cultural Revolution, and Kaunda’s personal ties with Chinese leaders grew even stronger. Like many newly independent African countries, Zambia had maintained military connections with its colonial power. But this changed dramatically in late 1970 when Zambia approached China requesting military training for its national defence force. The Maoist revolutionary thought embedded in the military training and, to a lesser extent, Kaunda’s introduction of one-party rule, were of mutual benefit to each other. With the help of a Chinese military advisor’s personal account, this chapter has highlighted the often-hidden discrepancy between grand narratives of political solidarity and everyday encounters of ordinary Chinese and Africans. The depth and diversity of engagement between Zambia and China in this period were outstanding. By analysing the impact of cultural performances, football matches, and Chinese medical practice, this chapter rejected homogeneous characterisations of the global Cold War to discuss the previously understudied roles of culture, women, health, and sport. On the one hand, the Chinese artists, doctors, and athletes carried out Mao’s ‘revolutionary’ mission to Africa; on the other hand, their individual experiences often provoked tensions which spoke to the contradictions that underlay state relations. Zambia’s trade relations with China, while experiencing steady growth from independence onwards, were constrained by its landlocked geographical location. The case study of Zambia’s maize deal with China revealed the discrepancy between the grand ambition and limited agency of many African countries in materialising their national interests vis-à-vis Cold War protagonists. Unlike in Kenya, trade negotiation in Zambia was largely influenced by ideologically minded politicians who favoured political alliances over material gains, a feature that would continue into the next decades.

4 Political Transition and Multifaceted Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the Late 1970s and 1980s

The Chinese themselves dispelled any fears that African issues would now take secondary place. It would, however, be naïve not to harbour such fears because China cannot effectively pose as the champion and friend of the oppressed while at the same time embracing Africa’s traditional exploiters.1 UNIP Delegation to China, 1979

The state of Kenyan politics as the 1960s drew to a close was a great disappointment to Chinese leaders: Oginga Odinga, the left-wing figure they had chosen to back, had been excluded from the ruling party KANU and subsequently marginalised on account of his position as the leader of a Communist-backed opposition. Economically, Kenya traded largely with Britain, while political and sociocultural exchange with China was minimal in comparison to that with the West. International organisations, however, provided meaningful platforms through which the Chinese government could engage with Kenyan leaders. Jomo Kenyatta’s distaste for Communism did not, for instance, deter him from supporting China on the issue of its UN membership. The normalisation of China-US relations in the 1970s also convinced the Kenyan leadership to reassess its policy towards China. The early 1980s witnessed simultaneous leadership transitions in Kenya and China: in 1980, President Daniel arap Moi met Deng Xiaoping in Beijing to discuss the future of Sino-Kenyan relations, which would be driven by economic interests and trade opportunities. Zambia, by comparison, was a more unpredictable and surprising partner for the Chinese. President Kenneth Kaunda, whom the West had initially considered as a moderate, eventually developed his Humanism philosophy into an all-encompassing national ideology. Throughout the 1970s, his ruling United National Independence Party (UNIP) became increasingly authoritarian in character. The declaration of a one-party 1 UNIP BL, EAP121_2_5_1_10, 1979, ‘Visit to the People’s Republic of China by a UNIP Delegation 22nd July – 10th August 1979’, August 1979.

112

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

state in 1972 can be seen as the culmination of Kaunda’s supreme leadership over both party and state. Meanwhile in China, the new leadership was grappling with Mao’s revolutionary legacy and rehabilitation efforts in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. The result was, as this chapter will demonstrate, that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the increasingly left-wing UNIP came to believe that post-Mao China had been co-opted by US-led neo-imperialism. Even more problematic were the Sino-Zambian divisions with regard to southern African liberation movements. Beijing’s backing of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) in Rhodesia, driven by its anti-Soviet agenda, clashed with Lusaka’s support of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU). This further demonstrates how South-South solidarity could take unexpected turns in the face of geopolitical and ideological entanglements. This chapter will analyse developments in Kenya’s and Zambia’s relations with China in the late 1970s and 1980s. Unlike the 1960s, when Communist China’s diplomatic activities were determined by revolutionary Maoism, this period was marked by the absence of a clear agenda towards Africa. This was sometimes characterised by contradictory actions, as a UNIP delegation would find in 1979. The cleavage between Mao and post-Mao Chinese foreign policy towards Africa, however, was simply taken in stride. While profound changes took place in all these three countries, they did not happen overnight, but rather as a result of policy changes and discussions which will be analysed below. It follows that no singular structure can fully explain these countries’ multifaceted engagements. This chapter will briefly discuss the major developments in global politics in the early 1970s, including, most importantly, China’s admission to the UN in 1971. Zambia’s one-party state under Kaunda’s leadership was eager to learn from the Chinese experience of managing party-state relations. Closely following Kenyatta’s footsteps in maintaining close ties with the West, the new Kenyan President, Daniel arap Moi, nonetheless adopted a more positive outlook towards engagement with China. The chapter will then compare Zambia and Kenya’s distinct perceptions of China’s new foreign policy during the reform era, before concluding with an analysis of the implications of these changes from the perspective of economic and technical cooperation.

Chinese Foreign Policy: A Return to Normalcy

The conflicting impulses of ideology and pragmatism were central to the internal and external dynamics of all Communist regimes during the Cold War. Maoism, initially a military doctrine, was expanded with

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

the onset of the Cultural Revolution into a ‘military, political, cultural and economic ideology distinct from Soviet communism’. 2 Domestically, Mao’s nationwide campaign had reshaped the CCP leadership by empowering a young political force that had risen to prominence in the Cultural Revolution through launching attacks against allegedly ‘rightist’ senior officials. 3 Internationally, Chinese foreign policy during this period was more successful in exporting Maoist ideology to the ‘masses’ than at conducting ‘aid projects and diplomacy aimed at political leaders’.4 But Africa in general, and Zambia in particular, was far from passive in its reception of Chinese Communist propaganda: developments in both domestic and international politics in the early 1970s fundamentally reshaped Zambia’s foreign policy and its relationship with China in the subsequent decade. Shortly after the launch of Simon Kapwepwe’s breakaway United Progressive Party (UPP) in August 1971, Kaunda ordered his Administrative Secretary to send pamphlets to Zambia’s embassy in Beijing alleging that Kapwepwe’s agents were ‘hibernating in the Foreign Service’. Entitled ‘The Two Faces of Kapwepwe’, the pamphlet sought to absolve foreign confusion regarding the Zambian political situation and to restore trust in Kaunda’s government.5 Like Odinga in Kenya, Kapwepwe had been a leading figure in shaping Zambia’s foreign policy and had visited China as Foreign Minister in 1966. His frequent public criticism of colonialism and imperialism had not made him popular in Western diplomatic circles. Yet Kapwepwe did not maintain any particularly close personal connections with the East either: the division between Kaunda and Kapwepwe was not primarily ideological but rather driven by their rivalry for high office. Opposition politics, as Miles Larmer argues, was built on ‘the sectional and regional challenges to and within UNIP that originated from the nationalist struggle itself’ as well as UNIP’s failure to ‘address and manage popular expectations in the 1960s’.6 For the Chinese government, the Copperbelt-­ based UPP, with its strong Bemba-speaking support base, was not an attractive vehicle for its aims. Following the official call to work with Alexander Cook, ‘Third World Maoism’, in Timothy Cheek (ed.), A Critical Introduction to Mao (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 290. 3 Ezra F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2011), p. 193. 4 Jeremy Scott Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), pp. 149–50. 5 United National Independence Party Archives, Lusaka (hereafter UNIP Lusaka), 7/23/22, ‘Embassy of Zambia in Peking’, 1970–1973, ‘The Two Faces of Kapwepwe’, 10 February 1972. 6 Miles Larmer, Rethinking African Politics: A History of Opposition in Zambia (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), p. 92. 2

113

114

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

‘organisations across the political spectrum’ in May 1971, the early 1970s saw a ‘return to normalcy’ in China.7 The United States’ newly expressed willingness to support rather than undermine China’s status in international affairs also facilitated a few collaborative efforts in southern Africa, most notably to counter Soviet and Cuban intervention in Angola.8 The Chinese supply of weapons and advisors to liberation movements also increased via camps in both Tanzania and Zambia. Internationally, the decade began with the Third Summit of NonAligned Countries, held in Zambia. In September 1970, representatives from about sixty non-aligned countries gathered to discuss issues concerning global peace and equality. The decision to hold this meeting in Lusaka reflected both Zambia’s strategic position in the frontline of southern Africa’s liberation wars and President Kaunda’s reputation in the non-aligned world. Arguably, Zambia, a relatively small and politically unimportant country in its own right, took on a disproportionate significance in this context. In this regard, Kaunda’s Zambia aspired to the standing of Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) – ‘a combination of a one-party and one-man state, with [its] own path to socialism’.9 The two presidents enjoyed a strong personal friendship, and Yugoslavia was an active influence on Zambia’s development agenda in the 1970s.10 In the run-up to the conference, Zambia paid attention to the prominent divisions within the NAM which had arisen in light of the détente between the Soviet Union and the United States from the late 1960s.11 Foreign Ministry officials noted the ‘lukewarm’ spirit which had taken root at the 1961 Belgrade Conference and built up after the 1970 Dar es Salaam Conference.12 The priority of many NAM member states had shifted from independence and armed conflict to economic development. The summit addressed the marginalised place of the ‘Third Joshua Eisenman, ‘Comrades-In-Arms: The Chinese Communist Party’s Relations with African Political Organisations in the Mao Era, 1949–76’, Cold War History 18, 4 (2018), pp. 15–16. 8 Greg Brazinsky, Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), p. 11. 9 Radina Vučetić, ‘Tito’s Africa: Representation of Power during Tito’s African Journeys’, in Radina Vučetić and Paul Betts (eds), Tito in Africa: Picturing Solidarity (Belgrade: Museum of Yugoslavia, 2017), p. 15. 10 President Kaunda twice visited Yugoslavia, in May 1970 and November 1974. See Vučetić and Betts (eds), Tito in Africa, p. 147. 11 H. Hveem and P. Willetts, ‘The Practice of Non-Alignment: On the Present and the Future of an International Movement’, in Yashpal Tandon and Dilshad Chandarana (eds), Horizons of African Diplomacy (Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau, 1974), pp. 2–3. 12 ZNA, MFA1/1/549, ‘Conferences of Heads of Non-aligned States’, 1970– 1971, ‘Guiding Notes on Non-Aligned Summit – Lusaka – September, 1970’, September 1970. 7

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

World’ in the global system and the urgent need to change the structure of world politics.13 Above all, it attempted to redefine international relations as

entering a phase characterised by increasing interdependence and also by the desire of states to pursue independent policies. The democratisation of international relations is therefore an imperative necessity of our times. But there is an unfortunate tendency on the part of some of the big powers to monopolise decision-making on world issues which are of vital concern to all countries.14

In retrospect, the 1970 Lusaka Declaration should be remembered for its direct ‘response to global detente and multi-polarity’.15 Foreign Minister Vernon Mwaanga later praised non-aligned countries for not ‘seeking to take sides in their voting pattern in the United Nations system’.16 Within a year of the NAM summit, the majority of non-aligned countries would vote in favour of the PRC’s UN membership.

Diplomatic Manoeuvres at the UN

As noted in Chapter 1, upon independence both Kenya and Zambia opted to invite Beijing rather than Taipei to set up embassies in their capitals. Taiwan, like the PRC, utilised aid as a diplomatic tool in the facilitation of official relations with newly independent countries, achieving significant results in Francophone West Africa.17 Ian Taylor’s analysis of Taiwan’s foreign policy has shown how the diplomatic competition between the ‘two Chinas’ gave African leaders opportunities for the negotiation of financial and political benefits.18 Anti-Communism was an important factor here. For example, Malawi’s President Hastings Banda regarded Communist China as a destabilising force in Africa.19 In Kenya, Tom Mboya and his allies strongly rejected Communism and maintained contact with Taiwan throughout the 1960s. When 13 Timothy Shaw, ‘The Foreign Policy of Zambia: Ideology and Interests’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 14, 1 (1976), p. 83. 14 Lusaka Declaration on Peace, Independence, Development, Co-operation and Democratisation of International Relations (Lusaka: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1970), p. 5. 15 Shaw, ‘The Foreign Policy of Zambia’, p. 85. 16 Vernon Mwaanga, The Long Sunset: My Reflections (Lusaka: Fleetfoot Pub. Co., 2008), p. 176. 17 Chiao Chiao Hsieh, Strategy for Survival: The Foreign Policy and External Relations of the Republic of China on Taiwan, 1949–1979 (London: Sherwood Press, 1985). 18 Ian Taylor, ‘Taiwan’s Foreign Policy and Africa: The Limitations of Dollar Diplomacy’, Journal of Contemporary China 11, 30 (2002), p. 129. 19 ‘Editorial: Two Views of China’, East African Standard, 17 August 1967.

115

116

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Kenyan MP John Okwanyo of Migori (Nyanza Region) visited Taiwan in November 1964, the Chinese Chargé d’Affaires in Nairobi sought to dissuade him from making the trip, warning that the Chinese ‘government would [as a form of retaliation] stop trips to Communist China by Kenyans’.20 In a later meeting with the American ambassador in Nairobi, Okwanyo disclosed that President Kenyatta had approved his Taiwan tour while emphasising that he should not make any statement which contradicted Kenya’s subscription to the ‘One China’ policy. Reporting on the Kenyan visit to Taiwan with an obvious air of triumph, the US State Department nonetheless admitted that President Kenyatta would not publicly announce his ‘great admiration for Chiang Kai-shek’, let alone officially recognise Taiwan.21 In 1968, the wives of Tom Mboya, Joseph Odero-Jowi, and John Okwanyo, three prominent members of the pro-US ‘Kenya Group’, paid a non-official visit to Taiwan.22 There was division among Kenyan leaders on the issue of China’s UN membership. In 1964, MP Clement Berder Ngala-Abok pointed to Chinese foreign policy as the main obstacle to its admission, while Njoroge Mungai, then Minister of Health, argued that the organisation would be strengthened by its inclusion.23 The Kenyatta government characterised its pro-admission position as ‘common sense’, because ‘the world cannot ignore the country having the greatest population, one which is a potential nuclear power within the next decade’. 24 Despite Kenya’s concerns of ‘an aggressive Red imperialism’ that would ‘export excess population settlement under the guise of technical aid and artisan assistance’, the threat of this ‘Communist creed’ was not an immediate one.25 Furthermore, Britain’s position on the ‘two Chinas’ continued to be an influence for Kenyan policy. The UK representative to the UN called for the expulsion of Taiwan but insisted that this action should be taken only if a two-thirds majority was reached.26 In 1967, Kenya voted in favour of China’s admission along with another fifteen African countries, but in this case the bid was unsuccessful.27 20 NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Kenyan MP Discusses Taiwan Trip’, 30 March 1965. 21 Ibid. 22 NARA, RG 59, Box 1970, ‘Communist Chinese Protest Kenya Favoritism’, 2 November 1968. 23 NARA, RG 59, Box 2391, ‘Kenyan Foreign Policy; Non-Alignment, Communist China, Somalia’, 15 September 1964. 24 ‘Editorial: Chinese U.N. Membership’, East African Standard, 24 August 1966. 25 Ibid. 26 ‘UN Keeps out China’, East African Standard, 29 November 1967. 27 ZNA, FA/1/94, ‘Admission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations’, January 1968.

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

As Sino-Kenyan diplomatic relations deteriorated in the late 1960s, the Kenyan press increased its coverage of Taiwan and its engagement with Kenya. The previously neutral tone taken by the East African Standard on the issue of Chinese representation at the UN began to tilt in Taiwan’s direction. In its report on the anniversary of the 1911 Revolution, the Republic of China (ROC) was described as ‘the official international representative of all China’.28 A particular source of irritation for the PRC was the picture chosen to accompany the report: captioned ‘Guarding Chinese culture’, it depicted Taiwan’s foreign aid programme for African technicians, which had been of benefit for ‘600 farm specialists from 30 African countries’ including Kenya.29 This led to a protest from the Chinese Embassy. One month later, the EAS published a satire of the Chairman Mao personality cult during the Cultural Revolution which concluded, ‘[i]t is hoped the Chinese Embassy in Nairobi will not protest over that tiny mention of the “other” China – Taiwan’. 30 In sharp contrast to Kenya’s more ambiguous stance, Zambia actively supported the restoration of the PRC’s representation in the UN. As Zambia’s Permanent Representative to the UN from 1968 to 1971, Vernon Mwaanga participated in key discussions at the General Assembly and was recognised by Chinese leaders as an important ally. He voted in favour of the restoration of the lawful rights of the PRC in 1968 and his statement the following year was even stronger: the UN, he argued, should not deny the legitimacy of a country with the largest population in the world; those who opposed China were enemies of the principles of the UN’s own Charter; the victory of the Communist government in its struggles against Chiang Kai-shek’s regime was backed by the Chinese people; and the US was to blame for its military encirclement of China. 31 Therefore, the exclusion of the PRC was ‘unrealistic, impolitic, undemocratic, and certainly not in the interests of mankind’.32 On 25 October 1971, a dramatic late-night vote took place in the General Assembly. An earlier motion to require a two-thirds majority (as advocated by the UK) to expel the Republic of China was unexpectedly defeated. This allowed the motion to readmit the PRC to be passed seventy-six votes to thirty-five, with seventeen abstentions. The Times of Zambia dedicated its 27 October front page headline to China’s UN victory and published a congratulatory statement by President Kaunda accompanied by a photograph of Kaunda and the Chinese ambassador. 33 ‘“Double Tenth” Began a New Era’, East African Standard, 10 October 1968. ‘Guarding Chinese Culture’, East African Standard, 10 October 1968. 30 ‘Saturday Essay: Chinese Mango Mania’, East African Standard, 9 November 1968. 31 Mwaanga, The Long Sunset, pp. 319–21. 32 Ibid., p. 326. 33 ‘China in, Taiwan out – and UN Goes Wild’ & ‘KK Welcomes Peking Victory’, Times of Zambia, 27 October 1971. 28 29

117

118

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

On the following day, the ToZ published various reactions from Beijing, Taipei, and Johannesburg towards this ‘breach of the Great Wall by China’. 34 Mwaanga said the result was ‘best for the United Nations’ and ‘perhaps President Nixon and some of the senators advocating punitive measures must have lost their heads’. 35 In private, Mwaanga enjoyed good personal relations with top US officials such as George H.W. Bush, then US representative to the UN. In 1974, in China, Mwaanga met his ‘old friend’ Bush, who was now Chief of the US Liaison Office. When asked if he could have imagined being in Beijing after all they had gone through at the UN, Bush reportedly said, ‘[w]e have to deal with the realities of the world, and it also shows that you guys were always right and we were wrong’. 36 It is clear that from the Cuban missile crisis to the Vietnam War, Zambia was an active player in multilateral diplomacy in ways that outweighed its ostensibly marginal position in global politics. Stephen Chan describes Kaunda’s mediation efforts as ‘a political act, seeking political gains and capable of political losses, not simply a humanistic urge’. 37 This intermediary role would however soon prove problematic when southern Africa liberation movements were struck by direct intervention on the part of the Cold War powers.

UNIP, Kaunda, and China

With the inauguration of the Second Republic in December 1972, Zambia officially became a one-party state. The Central Committee of UNIP was the supreme organ of the state which held authority over the Cabinet, with Kaunda as the leader of both party and state. This development only bolstered Zambia’s friendly relations with China. Mainza Chona, the vice president of UNIP, led a government goodwill mission to China and North Korea in September 1972. As usual, the delegation had a short stopover in Nairobi. On this occasion, Zambia’s senior politicians were warmly received by the Kenyan government, which was at this point in the process of evaluating China’s recent admission by the UN. 38 Indeed, there was an ever-increasing stream of delegations visiting China from various parts of the world including, most famously, that ‘China Chortles as Ousted Taiwan Throws a Tantrum’, Times of Zambia, 28 October 1971. 35 ‘Bad Loser Nixon “Lost His Head” – Mwaanga’, Times of Zambia, 30 October 1971. 36 Interview with Vernon Mwaanga, Lusaka, 19 August 2016. 37 Chan, Kaunda and Southern Africa: Image and Reality in Foreign Policy (London: British Academic Press, 1992), p. 150. 38 UNIP Lusaka, 7/23/14, ‘People’s Democratic China’, 1969–1972, ‘A Report on the Tour of the PRC and DPRK by a Zambian Government Goodwill Mission Led by His Honour VP Hon. M.M. Chona’, 15–30 September 1972. 34

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

led by US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. Chinese domestic politics had also undergone dramatic changes. The ‘Lin Biao incident’, which saw Mao’s ‘closest comrade-in-arms and successor’ killed in a plane crash, brought to an end the worst excesses of China’s Cultural Revolution, with Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping restored to take charge of foreign and economic affairs respectively. 39 Having failed in their efforts to persuade Western donors to fund their plans for a cross-border railway to Tanzania, Zambian leaders sought increasing levels of Chinese aid and technical assistance. The 1972 goodwill mission resulted in an array of Chinese funding pledges: 1) the Samfya/Serenje Highway; 2) water pumps and other equipment for water development projects; 3) a thousand ‘Yellow River’ trucks, as well as a repair plant and later an assembly plant for these trucks; and 4) ten thousand radio sets for the rural areas.40 Visits to Chinese communes run by the Dazhai Production Brigade and Shi Bing Production Brigade, which combined defence systems with agricultural production, left a strong impression on the Zambian delegation. They also visited a crane manufacturing plant in Tianjin, which was one of the suppliers for the TAZARA railway. The literature on sub-Saharan Africa in the late 1970s often depicts this as a period of rapidly worsening economic problems which gave rise to high levels of social discontent. Zambia was no exception: the UNIP government was ‘ideologically unwilling and/or practically incapable of addressing’ the economic challenges facing it, such as those within the mining industry.41 These visits to China nonetheless show that Zambian political elites were actively in search of potential development models, among which China’s model of state-led economic intervention was particularly attractive. President Kaunda paid his second state visit to China in February 1974, only two months after he was ‘re-elected’ as president under the one-party state system.42 In preparation for his visit, the Chinese press showered praise on the Zambian people under Kaunda’s leadership for their achievements in the fight against the Smith UDI regime in Rhodesia. This was thought especially impressive given the country’s economic dependence on copper, the export of which would soon be made politically acceptable through the transnational railway connecting the Frederick C. Teiwes and Warren Sun, The End of the Maoist Era: Chinese Politics during the Twilight of the Cultural Revolution, 1972–1976 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2008), p. 8. 40 UNIP Lusaka, 7/23/14, ‘Record of the Second Meeting Held between the Zambian Goodwill Mission and the Chinese Government Delegation’, 18 September 1972. 41 Larmer, Rethinking African Politics, p. 91. 42 ‘前来我国进行正式访问 卡翁达总统离开赞比亚’ [President Kaunda Leaves Zambia to Pay a Formal Visit to Our Country], People’s Daily, 21 February 1974. 39

119

120

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

country to Dar es Salaam, the port of its neighbour and ally Tanzania.43 It is noteworthy to see Zambia’s main source of national wealth – copper – deployed in a nationalist account: ‘The brave Zambians … are constantly sweeping away colonial influence in the economic arena … They have achieved enormous victories in the country’s nationalised copper industry’.44 One direct outcome of this visit was a soft loan of US $50 million intended to support Zambia’s development programmes. Declaring that the offer was the highest a developing country like China could possibly afford, the Chinese Minister of Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries Fang Yi stressed that it was ‘the spirit behind the offer which was important’.45 According to Mwaanga, however, the actual signing of the loan agreement was complicated by Zambia’s diplomatic procedures under the party-state system. Humphrey Mulemba, the Chairman of the Economic and Finance Sub-Committee of UNIP’s Central Committee, was appointed by President Kaunda to represent the Zambian government. Foreign Minister Mwaanga was not only excluded from Kaunda’s private meeting with Mao but also from the signing of the bilateral agreement.46 The dominance of the party organs in foreign affairs clearly aggrieved the country’s top officials. China ‘later let it be known’ that Mao first conveyed his ‘Three Worlds Theory’ during this meeting with Kaunda, although the idea itself had been formulated long before.47 Distinct from the Cold War binary division of the world between ‘Capitalist’ and ‘Communist’, Mao’s framework took the economic performance of the ‘Third World’ on its own terms as resulting from an exploitative global economic and imperial system.48 This idea was reinforced during UNIP Secretary-General Grey Zulu’s visit to China in September 1975. Chinese Vice Premier Li Xiannian told his Zambian guests ‘from the bottom of his heart rather than out of modesty or politeness’ that China remained a poor developing nation regardless of its socialist ideology. The two superpowers, and particularly the Soviet Union, were characterised as ‘endangering 43 ‘赞比亚捍卫主权粉碎封锁获新胜利 中赞友好合作关系日益发展’ [Zambia Achieves New Success in Defending its Autonomy and Breaking Containment], People’s Daily, 21 February 1974. 44 ‘赞比亚发展民族工业取得成就’ [Zambia Achieves Success in Developing National Industries], People’s Daily, 25 February 1974. 45 Vernon Mwaanga, An Extraordinary Life: A Passion for Service (Lusaka: Fleetfoot Pub. Co., 2009), p. 309. 46 Ibid., pp. 310–11. 47 Stephen Chan, ‘China’s Foreign Policy and Africa: The Rise and Fall of China’s Three World Theory’, The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs 74, 296 (1985), p. 378. 48 Sandra Gillespie, ‘Diplomacy on a South-South Dimension: The Legacy of Mao’s Three-Worlds Theory and the Evolution of Sino-African Relations’, in Hannah Slavik (ed.), Intercultural Communication and Diplomacy (Malta/ Geneva: Diplo Foundation, 2004), pp. 123–5.

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

the tranquillity of the world’; their détente and disarmament initiatives were deceptive.49 China’s collaboration with the European Economic Community and some capitalist European countries was also justified by Li as part of a collective effort to counter the hegemony of the superpowers. There had already been six visits by Zambian delegations to China by 1975, but the one led by Grey Zulu is particularly of note because it had the explicit purpose of learning from the so-called ‘great Chinese experience in the management of the Party and the State’. 50 On 30 June 1975, President Kaunda had announced the nationalisation of all land in Zambia. As a result, the ruling party faced the ultimate challenge of maintaining effective control of the main political, economic, and social elements of national life. Among the many fields in which the Zambian delegation sought to learn from the Chinese experience were mass mobilisation and political education. We should note that, although Kaunda initially refused to equate his philosophy of Humanism with Communist ideology, the extent to which his country had embarked on a socialist path was ratified through the adoption of a Socialist Constitution at the 1978 UNIP General Conference. 51 The Party also expressed enthusiasm about the idea of a ‘Socialist Intelligentsia’, which would take shape through political workshops and college courses on Scientific Socialism. A UNIP Central Committee memorandum revealed that the party’s Secretary-General had during the mid-1980s received invitations from, among others, the Communist parties of Cuba, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union. 52 Running parallel to state-level relations, party-to-party diplomacy formed another important element of South-South cooperation outside the traditional lines of Cold War diplomacy. In its characterisation of the CCP’s adoption of ‘democratic centralism’ as a deviation from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Chinese leaders advised that ‘in any kind of learning, one has to bear in mind the specific conditions prevailing in one’s country’. 53 49 UNIP BL, EAP121_2_5_1_6, Report of Zulu on His Visit to PRC, 1975, ‘Observation on our Relations with China over Southern Africa’, 1–21 September 1975. 50 Ibid. 51 UNIP BL, EAP121_2_5_4_32pt1, ‘Report of the Meeting between the Head of the International Liaison Department of the CCP and the Research Bureau of the Party’, 1980, ‘Matters Brought by the Research Bureau’, January 1980. 52 ZNA, CO 2/3/001, ‘UNIP Central Committee’, 1984–1986, ‘Draft Central Committee Memorandum’, 17 July 1984. 53 UNIP BL, EAP121_2_5_1_6, ‘Report of his Honour A.G. Zulu MCC., Secretary-­General of the Party on His Official Visit to the Republic of India, The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the People’s Republic of China’, 1–21 September 1975.

121

122

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

The Changing Position of China and Zambia on Southern Africa

As the southern African liberation process unfolded, it revealed the complexities of the global Cold War in sub-Saharan Africa: between the capitalist and socialist blocs, between global and regional dynamics, and between military and non-military approaches. ChinaZambia relations suffered from the fallout from these complications and contestations. Initially, in the late 1960s, President Kaunda was dedicated to the principle of non-violence and advocated relatively moderate solutions to end colonial rule. The PRC, on the other hand, pursued a more radical approach in support of anticolonial and anti-­ imperialist struggles. As we have seen in Chapter 3, China channelled its military training and assistance for liberation movements primarily through Tanzania and Zambia. While China’s participation in the liberation movements of Lusophone Africa was in general relatively limited, its support for liberation in Angola was strong and administratively complex. Low-key in terms of material commitment, Beijing’s policy in Angola is better described as an extension of a China-centred worldview than a careful calculation of local politics. 54 While at the beginning major Chinese support was given to the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and its Secretary-General Viriato da Cruz in particular, Beijing started to view Holden Roberto and his National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) military forces in a more favourable light from 1963. 55 The FNLA’s emphasis on the key role of armed peasants in leading the anticolonial revolution echoed China’s own historical experience. In April 1974, a Portuguese coup overthrew the authoritarian regime of the Estado Novo and the Cold War powers reacted swiftly. One month later, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) general led the first contingent of 112 military advisors from China to train FNLA forces based in Zaire. By September, China had provided 450 tons of military supplies. 56 The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) also funded the FNLA from July 1974 and relied on Zairian and FNLA sources for its intelligence reporting on Angola. The Soviets, on the other hand, publicly recognised the MPLA as the true representative of the Angolan people. Despite the diplomatic efforts of the three leading movements – the MPLA, the FNLA, and the UNITA – towards peace negotiations which culminated in the Alvor Agreement of January 1975, the resulting coalition government 54 Steven Jackson, ‘China’s Third World Foreign Policy: The Case of Angola and Mozambique, 1961–1993’, China Quarterly, 142 (1995), p. 396. 55 Jodie Yuzhou Sun, ‘Viriato da Cruz and His Chinese Exile: A Biographical Approach’, Journal of Southern African Studies 46, 5 (2020), p. 855. 56 John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (New York: Norton, 1978), p. 67.

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

proved to be short-lived, especially in light of the increase in foreign arms supplies. A loose grouping of countries bordering Rhodesia and South Africa, informally known as the Frontline States also came into being, with Zambia among their ranks. Like that of the other major powers, China’s involvement in the Angolan independence movement should be understood in terms of legitimate practice of foreign relations. Its support of African insurgencies was mostly motivated by a desire to increase its own prestige in various regional organisations, to compete with the superpowers for both short-term and long-term influence, and to seek support for its worldview. 57 Meeting with Grey Zulu’s delegation in September 1975, Li Xiannian explained that China’s position on Angola was ‘in line with the Organisation of Africa Unity which ha[d] recognised all the movements’, and that China ‘never accused one movement against the other’. 58 Zambia, being strategically located and ideologically compatible, served as one of China’s ‘closest allies in Africa’, to borrow Mwaanga’s words. 59 While asserting Zambia’s Cold War neutrality, Kaunda encouraged US President Gerald Ford and his Secretary of State Kissinger to ‘examine the motivations of the liberation movements’, even those with support from the Socialist Bloc.60 The Chinese leadership was well informed on Zambia’s position and efforts towards resolving the Angolan crisis, which was much appreciated as ‘a gesture of trust’.61 But Zambia’s mediatory role came with problems of its own. Accusing its ‘old friend’ of helping the Soviet Union in its support of the MPLA, Beijing put pressure on Lusaka to oppose Soviet intervention in Angola. Chinese leaders stressed on several occasions that a successful struggle depended on ‘indigenous’ rather than ‘external’ efforts. In December 1975, when meeting his US counterpart Henry Kissinger, Chinese Foreign Minister Qiao Guanhua stated that he expected ‘their African neighbours’ to facilitate negotiations between the three liberation movements.62 At this moment, Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire had just become China’s new regional ally. The Ford administration encouraged Beijing to take a more active position by shipping weapons directly to the US-backed UNITA. But Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping expressed concern that the ‘national pride’ of African leaders would be wounded Jackson, ‘China’s Third World Foreign Policy’, p. 389. UNIP BL, EAP121_2_5_1_6, ‘Observation on Our Relations with China over Southern Africa’. 59 Interview with Vernon Mwaanga, Lusaka, 19 August 2016. 60 Andrew DeRoche, Kenneth Kaunda, the United States and Southern Africa (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), p. 22. 61 UNIP BL, EAP121_2_5_1_6, ‘Observation on Our Relations with China over Southern Africa’. 62 DeRoche, Kenneth Kaunda, the United States and Southern Africa, p. 43. 57

58

123

124

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

by intervention this direct. In this instance, then, China’s prestige among national liberation movements weighed heavier than its geostrategic interest in thwarting the Soviet Union: ‘And even though the outcome of the civil war in Angola was less than ideal to Mao and his colleagues, China still fared significantly better than the United States in that it maintained some semblance of influence’.63 What Gregg Brazinsky characterised as China’s ‘schizophrenic policy’ was in fact a reflection of the political upheaval experienced by China in the early post-Mao era: until a new national development agenda was determined by the new generation of leaders, the significance of Africa in its overall foreign policy agenda decreased. Eventually, China would leave behind its socialist era principle of ‘foreign aid in exchange for political support’.64 While not entirely in agreement with China, Zambia was nonetheless grateful for China’s contribution to the liberation movements in southern Africa. According to Zulu’s memoir, ‘the Chinese policy at that time was that they gave military weapons to freedom fighters gratis and added that they did so because they were not merchants of death but only interested in assisting those who were fighting for freedom in their respective countries’.65 The prolonged process of the Angolan civil war can be regarded as ‘a proxy war’ waged by external powers, here referred to as ‘merchants of death’.66 While China and Zambia had shared aspirations of ending colonial and minority rule in southern Africa, they were increasingly divided with regard to which liberation movements should be supported towards that aim. For the Chinese, Zambia’s support of the Soviet-­ backed ZAPU was unacceptable. This was a matter of trust as ‘there [were] no consultations at all with the Chinese [over] what Zambia is feeling with minority and racist regimes in the South regarding the liberation of those areas’.67 In early 1976, Kaunda and his frontline allies struggled unsuccessfully to forge a coalition government in Angola so as to contain the militarily victorious Soviet-aligned MPLA. At a special Organisation of African Unity (OAU) conference, there was ‘a chain reaction of African nations recognizing Neto’s government’.68 Kaunda’s credibility was damaged by the revelation that UNITA was Brazinsky, Winning the Third World, pp. 333–4. Huajie Jiang, ‘现代化、国家安全与对外援助—中国援非政策演进的再思考 (1970– 1983)’ [Modernity, National Security and Foreign Aid – A Re-evaluation of the Trajectory of China’s African Aid Policy, 1970–1983], Foreign Affairs Review 6 (2019), p. 129. 65 Alexander Grey Zulu, The Memoirs of Alexander Grey Zulu, (Ndola: Times Printpak Zambia, 2007) p. 386. 66 Ibid. 67 UNIP BL, EAP121_2_5_1_6, ‘Observation on Our Relations with China over Southern Africa’. 68 DeRoche, Kenneth Kaunda, the United States and Southern Africa, p. 55. 63

64

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

receiving military support from apartheid South Africa. This, coupled with the growing regional influence of Marxist-Leninist governments in Angola and Mozambique in the late 1970s, pushed UNIP into more radical positions. As Zambia became more and more ideologically sympathetic to Soviet-­style Scientific Socialism in the late 1970s, it grew critical of China’s anti-Soviet position in regard to liberation movements. In 1979, a communication from the Asian Affairs Desk of Zambian Foreign Ministry declared:

Chinese anti-Sovietism has affected her relationship with the liberation movements in Africa. The main reason she did not support the MPLA in Angola was because of Russian involvement in the local conflict. For the same reason she does not give any support to ZAPU of the Patriotic Front, led by Mr. Joshua Nkomo, because the organization gets assistance from the Soviet Union and Cuba … China’s actions in Africa and elsewhere which have recently tended to be carried out primarily to undercut the USSR could be detrimental to progress on the continent of Africa especially vis-à-vis the Southern African situation. 69

The significance of hostility between two Communist powers in Africa cannot be underestimated. As Saunders and Onslow rightly argue, the Cold War in southern Africa ‘constituted a highly complex clash of systems and ideas’, which took the form both of propaganda and military conflict.70 China, as a result, struggled to justify its leading position in the ‘Third World’.

Reception of China’s Post-Mao Foreign Policy in Zambia and Kenya

In September 1976, Chairman Mao Zedong died in Beijing. With the death of the once all-powerful leader of the PRC, the country became the stage to a fierce power struggle between the so-called ‘Gang of Four’ and Hua Guofeng. Backed by the PLA, Hua Guofeng managed to supress the Gang and seize Party leadership alongside Ye Jianying, Chen Yun and Li Xiannian. Now rehabilitated, Deng Xiaoping launched the country’s economic reform programme in 1978. Communist ideology had now become less of a priority, so the CCP began to develop direct relations with political parties beyond the Communist Bloc. In Autumn 69 UNIP Lusaka, 7/23/65, ‘Peking-China’, 1977–1980, ‘From the Asian Affairs Desk of Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, January 1979. 70 Chris Saunders and Sue Onslow, ‘The Cold War and Southern, 1976–1990’, in Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 224–5.

125

126

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

1977, an unidentified ‘senior African politician’ expressed a wish to visit China on behalf of his party but was rejected by the Chinese authorities. Prompted by the negative fallout from this event, as Zheng Kejun argues, Beijing issued an official decree that authorised Sino-­ African party-to-party exchange. It declared that such relations should be based on the principles of ‘self-independence, complete equality, and non-interference in domestic politics’.71 According to Julia Strauss, a key feature of China’s official rhetoric on its relations with Africa is the ‘substantial continuities with the Maoist past’.72 This is a result of the CCP’s constant self-reflection. Upon meeting staff members from UNIP’s research bureau in January 1980, the Deputy Head of the International Liaison Department of the CCP declared that the history of Socialism is young and since it is young, it is engaged in learning. Like a child who learns to walk, in the process, it makes mistakes. Since learning is not subject to a fixed pattern, Socialism is far from being perfect, that’s why there is need to sum-up the past experiences and to build anew each socialist country, basing its revolutionary struggles on the local conditions prevailing.73

Practically speaking, the ‘China model’ to be introduced to their Zambian guests had to reflect these changes and sometimes even contradictions between the past and present. This section will compare Zambia and Kenya’s distinct perceptions of China’s post-revolutionary foreign agenda as led by the great reformer Deng. The two countries’ respective reactions strikingly reversed the pattern of the Mao era. Kaunda and his UNIP party, influenced by radical socialist movements and experiencing military destabilisation by its racist southern neighbours at an unprecedented rate, anxiously rejected China’s deepening of political and economic relations with the West. Meanwhile, the successive Kenyan presidents Kenyatta and Moi both took advantage of the normalisation of China-US relations to renew political and economic cooperation with the PRC. In short, China’s ideological transition of the early post-Mao period was thus viewed less favourably by Zambia than by Kenya. During July and August 1979, a UNIP delegation toured various regions of China. Led by Kapasa Makasa, Chairman of UNIP’s Rural Development Committee, it represented, like its 1975 predecessor, an 71 Zheng Kejun, ‘八十年代初期中国对非洲政策的调整’ [Adjustments of China’s Policy towards Africa in the Early 1980s], in Peking University African Studies Series: China and Africa, pp. 90–91. 72 Julia C. Strauss, ‘The Past in the Present: Historical and Rhetorical Lineages in China’s Relations with Africa’, The China Quarterly 199 (2009), p. 777. 73 UNIP BL, EAP121_2_5_4_32pt1, ‘Analyse Conditions Objectively’, 23 January 1980.

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

attempt by Zambia to learn from the Chinese experience. To the eyes of the Zambian delegates, the new Chinese senior leadership was now filled with ‘a sense of uncertainty’: ‘China is now bent on modernisation’, they noted, and was ‘courting western countries and doing away with a few traditional encumbrances’.74 This involved the introduction of heavy machinery into agricultural production and the redistribution of land. But the delegates’ paramount concern was the impact of China’s opening-up policy on Sino-African relations, as reflected in their sceptical remark with which this chapter opened. In the view of UNIP, itself leaning heavily towards ‘scientific socialism’ at this time, China’s Africa policy had become too reserved, if not stagnant, compared to the two superpowers. Having turned its gaze from revolution to economic development, China’s main export to Africa had ceased to be Communist ideology and had become material goods such as ‘cheap garments and simple household wares’. As Philip Snow aptly put it, ‘increasingly the business of China was business’.75 Officials of UNIP were at the time divided regarding the new orientation of China’s foreign policy. There were neutralists, led by J.S.M. Mumba, who viewed China’s border war with Vietnam as integral to the broader Sino-Soviet conflict, and felt that Zambia should not side with either party.76 But others blamed Beijing for its ‘negative and criminal role’ in collaborating with the ‘American imperialist bandits’, in the wording of Provincial Political Secretary G.P. Chambo.77 Doctor Henry S. Meebelo, Principal Advisor to the Secretary-General of the Party and Director of UNIP’s Research Bureau, seconded Chambo’s take on the matter, adding that: one other dimension to the events in China is purely a matter of powerstruggle between the ultra-leftists as personified by the so-called Gang-Four on one hand and the ultra-rightists led by Vice-Premier [Deng]. This is quite obvious from the fact that the Gang-Four has been in prison since the Vice-Premier was rehabilitated and that recently even more radicals in the Chinese Communist Central Committee and the Political Bureau have been removed. We are likely by the same token to have a reversal of the state-of-affairs when Vice-Premier [Deng] goes.78

74 UNIP BL, EAP121_2_5_1_10, 1979, ‘Visit to the People’s Republic of China by a UNIP Delegation 22nd July – 10th August 1979’, August 1979. 75 Philip Snow, The Star Raft: China’s Encounter with Africa (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988), pp. 179–80. 76 UNIP Lusaka, 7/23/65, ‘To the Deputy Director from the Clerical Officer’, 15 January 1980. 77 UNIP Lusaka, 7/23/65, ‘To Comrade J.S. Mumba from the Provincial Political Secretary’, 28 February 1980. 78 Lusaka UNIP, 7/23/65, ‘To the Secretary-General of the Party from the Principal Advisor to the Secretary-General of the Party and Director of the Research Bureau’, 18 March 1980.

127

128

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

The Party’s Research Bureau was the direct product of Zambia’s establishment of one-party rule. In 1973, the Central Committee of UNIP emulated communist regimes in establishing a Research Bureau ‘to provide research facilities for the Secretary General and his staff, the Chairmen of sub-committees of the Central Committee, Cabinet Ministers, and other party and government functionaries as well as help in preparing their reports, position papers and speeches, articles, and other academic work’.79 Once appointed as its director, Meebelo, a former civil servant, emerged as ‘the leading party theoretician in expounding and interpreting the philosophy of humanism’. 80 It is no wonder therefore that his language of the ‘left’ and ‘right’ struggle echoed that of Marxism-­Leninism. The year 1978 witnessed the ideological divergence of Zambia and China. Kaunda consolidated his power prior to the 1978 one-party state elections by constitutionally excluding opposition leaders Simon Kapwepwe and Harry Nkumbula from the running. Meanwhile in Beijing, at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Deng Xiaoping succeeded Mao’s heir Hua Guofeng to become paramount leader of China. Influenced by the ‘accession of Marxist regimes in Mozambique and Angola and the radicalisation of regional liberation politics’, UNIP’s construal of China’s leadership transition as a victory for the ‘ultra-rightists’ reflected its own evident swerve to the left.81 According to Miles Larmer’s analysis of Zambia’s political terrain in the late 1970s, technocratic officials were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with those ‘who claimed the legacy of Zambia’s own nationalist struggle’ inside the party. Some even engaged in private discussions to plot a coup to overthrow Kaunda’s government. 82 In China, however, technocrats and ‘freedom fighters’ could not be so clearly separated. A clear example was Deng Xiaoping, who had helped the CCP organise protests and political activities during the Nationalist era and ran the PRC’s day-to-day affairs along with President Liu Shaoqi and Premier Zhou Enlai in the 1950s. The economic failure of the Great Leap Forward later convinced him of the virtue of liberal policies with regard to privatisation and foreign capital. 83 A group of middle-aged 79 M.C. Musambachime, ‘The Archives of Zambia’s United National Independence Party’, History in Africa 18 (1991), pp. 291–2. Meebelo’s contributions to Zambian Humanism include Main Currents of Zambian Humanist Thought (Lusaka, 1973); ‘The Concept of Man-Centredness in Zambian Humanism’, African Review 3 (1973), pp. 559–79; and Zambian Humanism and Scientific Socialism: A Comparative Study (Lusaka: Government Printer, 1987). 80 Ibid., p. 293. 81 Larmer, Rethinking African Politics, p. 172. 82 Ibid., p. 158. 83 David S.G. Goodman, Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese Revolution: A Political

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

intellectuals and technocrats, such as Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang, was promoted by Deng to implement relatively bold and aggressive reforms. 84 Holding deep faith in Maoism even in post-Mao times, UNIP officials believed that:

after skilful manipulations and agreements in the inner leadership the Government has a balance between Maoists and Deng Xiaoping’s technocrat supporters … What has happened now is that, instead of remaining at the centre to play left against right in the party as Mao did, Hua had actually taken control of the left, the bureaucracy, the military and security forces to consolidate his position against the rightists led by Deng Xiaoping. 85

Based on this analysis, Deng Xiaoping represented the interests of those ‘technocrats’ who had suffered most during the Cultural Revolution, and hence firmly rejected Hua’s famous ‘Two Whatevers’ editorial.86 Entitled ‘Study the documents well and grasp the key link’, the ‘key link’ being class struggle, this editorial of 7 February 1977 reaffirmed that ‘all the policies that Mao had approved and all Mao’s directives were to be followed’.87 As a ruling party facing an ever-greater number of challenges from its own domestic intellectual elites, the preference of UNIP ideologues for Hua’s faction over that of Deng is understandable. In a similar way to how Chinese Communist thinkers had previously conducted analyses of African ideas and practices of socialism, African intellectuals interpreted China’s new form of ‘socialist’ thinking in relation to their own circumstances. Zambia’s technocratic officials, critical of Kaunda’s support of liberation movements at any cost, believed that the alleged security threat posed by apartheid South Africa and the Smith regime in Rhodesia had been exaggerated in order to justify the party-state’s control of all aspects of public life.88 I argue that this siege mentality of feeling threatened by a powerful neighbour may also be found in one Zambian analyst’s characterisation of China’s geopolitics. Describing China as a ‘superstate’, G.P. Chambo explained the country’s territorial expansion in Indo-China, part of modern India and some Russian settlements Biography (New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 13–14. 84 Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton: Princeton University Press), p. 4. 85 UNIP Lusaka, 7/23/65, ‘Political Report No. 5/80 For the period August 1 to September 30, 1980’. 86 The ‘Two Whatevers’ (两个凡是) refers to the statement that ‘[w]e will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave’ (凡是毛主席作出的决 策，我们都坚决维护；凡是毛主席的指示，我们都始终不渝地遵循). 87 Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, p. 192. 88 Larmer, Rethinking African Politics, p. 172.

129

130

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

on the Amur as having ‘nothing whatsoever to do with socialism’.89 He instead advanced a theory whereby the PRC’s foreign policy represented the continuation of an ‘ancient Chinese feudal policy of conquering neighbouring countries’. Chambo even quoted Mao’s proposition that ‘the job of the Chinese people’ is ‘to combine Karl Marx with [Qin] Shihuang’, that is, China’s First Emperor who conquered the so-called Warring States to unify the country. Without going beyond a superficial understanding of what Mao was implying here, he used this idea to criticise Mao’s despotism and tyranny in re-establishing China’s ‘old borders’ in Southeast Asia. Chambo’s criticism of China’s ideology and economic policies reflected the increasingly radical UNIP government’s opposition to all forms of capitalism at the height of one-party rule. Notably, China’s earlier acceptance of Soviet aid in the 1950s was now characterised as ‘riding on the devil’s back’, with the ultimate aim of carrying out ‘her hegemonistic plans of subjugating other nations’.90 In stark contrast to the praise of the CCP expressed by UNIP visitors to China in the 1960s and 1970s, this report denounced China’s growing alliance with the West, and especially the US, as undermining the international socialist movement and debasing socialism. Unlike in the 1960s when most African countries favoured non-aligned principles, most southern African liberation movements received economic and military support from the USSR and its allies, and many endorsed its political ideology once in power. The CCP, however, backed those liberation movements which had not received Soviet support, most of which had been less successful in gaining power (with the exception of ZANU-PF). Chambo was convinced that:

Chinese politics and diplomacy are very dangerous to developing countries that continue to get aid from her. China, in order to ruin the Soviet Union, has reversed all her progressive policies. She is now openly supporting all the enemies of the Soviet Union and other reactionary groups and governments that fight progressive forces all over the world.91

Chambo took the view that the Soviet Union was the legitimate leader of the Communist world, a world to which post-Mao China no longer belonged. A series of Research Bureau analyses of Chinese affairs at the turn of the decade caught the attention of Mainza Chona, who succeeded Grey Zulu in 1978 as Secretary-General of UNIP. In March 1980, writing to the Deputy Director of Research Bureau, he commented: 89 UNIP Lusaka, 7/23/65, ‘To the Deputy Director, Research Bureau from the Provincial Political Secretary’, 23 June 1980. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid.

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

I must say that it is extremely interesting and objective. It reflects the sudden change in China. One would wish either the Ambassador comes to report fully, or we send either a special envoy or a delegation. There is great need to see these shifts in socialist countries including neighbouring Mozambique. Please see what you can say about this after you have read the file. But the report is a fair one in the circumstances. 92

Immediately after the Party Congress in September 1980, Mainza Chona led a UNIP delegation to China. He heard from Vice Premier Wan Li that the Cultural Revolution had been ‘a disaster and retrogressive’, and that Chairman Mao was to be blamed for his affront to ‘some of the good and high principles which he had formulated’.93 On the matter of party-state relations, the Chinese government had decided to reform its constitution to emphasise economic development through the decentralisation of power. In response, Mainza Chona expressed his appreciation for the detailed briefing and discussed several aid projects including the TAZARA railway and the building of UNIP’s new party headquarters. The implications of the changing nature of China’s trade and aid with Zambia will be discussed below.

Daniel Arap Moi’s State Visit to China, 1980

According to Edward Oyugi, Moi’s Kenya was ‘the most extreme rightwing government in Africa’, having maintained the close Western ties established by Kenyatta.94 In April 1979, a few months after ascending to the presidency, Moi dispatched Joshua Odanga, ‘a seasoned diplomat’, as his ambassador to China.95 During his five-day visit to Kenya’s neighbour Tanzania in January 1980, Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang reassuringly asserted that ‘the basic point of departure of Chinese foreign policy is to strengthen China’s unity and cooperation with African and other Third World countries’, and announced that China was prepared to assist African countries in the development of their economic and technological capabilities.96 Seven months later, Chinese Vice Premier 92 UNIP Lusaka, 7/23/65, ‘To the Deputy Director of Research Bureau from the Secretary-General’, 4 March 1980. 93 UNIP Lusaka, 7/23/65, ‘Record of Official Talks at Party Level between the Communist Party of China and the United National Independence Party of Zambia’, 30 September 1980. 94 Interview with Edward Oyugi, Commissioner, Commission on Revenue Allocation & Professor, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, 23 November 2016. 95 Maria Nzomo, ‘The Foreign Policy of Kenya and Tanzania: The Impact of Dependence and Underdevelopment, 1961–1980’ (Dalhousie University, PhD thesis, 1981), p. 451. 96 ‘China “Ready to Assist Africa”’, The Standard, 15 January 1980.

131

132

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Ji Pengfei led an official delegation to Kenya, which was received by Vice President Mwai Kibaki and other Cabinet Ministers.97 As in earlier periods, there was a strong sense of pragmatism in the Kenyan government’s dealings with China. Concerned about the ‘jobless youth now flocking into urban areas in search of gainful employment’, Kibaki requested China’s help in promoting small-scale industries. In this and other ways, China’s experience in managing rural development was regarded as an asset.98 Both the approval and the timing of Moi’s subsequent state visit to China during Vice Premier Ji’s stay in the country reflected Kenya’s contested politics at the beginning of the 1980s. Kenya’s unemployment rate had increased to nearly 20 per cent, while debt and inflation soared. The general public looked upon its government’s mismanagement and corruption with ever more critical eyes.99 Moi followed Kenyatta’s lead in buying off leading critics and building alliances with potential critics through appointments to senior positions. This approach soon sparked protests. The campuses of the University of Nairobi (UoN) and the Kenyatta University College were the main hubs of such political activism.100 In August 1980, Moi addressed a large crowd of students at UoN. In addition to calling for the Kenyan people to study the principles of his Nyayo philosophy,101 Moi promised his supporters that two or three students would be invited on his official delegation to China.102 His announcement sought to shift public attention from the ongoing, contentious debates to a recent, more tangible foreign policy direction. Above all, it was a strategy to funnel youth activism into more restrained form of political activity. The Standard’s editorial of 23 August depicted a joyful crowd of students cheering ‘Nyayo’ and ‘Bravo, the People’s President!’103 Sino-Kenyan relations had been suddenly elevated to prominence thanks to a heroic President Moi. The fact that Moi’s government held tight control over the media, especially by producing a legal framework for censorship, was what lay behind this ‘Chinese Vice-Premier Arrives’, The Standard, 20 August 1980. ‘Kenya Has Much to Learn from China, Says Kibaki’, The Standard, 22 August 1980. 99 Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2012 (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), p. 142. 100 On student protests against the Moi regime in the 1970s and 1980s, see: M.N. Amutabi, ‘Crisis and Student Protest in Universities in Kenya: Examining the Role of Students in National Leadership and the Democratization Process’, African Studies Review 45, 2 (2002), pp. 157–77. 101 Nyayo is a Swahili word for ‘footsteps’. ‘Nyayo philosophy’ means following a distinctive African tradition of leadership. See Daniel arap Moi, Kenya African Nationalism: Nyayo Philosophy and Principles (London: Macmillan, 1986). 102 ‘Moi to Visit China’, The Standard, 22 August 1980. 103 The East African Standard changed its name to The Standard in 1977. ‘Editorial: Kenya and China’, The Standard, 23 August 1980. 97

98

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

portrayal.104 Nonetheless, both Kenya and China shied away from any serious ideological engagement: economic development and modernisation remained at the heart of Kenya-China relations. Compared to Zambia’s comprehensive and critical analysis of Chinese politics, Kenya’s attitude towards reform-era China was simple and perhaps naïve. China’s post-Mao leadership was described as ‘significantly pragmatic and forward looking’. Kenya had rediscovered this ‘great country’s importance in world affairs’.105 The aforementioned editorial praised the ‘inspiring’ Chairman Hua’s commitment to assist African countries, despite the fact that this man was the hand-picked heir of the very Chairman Mao whose ‘authoritarian fervour’ had once been the source of much consternation.106 Moi, who as Vice President had banned all Communist publications and attacked Chinese ideological ‘subversion’, as President now shook hands with Chinese leaders to secure better deals. What he had failed to fully notice, however, was the CCP’s ongoing internal struggle between the ‘Mao clique’ and the reformists. Nevertheless, it only took him two weeks to recognise his naivety. On 8 September 1980, the shocking news reached Nairobi that Hua Guofeng had suddenly resigned from all his posts and Zhao Ziyang, ‘a dauntless economic planner’, had been summoned to Beijing to take the role of Premier of the State Council.107 Another of Deng’s rising lieutenants was Hu Yaobang, who was in charge of politics and party ideology.108 Meanwhile in Nairobi, Kenyan party leaders and senior Chinese technocrats busied themselves negotiating bilateral agreements to be signed during Moi’s forthcoming visit.109 One week after China’s political reshuffle, Moi landed in Beijing, becoming the first ever Kenyan President to visit China. Consisting mainly of Kenyan technocrats, his delegation would sign five development agreements and give approval for the construction of a sports complex by China. Although Moi held talks with Hua and Deng, it was the new Premier Zhao Ziyang who took the lead. He gave his take on China’s ‘Economic Revolution geared at replacing the Cultural Revolution of the last decade’, characterising the latter as a misstep.110 Described in the Kenyan press as ‘able, 104 George Ogola, ‘Confronting and Performing Power: Memory, Popular Imagination and a “Popular” Kenyan Newspaper Serial’, African Studies 64, 1 (2005), pp. 73–85. 105 ‘Editorial: Kenya and China’, The Standard. 106 Ibid. 107 ‘Chairman Hua Resigns as China’s Premier’, The Standard, 8 September 1980. 108 Baum, Burying Mao, p. 100. 109 ‘Moi Clinches China Deals’, The Standard, 15 September 1980. 110 ‘President Gets down to Business’, The Standard, 16 September 1980. See also Zheng, ‘Adjustments of China’s Policy towards Africa in the Early 1980s’, p. 90.

133

134

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

open-minded’, Zhao was the leading spokesperson on China’s policy towards Africa throughout the reform era. Unlike their Zambian counterparts, Kenyan leaders embraced China’s shift in political orientation from East to West. They expressed respect for China’s efforts to tackle its immense social and economic problems: ‘Without destroying the socialist base of the country, the new Chinese leadership has upheld the right of the people’s communes and their sub-divisions to make their own decisions and to establish a system of comprehensive responsibility’.111 Moreover, the end of the country’s ideologically informed interventions into African affairs was highly appreciated. In an address to African envoys soon to be assigned to Beijing, Moi condemned the ‘big powers’ both for the arms race and the imbalance in trade between them and Africa. Calling for a policy of ‘positive non-alignment’, he commented:

China has over the last two decades demonstrated that a qualified and determined nation can achieve its development goals from within, and despite numerous plots by foreign powers bent on sabotaging it … In China, the Third World has a friend in trying to bring [imbalances of trade and ruthless exploitation] to an end.112

For Henry Gathigira, Editor-in-Chief of The Standard, Moi’s visit to China took place at a ‘crucially important time’. He pointed out that the reciprocal speeches of President Moi and Premier Zhao made no reference to the diplomatic trademarks of neocolonialism or imperialism, which had been a central feature of speeches like this in Mao’s heyday.113 Ironically, his criticism of Chinese newspapers for hypocritically flattering Chinese leaders could easily be applied to his own paper, which often slavishly praised the president. Maria Nzomo later concluded that, politically, Moi’s visit to China helped boost Kenya’s image as a non-aligned country.114 As Moi’s presidency faced challenges from both inside and outside KANU, this timely celebration of China’s achievements under a ‘realistic and pragmatic’ leadership was in effect an indirect endorsement of Kenya’s own. Moi’s attitude towards Communist China certainly improved as a result, but this overture was less about China than it was about Kenya.

Aid and Trade

Aid had long been an essential part of China’s policy towards Africa. Reportedly, in the early 1970s, the amount of Chinese aid was greater than Soviet aid in Tanzania, the Republic of the Congo, Kenya and ‘Editorial: Kenya’s Ties with China’, The Standard, 20 September 1980. Ibid. 113 ‘President Moi and the New China’, The Standard, 23 September 1980. 114 Nzomo, ‘The Foreign Policy of Kenya and Tanzania’, p. 451. 111

112

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

Zambia, and than American aid in Tanzania and the Republic of the Congo.115 As discussed in Chapter 1, Communist China’s official aid policy was set out in the Eight Principles laid down by Premier Zhou Enlai during his 1963–64 tour of Africa. Beijing’s efforts to expand markets and economic advantage rested on the assumption that those countries which received Chinese aid would ‘take public stands friendly to China’.116 Occasionally, economic interests were sacrificed for political reasons. But this changed dramatically after 1982. During his 1982–83 tour of eleven African countries,117 Premier Zhao Ziyang launched the new Four Principles of Chinese aid policy towards Africa. Although these reasserted the Maoist virtue of self-reliance, they had been significantly adapted to the prevailing international status quo. Zhao made it clear that aid would be limited, given that ‘China is also readjusting its economy and we have our own difficulties, we must not strain to do what is beyond our country’s capabilities’. His message was nevertheless conveyed in language that ‘continued to assert shared experiences and the presumptive sympathy’.118 Compared to Chinese aid policy during the Mao era, aid and technical assistance would now be offered based on the practical considerations of both sides and implemented in more diverse forms.119 Sino-African trade started to grow from 1960 onwards. Initially Africa exported almost as much as it imported from China, but by the mid-1970s Africa’s negative trade balance with China was irreversible (Appendix I). Zambia’s bilateral trade with China had increased substantially since 1971. Copper products, cobalt, and small quantities of tobacco were among its major exports to China. China’s total copper imports from Zambia rose from 10,000 metric tons per year in the early 1970s to 20,000 metric tons in 1976.120 In the aftermath of the copper price shock in 1975, Zambia failed to develop significant alternative exports and resorted to borrowing heavily.121 The country restructured 115 L.A. Van Wyk, ‘African Economies: Communist Influences’, Bulletin of the Africa Institute of South Africa 10, 2 (1972), p. 50, quoted in Wei Liang-Tsai, Peking versus Taipei in Africa 1960–1978 (Ann Arbor: Asia and World Institute, 1982), p. 213. 116 Larkin, China and Africa, 1949–1970, p. 107. 117 These were (in order of tour schedule): Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Guinea, Gabon, Zaire, Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya. 118 Strauss, ‘The Past in the Present’, p. 790. 119 Zheng, ‘Adjustments of China’s Policy towards Africa in the Early 1980s’, pp. 93–4. 120 UNIP BL, EAP121_2_5_1_9pt6, Correspondence by Ministry of Commerce & Report on the visit to the PRC, 1976, ‘Report on the Visit to the PRC’, 22 October 1976. 121 Colin Stoneman, ‘Structural Adjustment in Eastern and Southern Africa: The Tragedy of Development’, in Deborah Potts and Tanya Bowyer-Bower (eds), Eastern and Southern Africa: Development Challenges in a Volatile Region

135

136

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

its imports by removing ‘unpopular’ Chinese goods, a category which mainly consisted of tinned beans, beef and pork. Other cheaper and more durable exports such as white cotton sheets and bicycles were, on the other hand, welcomed by Zambian consumers. The country’s volume of trade with China had reached an estimated 40 per cent of its total trade by 1978.122 By 1980 the total trade between China and Africa had risen by 70 per cent to a total value of US $1.1 billion, of which Chinese exports comprised US $600 million.123 Although the UK remained Kenya’s biggest trading partner, Kenya’s imports from China increased substantially from 1975/76 onwards (Appendix II and III). China pledged to increase its imports of coffee, tea, and soda ash from Kenya.124 The first visit made by Premier Zhao during his 1983 tour of Kenya was to a cooperative coffee farm.125 Given the depressed state of international commodity markets in the early 1980s, China increasing its purchase of Kenya’s major cash crops was a considerable relief. More broadly, the enhancement of Sino-Kenyan trade contributed towards South-South cooperation which, while not necessarily anti-imperialist, at least challenged the Western monopoly over global trade. The Standard’s editorial of January 1983 summarised the positive response from African countries to China’s new strategy by quoting Moi’s speech: In view of the fact that industrialised nations have demonstrated ‘their lack of political will to break away from selfishness on the question of a new international economic order’ and to ‘recognise the inevitable interdependence of all countries’, the alternative is to ‘explore and exert rapid means of co-operation and pooling of resources of economic salvation through our own efforts’.126

For the Chinese leadership, it was ‘a fluid, hybrid, and at times idiosyncratic path’ with an emphasis on economic and technological development that defined its vision of the country’s future.127 But more than borrowing from the ideas of the American futurist Alvin Toffler, this was a path that drew on ideas and strategies from the global South. Behind the figures, there was considerable variability among African countries when it came to developing their economic relations (London: Routledge, 2004), p. 71. 122 ‘Zambia May Drop Food Imports from China’, Times of Zambia, 13 October 1978. 123 Snow, The Star Raft, p. 178. 124 ‘China to Buy More from Kenya’, The Standard, 18 January 1983. 125 ‘Zhao Tours Tea Farm’, The Standard, 18 January 1983. 126 ‘Editorial: China Winning More Friends’, The Standard, 19 January 1983. 127 Julian Gewirtz, ‘The Futurists of Beijing: Alvin Toffler, Zhao Ziyang, and China’s “New Technological Revolution”, 1979–1991’, The Journal of Asian Studies 78, 1 (2019), p. 134.

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

with China. For Kenya, Moi’s 1980 state visit resulted in the signing of a new economic and technical cooperation agreement, replacing the first one which had been signed sixteen years previously.128 Propelled by a strong political desire for bilateral cooperation, the rural projects funded by the agreement drew on China’s expertise in two key industries – agriculture and energy.129 But the single largest and most expensive aid project from China was the construction of a National Sports Complex in Nairobi, which consisted of a 60,000-seat stadium, a gymnasium, a swimming pool and a hostel. An interest-free loan of ¥70 million (equivalent to KSh 350 million) over a period of six years was offered to cover the cost of these projects, with KSh 300 million allocated for the sports complex alone. Throughout the process of negotiation with their Chinese counterparts, the four Kenyan ministries of Agriculture, Energy, Health, and Industry exhibited good levels of coordination. The main limitation was a shortage of expertise. China initially demanded that Kenya cover the travel costs and expenses of the Chinese technical experts carrying out feasibility studies. Unwilling to accept this demand, the Kenyan Foreign Ministry complained that the ‘Chinese are very tough negotiators who hardly move an inch from their position’.130 It is likely that an earlier agreement with the Chinese negotiated by an MP called Onyoka in 1979 had weakened Kenya’s position at the table, as both sides struggled to agree upon new changes to this draft agreement. The Kenyan authorities were upset to find that their Chinese counterparts had added an extra grant of KSh 80,000 to compensate for expenses incurred by three Chinese bamboo-weaving experts who worked in Kenya from May 1964 to March 1966. According to the protocol signed in 1964, China sent three bamboo-weaving experts while Kenya sent trainees to China to study ivory carving.131 These training schemes had been disrupted during the years in which Sino-Kenyan bilateral relations had deteriorated. Apparently, the matter had been forgotten by the Kenyan government, but not by China. The proposed draft agreement on the Chinese medical team generated further heavy disagreements. The Kenyan authorities stated that no legal exemption would be made for ‘any professional misconduct’ by the Chinese medical team, and insisted drugs and medical instruments KNA, ABM/17/65, ‘Chinese Assistance for Development Projects’, 1980– 1984, ‘State Visit to the PRC Memorandum by Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs’, 9 December 1980. 129 ‘We’re against Racism, Says Kenya’, The Standard, 22 August 1980. 130 KNA, ABM/17/65, ‘Preliminary Report: State visit to China’, 13 October 1980. 131 KNA, ABM/2/3133/91/01, ‘Protocol to the Agreement concerning Economic and Technical Cooperation between Kenya and PRC’, 10 December 1964. 128

137

138

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

be procured locally, except for those required for acupuncture.132 As we have seen in Chapter 3, Chinese medical teams often ran into legal complications in Africa. Kenya adopted a stringent position, especially on the issue of financial responsibility:

If this is a technical assistance programme, then the Kenya Government would only be expected to pay local salaries according to the qualification of the doctors that come. We do not need interpreters, cooks and drivers. We shall expect the doctors to be able to communicate directly with their professional colleagues. The language in our hospital[s] is English.133

By contrast, Zambia tended to bend towards the Chinese ways of doing things for the sake of the two countries’ political friendship. This probably explains why Chinese medical teams, largely independent of Zambia’s official health service, have left a deeper and more enduring impact in Zambia than in Kenya. Mr Bwalya, who was Director of the Health Professions Council of Zambia at the time of interview, told me that a memorandum of understanding applied to Chinese doctors who came to Zambia under the government-to-government agreement, which in practice meant legal exemption from Zambian regulations, enabling them to operate autonomously.134 In preparation for Chinese Vice Premier Li Xiannian’s visit to Zambia in January 1979, the Asian Affairs Desk of Zambia’s Foreign Ministry prepared a brief for President Kaunda, which addressed the significance of aid and economic cooperation in recent Sino-Zambia relations. Amid the crisis caused by the closure of Zambia’s border with Rhodesia in January 1973, the Chinese government had offered ‘a grant of ZMK 6.4 million plus fifty-seven trucks with ‘an estimated value of ZMK 170,000’, a level of support unmatched by any other country. In 1979, China was about to begin work on the construction of UNIP’s new headquarters as well as a textile mill in Kabwe. At the same time, the brief expressed concern about China’s recent alliance with the Western world, and cast Sino-Soviet competition in Africa in a negative light as driven by a thirst for raw materials and strategic manipulation.135 As illustrated in Chapter 2, China’s aid projects to Africa usually took the form of ‘turn-key’ projects. After the financing and physical construction stages, China would pass these ready-made projects to national governments for operation. The Mulungushi textile plant in Kabwe was a typical example. After five years of construction (including one KNA, ABM/17/65, ‘Draft Kenya/China Protocol’, December 1980. Ibid. 134 Interview with Mr Bwalya, Director of the Health Professions Council of Zambia, Lusaka, 16 August 2017. 135 UNIP Lusaka, 7/23/65, ‘Brief on the PRC on the Occasion of the Visit of the Chinese Vice Premier Li Hsien-Nien from 12th January to 16th January, 1979’. 132

133

Transition and Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

year’s delay) financed by a GBP £11.17 million interest-free loan from China, the completed mill was handed over to the Zambian Defence Ministry in October 1983.136 Thereafter, the mill received a steady flow of supplies including raw materials and spares, as well as technical know-how, from China, but later ran into technical and operational difficulties. As the two largest textile mills in Zambia, Kafue Textiles and Mulungushi Textiles catered for 80 per cent of the domestic market’s needs In 1985, however, Minister of Commerce and Industry L.S. Subulwa wrote to Prime Minister Kebby Musokotwane to inform him of their limited spinning and weaving capacities. Subulwa reported that an additional 26.4 million square metres of textile output were needed to meet Zambia’s annual demand for fabric. In recognition of the financial difficulties facing the parastatal sector, Subulwa suggested that new textile factories should be introduced through the private sector.137 Mr Kayumba, a technician in 1980 and Assistant to Managing Director of Mulungushi Textiles from 2011, later recalled that the plant ran well in the first decade, but production stagnated from 1980 onwards. The plant’s technology was not advanced enough to compete with its Tanzanian counterparts and it eventually closed down in 1994.138 Kayumba’s mixed feelings towards Chinese aid were a sentiment shared by many Zambians: while grateful for the assistance, there remained anxiety over the two countries’ unequal relations. While the ideological and political significance of the TAZARA railway has been discussed widely in the literature on Sino-Zambian relations, its failure to achieve its stated aim of transporting Zambian copper exports has been largely overlooked. Jamie Monson, however, has analysed the uneven levels of success of the ‘ordinary train’ since its completion in 1975. Between 1975 and 1985, TAZARA suffered from ‘technological malfunctions and management failures’, worsened by Zambia’s increasing political and economic crises.139 A major complaint against the Chinese was the poor quality of imported railway engines and wagons that frequently broke down. As early as 1970, Zambian Ambassador to China Philemon N’goma expressed his concerns about the rapidity of Chinese construction: 136 Grayson Koyi, ‘The Textile and Clothing Industry in Zambia’, in Herbert Jauch and Rudolf Traub-Merz (eds), The Future of the Textile and Clothing Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2006), p. 269. 137 ZNA, ITD/102/63/35, ‘Mulungushi Textiles Zambia Ltd’, 1985, ‘Possibility of Expanding and Improving Spinning and Weaving Capacities at Kafue and Mulungushi Textiles’, 28 August 1985. 138 Interview with Mr Kayumba, Assistant to Managing Director of Mulungushi Textiles, Lusaka, August 2016. 139 Jamie Monson, Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese Development Project Changed Lives and Livelihoods in Tanzania (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), p. 101.

139

140

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Finishing a piece of job ahead of schedule is one thing and producing work of a high standard at the same time is another. For this reason, it seems necessary, if it is not already too late, to ensure that strict commercial and international practice is adhered to.140

N’goma was equally concerned about the true intentions behind China’s provision of interest-free loans:

After all the sums of money involved are large and while we appreciate the assistance in making it possible for us to obtain the loan, we will have to pay back the money. We must get our money’s worth. It would be tragic for us to begin repairs in the first year or two of the completion of a project. The Chinese themselves are very strict on what they consider to be in their best interest.141

In N’goma’s opinion, the loan was rooted in the ‘feelings and convenience’ of the Chinese, not those of Zambians. This emphasis on standards and qualities being imposed by the Chinese appears in numerous documents. The ostensibly generous Chinese offer, while appreciated for the solidarity it represented, was regarded by many Zambians as inferior to those from the West. Unlike national leaders who prioritised political friendship over the economic specifics, N’goma’s voice can be taken to represent those lower-level Zambian officials who stressed, perhaps unsuccessfully, the more problematic entailments. Learning from China’s own mistakes when following the Soviet model of ‘big, foreign, and complete’, Mao had directed that foreign assistance to Africa needed to achieve ‘greater, faster, better and more economical results’.142 But in practice, the emphasis on speed of delivery over quality and sustainability was not a problem unique to Mao-era China. Such complaints continued to appear during the reform era and are, indeed, a common characterisation of Chinese aid to Africa to this day. The operation of the TAZARA railway, adversely affected by the reopening of the southern rail route connecting Zambia through Rhodesia to the South African ports in 1978, faced an increasingly bleak outlook from the early 1980s.143 Prior to Premier Zhao’s 1982 tour, Zambia requested that China reschedule the TAZARA loan and debt repayments ‘as a matter of dire necessity arising out of circumstances beyond the control of [the] Zambian and Tanzanian governments’.144 According ZNA, MFA1/1/348, ‘Zambia/Tanzania Rail Link’, 1970, ‘Letter from P. Ng’oma to Minister of Power, Transport and Works’, April 1970. 141 Ibid. 142 Jiang, ‘A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978’, p. 104. 143 Monson, Africa’s Freedom Railway, p. 101. 144 ZNA, MCT 2/9/010, ‘Tripartite Meetings of the Tanzania’s, Zambian’s & the Chinese’ [sic], 1980–1989, ‘Brief on the PRC for Use by KK, on the Occasion of the Visit to Zambia by the Chinese PM, Zhao Ziyang’, 30 December 1982. 140

Zambia’s Foreign Policy and its Relations with China, 1965–1974

to its Ministry of Power, Transport and Communications, three factors had contributed to the unsatisfactory performance of TAZARA and its failure to generate sufficient revenue: the defectiveness of Chinese locomotives, the destruction of bridges due to Rhodesian military action, and torrential rainfall in Tanzania. The Chinese officials did not accept this argument. When meeting Zambian Ambassador Mwondela in May 1983, Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade Lu Xuejian blamed the predicament on Zambia’s reliance on the southern route for most of her imports and exports, despite the expanded cargo capacity of the port at Dar es Salaam. Feeling betrayed by their Tanzanian colleagues for supplying the Chinese with ‘this misinformation’, Zambian officials thereupon complained about the lack of effective coordination between the two neighbouring countries.145 The uneven rhetoric of solidarity, which included disagreements between Tanzanian and Zambian officials, would continue into the 1990s.

Conclusion

Kenya’s and Zambia’s relations with China in the last two decades of the Cold War were both affected by and demonstrated the profound changes in both domestic and international politics during this period. China’s foreign policy towards Africa during the reform era was becoming increasingly pragmatic, a move that was made clear by Premier Zhao Ziyang during his 1982–83 tour of African countries. As China’s international outlook shifted from Soviet alignment to a Western orientation, its self-professed leadership in the ‘Third World’ also encountered considerable challenges. In the second half of the 1970s, Kenya’s political marginalisation of Communist China started to thaw in light of the latter’s ideological shift from radical communism to a tacit diplomatic alliance with the West. Kenya’s new generation of leadership under President Moi engaged positively with China’s reform agenda and initiated bilateral collaboration based on material benefit, thereby exhibiting a significant degree of continuity with Kenya’s earlier position towards China in the early post-independence period. It could even be argued that given Kenya’s more-or-less consistent foreign policy, it was in fact China’s position that had come into line with that of Kenya. As for Zambia’s relations with Communist China in this same period, these, while certainly closer, were more complicated and sometimes contradictory. China’s Maoist model, which had once been used as a key reference in UNIP’s pursuit of sustained economic development under 145 UNIP Lusaka, 7/23/99, ‘Peking-China’, 1983, ‘Correspondence from Shonga to Goma’, June 1983.

141

142

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

the leadership of a one-party state, lost credit by the end of the 1970s with the launch of China’s grand reform strategy. Accordingly, competing southern African liberation movements and the choice of which to support threatened the two countries’ declared ‘brotherhood’, while tensions arose when China’s construction of the ‘Uhuru’ Railway failed to deliver economic results sufficient to repay the debt burden incurred by Zambia. By historicising and disaggregating Kenya’s and Zambia’s relations with China, this chapter has transcended the tokenistic approach inherent to discussions of African agency in much of the existing literature on China-Africa relations, and demonstrated how ideology-driven political friendships posed risks for bilateral relations in a fast-changing and unpredictable international environment.

5 China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

China’s rhetoric on its involvement with Africa has retained substantial continuities with the Maoist past, when virtually every other aspect of Maoism has been officially repudiated.1 Julia Strauss, 2009

In the last decade, based on a reductionist framework of ‘China in Africa’, politicians, journalists, and academics alike have deployed the rhetoric of a Chinese ‘scramble for Africa’, ‘empire’ building, or simply neocolonialism, to characterise what is a much more complex relationship. This vast body of literature, while demonstrating China’s renewed interest in Africa, has a striking tendency to engage simplistically with the historical aspects of this complex relationship. Most recently, Ching Kwan Lee has proposed that the unavoidable, spontaneous series of ‘events’ related to ‘China in Africa’ are embedded in powerful self-­ reinforcing logic and an abstract temporality of capitalism. 2 But does this momentous global China involve the expansion of capital alone? If capitalism has become one agent of change, so have ‘non-­ interference, mutuality, friendship, non-conditional aid and analogous suffering at the hands of imperialism’. 3 China’s renewed economic interest in Africa, while certainly driven by its own ‘variety of capital’, co-exists with other historical orbits.4 This chapter will analyse the – often blurred – boundaries between ‘Communist China’ and the capital-­d riven global China within the official rhetoric of China-Africa relations. Three key sectors (mining, health, and construction) will be discussed with reference to specific projects: Chinese copper mining in Zambia, Chinese medical practices in both Kenya and Zambia, and the recent Chinese-built Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). 1 Julia C. Strauss, ‘The Past in the Present: Historical and Rhetorical Lineages in China’s Relations with Africa’, The China Quarterly 199 (2009), p. 777. 2 Ching Kwan Lee, The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor, and Foreign Investment in Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017). 3 Strauss, ‘The Past in the Present’, p. 777. 4 Peter A. Hall and David W. Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

144

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

It is evident that in all these cases the historical legacies of brotherhood and solidarity have remained, despite the dominant contemporary narratives which have come to surround China’s capitalist expansion. In a nutshell, one could say that there is a significant degree of hybridity between ‘capitalism goes global’ and ‘socialism goes global’. Indeed, the hybridity between ‘centralised control’ and ‘decentralised improvisation’ determines the nature of Chinese state company operations in Africa. 5 This chapter diverges from the previous chapters: its goal is to articulate the meaning of this recent past through the lens of present-day narrators. A wide range of Chinese, Kenyan, and Zambian actors exhibit the strong tendency to narrate the past in the service of a particular reading of the present, as they reproduce and reconstruct historical narratives surrounding China-Africa relations in the new millennium.

The End of the Cold War, Africa’s Liberalisation, and China’s Alternativeness

China’s engagement with the African continent suddenly became visible in 2000. In that year, China established a multilateral platform for exchanges and cooperation with African countries that have formal diplomatic relationships with China. The stated aims of the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) are the strengthening of friendly relations and cooperation, dealing with the challenges of economic globalisation, and seeking mutual development.6 But this state endorsement of the fast-growing economic relations is more aptly understood as the result of structural changes in both Africa and China in the late 1980s and early 1990s. From soon after independence until the late 1980s, African politics was generally characterised by one-party states, dictatorships, and military regimes. Opposition parties were excluded from elections, while ruling parties tightened their control over almost every aspect of society and deployed national resources in their own interests. However, between 1989 and 1994, thirty-five sub-Saharan African countries, including both Zambia and Kenya, reintroduced liberal democracy and market reform.7 In Zambia, the Movement for Multi-­ Lee, The Specter of Global China, p. 5. ‘中非合作论坛’ [Forum on China-Africa Cooperation], FOCAC official website, www.focac.org/chn/ltjj/ltjz, accessed on 23 June 2018. 7 Nicholas Cheeseman, Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 86. 5 6

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

Party Democracy (MMD) mounted a successful challenge to UNIP’s supreme authority and led Zambia under President Frederick Chiluba from 1991 to 2001.8 Between 2001 and 2008, however, there was outcry over the MMD repeating ‘the worst practices of the ousted regime’, and it was not until the success of Michael Sata’s Patriotic Front (PF) in the 2011 elections that the country’s democratic gains were further consolidated. During his election campaigns, Sata frequently criticised poor labour relations in foreign mining firms, the Chinese ones in particular, and was successful in turning populist demands into popular support.9 Sata’s death in 2014 put power in the hands of Edgar Lungu, who won a presidential by-election in 2015 and then again in the 2016 general election, beating Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development (UPND). Despite the anti-Chinese campaigns of 2011, the PF governments under both Sata and Lungu essentially maintained their predecessors’ liberal economic policy in order to encourage foreign investment. In Kenya, the authoritarian rule of KANU’s President Daniel arap Moi came under attack and multi-party elections were held in 1992.10 The opposition performed well and its leader Mwai Kibaki eventually replaced Moi in 2001. The democratic transition took longer in Kenya than in Zambia and unfolded in a more ambiguous manner. Putting KANU’s experience in exploiting societal divisions to retain power to use, the man hand-picked by Moi for his successor as party leader was Uhuru Kenyatta, son of the country’s first president. Kenyan political parties struggled to maintain unity, and eventually Raila Odinga (son of Oginga Odinga) of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) emerged as a strong opponent of Kibaki in the 2007 elections. Although Kibaki was declared winner of the presidential contest, the opposition parties won a majority in the National Assembly. Accusations of electoral fraud led to violence that left around 1,000 dead. The violence ended only with a power-sharing agreement whereby Odinga became Prime Minister. The most recent two elections in 2013 and 2017 were contested between Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga, giving many what Paul Nugent called ‘a strong sense of history repeating itself’.11 In 8 Shadrack Wanjala Nasong’o, Contending Political Paradigms in Africa: Rationality and the Politics of Democratization in Kenya and Zambia (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 5. 9 For a study of anti-Chinese populism, see Steve Hess and Richard Aidoo, ‘Charting the Roots of Anti-Chinese Populism in Africa: A Comparison of Zambia and Ghana’, Journal of Asian and African Studies 49, 2 (2014), pp. 1–19. 10 Cheeseman, Democracy in Africa, p. 102. 11 Paul Nugent, Africa since Independence: A Comparative History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 411.

145

146

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

both Zambia and Kenya, political dissent was the major driver of radical change in their national and foreign agendas. Meanwhile, in the former communist states of Europe and Asia, new governments sought to create free market-oriented capitalist economies, a transitional process that is often called ‘post-communism’.12 Having opened up its own national economy as early as the late 1970s, the Chinese government introduced the ‘Go Out’ policy in 1999 that urged Chinese firms, mostly state-owned enterprises (SOEs), to take advantage of increasingly globalised world trade to invest in new markets. Unlike Central and Eastern Europe, however, China did not democratise in 1989.13 It is precisely this ‘abnormal’ experience of dual liberalisation that characterised its ‘return’ to Africa.14 Once driven by a pronounced socialist political agenda, China’s renewed interests in Africa have since been directed towards a search for economic profits and resources. Since the turn of the millennium, China has been Africa’s largest economic partner. China-Africa trade has grown by approximately 20 per cent per year since 2000. It is estimated that Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Africa has grown from nearly zero to approximately US $50 billion in a decade.15 Africa’s construction sector has been the largest recipient of Chinese finance in recent years. In retrospect, the years surrounding 1990 marked a watershed in history. The world was preoccupied with a strong sense of historical determinism on account of the Western victory at the end of the Cold War, with Francis Fukuyama going so far as to declare that the advent of Western liberal democracy signalled the endpoint of humanity’s sociocultural evolution and the final form of human government.16 12 Jeffrey C. Isaac, ‘Communism, Post-Communism, and Democracy’, Perspectives on Politics 15, 2 (2017), pp. 317–27. 13 Yanlai Wang, Aimin Chen, and Shunfeng Song, China’s Economic Development and Democratization (London: Routledge, 2016). 14 Chris Alden, Daniel Large, and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, ‘Introduction: China Returns to Africa’ in Chris Alden, Daniel Large, and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa: A Rising Power and A Continent Embrace (London: Hurst and Co., 2008), p. 6. 15 The trade and investment figures cited here are derived from International Trade Centre (ITC) Trade Map; the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD); ‘2015 Statistical Bulletin of China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment’, Ministry of Commerce of the PRC; National Bureau of Statistics of the PRC; and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. Unless otherwise stated, the cited increases are in nominal terms. See Irene Yuan Sun, Kartik Jayaram, and Omid Kassiri, ‘Dance of the Lions and Dragons: How Are Africa and China Engaging, and How Will the Partnership Evolve?’ McKinsey & Company, June 2017. 16 Francis Fukuyama, ‘The End of History?’ The National Interest 16 (1989), pp. 3–18.

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

African intellectuals also acknowledged the significance of this historical watershed, yet came up with a different answer. According to Bethwell Ogot:

In East Asia, a new type of history was in the making which showed that just as cultural nationalism helped end the era of formal colonialism, it might still play a part in resisting dominant global orders. They chose to build the present on the foundations of the past. They argued that unlike the West, where the individual is the centre piece of a democracy that is intended to disempower government, in East Asia the tradition is one of respect for authority with the individual under strong obligation to the group.17

If there were a choice to be ‘between the past and the present’, Ogot believes that the East Asian model, promoted above all by China, is probably more suitable for Africa. China’s ability to achieve economic success while maintaining its ‘supposed’ political tradition in the past few decades has effectively challenged the Western norm, thereby providing an ‘alternative’ path of governance and development for the post-Cold War global South.

The Past in the Present

To solve the ‘puzzle’ implicit in the Strauss quote that begins this chapter, that is, why Chinese rhetoric on Africa retained substantial continuities with the Maoist past, this chapter examines the deployment of historical discourses by actors working in or in relation to three specific cases of Sino-African cooperation from the mid-2010s until the outbreak of the COVID-19 global pandemic: Chinese copper mining in Zambia, Chinese medical practices in Kenya and Zambia, and the Chinese-built Mombasa-Nairobi SGR. These cases represent just three of the myriad examples of contemporary relations between China and Africa, between Chinese and Africans, and have been selected due to the fact that each illustrates the relevance of historical discourse in the present, yet does so for different reasons and to varied effects. Given that China’s economic ventures in Africa are often said to be propelled by a thirst for natural resources such as oil and minerals, copper mining in Zambia presents us with the ideal context through which to understand the dynamics between global capital and the local geopolitics it inhabits.18 Revisiting the prevailing resource nationalism discourse, 17 Bethwell Allan Ogot, Who, If Anyone, Owns the Past? Reflections on the Meaning of ‘Public History’ (Kisumu: Anyange Press Ltd, 2010), p. 227. 18 For studies of China’s resource diplomacy in Africa, see: Marcus Power, Giles Mohan, and May Tan-Mullins, China’s Resource Diplomacy in Africa: Powering Development? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Pádraig Carmody and

147

148

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

this chapter illustrates the multifaceted engagements between Chinese investors and Zambian workers, both of whose expectations have been greatly influenced by China’s historical presence in Zambia. China’s contemporary aid to Africa, which has generated an enormous amount of interest from the press and academics alike, is distinct from conventional Western practices because of its lack of a central state development agency and its distinctive definition of aid. The provision of medical teams on two-year missions is an enduring example of official aid with ‘Chinese characteristics’: its survival of the upheavals of extreme leftism in the 1970s makes this China’s longest-running aid programme. It engages with the largest number of foreign countries and has arguably been the most effective of all.19 Since 2000, many Chinese doctors have opened private clinics or pharmacies at the end of their official mission. Through their interactions with local medical institutions, practitioners, and even patients, this group of Chinese professionals has much to contribute to our understanding of Sino-African knowledge transfer as it has withstood both the socialist and post-socialist periods and continued to evolve throughout these years. China is without doubt the single largest bilateral infrastructure financier in Africa, with an astonishing US $21 billion spent on infrastructure in 2015. This is more than the combined total of the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa, whose members include the African Development Bank, the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank, and the Group of Eight (G8) countries.20 For the Mombasa-Nairobi railway, China EXIM Bank financed more than 90 per cent of the total cost of US $3.2 billion. As Kenya’s single largest infrastructure project since independence, the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR has become a flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a development strategy involving infrastructure and investment in countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa under the current President Xi Jinping. More than sixty years after the completion of the TAZARA railway, China is building a number of railway projects across the continent. But this time, they are no longer driven by socialist solidarity. Ian Taylor, ‘Flexigemony and Force in China’s Resource Diplomacy in Africa: Sudan and Zambia Compared’, Geopolitics 15, 3 (2010), pp. 496–515. 19 Huajie Jiang, ‘冷战时期中国对非洲国家的援助研究 (1960–1978)’ [A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978] (East China Normal University, 2014), p. 201. 20 Sun, Jayaram, and Kassiri, ‘Dance of the Lions and Dragons’, pp. 23–4. For more on the Infrastructure Consortium, see their official website at: www. icafrica.org/en.

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

The Deployment of History in the Exploitation of Minerals – A Benign Past for a Promised Future

The dramatic transformations that have taken place on the Zambian Copperbelt span both colonial and postcolonial history and have provided fertile soil for the deployment of the past in political and social discourse. This, the backbone of the Zambian economy, was a hotbed of anticolonial agitation and, following independence, the focus of national development efforts.21 However, by the time the China Non-ferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co. successfully gained control of the Chambishi mine in 1998, Zambia’s copper industry was, after decades of losses and decline, being revitalised through neoliberal reform and privatisation under the MMD. However, two decades after Zambia’s mines landed once again in private hands, Copperbelt residents’ collective memories of the heyday of corporate paternalism under state control refused to fade, and communities continued to express nostalgically shaped expectations when it came to the supposed obligations of foreign mining companies. While this type of expectation, identified by James Ferguson, often contradicted modernisation theory approaches, 22 the continued prevalence of unmet expectations can be discerned in the popular argument that foreign mine companies are ‘exploiting’ Zambia. This found particular expression in the Patriotic Front’s election campaigns of the 2000s, articulated through its pledge to strengthen indigenous actors in national economy.23 ‘Zambian mines for Zambians’, an easy claim for an opposition party to make, has in practice proven a difficult promise to keep. For the mining communities of the Copperbelt, the late-colonial and early independence period is recalled nostalgically as a time when the mining industry was able to provide support for society as a whole. As a senior officer from the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia, the oldest and most influential African trade union in the mining sector, told me: The role of copper in this country must be one that directly supports other industries … The mining sector should provide capital for the

21 Miles Larmer, ‘Historical Perspectives on Zambia’s Mining Booms and Busts’, in Alastair Fraser and Miles Larmer (eds), Zambia, Mining, and Neo­liberalism: Boom and Bust on the Globalized Copperbelt (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 33. 22 James Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 14. 23 Peter Kragelund, ‘Bringing “Indigenous” Ownership Back: Chinese Presence and the Citizen Economic Empowerment Commission in Zambia’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 50 (2012), p. 457.

149

150

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

generational growth of business around it. Without that, at the end of day, we have nothing to show to our investors. 24

Unlike other natural resources such as forests that can be regenerated, mineral reserves are one-use resources whose extraction is dependent on technology not usually manufactured in the countries in which the reserves are found. It therefore necessitates not only the transportation of machinery but also the international transfer of technological capabilities and intellectual capital. The political landscape of mining in Zambia after privatisation has been affected by competition between foreign companies, each of which not only strives for profit but also seeks favourability in the global and local discourses in which their behaviours are debated, criticised, and justified. One prominent feature in my interviews with government officials, unionists, and NGO representatives about Chinese mining activities in 2014 was the dominance of comparisons whereby interviewees highlighted the differences between ‘the Chinese way of doing things’ and the activities of other copper mines. For example, in March 2014, the Indian-owned Konkola Copper Mines Plc (KCM) was the subject of great controversy in Zambia for threatening to dismiss 1,500 workers, which led it to become a popular target for such comparisons in everyday conversation.25 The Chinese director who oversaw investment in the Zambia-China Economic & Trade Cooperation Zone (ZCCZ), ‘the first Chinese overseas economic and trade cooperation zone established in Africa’, 26 recalled that in November 2013 President Sata had threatened to expel KCM from Zambia. In this regard, the Chinese director implied that Chinese companies could stay in the Zambian government’s good books by keeping a low profile.27 Since the purported reason for laying off 1,500 Zambian workers was ‘decreased copper grades at some of its mines’, people’s perceptions of the present were easily affected by their 24 Interview with Charles B. Muchimba, Director of Research and Information, Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia (MUZ), Kitwe, 28 March 2014. 25 ‘ZCTU [The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions] is Disappointed with the Happenings at the Konkola Copper Mines’, Lusaka Times, 22 March 2014, www.lusakatimes.com/2014/03/22/zctu-disappointed-happenings-konkolacopper-mines, accessed on 1 May 2014. This planned dismissal announced by Vedanta Resources Limited was nominally to cut down on labour costs and increase profitability, but a leaked video revealed that the past audit reports had been doctored. See: ‘Zambia’s Curse of Abundance: Of Copper Mines and Taxes’, Lusaka Times, 21 May 2014, www.lusakatimes.com/2014/05/21/ zambias-curse-abundance-copper-mines-taxes, accessed on 1 May 2014. 26 ‘About ZCCZ’, Zambia-China Economic & Trade Cooperation Zone official website, http://zccz.cnmc.com.cn/outlineentem.jsp?outlinetype=2&column_ no=071002, accessed in March 2019. 27 Interview with an anonymous investment director of ZCCZ, Lusaka, 23 March 2014.

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

memories of the past.28 The Indian ownership of KCM was frequently highlighted by the representatives of other companies as a negative example. On the subject of foreign mining investors, the ZCCZ spokesperson claimed that Indians ‘didn’t do as much as the Chinese have done’.29 His characterisation of the Chinese as being ‘simple, down to earth’ was explained as an appreciation for ‘some parts of Communism from our old Chairman Mao’, including the pursuit of equality, portrayed as a communistic approach inherited by his Chinese colleagues. 30 This spokesman’s dual identity as a retired Zambian politician and a current employee of a Chinese company demonstrates the significance of the historical ‘friendship’ between China and Zambia in shaping more recent political debates. Regardless of whether the manner in which Chinese officials treated Zambian labourers could actually be called ‘comradely’ or not, Chinese investors were most clearly distinguished from others by their historically Communist identity, a heritage inherited by successive generations. Another way in which historical China-Zambia relations are deployed in the mining industry concerns perceptions of the goodwill shown by Chinese investors in their willingness to learn from their Zambian ‘teachers’. A senior Zambian engineer working for the Mineworkers Safety Department of the Ministry of Mines, Energy and Water Development recalled his experience working with the Chinese CEO of Chambishi mine, who took his advice to dig a channel between two underground layers in the mine to allow fresh air to flow downwards. 31 He stressed that while foreign media took the accidental explosion at Chambishi in 2005 as evidence of Chinese neglect, the mine’s CEO had always been highly responsive to his demands. 32 Contrary to the archival evidence of Chinese technical and military experts mentoring Zambians, 33 the former were described as diligent students who learnt ‘KCM Defies Sata’, Lusaka Times, 7 November 2013, www.lusakatimes. com/2013/11/07/kcm-defies-sata/, accessed on 1 May 2014. 29 Interview with Steven Lindunda, Zambian spokesperson for the ZambiaChina Economic & Trade Cooperation Zone, Kitwe, 31 March 2014. 30 Ibid. 31 Interview with Labson Chinyamuka, Senior mining engineer of the Zambian Mineworkers Safety Department, Kitwe, 6 April 2014. 32 This accident was covered widely in both the Chinese and international media, see: ‘37 Killed in Factory Explosion in Zambia’, Xinhua, 21 April 2005, http://china.org.cn/english/international/126486.htm, accessed on 5 May 2014; ‘Dozens Killed in Zambia Explosion’, BBC, 21 April 2005, http://news. bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4466321.stm, accessed on 5 May 2014; ‘Blast at Zambia Copper Mine Kills 46’, The New Zealand Herald, 21 April 2005, www. nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10121648, accessed on 5 May 2014. 33 Philip Snow, The Star Raft: China’s Encounter with Africa (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988), p. 77; Richard Hall and Hugh Peyman, The Great Uhuru 28

151

152

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

from their mistakes and put effort into understanding Zambian government regulations. This characterisation was not exclusive to Zambian officials. The director of the leading environmental NGO on the Copperbelt summarised his extensive experience in dealing with the Chinese as ‘you get what you ask for’: one should not expect Chinese investors to be proactive in their measures to prevent environmental pollution, but as long as they are told to put measures in place, they are sure to comply. 34 While it is impossible to definitively measure the extent to which nationalist nostalgia about Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) resonated with overseas operators, the willingness of Chinese mine investors, senior managers and engineers to take steps towards respecting the dignity, as well as the national pride, of their ‘Zambian friends’, has encouraged at least some of the latter to cautiously welcome the Chinese presence in Zambia. ‘When they came back, they are not strange. They were there before’. 35 This remark on the Chinese presence in Zambia came from Billy Chewe of the Ministry of Mines. Once a mineworker for Chinese-­ owned contractors, he went on to be tasked with issuing contracts to bidding companies. While the TAZARA railway was by the 1980s no longer economically salient with regard to the transportation of Zambian export copper, the political footprints left by the Chinese four decades prior continued to influence Zambian perceptions of this (re-)encounter with the Chinese as something familiar. ‘Raw encounters’ with ‘a cadre of Chinese managers’ proved a heavy blow for many Zambian workers, who for all their nostalgic ideas of socialist friendship were instead confronted with nothing but ‘a compelling and effective conduit of capitalism in Africa’. 36 Criticism of Chinese state-owned mining companies for paying salaries lower than the minimum wage, or forcing local miners to work under unsafe conditions, or refusing to respond to complaints issued collectively by workers, peaked in a 2011 Human Rights Watch Report. 37 ‘You’ll be fired if you refuse’ became a popular phrase, encapsulating the coercive attitude of Chinese companies towards their Zambian employees. Railway: China’s Showpiece in Africa (London: Gollancz, 1976), pp. 87–106. 34 Interview with Peter Sinkamba, Executive Director of Citizens for a Better Environment, Kitwe, 4 April 2014. 35 Interview with Billy Chewe, Chief Mining Engineer of Zambian Ministry of Mines, Energy and Water Development, Lusaka, 8 April 2014. 36 Ching Kwan Lee, ‘Raw Encounters: Chinese Managers, African Workers and the Politics of Casualization in Africa’s Chinese Enclaves’, The China Quarterly 199 (2009), p. 652. 37 Human Rights Watch, ‘“You’ll Be Fired if You Refuse”: Labor Abuses in Zambia’s Chinese State-owned Copper Mines’, 4 November 2011, www.hrw. org/reports/2011/11/04/you-ll-be-fired-if-you-refuse, accessed on 2 January 2014.

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

From that point on, views became more mixed as to whether the Chinese were the ‘worst employers’ on the Copperbelt and in Zambia more broadly. Much emphasis was placed on the Chinese side’s interpretations of legal requirements. 38 A labour relations inspector reported (anonymously) that in general Chinese companies would comply with national legislation on minimum wages and conditions of services, but ignored collective agreements reached between companies and trade unions or written contracts with individual employees. 39 Chinese companies thus obeyed those laws with potential to cause political disputes, yet remained indifferent to the demands of unions and workers. One illustrative example was the right of workers to attend funerals. The Minimum Wages and Conditions of Employment Act required all employers to pay a funeral grant of ZMK 50,000 ZMK (equivalent to US $9.50 in 2013) ‘in the event of the death of an employee, spouse or registered child’.40 In a standard working contract used by Chinese companies, the funeral assistance was ten times greater than the amount legally required.41 Chinese managers likely presumed Zambian workers would be pleased with such a generous offer, but as it happened, it was common to hear complaints about Zambians being prevented from attending a relative’s funeral.42 A Ministry of Labour official asserted that paid leave of at least five days to mourn the death of a biological child, parent, or spouse was ‘common practice’ in Zambia, a ‘provision’ that should be obeyed.43 In her comparative studies of the managerial ethos in Chinese state capital and global private capital in Zambia, Ching Kwan Lee pointed out that the characteristically Chinese discourse of ‘eating bitterness’ (chi ku 吃苦), that is, accepting and putting up with the hardships entailed by life or work, was common among all Chinese expatriates 38 Yan Hairong and Barry Sautman, ‘“The Beginning of a World Empire”? Contesting the Discourse of Chinese Copper Mining in Zambia’, Modern China 39, 2 (2013), pp. 131–64; Deborah Brautigam, ‘Are the Chinese the Worst? A Comparative ILO Study in Zambia’, China in Africa: The Real Story, 26 April 2012, www.chinaafricarealstory.com/2012/04/are-chinese-worst-comparative-ilostudy.html, accessed on 13 May 2014; Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong, The Chinese Are the Worst? Human Rights and Labor Practices in Zambian Mining (Baltimore: University of Maryland School of Law, 2012). 39 Interview with anonymous labour relations officer, Zambian Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Lusaka, April 10, 2014. 40 Note that the currency code for the Zambian kwacha changed on 1 January 2013 from ZMK to ZMW and the currency value was divided by 1,000. Zambian Ministry of Labour and Social Security, The Minimum Wages and Conditions of Employment Act, Chapter 276, Act No. 25 of 1982 (Lusaka: 1994). 41 Offer of Employment on Contract (Kitwe: Zambia China Economic & Trade Cooperation Zone Development Ltd, 2013). 42 Interview with anonymous labour relations officer. 43 Ibid.

153

154

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

but institutionalised to a greater extent in the state-owned firms: ‘Reinforced by the state discourse of China’s victimization by the West, Chinese managers drew moral and nationalistic boundaries with the eating bitterness rhetoric and glossed over the class exploitation inflicted on them by state capital.’44 Those Zambian workers who had managed to internalise some elements of this were likely to enjoy a more promising career trajectory.45 Rather than coercing their employees to follow instructions, Kevin Zhang from the Human Resources Department of ZCCZ argued that more flexible measures had proved to be of greater use in managing Zambian workers – for example, incentive awards for the prevention of theft and rolling one-year contracts to sustain a so-called ‘sense of crisis’.46 As noted, Zambians tended to draw historical comparisons in their assessment of Chinese contracts of employment. For some Zambians, Chinese-Zambian labour relations during the construction of TAZARA were not adversely affected by the high unemployment rates of recent times; back then it was (supposedly) more difficult to fire someone and replace them with a new employee in possession of similar skills or experience.47 But these ideas, which spring from the difference between state and market economies, were refuted by a Chief Mining Engineer with prior experience of working for Chinese. To his mind, China’s historical presence in the country was ‘not very integrated’ and it was this more than anything else that limited the likelihood of labour disputes between Chinese employers and Zambian workers.48 Regardless of historical accuracy, it is clear that labour relations born of Chinese companies in Zambia transcended the information in written documents to carry broader and deeper cultural and historical meanings. In my interviews with Chinese actors, a strong sense of victimhood reinforced by widespread political and media hostility clearly played an important role in their self-identity. Former Chinese Ambassador to Zambia Zhou Yuxiao told me: ‘Mining in Zambia has a history of one hundred years, while China has only been involved for ten years, occupying only 5 per cent of the total production. If you have to ask China to admit her mistakes, then we are only responsible for 5 per cent of the Lee, The Specter of Global China, p. 122. Interview with Sande Ngalande, Zambian director of the University of Zambia Confucius Institute, Lusaka, 28 March 2014; Interview with an anonymous construction headman for a Chinese construction company in ZCCZ, Kitwe, 5 April 2014; Interview with Steven Lindunda. 46 Interview with Kevin Zhang, Human Resources director of the ZambiaChina Economic & Trade Cooperation Zone, Kitwe, 5 April 2014. 47 Interview with Martin Chembe, Public Relations Officer of the Zambian Congress of Trade Unions, Lusaka, 21 March 2014. 48 Interview with Billy Chewe, Lusaka, 21 March 2014. 44 45

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

mistakes of the last ten years’.49 The Western colonisation of Zambia as a historical moral wrong was articulated by Chinese officials to emphasise their ‘only recent’ involvement in mining activities compared to their ‘Western’ counterparts, despite the fact that many of these, such as those Canadian or Australian companies, bore no direct ties to Zambia’s colonial past. In contrast, history is deployed in a positive manner when the ‘past’ involved could be considered benign. The provision of non-conditional aid, such as the TAZARA project, and the ostensible personal friendship of early national leaders, were invoked as two pieces of historical heritage that helped China and Zambia to overcome political difficulties. 50 While the professional vocation of politicians shapes their reliance on historical legacies to deal with contemporary foreign affairs, their personal memories, sometimes deployed unconsciously, may have often been shaped by their recollections of the past. The deployment of nostalgic rhetoric about the supposed certainties of the early years of Zambian independence was widespread, and China’s friendship with Zambia was seen as one constituent element of this. Likewise, the Chinese view of Sata’s government was influenced by nostalgic perceptions of China’s close relationship with Kaunda’s Zambia, whose shift from an anti-Chinese standpoint to its later, more approving attitude towards Chinese investment, was branded by two Chinese interviewees as ‘making the right choice at the crucial point’. 51 The feeling of betrayal as a result of Sata’s anti-Chinese campaign was widely prevalent among the Chinese community in Zambia and well beyond those affiliated to state-owned companies. Two Chinese private entrepreneurs, who had been doing business in Zambia for several decades, felt a strong sense of disappointment towards Sata’s government.52 Unlike the majority of Chinese cadres, who had been dispatched to work in Zambia only recently, these interviewees’ experience of the transfer of power in Zambian politics enabled them to view the former President through a historically comparative lens. Mr Roger Lee nostalgically recalled how, under Kaunda, Zambians had ‘put their 49 Interview with Yuxiao Zhou, Chinese Ambassador to Zambia at the time of interview, Lusaka, 20 March 2014. 50 ‘Ambassador Zhou Introducing the Outcomes of China-Zambia Cooperation to the Newly Appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of Zambia’, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Republic of Zambia, 7 March 2014, http:// zm.chineseembassy.org/chn/sbgx/zz/t1134858.htm, accessed on 15 April 2014. 51 Interview with Zhou Yuxiao; interview with an anonymous investment director. 52 Interview with Roger Lee, Vice President of the Association of Chinese Corporations in Zambia, Lusaka, 17 March 2014; interview with Liu Huihuang, Taiwanese/Chinese private mine owner, Kitwe, 5 April 2014.

155

156

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

thumbs up’ whenever they saw Chinese walking down the streets, despite the fact that they ‘didn’t really know China well’ beyond ‘some sort of non-conditional help offered by China’. 53 Having started his mining business in Zambia way back in 1997, Mr Liu was frustrated by the unfavourable views of the Chinese that had arisen as a result of the ‘vicious competition among ourselves’. 54 For both men, the expressions of anti-Chinese sentiment during the transition from MMD to PF were threatening to deteriorate into a prolonged diplomatic crisis, which may well have reversed the commonly perceived historical amicability of China-Zambia relations. Parallel to the evolving relations between Chinese and Zambian states ran general self-perceptions among the Chinese as victims of Western ‘media manipulation’. This sense of victimhood, best articulated by Beijing’s ‘century of humiliation’ discourse, resonated with Zambian nationalist nostalgia to evoke a ‘shared past’ whereby both countries had to fight against ‘Western imperialists’. 55 In addition, by highlighting Chinese humbleness in the face of the complexities of Zambian regimes’ regulations, and their characteristic work ethic in relation to the local employees, Chinese actors promised both themselves and Zambians a bright future which built upon the historical evolution of their foreign relations. At the April 2014 gala dinner celebrating the 50th anniversary of China-Zambia relations as well as the 90th birthday of Kenneth Kaunda, the general manager of China Non-ferrous Metal Mining Luo Tao declared, ‘As two important symbols of China-Zambia friendship, TAZARA represents the past and history, while CNMC represents the present and future’. 56 The anger of many Zambians towards irresponsible foreign investors profiting from their mineral wealth was inextricable from historically rooted expectations, in this case nostalgic memories of the nationalised ZCCM. Between 2011 and 2014, Mukela Muyunda was the CEO of ZCCM Investments Holdings Plc, the company that holds the state’s minority shares in privatised mining companies today. He complained that Chinese shareholders sometimes withheld relevant information in board meetings, something which never happened in dealings with other multinational mining companies. 57 While he speculated that the Interview with Roger Lee. Interview with Liu Huihuang. 55 ‘Ambassador Zhou Introducing the Outcomes of China-Zambia Cooperation’, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Republic of Zambia. 56 ‘Honour and Dream – A Historical Record of the Reform and Development of CNMC’, China Non-Ferrous Metal Newspaper, 4 July 2012, www.cnmc.com. cn/detail.jsp?article_millseconds=1341394055733&column_no=010305, accessed on 12 March 2014. 57 ZCCM Investments Holdings Plc, ‘Annual Report and Financial Statements for the Year Ended 31 March 2013’ (Lusaka: ZCCM-IH, 2014), p. 9. 53

54

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

reluctance of Chinese companies to improve was ‘maybe because they are protected at the government level’, he nevertheless maintained that moral persuasion could improve matters in the future because, ‘of course we want to maintain good relationships with each other’. 58 In retrospect, the difficulties experienced during the Chinese mining encounters with Zambia in the early 2010s have been largely contained by expectations for a promised future. And this promised future is rooted in nostalgic ideas of a better past. In April 2021, Lungu’s government took over the Anglo-Swiss Glencore-owned Mopani in the hope that the copper prices would remain high thanks to ‘strong Chinese demand for raw materials that has rebounded since the worst of the pandemic’. 59

Healthcare Cooperation in Transformation: From Medical Teams to Private Clinics

In 2013, the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV aired a special report to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Chinese medical teams (hereafter CMTs) in Africa. It reported that, since 1963, China had sent about 20,000 doctors to fifty-one countries in Africa, treated ‘hundreds of millions’ of African patients, and trained tens of thousands of African medical personnel.60 When attending the China-Africa Ministerial Health Cooperation and Development Conference in August 2013, President Xi Jinping announced: ‘The China-Africa friendship has a long history. It has withstood the test of international changes and accumulated feelings and trust more precious than gold’.61 After the TAZARA railway, CMTs are probably the second most important case in point when it comes to China’s historical friendship with Africa. Following Algerian independence in July 1962, the Chinese government responded to Ahmed Ben Bella’s urgent request for medical aid by dispatching its first such team in January 1963. While CCTV reported 58 Interview with Mukela Muyunda, Chief Executive Director of ZCCM Investments Holdings Plc, Lusaka, 11 April 2014. 59 Alexandra Wexler and Nicholas Bariyo, ‘After Default, Zambia’s Outsized Bet on Copper Could Play into China’s Hands’, The Wall Street Journal, 27 April 2021, www.wsj.com/articles/after-default-zambias-outsized-bet-on-coppercould-play-into-chinas-hands-11619514520, accessed in May 2021. 60 ‘The 50th Anniversary of the Dispatch of the Chinese Medical Teams’, CCTV, http://news.cntv.cn/special/yuanwai/index.shtml, accessed in November 2018. 61 ‘Xi Jinping Meets with the Representatives of the China-Africa Ministerial Health Cooperation and Development Conference’, CCTV, 16 August 2013, http://news.cntv.cn/2013/08/16/ARTI1376653485609723.shtml, accessed in November 2018.

157

158

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

simply that the number of CMTs has continually increased over time, Li Anshan has noted that no CMTs were sent to Africa during 1979 and 1980 as China preoccupied itself with internal economic reconstruction. The number of African countries to receive CMTs started to grow in the early 1980s but was static between the years 1988 and 1995 for two primary reasons: On the one hand, China had almost satisfied African countries’ requests for CMTs, while on the other, the end of the Cold War affected many African countries. As their marginalization increased, some engaged in civil war or lapsed into political chaos.62

Generally speaking, China’s medical cooperation in Africa has corresponded to the shifting priorities and strategies of Chinese diplomacy.63 In countries like Somalia and Congo, the continual conflict disrupted CMT operations. In Burkina Faso, Gambia, and São Tomé and Príncipe, the CMTs were withdrawn when diplomatic relations shifted from the PRC to Taiwan. The CMT scheme was initiated and rapidly developed during the Mao era, yet nonetheless continued on into the post-socialist period. It is noteworthy that it has been individual Chinese provinces, rather than the central government, that have played the key role in supplying health manpower. According to Gordon C. Shen and Victoria Y. Fan, this is probably explained by: 1) the relevant Chinese infrastructure or economically based diplomatic involvement in various African countries; 2) the large demand for healthcare human resources in Africa; and 3) particular inland provinces’ reliance on their own public healthcare system when engaging in international cooperation.64 From this it is clear that the two factors of China’s lack of a central aid agency and its unique definition of aid – one that differs from the global standards as agreed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – create difficulties when attempting comparisons to other countries’ aid flow.65 Described by Deborah Brautigam as aid ‘with Chinese characteristics’, China’s official aid is indeed ‘a subset of the many kinds of official finance offered by the Chinese government, some of which finance other economic activities carried out overseas by Chinese companies, institutes and provincial ministries’.66 Li Anshan, ‘Chinese Medical Cooperation in Africa: With Special Emphasis on the Medical Teams and Anti-Malaria Campaign’, Discussion Paper 52 (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2011), p. 11. 63 Shuang Lin et al., ‘China’s Health Assistance to Africa: Opportunism or Altruism?’ Globalization and Health 12, 83 (2016), p. 3. 64 Gordon C. Shen and Victoria Y. Fan, ‘China’s Provincial Diplomacy to Africa: Applications to Health Cooperation’, Contemporary Politics 20, 2 (2014), p. 191. 65 www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development 66 Deborah Brautigam, ‘Aid “With Chinese Characteristics”: Chinese Foreign 62

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

Certainly, it would be naïve to think that China’s medical aid has always been entirely altruistic in nature. According to Jiang, the success of CMTs in Africa is not a result of the ‘revolutionary health road’ advocated by Mao, but instead the practical benefits of health aid, which was further bolstered by the correction of the damaging ‘leftist’ tendencies that existed within China’s public health system at the end of the 1970s.67 During the Korean War, China sent many medical groups to the battlefields. In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, it signed health cooperation agreements with all Eastern Bloc countries except Cuba on the basis of socialist solidarity. In the context of the global Cold War, medicine and public health became frontlines in the ideological struggle between the two blocs. The professed ‘no strings attached’ Chinese healthcare provision approach in practice required displays of diplomatic loyalty from recipient states on issues of concern to the PRC such as Taiwan, Tibet, and the status of the Uyghur people.68 Walking around Lusaka in 2017, it was not unusual to encounter Chinese characters printed on the walls. Some belonged to Chinese restaurants with names like Dong Fang (‘Oriental’) or Peacock, while others advertised Chinese-run clinics, often bearing the surname of its head doctor. Chinese clinics like these were clustered mostly around Lusaka and the two large mining towns, Kitwe and Chingola. According to the 2014 report of the Health Professions Council of Zambia, there were a dozen registered Chinese health practitioners in Zambia, not including the provincial CMTs which rotated every two years.69 But there are clearly many more in operation. Among the Chinese community in Zambia, Doctor Yu Huizhen enjoyed the reputation of an ‘old Zambian’, that is, a Chinese person who had been resident in the country as early as 2000. Yu had been a member of two Henan-sourced medical teams, first in 1990–1992 and again as captain in 1996–2001. Following the conclusion of the latter mission, he decided to stay and opened his own clinic in Lusaka. In his analysis of Chinese migrants in Zambia, Di Wu identified a strong correlation between their province of origin and profession: typically those from Henan province were doctors and those from Jiangxi were builders.70 As professionals who were familiar with the local market Aid and Development Finance Meet the OECD-DAC Aid Regime’, Journal of International Development 23, 5 (2011), p. 752. 67 Jiang, ‘A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978’, p. 201. 68 Shuang Lin et al., ‘China’s Health Assistance to Africa’, p. 3. 69 ‘Registered Health Practitioners’, Health Professions Council of Zambia, 2014, www.hpcz.org.zm, accessed in June 2017. 70 Di Wu, ‘The Everyday Life of Chinese Migrants in Zambia: Emotion, Sociality and Moral Interaction’ (London School of Economics and Political Science, PhD thesis, 2014), p. 18.

159

160

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

and were socially well connected, Chinese doctors were able to take advantage of economic liberalisation and deregulation to start their own businesses. KG Dental Clinic, a clinic of nationwide renown, was established by Doctor Gao Ke’nan in 1994. Gao first arrived in Zambia in 1988 as an aid doctor dispatched from a military hospital in Beijing.71 Despite the clear-cut official distinction between CMTs and private clinics, they were perceived by the local community in a blurred, collective way: Yu is commonly referred to as ‘Captain’ Yu, a relic of his CMT days. Also, both Yu and Gao have maintained close relations with other Chinese medical practitioners in Zambia. While the presence of Chinese doctors in Zambia dates right back to the construction of the TAZARA railway (see Chapter 4), it was only in 1978 that Zambia accepted its first official CMT. The mining towns of Kabwe and Luanshya, then experiencing teething difficulties in the provision of health services to mineworkers and their families, were their first destinations. ‘Captain’ Yu recalled that this policy of providing healthcare to the ‘popular masses’ proved unsuccessful on a diplomatic level. ‘It now appears that the closer you are to cities, the easier you get access to high level officials’, ‘Captain’ Yu continued, and ‘the second time I came with the medical team, we moved to the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, as well as hospitals in the cities of Ndola and Livingstone’.72 As further evidence of the diplomatic significance of Chinese doctors, he recalled the experience of treating the future Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa as a member of the medical team. Immediately after the MMD’s election victory in December 1991, as the new Vice President, Mwanawasa was injured in a road accident.73 ‘One day around 10am, the dean of the hospital called me to his office. As soon as I entered the room, I saw Mwanawasa and his personal security guard’. ‘Captain’ Yu recalled that after the treatment, he asked Mwanawasa if they could take a photo together. The Vice President agreed but insisted the photo be kept private. This was a time that China-Zambia bilateral relations were suffering as a result of President Chiluba’s interactions with Taiwan. Having consulted with the Chinese Embassy to agree upon a course of action, ‘Captain’ Yu and his colleagues received a command from Beijing that they must approach this matter with the utmost prudence. Invited to the State House for further medical treatment, the group of Chinese doctors (accompanied by the Chinese ambassador) entered through the back door to 71 Interview with Doctor Gao Ke’nan, former member of a Chinese medical team who now owns a private dental clinic, August 2016. 72 Interview with Doctor Yu Huizhen, former member of a Chinese medical team who now owns a private clinic, Lusaka, August 2016. 73 ‘Zambia’s Vice-President Badly Injured in Road Accident’, UPI Archives, 8 December 1991, www.upi.com/Archives/1991/12/08/Zambias-vice-presidentbadly-injured-in-road-accident/3199692168400, accessed in November 2018.

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

avoid public attention. The treatment was a success, and the CMT was awarded a special honour from the Chinese Ministry of Health for treating Mwanawasa. Li Anshan characterises the CMT schemes as a kind of foreign aid that costs little, is quick to take effect, and has a great impact.74 Based on Li’s incomplete yet rich data, CMTs have provided treatment for more than fifty statesmen and ministers from various African countries including Algeria, Zanzibar, Tunisia, and Mali.75 Supposedly a form of ‘grassroots’ aid, CMTs may in fact be most influential when it comes to their capacity to establish respect and trust among the political elite of the recipient countries. But this argument has somehow disappeared from Li’s English version of his article, a change which could have been made in order to adapt to an international readership, either deliberately or unconsciously. The available information on Mwanawasa’s treatment by Chinese doctors is all in the form of informal accounts. According to Yu’s personal anecdote, Mwanawasa’s familiarity with the CMTs had come through his wife, Maureen Mwanawasa.76 Her uncle, who operated a hotel and a farm in Kabwe, regularly visited the CMTs for heart disease treatment. Sometimes on weekends he would invite the medical team to his farm, developing close relations with them as a result. The previous chapters have demonstrated how historically contingent factors such as interpersonal connections between Chinese and African elites, though often seen as ‘anecdotal’, have nevertheless played a critical role in shaping historical trajectories. During his presidency, from 2002 to 2008, Mwanawasa took a friendlier stance towards China than his predecessor Chiluba. In 2011 the Chinese government even donated a public hospital named after him to the Zambian government. The Levy Mwanawasa University Teaching Hospital has been used to host CMTs ever since (Photo 7).77 Dealing with illness and medical emergencies is a challenge often encountered over the course of overseas fieldwork. In 2016, my first encounter with Chinese doctors in Zambia happened when an ordinary cold developed into a serious cough and minor fever. Having failed to treat myself with the tablets I had brought with me from China, I took the advice of my Chinese host to see a doctor. ‘Word of mouth’ proved to be the most effective form of advertisement among the Chinese community in Zambia. After thirty minutes’ drive, I arrived at Doctor Qu’s clinic (Photo 8). As someone who grew up in a so-called ‘third-tier’ city Li Anshan, ‘中国援外医疗队的历史、规模及其影响’ [Chinese Medical Teams Abroad: Their History, Scope and Influence], Foreign Affairs Review 26, 1 (2009)’, pp. 25–45; Li, ‘Chinese Medical Cooperation in Africa’. 75 Li, ‘Chinese Medical Cooperation in Africa’, pp. 39–40. 76 Interview with Doctor Yu. 77 Interview with Doctor Chikoya, Medical Superintendent of Levy Mwanawasa University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka, August 2017. 74

161

162

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Photo 7 Levy Mwanawasa University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia (photo Author).

in China, the layout of this clinic was strikingly familiar: a reception desk by the entrance, a large hall containing several long benches, along with a few consultation rooms. It is common for the Chinese to house offices and domestic residences within the same compound in the name of safety and convenience. Doctor Gao’s dental clinic, for instance, is located in a residential mansion that served as the Yugoslavian Embassy until the 1980s. Assigned to a doctor with an East Asian appearance in Doctor Qu’s clinic, I naturally started speaking to him in Chinese. But he gave me a puzzled look. I learnt that the doctor was originally from North Korea, and was working in Zambia to ‘earn foreign currency’. Anecdotal experiences like these show how the legacies of socialist fraternity linger on in unexpected ways in the Chinese private clinics of Zambia. By contrast, Kenya has never received any official medical aid from Communist China due to the country’s ‘capitalist’ nature.78 Between 1989 and 1991, Doctor Li Chuan, originally from Shandong province, was part of a CMT stationed at Dodoma Regional Hospital, Tanzania. 78 Interview with Doctor Li Chuan and Doctor Li Xiaoxiao, Owners of Oriental Chinese Herbal Clinic, Nairobi, 2016.

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

Photo 8 The reception room of a Chinese clinic in Lusaka (photo Author).

He followed the Tanzanian ambassador to Kenya in 1992, where he opened his own Oriental Chinese Herbal Clinic in Nairobi two years later.79 Doctor Li’s office was decorated with photos of him standing alongside prominent Tanzanian leaders, as well as a framed recommendation letter from former Minister for Health P.M. Sarungi. 79 ‘About us’, Oriental Chinese Herbal Clinic, https://chinese-herbal.co.ke/ index.php, accessed in November 2018.

163

164

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

As a specialist in Chinese acupuncture and herbal practices, he complained that ‘Africans don’t understand traditional Chinese medicine’, pointing to the fact that it was the Ministry of Culture rather than the Ministry of Health which regulated the practice of acupuncture when he arrived in Kenya.80 Combining herbal medicines with various mind and body practices, such as acupuncture and tai chi, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is primarily used as a complementary health approach in the West.81 Doctor Li’s daughter, working in the same clinic after completing her medical training in the UK, explained that there was no clear distinction between conventional and complementary medicine in Kenya: ‘In the end, it all depends on whether the relevant government officials believe you are legal or not’:

TCM is characterised separately by the Ministry of Health. There are people who claim to be herbalists that do not understand the basics. For instance, if you have a certificate from India, you can study acupuncture in the UK and come to Kenya to practice. There are even some Chinese who have only taken a few medical classes and pretend to be doctors. 82

The absence of a comprehensive regulatory system for TCM is problematic, as the quality of imported herbal medicines cannot be guaranteed, and there had been failed attempts to grow plants such as Artemisia annua in East Africa.83 According to Maddalena Procopio, Kenya had made a deliberate decision to follow ‘pre-set routes of multilateral cooperation rather than negotiating with China independently’.84 Such concerns over the regulation of imported medicines were, however, shared by the Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority. One of its staff mentioned that not all practitioners follow the legal procedure for registering their medicines when they visit the country.85 In conclusion, China’s medical aid to Africa has a rich history that dates back to the socialist period. Initially inclined towards other Communist regimes or countries friendly to the Eastern Bloc, Chinese medical cooperation significantly diversified thereafter. While conInterview with Doctor Li Chuan and Doctor Li Xiaoxiao. ‘Traditional Chinese Medicine: In Depth’, U.S. National Center for Complimentary and Integrative Health, https://nccih.nih.gov/health/whatiscam/ chinesemed.htm, accessed in November 2018. 82 Interview with Doctor Li Chuan and Doctor Li Xiaoxiao, Nairobi, 2016. 83 ‘中国传统医术走进非洲人家’ [Traditional Chinese Medicine has Entered Homes in Africa], China Investment, www.chinainvestment.com.cn/type_ fmgs_post/7025.html, accessed in November 2018. 84 Maddalena Procopio, ‘Negotiating Governance: Kenyan Contestation, Cooperation, Passivity toward the Chinese’ (London School of Economics and Political Science, PhD thesis, 2016), p. 158. 85 Interview with Nyambe Lyoko, Assistant Director of Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority, Lusaka, 21 August 2017. 80 81

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

ventional CMTs continue to be dispatched to various African countries, some Chinese doctors became private entrepreneurs after the completion of their official missions. In Zambia, the Levy Mwanawasa University Teaching Hospital, donated by the Chinese government, is symbolic of the ‘hidden’ narrative of how CMTs helped improve Sino-Zambian diplomatic relations by providing treatment to a future President. In Kenya, Doctor Li’s clinic suggests the great potential of traditional Chinese medicine in the absence of officially dispatched CMTs. Despite the heterogeneity of China-Africa medical cooperation, a sense of socialist solidarity has somehow survived in an industry otherwise marked by capital-driven market economies. Despite initial fears that the COVID-19 pandemic would dampen China’s relations with Africa, it has in fact proven to be a showcase for Beijing’s new health diplomacy, with vaccine cooperation ranked first on the agenda of the 2021 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) meeting in Senegal. 86

China’s Infrastructure Finance and the Belt and Road Initiative

There has long been a historical association between railways in Africa and the imperial mission. ‘The White Man’s Burden’, illustrated in Rudyard Kipling’s poem, paints a picture of colonialists building ports and roads in order to connect these supposedly virgin lands to the empire: The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, Go make them with your living, And mark them with your dead. 87

The Uganda Railway, built by the British during the ‘Scramble for Africa’, initially linked Lake Victoria with the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa in Kenya. Regional integration in East Africa was ‘part of a major imperial strategy in Britain’.88 Similar railway projects were 86 R. Maxwell Bone and Ferdinando Cinotto, ‘China’s Multifaceted COVID-19 Diplomacy Across Africa’, The Diplomat, 2 November 2020, https:// thediplomat.com/2020/11/chinas-multifaceted-covid-19-diplomacy-acrossafrica, accessed in May 2021; ‘China-Africa Friendship Emerges still Stronger from COVID-19 Test, Says Chinese FM’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2 January 2021, www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/ zxxx_662805/t1844090.shtml. 87 Rudyard Kipling, ‘The White Man’s Burden: A Poem’, The Times, 4 February 1899, www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_burden.htm. 88 Mazrui, Ali A., ‘The Yellow Man’s Burden: Race and Revolution in Sino-­ African Relations’, in Seifudein Adem (ed.), China’s Diplomacy in Eastern and Southern Africa (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2013), p. 18.

165

166

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

carried out in east-central Africa under the direct control of the British South Africa Company as early as the 1890s, and continued until the formation of the Central African Federation in 1953. 89 The grand imperial strategy, envisioned by Cecil Rhodes, was to expand the British hegemony in southern Africa to elsewhere. More than simple territorial conquest, the vision of the Cape to Cairo Railway was ‘a kind of colonial and imperial imaginary’, which generated a particular founding myth which viewed South Africa as ‘Mediterranean’ as opposed to ‘African’.90 In this way, infrastructure can trace the broader formation of national and regional identity and of simultaneous cultural transitions. Through the lens of European and Chinese involvement in building railways in eastern and Central Africa, Ali A. Mazrui drew a comparison between ‘the white man’s burden’ and ‘the yellow man’s burden’. Both sought fulfilment by enhancing African mobility. The Uganda Railway encouraged Europeans to arrive and settle in East Africa, with mixed results including ‘the Mau Mau insurrection against the white presence, as well as the more positive result of greater regional integration in East Africa as a whole’. Later, the Chinese-built railway line between Zambia and Tanzania facilitated a new arena of international solidarity between ‘the black man and the yellow man’ on the basis of pan-­socialism.91 Nothing better represents the longevity of China-­A frica friendship than TAZARA. If the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute between China and Japan can be described as it is by Todd Hall as a ‘MacGuffin’, that is, a movie plot device that serves to produce dramatic conflict between protagonists,92 I would argue that the TAZARA railway was driven by the same rationale yet for the opposite purpose: it is not the economic or strategic value of the railway that consolidates the friendship between China and Zambia – both values have proved insignificant – but rather the role of the railway as a tangible expression of friendship. There has been a continual flow of interest from the Chinese government and scholars in the historical legacy of the TAZARA.93 These studies reiterate the official discourse 89 W. Travis Hanes III, ‘Railway Politics and Imperialism in Central Africa, 1889–1953’, in Clarence B. Davis, Kenneth E. Wilburn, and Ronald Robinson (eds), Railway Imperialism (London: Greenwood, 1991), pp. 43–66. 90 Peter Merrington, ‘A Staggered Orientalism: The Cape-to-Cairo Imaginary’, Poetics Today 22, 2 (2001), p. 323. 91 Mazrui, ‘The Yellow Man’s Burden’, pp. 19–21. 92 Todd Hall, ‘The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Dispute: A MacGuffin?’ East Asia Seminar Series, University of Oxford, 13 November 2018. 93 See for example: Planning Department of the Foreign Ministry, 中非关 系史上的丰碑—援建坦赞铁路亲历者的讲述 [Grand Monument in the History of Sino-African Relations – Participant Accounts of the Tan-Zam Railway] (Beijing: World Knowledge Press, 2014); Shen Xipeng, 中国援建坦赞铁路研究 [A Study of China’s Aid to the Tan-Zam Railway] (Hefei: Huangshan Publishing House,

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

of China-­A frica relations as characterised by the dedication and even sacrifice of the Chinese people to construct the railway. African actors also deployed the discourse but probably for different reasons. Dissatisfied with the railway authority and its services, the local communities along the railway corridor ‘strategically deployed the same language of freedom and socialism’ to protest the station closures in 1994.94 Since 2000, there has been an exponential scaling-up of China’s financial assistance to Africa, within which infrastructure is a particular focus. But this time, the burden of the ‘yellow man’ differs from that of the ‘white man’ not because of an overt revolutionary agenda. Despite the lack of precise figures, China has evidently made a significant contribution to Africa’s most ambitious infrastructure developments. The unique feature of Chinese infrastructure financing is the direct involvement of Chinese contractors that are funded through bilateral loans from China’s EXIM Bank.95 Yet not all Chinese loans are concessional. This diverges from the definition of official development assistance (ODA) by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which is something that ‘flows to developing countries provided by official agencies which have a clear development purpose and are at least partly concessional in nature’.96 China’s infrastructural model is intended to be of mutual benefit to both the financier and the borrower and conceptualises both as lower-income countries. Unlike OECD countries, the Chinese approach to development assistance is not donor driven and hence eschews interference in domestic affairs.97 This state-led developmental strategy has been warmly welcomed and is viewed particularly favourably by African leaders.98 In 2013, when President Xi paid a state visit to Tanzania, he made a special trip to the ‘Cemetery for Memorable Deceased Chinese Experts Assisting Tanzania’ to pay his tributes, a gesture that was portrayed as an indication of the ‘community of common destiny’ between China 2018); Zhang Yang, ‘美国对中国援建坦赞铁路的阻挠’ [American Obstructions to the Chinese-aided Construction of the Tan-Zam Railway], Contemporary China History Studies 19, 3 (2012), pp. 65–126. 94 Jamie Monson, Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese Development Project Changed Lives and Livelihoods in Tanzania (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), p. 5. 95 Vivien Foster, Building Bridges: China’s Growing Role as Infrastructure Financier for Sub-Saharan Africa (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2009), p. 7. 96 See ODA Statistics Portal, www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainabledevelopment, accessed in November 2018. 97 Deborah Brautigam, The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 98 Paul Kagame, ‘Why Africa Welcomes the Chinese’, The Guardian, 2 November 2009, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/nov/02/ aid-trade-rwanda-china-west, accessed in March 2019.

167

168

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

and Africa.99 The concept of a ‘community of common destiny’, which first appeared in Hu Jintao’s report at the 18th Party Congress in 2012, best summarises Xi Jinping’s ‘new era’ diplomacy. With the stated aim of building ‘a world defined by mutual cooperation’, it proposes a ‘novel’ approach to international relations that replaces an ‘out-dated’ model associated with the US and Western powers.100 At the 70th UN General Assembly in 2015, Xi further elaborated on this ideal international system from the perspectives of political partnership, security, economic development, cultural exchange. and the environment: We should build partnerships in which countries treat each other as equals, engage in mutual consultation and show mutual understanding … We should create a security architecture featuring fairness, justice, joint contribution and shared benefits … We should promote open, innovative and inclusive development that benefits all … We should increase inter-civilization exchanges to promote harmony, inclusiveness and respect for differences … We should build an ecosystem that puts Mother Nature and green development first.101

Instead of carrying its ‘burden’ alone, China professes to prefer sharing it with African partners through the pursuit of a ‘common destiny’. Based on China’s own experience, infrastructure investment will pave the way for broadly based economic social development and poverty alleviation.102 Literally translated in English as the ‘One Belt and One Road’ initiative, the BRI encompasses the overland routes for road and rail transportation (‘the Silk Road Economic Belt’), as well as the sea routes (‘the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road’).103 The Silk Road, which derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length since the Han dynasty (207 BCE – 220 CE), was a key ancient network of trade Planning Department of the Foreign Ministry, Grand Monument in the History of Sino-African Relations, pp. 1–2; 100 Jacob Mardell, ‘The “Community of Common Destiny” in Xi Jinping’s New Era’, The Diplomat, 25 October 2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/ 10/the-community-of-common-destiny-in-xi-jinpings-new-era, accessed in November 2018. 101 ‘Speech by Xi Jinping at the General Debate of the 70th Session of the UN General Assembly’, China Daily, 30 September 2015, quoted in Denghua Zhang, ‘The Concept of “Community of Common Destiny” in China’s Diplomacy: Meaning, Motives and Implications’, Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies 5, 2 (2018), pp. 196–207. 102 James Kynge, ‘How the Silk Road Plans will be Financed’, Financial Times, 9 May 2016. 103 ‘Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensive Deepening of the Reform’, Article 26, Section VII, 12 November 2013, www.china.org.cn/chinese/201401/17/content_31226494_7.htm, accessed in November 2018. 99

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

routes that connected East and West. In a 2013 speech at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, Xi declared that ‘through the millennia, the people of various countries along the ancient Silk Road have jointly written a chapter of friendship that has been passed on to this very day’, thus demonstrating that peoples of ‘different races, beliefs and cultural backgrounds are fully capable of sharing peace and development’.104 Peter Frankopan, historian and author of The Silk Roads, links the historical reference point which helped spread ‘goods, ideas and histories for millennia’ with the BRI aim to ‘rejuvenate old links across the spine of Asia’.105 In a similar vein, Valerie Hansen speaks of ‘the enduring power of a metaphor’. The historical ‘Silk Road’ in fact consisted of multiple routes, and the actual quantity of silk transported along them has been overstated; moreover, there used to be a Chinese imperial military presence in present-day Xinjiang.106 These historical realities challenge the common perception, embraced and perpetuated by Chinese nationalists, of the Silk Road as a clear-cut, prosperous, and peaceful road. Prevalent conceptions like these demonstrate both the political utilisation of historical examples in China’s contemporary infrastructural initiatives and the tangential relationship between historical imaginary and reality. It is in this context that the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR will be examined, through a triangulation of official documents, media reports, and participant observation. Apart from the eastern coast, most of Sub-Saharan Africa was not connected to what has been historically known as the Silk Road. Thus, historical references to Admiral Zheng He’s trip to East Africa in the fifteenth century have been made to evidence China’s historical connectivity with the region. In 2005, the Chinese Embassy in Kenya published a special interview with a Kenyan archaeologist to commemorate the 600th anniversary of Zheng He’s first expedition. Titled ‘Africa Awaits the Arrival of the Second “Zheng He Age”’, it quoted Hermann Giriama (transliterated from the name printed in Chinese) as follows:

Zheng He’s fleets were huge, which evidences China’s enormous national strength at that time. In stark contrast to the later exploitative Western countries, Zheng He’s fleets did not oppress the weak or even colonise Africa. Nowadays the Chinese economy is developing rapidly. Kenyan and African people hope that more and more peaceloving Chinese will turn to Africa for tourism and investment.107

104 Xi Jinping, ‘Promote Friendship between our People and Work Together to Build a Bright Future’, Xinhua, 7 September 2013, www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_ eng/wjdt_665385/zyjh_665391/t1078088.shtml, accessed in November 2018. 105 Peter Frankopan, quoted in The New Silk Road Project, www. thenewsilkroadproject.com, accessed in November 2018. 106 Valerie Hansen, ‘Locating the Silk Road(s) in History and Today’, Global and Imperial History Research Seminar, University of Oxford, 26 October 2018. 107 Lan Zhishen, ‘非洲期待第二个’郑和时代’的到来’ [Africa Awaits the Arrival

169

170

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Li Anshan, historian and the retired director of Peking University’s Centre for African Studies, likewise wrote:

Unfortunately, the peaceful and friendly diplomatic relations between Asian and African independent states did not continue. What did Vasco da Gama do in East Africa? … Then the scramble of Africa and colonialism followed. A Kenyan archaeologist made a comment on the difference between Chinese and Portuguese contact with Africa in early times: one was equal and peaceful, the other arrogant and violent.108

It is without doubt that ancient China’s historical encounter with Africa is today narrated in a nationalist fashion that deliberately evokes echoes of their contemporary relations. The SGR project, with a statue of Zheng He at the Mombasa Terminus (Photo 9), fits perfectly into this historical frame of the age-old ‘equal and peaceful’ contact between China and Africa. Built by the China Road and Bridge Corporation between September 2014 and May 2017, the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR stretches for 472 kilometres and includes 79 bridges, 2 major stations, 7 intermediate, and 23 passing stations. This is Phase I of a long-term plan designed to link landlocked South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, and eastern DR Congo to the Indian Ocean over the next 25 years. Established in 2013, the ‘Northern Corridor Integration Projects’ is a multilateral development initiative with the aim of accelerating growth in the region through improved infrastructure that will ease the movement of people, goods, and services. The fact that the railway line runs parallel to the metre-gauge Uganda Railway built by the British more than a hundred years ago draws literal and compelling parallels, both good and bad.109 A former Chinese SOE manager and businessman told me proudly that the SGR would ‘last for a century’, and that ‘it is written in history’.110 Many of the Second ‘Zheng He Age’], Embassy of the PRC in the Republic of Kenya, http://ke.chineseembassy.org/chn/sbgx/t204432.htm, accessed in November 2018. 108 Li Anshan, ‘Contact between China and Africa before Vasco da Gama: Archaeology, Document and Historiography’, World History Studies 2, 1 (2015), pp. 34–59. 109 For a positive report on the SGR, see Melissa Lefkowitz, ‘Riding the Madaraka Express: Can a Brand New, Chinese-Built Railway Lay the Tracks to Kenya’s Future?’ Slate, 11 September 2017, https://slate.com/news-andpolitics/2017/09/the-madaraka-express-a-ride-on-kenyas-brand-newchinese-built-railway.html, accessed in November 2018; for negative coverage, see Njoki Chege, ‘My Extremely Underwhelming Madaraka Express Train Ride’, Daily Nation, 16 March 2018, www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/Madaraka-­ Express-train-ride/620-4344782-u8jtkv/index.html, accessed in November 2018. 110 Interview with Dang Song, Former Chinese SOE manager and businessman, Nairobi, 21 November 2016.

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

Photo 9 Zheng He statue at Mombasa station, 16 July 2017. The statue’s caption reads: ‘Zheng He – The Historic Chinese Diplomat Visited Kenya. Zheng He (1371–1433) was a great Chinese navigator and diplomat during China’s Ming dynasty. Zheng commanded 7 expeditionary voyages to 30 countries and regions located in the Western Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean from 1405 to 1433. During the period, Zheng’s fleet paid 4 visits to Mombasa, enhancing mutual understanding between China and Kenya and strengthening KenyaChina friendly exchanges’ (photo Author).

Kenyans among my fellow passengers on the SGR in July 2017 emphasised the new railway’s convenience compared to the dysfunctional, old-fashioned ‘colonial railway’ (Photo 10). While it is unsurprising that China’s advanced railway technology surpasses its colonial counterpart, this equally signals an alternative modernity that can be imagined positively by Kenyans and enables an ideational break from a postcolonial dependence on aging Western technology. A range of Kenyans, both non-state and state actors in nature, have expressed enthusiasm for and actively participated in the development of the SGR from the construction to the operational phase. But this has generated conflict as well as cooperation. As early as January 2017, a

171

172

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

Photo 10 Passengers enter Nairobi station to take the Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway, 16 July 2017; the indicator board (right) shows that only one train each day makes this journey (photo Author).

group of Maasai youths in Narok County threatened to attack Chinese SGR construction workers after the assault of a local security officer. It was reported that the Chinese workers had been ‘slapping local laborers’.111 Having conducted interviews with local officials and youths who confronted the Chinese workers, Weidi Zheng discovered that the Maasai villagers were angry that the Chinese companies tended to recruit people of Kamba ethnicity to work on their construction sites. According to one of her informants:

The British used to discriminate against the Maasai. You know our Maasai are smart and strong. The British did not allow us to receive education because they were worried that we would surpass them. Instead they supported the Kikuyus, offered them good education. The Kikuyus beat us in turn, taking our lands and resources.112

Once again, the resentment expressed in this comment is constructed along comparative historical lines, drawing on the legacy of colonial

111 George Sayagie, ‘Maasai Youth Threaten to Attack Chinese Workers over Assault’, Daily Nation, 5 January 2017, www.nation.co.ke/counties/narok/ Maasai-youth-issue-threat--to-Chinese-SGR-workers/1183318-3506998-aoi5ipz/index.html, accessed in December 2018. 112 Interview with Dr Weidi Zheng while a doctoral student in Nairobi, June 2017.

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

rule in Kenya: the Maasai youth urged the Chinese to contribute more to the local community in order to ‘make them remember’.113 It is clear that the ‘collective memory’ of locals like these does not always serve the same purposes as the official discourse of a Sino-Kenyan ‘historical’ friendship. The scholarly literature on the SGR is bountiful but also divided: while some alarmists raise serious concerns about the project’s financial viability,114 others highlight its contribution to Kenya’s socio-­ economic development in the long run.115 Rather than producing prophetic conclusions such as these, it is essential to investigate the actual decision-making process, especially the agency of politically motivated Kenyan elites.116 Kenyan elites certainly used the SGR as a way to jog people’s memories. Weeks before its official launch, Caroline Mutoko, a famous Kenyan radio personality, urged President Kenyatta to name it something ‘fancy’ and ‘easy on the mouth’.117 The SGR’s predecessor – the Uganda Railway – had been known as ‘The Lunatic Line’ during its construction due to its high cost in terms of capital and labour: while not a good reputation, it was at least catchy and memorable. At the end of May 2017, an advertisement was run in local newspapers to unveil the name of the railway: ‘The Madaraka Express’. ‘Madaraka’ is a Swahili word for ‘self-governance’, and Madaraka Day is a national holiday in commemoration of Kenya’s independent self-governance on 1st June 1963. On this note, it is pertinent that the TAZARA is also commonly known as the ‘Great Uhuru Railway’ with uhuru being the Swahili word for ‘freedom’. It was no coincidence that President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the new express service just ahead of the August 2017 General Election, declaring: ‘This is a historic moment we are witnessing today because this project will transform the economy of this country and all Kenyans’. He continued, ‘The foundation we are laying today will help propel the economy of this nation because we will set up special economic zones along the route of this railway and at the Ibid. Ian Taylor, ‘Kenya’s New Lunatic Express: The Standard Gauge Railway’, African Studies Quarterly 19, 3–4 (2020), pp. 29–52. 115 Evaristus M. Irandu and Hesbon Hansen Owilla, ‘The Economic Implications of Belt and Road Initiative in the Development of Railway Transport Infrastructure in Africa: The Case of the Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya’, The African Review 47, 2 (2020), pp. 457–80. 116 Uwe Wissenbach and Yuan Wang, African Politics Meets Chinese Engineers: The Chinese-Built Standard Gauge Railway Project in Kenya and East Africa (Washington, D.C.: China Africa Research Initiate, 2017); Yuan Wang and Uwe Wissenbach, ‘Clientelism at Work? A Case Study of Kenyan Standard Railway Project’, Economic History of Developing Regions 34, 3 (2019), pp. 280–99. 117 Beatrice Obwocha, ‘SGR Train Named Madaraka Express’, Daily Nation, 31 May 2017, www.nation.co.ke/news/SGR-train-named-Madaraka-Express/ 1056-3949074-11qjuipz/index.html, accessed in December 2018. 113 114

173

174

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

port’.118 President Kenyatta was also keen to promote the SGR as ‘the most ambitious infrastructure development in Kenya’s history’ in his state of the nation speech in May 2018.119 Controversies have, however, continued to emerge in the Kenyan media since the SGR was launched. In August 2018, there were widespread concerns over the fiscal pressures faced by the Kenyan government due to its obligations to repay Chinese loans for the railway. Given that Kenya already had East Africa’s highest debt to GDP ratio of 57 per cent, the public anger which followed the revelation that a further KSh 370 billion (US $3.59 billion) loan was to be negotiated to expand the SGR line is hardly surprising.120 In November 2018, the Auditor General to the Kenyan Ports Authority warned that Kenya risked losing its Mombasa port to China ‘should the country fail to repay huge loans advanced by Chinese lenders’.121 Kenyan newspapers also claimed that Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port had been ‘seized by its Chinese creditors when it failed to repay the lenders’, something that Kenyans must try to avoid at all costs.122 Such warnings demonstrate how quickly optimism about the capacity of infrastructural projects to bring about a transformation from historical backwardness to contemporary modernity can turn into pessimistic ruminations over the country’s unremitting debt status and neocolonial dependency. ‘While there clearly can be longterm benefits in improving local and regional connections, upgrading transport networks and energy supplies’, argues Frankopan, ‘the pain of getting these wrong can be serious’.123 It will surely take time for the 118 Gitonga Marete, ‘Uhuru Flags off Cargo Train as New Era Begins’, Daily Nation, 31 May 2017, www.nation.co.ke/news/uhuru-flags-off-cargo-train-as-newera-begins/1056-3949046-4jw585z/index.html, accessed in December 2018. 119 Uhuru Kenyatta, ‘Remarks by His Excellency Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta, C.G.H., President and Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces of the Republic of Kenya during the State of the Nation Address at Parliament Buildings’, 2 May 2018, www.president.go.ke/2018/05/02/remarks-by-his-excellency-honuhuru-kenyatta-c-g-h-president-and-commander-in-chief-of-the-defenceforces-of-the-republic-of-kenya-during-the-state-of-the-nation-address-atparliament-buildings-n, accessed in January 2019. 120 Wanjohi Githa, ‘Bill Seeks to Curb Kenya’s Big Appetite for Borrowing’, Daily Nation, 31 August 2018, www.nation.co.ke/news/Bill-seeks-to-limitgovt-s-appetite-for-borrowing/1056-4736938-fvd2w9/index.html, accessed in December 2018. 121 Moses Michira, ‘Auditor: Chinese Debt Could Lead to Loss of Mombasa Port’, Standard, 20 December 2018, www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001306878/ how-china-could-be-handed-mombasa-port-for-free, accessed in January 2019. 122 Gitau Warigi, ‘Report about Kenya’s Exposure on Chinese SGR Loan Alarming’, Daily Nation, 23 December 2018, www.nation.co.ke/oped/opinion/ Report-about-Kenya-exposure-on-Chinese-SGR-loan-alarming/4408084907212-13y6k83/index.html, accessed in January 2019. 123 Peter Frankopan, The New Silk Roads: The Present and the Future of the World (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), p. 186.

China’s ‘Return’ to Africa and the Past in the Present, 1989–2019

consequences of China’s massive overseas infrastructure construction projects in Africa to fully unfold. The process itself is history in the making. Although the total number of travellers decreased from 1.59 million in 2019 to 720,000 in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions, the passenger service has been and will continue to be a key feature of the everyday life of ordinary Kenyan citizens.124

Conclusion

Following the end of the Cold War, both Kenya and Zambia underwent different forms of the political and economic liberalisation which were simultaneously unfolding elsewhere in the world. Yet no such ‘dual liberalisation’ took place in China: the political regime maintained robust control over the country while gradually transforming its economy into a more market-oriented, and capital-driven entity. This ‘global’ China’s renewed interests in Africa in the new millennium have, as a result, been less driven by a pronounced socialist political agenda than by a search for economic profits and resources. It is in this context that the bulk of the literature on ‘China in Africa’ has focused on economic activities such as investment and trade. However, by the same token it has neglected the importance of historical connections and discourses in understanding the complexity of these relationships. China’s unique historical trajectory from a ‘Third World’ leader to a leading global economy exemplifies the hybridity of socialist and capitalist features. Drawing from three case studies – Chinese copper mining, China’s medical practices and the recent SGR – this chapter has analysed the ways in which the past has been variously deployed by diverse actors both to comprehend the present and contrast to a desired future. In Zambia, where mining dated back to the colonial period, the expectations of both sides – Chinese investors and Zambian workers – have been greatly influenced by China’s historical presence in Zambia. While the history of China’s medical aid has manifested differently in Kenya and Zambia, a sense of socialist solidarity has survived in a health sector that is otherwise marked by capital-driven market economies. The Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya, a flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, has, for fear of indebtedness and neocolonial dependency, generated intense public debate about African agency vis-à-vis emerging powers. 124 ‘Kenyans Rush to Book SGR Tickets after Covid-19 Restrictions Lifted’, Daily Nation, 3 May 2021, https://nation.africa/kenya/news/kenyans-rushto-book-sgr-tickets-after-covid-19-restrictions-lifted-3385576, accessed in May 2021.

175

Conclusion

Tensions between China and the US intensified during Donald Trump’s stint in power in various ways, which ranged from so-called ‘trade wars’ to attacks on social media. The two countries’ relations showed worrying signs of slipping into a renewed Cold War. The drama surrounding the transfer of power in the White House at the end of 2020, amid the ever formidable and persistent COVID-19 pandemic, has only made the outlook for global politics even more gloomy and unpredictable. In May 2021, the New York-based think-tank, Council on Foreign Relations, released a discussion paper entitled ‘Major Power Rivalry in Africa’. With her blunt opening remark that ‘competition for influence on the African continent is an undeniable geopolitical reality’, Michelle D. Gavin warned Joe Biden’s new administration and other major powers of the imperative to ‘avoid the mistakes of the past’, namely ‘a passive Africa strategy’.1 Six months later, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid his first official visit to Sub-Saharan Africa to address issues such as the conflict in the Horn of Africa.2 Meanwhile, the 8th FOCAC ministerial conference hosted by Senegal opened once again with President Xi’s remarks on the ‘unbreakable fraternity’ of China and Africa in fighting against imperialism and colonialism. 3 Instead of viewing foreign interests in Africa as nothing but ‘the new scramble’, the much more burning question is: how should Africa prepare itself?4 1 Michelle D. Gavin, ‘Major Power Rivalry in Africa’, Council on Foreign Relations, May 2021, www.cfr.org/report/major-power-rivalry-africa, accessed in May 2021. 2 Ned Price, ‘Secretary Blinken’s Travel to Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal’, US Department of State, 11 November 2021, www.state.gov/secretary-blinkenstravel-to-kenya-nigeria-and-senegal, accessed on 17 November 2021. 3 Xinhua, ‘Keynote speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping at opening ceremony of 8th FOCAC ministerial conference’, FOCAC, 2 December 2021, http:// focac.org.cn/focacdakar/eng/zxyw_1/202112/t20211202_10461076.htm, accessed on 25 February 2022. 4 ‘The New Scramble for Africa’, The Economist, 7 March 2019, http:// economist.com/leaders/2019/03/07/the-new-scramble-for-africa, accessed on 9 June 2021.

Conclusion

Perhaps we can learn from history. For a long time, Africa has been presented as being in an inferior position in the world system, vulnerable – if not always powerless – vis-à-vis external influences. This view has also deprived the continent of its own history and complexity. This book has been one of the first attempts to historicise postcolonial Kenya’s and Zambia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China from ideological, political, economic, and social perspectives. It has included encounters of individual Kenyans and Zambians with Chinese as well as between their states. It has analysed not only the encounters, conflicts, and dynamics of their relationships, but also the basis on which the historical narratives concerning Kenya/Zambia-­ China relations have been constructed. In doing so, it has shed light on the historical underpinnings – or lack thereof – of contemporary China-­A frica relations. In his research on African-Russian ties across three centuries, Maxim Matusevich sought to place Africa ‘outside conventional geographical areas and epistemological space – not in traditional diasporic locations, and not in the context of the transatlantic or Indian Ocean slave trade’. 5 In a similar vein, this book has made several interdisciplinary attempts to explain the topic of African-Chinese encounters. It has rejected the methodological national(ist) histories of China, Kenya, and Zambia to instead analyse the intersections of decolonisation, the Cold War, and Afro-Asian solidarity that have been present in China-­ Africa relations since the end of the Second World War. This transnational history reveals three major dynamics. There is of course the Chinese view of global events, which was translated into practical but also ideological aspects of foreign policy. There is secondly an empirical history of what Chinese and African actors did: Beijing established contacts among, exerted influence on, and provided financial support for, African nationalists sympathetic to Communist China. But thirdly, and what tends to be overlooked, were the mutual and external perceptions of ideas and values towards Sino-African engagement, especially when these concerned and were influenced by anti-Communist fears in the late-colonial period. These dynamics have proved key to this study. Taking this third, neglected dynamic into account, the book has contested accounts of China’s ‘grand policy’ in Africa for their underestimation – if not ignorance of – African agency, and has instead stressed the inconsistency and diversity of Chinese engagement with Africans within and beyond the state. From the outset, ideology has been a driving force in shaping perceptions of China and Africa. According to Mao Zedong, the mission 5 Maxim Matusevich, ‘Introduction. Africa and Russia: An Invisible Link’, in Maxim Matusevich (ed.), Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007), pp. 7–8.

177

178

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

to study ‘African history, geography and the socio-economic situation’ was driven by an ideological need to understand ‘how imperialism came, how it suppressed the people, how it met with people’s resistance, why the resistance failed and how it is now on the rise’.6 China’s initial support of the anticolonial struggles in both Kenya and Zambia was however channelled mostly through its established contacts in the Eastern Bloc. Beijing’s essentially class-based analysis of world revolution did not distinguish significantly between the ruling parties of Kenya and Zambia and indeed the many other African countries who had achieved national independence through the ballot box. Rather, it was the diverse and changing visions and strategies articulated and implemented by the leaders of KANU and UNIP that shaped their relations with Communist China. The historical evolution of African socialism provides a prime example of how African schools of political thought have been in constant conversation with global socialist currents. While Zambian Humanism was a catch-all term during the rule of Kaunda’s UNIP, Kenyatta and the later anti-Odinga coalition within KANU far preferred the slogan of ‘African socialism’ to its substance and ethos. The varied interpretations of socialist ideas and practices by African states manifested the ideological currents during the Cold War and had lasting impacts on their relations with China. The issue of ‘race’ was in many ways secondary to the anticolonial and anti-imperialist priorities of Communist China’s discourse. Following the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, China’s purportedly ‘alternative’ ideological approach to Marxism-Leninism in the form of Maoism proved increasingly attractive among African leaders, most of whom were focused on transforming their agrarian economies into industrial societies led by one form of state intervention or another. For the Soviet Union, the potential of their Chinese counterparts to unite the ‘Third World’ on the basis of an anti-white racial perspective was a huge concern. But the usefulness of the Sino-African shared experience of being non-white was overstated by Chinese leaders, whose own country’s historical experience of racial and ethnic policy was very limited. Given that actual social interactions between ordinary Africans and Chinese were few and far between, on both sides ran concurrent imaginative processes driven by curiosity which were articulated through cultural manifestations such as literature and theatre. These further contributed to stereotypes and misconceptions of each other. Partly as a result, there was a backlash against China’s discourse of shared Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong waijiao wenxian 毛泽东外交文献 [Selections of Mao Tse-tung’s Works on Diplomacy], quoted in Li Anshan, ‘African Studies in China in the Twentieth Century: A Historical Survey’, African Studies Review 48, 1 (2005), p. 63.

6

Conclusion

colonial victimhood when China’s leadership of the Third World came under challenge in its period of post-socialist reform.7 Africa, following a period of essential invisibility in world politics during colonial times, was ‘discovered’ by a generation of diplomats, journalists, experts, and intelligence officers from the various Cold War powers. Operating from a position of little existing knowledge and with limited access to intelligence, these men tended to draw dogmatist, facile conclusions about Africa and Africans which were informed by their own nationalist, ideological, or racist dispositions. From the late 1950s onwards, experts like these felt and spread a pandemic-like fear of Communist subversion across the continent, which was heightened by the various socialist and/or communist successes. For example, the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964 convinced the US that the islands could serve as a subversive base for the region as well as an ‘“African model” of their own revolutionary tactics’.8 However, contrary to Western assumptions that China was encouraging Kenyan radicals to deliver revolutionary gains, the Chinese Foreign Ministry had in fact advised its embassy in Nairobi not to push for a regime change. Yet this initial restraint by Chinese diplomats when it came to Kenyan affairs was disrupted after the launch of the Cultural Revolution back home. Kenyan leaders were poorly informed about the fundamentals of the CCP power struggle between the ‘Mao clique’ and reformists of the late 1970s. Kaunda’s government in Zambia, although better informed of the political developments in Beijing, arguably underestimated the extent to which China would transform itself in the wake of Mao’s death. There is no doubt that understanding African politics exclusively through an ideological lens has its limits. This book has conducted a sustained assessment of the varied forces and factors that shaped the complex and contested engagements between independent African countries and China. While it makes no attempt to provide an analysis that is representative of the African continent as a whole, the comparative approach of studying Kenya’s and Zambia’s engagements with China has nonetheless revealed structural differences in their domestic and foreign politics that were informed but also shaped by the global ideological confrontation of the Cold War period. The resulting contestation of power did not simply translate into foreign manipulation. Facing similar challenges of state-building and economic development, the newly independent nations of Kenya and Zambia approached, deepened, and even negotiated their relations 7 Barry Sautman, ‘Anti-Black Racism in Post-Mao China’, The China Quarterly 138 (1994), p. 414. 8 Thomas Burgess, ‘A Socialist Diaspora: Ali Sultan Issa, the Soviet Union, and the Zanzibari Revolution’, in Matusevich (ed.), Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters, p. 264.

179

180

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

with China as they searched both for ideological and material support in achieving these goals. However, these countries’ diverse engagements with Communist China subsequently verged onto different paths. Kenyan leaders took strategic advantage of the Cold War tensions, utilising them to denigrate dissidents and their domestic opponents, while at the same time pursuing an ostensibly non-aligned but essentially pro-Western foreign policy line. On account of its connections with and support for Oginga Odinga, the official Chinese presence in Kenya was effectively scapegoated by KANU leaders as a threat to Jomo Kenyatta’s government. This case shows the skills of African heads of state and their supporters at manipulating limited external threats to their own benefit. The case of Zambia in this book serves to illustrate the fundamental role of geopolitics in determining the priorities of a relatively young African nation. Threatened by its hostile southern neighbours, under the leadership of Kenneth Kaunda and his United National Independence Party the country maintained friendly relations with China for both ideological and pragmatic reasons. In southern Africa, the already turbulent process of decolonisation was exacerbated by ambitious, manipulative foreign patrons with conflicting global interests.9 In contrast to the Soviet Union and Cuba’s direct interventions in the liberation movements, China’s influence was generally limited and mediated through its regional allies, Tanzania and Zambia. China’s willingness to construct a transnational railway between these two countries was thus more strategic than economic in nature. The prioritisation of geopolitical interests over domestic economic calculations was also a key feature of Zambia’s ‘extraverted’ disposition. Chapter 5 has shown that the way China’s geopolitical expansion in Asia was critically received by certain Zambian officials in the 1980s reflected their own experience of being threatened by powerful neighbours such as UDI Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa. In summary, the distinctive historical experiences of these relations and the variation in China’s relations with specific African states – demonstrated through comparisons between Kenya and Zambia – challenge existing assumptions about the role of the China-Africa historical heritage in contemporary studies, as well as the tendency to assume uniformity in these relationships. By comparing Kenya’s and Zambia’s relations with China, this book has also attempted to understand two contrasting state perspectives underlying the oft-name-dropped but seldom explained concept of 9 Thomas Borstelmann, Apartheid’s Reluctant Uncle: The United States and Southern Africa in the Early Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Chris Saunders and Sue Onslow, ‘The Cold War and Southern Africa, 1976–1990’, in Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 222–43; Andrew DeRoche, Kenneth Kaunda, the United States and Southern Africa, (London: Bloomsbury, 2016).

Conclusion

‘African agency’.10 Bearing in mind the danger of separating ideology from national and/or economic interests, this book has nonetheless illustrated the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of the Cold War in Africa. China’s changing global image, from a leader of the ‘Third World’ to an economic superpower, was interpreted and engaged with by African states and elites that were simultaneously experiencing their own processes of historical change. It can be argued that the KANU governments of both President Kenyatta and President Moi pursued a consistently pragmatic foreign agenda. Despite political tensions and ideological rifts with China from the mid-1960s onwards, Sino-Kenyan trade continued to grow steadily. China’s tacit alliance with the West from the second half of the 1970s gave greater assurance to Moi’s government with regard to strengthening bilateral cooperation with China. Above all, it was material and economic gains that informed Kenya’s approach to its external relations in general and China in particular. Since their economies remained closely aligned with and subordinate to Western powers, developing nations had little incentive to upend their existing global relationships in favour of a radical anti-­i mperialist doctrine. In this respect, for African countries, part and parcel with the development brought about by China’s wide-reaching contemporary involvement in infrastructural projects such as the SGR comes the risk of indebtedness and a new form of neocolonial dependency. In contrast, China-Zambia relations under President Kaunda were cordial despite political differences. Zambian leaders maintained a relatively firm consensus that alleged Chinese Communist threats would not be permitted to fuel power struggles within UNIP. The case study of Zambia’s maize deal with China has revealed the discrepancy between the professed ambition and limited practical agency of many African countries in bringing about their national interests vis-à-vis Cold War protagonists. China’s Maoist model, once an important influence on UNIP’s pursuit of sustained economic development under the leadership of a one-party state, fell out of favour back home by the end of the 1970s with the launch of China’s grand reform. Tensions also arose when China’s construction of the ‘Uhuru’ Railway failed to deliver satisfactory economic results in exchange for the debt burden incurred by Zambia. From this we can observe how an ideologically driven political friendship could prove a fragile basis for bilateral relations in this fast-changing and unpredictable international environment. Certain difficulties encountered during the more recent experience of Chinese mining in Zambia have been contained in part due to expectations of Kweku Ampiah and Naidoo Sanusha (eds), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Africa and China (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008); Giles Mohan and Ben Lampert, African Affairs 112, 446 (2012), ‘Negotiating China: Reinserting African Agency into China-Africa Relations’, pp. 92–110.

10

181

182

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

a promised future that are rooted in a nostalgic sense of a better past, demonstrating how the legacy of the two countries’ ideology-based friendship continues to manifest itself in contrasting ways. To understand the nature and scope of African agency, the book has disaggregated Kenya’s and Zambia’s state perspectives by investigating the respective modalities and incentives that informed their foreign policy-making. In all three countries, the ruling party played a no less significant role than the national government in shaping China-Africa relations. The Chinese Communist Party’s support for independence struggles in Africa throughout the Cold War can be partly explained by its own historical trajectory. The success of the CCP in defeating both foreign and domestic enemies had owed much to its success in establishing a united front across regional, class, and ethnic divides. Thus, its leaders drew on this experience in the belief (in sharp contrast to the Soviet Union) that the people of the ‘Third World’ should overcome such divides to unite against imperialist enemies. Both Kenya’s and Zambia’s ruling parties were closely involved in the provision of knowledge, manpower, and resources in their countries’ China engagements during the time period examined in this book. In a context in which the capacity to gather intelligence and facilitate communication was limited, personal connections and networks served as the most effective channel for Chinese and Africans to establish contact. Beijing’s initial choice of Oginga Odinga as a close Kenyan ally was a reaction to the fact that Tom Mboya had already become a client of the US. But when the ruling party failed to maintain its own unity, having external links could be counterproductive. Odinga’s eventual expulsion from KANU and the formation of his own opposition party had the effect of pushing Beijing to adopt a more antagonistic position against the Kenyatta government, severely damaging the countries’ political (though not economic) relationship. Kenya’s attitude towards China would only improve when Moi used his 1980 visit to China to pacify challenges to his rule from both within and outside KANU. While foreign patronage is a risky venture for any party, it was (and remains) especially dangerous for opposition party and leaders, since it opens them up to charges of being puppets for external interests. However, neither was a robust party-state such as that of Zambia’s Second Republic (1972–1991) automatically guaranteed diplomatic success. Zambia’s political terrain of the late 1970s was marked by increasing divisions between technocratic officials and radical ‘freedom fighters’ within UNIP, with the former secretly discussing the possibility of overthrowing Kaunda’s government. A parallel struggle could also be observed in the post-Mao CCP, where a body of middle-aged intellectuals and technocrats like Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang, was promoted by Deng to carry out bold reform. The fact that Deng’s faction represented the interests of both technocrats and nationalist van-

Conclusion

guards was dismissed by UNIP’s Research Bureau in its analysis of change in China: following a dogmatic Marxist-Leninist class analysis, it reached the false conclusion that Mao’s hand-picked heir Hua Guofeng had consolidated his power against ‘the rightists led by Deng Xiaoping’. The ideological divergence between the two parties in the early 1980s constrained China’s support of Zambia’s position on matters related to southern Africa. With their overwhelming focus on investment and trade, most contemporaneous observations of China’s renewed interest in Africa have failed to seriously and critically engage with the historical aspects of this complex relationship. Following the end of the Cold War, both Kenya and Zambia experienced different forms of the political and economic liberalisation being implemented across much of the wider world. Yet no such ‘dual liberalisation’ took place in China: the political regime maintained robust control over the country while gradually transforming its economy into a more market-oriented and capital-driven entity. As a result, this ‘global’ China’s renewed interest in Africa has in the new millennium been driven not by a pronounced socialist political agenda but rather by a search for economic profits and resources. China’s unique historical trajectory from a ‘Third World’ leader to an economic superpower is best captured by the discourse of nostalgia, which plays a significant role in present-day engagements between Chinese and African states and people. Generally understood as ‘a longing for things as they were in an idealised past’, the word ‘nostalgia’ intersects with debates over the status of ‘history’ in relation to ‘truth’.11 In the PRC, nostalgia manifests itself in relation to the collective trauma of the twentieth century: the political infiltration, economic exploitation, and military invasion by Western imperialists that is said to have destroyed China’s splendid civilisation and imprinted a historical memory of enormous humiliation which still resonates powerfully today.12 William A. Callahan notes that ‘the master narrative of modern Chinese history is the discourse of the century of national humiliation’.13 At the centre of this discourse is a sense of ‘victimhood’ or ‘shame’, which has frequently been deployed to legitimise the PRC’s political system under the CCP’s leadership.14 The national self-­identity Callum Ingram, ‘Building between Past and Future: Nostalgia, Historical Materialism and the Architecture of Memory in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 41, 3 (2015), p. 321. 12 Chen Jian, ‘全球冷战与中国“漫长的崛起”’ [The Global Cold War and China’s ‘Prolonged Rise’], Cold War International History Studies, 15 (2013), pp. 31–2. 13 William A. Callahan, ‘National Insecurities: Humiliation, Salvation and Chinese Nationalism’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 29, 2 (2004), p. 204. 14 See Peter Hays Gries, ‘Narratives to Live By: The “Century of Humiliation” and Chinese National Identity Today’, in Lionel M. Jensen and Timothy B. Weston (eds), China’s Transformations: The Stories Beyond the Headlines (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), pp. 112–28; Peter Hays Gries, China’s 11

183

184

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

of Chinese as victims forms a stark contrast with the collective memory of the region’s rich history and culture prior to the mid-­n ineteenth century, a legacy which has been claimed by successive generations of CCP leadership. Mao used it to endorse an ideology that emphasised the belonging and attachment of individuals to the state. But it has also helped justify the CCP’s one-party rule during the reform era, during which all attempts to democratise the political system were rejected by the leadership.15 The legacies of colonialism and imperialism in contemporary foreign policy are arguably more significant in Africa. Colonisation in Africa was felt in the triangulation of people’s ‘physical, human, and spiritual’ experience, in what was in essence a ‘metamorphosis’ as envisioned by ‘ideological and theoretical texts’.16 Since ‘the Scramble for Africa’ was initiated by external actors, there remains an underlying question as to ‘whether modernity and postmodernity could have been “invented” (or, indeed, “conducted”) without the resources [of these forces]’.17 African history has more broadly been narrated as a history of external exploitation, whether with regard to the Atlantic slave trade or the extraction of natural resources, a process whereby indigenous forces were marginalised from the very start.18 The resulting exploitative global system, rooted in an uneven and asymmetrical relationship between the metropole and the periphery, did not disappear with political independence, and in some respects could even be said to have been enhanced by African states acting as ‘gate-keepers’.19 The concept of anti-imperialist nostalgia can aid our understandings of the consequent tension in postcolonial African political thought and action. While most colonial states ‘mourn the passing of what they themselves have transformed’ based on ‘imperialist nostalgia’, 20 New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Paul A. Cohen, China Unbound: Evolving Perspectives on the Chinese Past (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 148–84; Alison Adcock Kaufman, ‘The “Century of Humiliation”, Then and Now: Chinese Perceptions of the International Order’, Pacific Focus, April 2010, 25, 1, pp. 1–33. 15 Chen, ‘The Global Cold War and China’s “Prolonged Rise”’, pp. 27–42. 16 Valentin Yves Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), p. 2. 17 Jennifer Wenzel, ‘Remembering the Past’s Future: Anti-Imperialist Nostalgia and Some Versions of the Third World’, Cultural Critique 62 (2006), p. 2. 18 Amina Mama, ‘Is it Ethical to Study Africa? Preliminary Thoughts on Scholarship and Freedom’, African Studies Review 50, 1 (2007), pp. 1–26. 19 Frederick Cooper, Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Christopher S. Clapham, Africa and the International System: The Politics of State Survival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Jean-François Bayart and Stephen Ellis, ‘Africa in the World: A History of Extraversion’, African Affairs 99, 395 (2000), pp. 217–67. 20 Renato Rosaldo, ‘Imperialist Nostalgia’, Representations 26, 1 (1989), pp. 107–22.

Conclusion

this anti-imperialist nostalgia does the exact opposite: it ‘holds in mind hope for changes that have yet to be realized, changes that were always yet to be realized’. 21 This ongoing process, in which the limitations of what has been achieved are acknowledged, while at the same time an imagined better future is pursued, dominated the development discourse in many newly independent countries. In the context of the Cold War, the two Communist giants envisaged contrasting revolutionary programmes: while the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) claimed legitimacy to rule by building a superior economic system, the mandate of the CCP, itself a product of an anti-imperialist revolution, was to ‘build a strong, united, independent, prosperous, and modern China’. 22 In this sense, the concept of the ‘Third World’ was a powerful imaginary. Dissatisfied with the new world order divided as it was between West and East, those on the fringes of this binary division envisioned alternative possibilities, which should ideally have come into reality yet could only arrive in a (perpetually delayed) future. By acknowledging ‘the past’s vision of the future’ while at the same time recognising ‘the distance and the difference between that vision and the realities of the present’, this anti-imperialist nostalgia prompted discussions of ‘historicity, the nation-state, and utopian projection and promise’.23 Instead of being a fait accompli, anti-imperialism, loosely (re)interpreted as the struggle against global inequality and injustice, lives on in spite of the collapse of both the European empires and the USSR, encapsulated in the continuity of the slogan ‘a luta continua’ long after the way this was deployed in liberation struggles ceased to hold direct relevance. The intersection of colonial victimhood and nationalist victory has been a notable feature of China-Africa relations, but the implications in specific contexts are variable. While the official discourse of anti-imperialist nostalgia has been popular in China-Africa relations, it has on occasion backfired in the everyday encounters between ordinary Chinese and Africans. Between late 1988 and early 1989, there were widespread demonstrations against African students in Nanjing and other Chinese cities. The fact that such a burst of racism took place during the reform era calls into question China’s credentials as a ‘Third World’ leader. While the social isolation of African students from locals and their different living standards were partly responsible for these tensions, ‘a marked downplaying of Third World themes in the Chinese media’ also contributed Wenzel, ‘Remembering the Past’s Future’, p. 7. Jeremy Scott Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), pp. 215–24. 23 Wenzel, ‘Remembering the Past’s Future’, pp. 7–8. 21

22

185

186

Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019

to their escalation on an unprecedented scale. 24 During the Maoist era, Africa had been portrayed in state propaganda as poor, uncultured, and troubled by disease, while China was presented as a major donor as well as a dedicated teacher that could share its experience with the ‘backward’ continent. For Chinese students, these entrenched ideas were then confronted by a new image of male African students supposedly enjoying an easy life with better accommodation and living standards with their Chinese girlfriends. This stereotype of African students as coming from poor ‘backward’ homes, yet prospering via China’s altruistic brotherhood, generated a racialised sense of injustice and antagonism among Chinese students. Although this kind of resentment already existed in the Mao era, it was vocalised only when the old rhetoric of fraternity lost its grip during China’s post-socialist transition. This book has problematised the relationships between the ‘past’ and the ‘present’. History has played a significant role in constructing, reshaping and negotiating expectations on both the Chinese and African sides through contemporary engagements. To demonstrate this, I have sought to recapture the missing voices of many ordinary Chinese and Africans who experienced, participated in and shaped these historical trajectories. In doing so, it has analysed the ways in which the past has been variously deployed by diverse actors to comprehend the present and contrast it to a desired future. The unproblematic past deployed in public rhetoric, although facilitating official relations between China and Zambia, has had a side-effect whereby the daily encounters of Chinese and Zambians were affected by their perceptions of each other, shaped as these have been by both history as event and its contemporary deployment as myth. On the other hand, the deployment of history in Sino-Kenyan relations omits those less positive aspects such as the diplomatic deterioration in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s, which explains the predominantly profit-driven and present-minded dynamics of both state and individual interactions today. Given that tensions between China and the US are likely to increase in the upcoming years, it is now pivotal to critically review the rich historical legacy of the Cold War era, when most people of the world, including those in Africa, were dragged into a hostile environment. But such a dangerous moment was also fertile ground for imagination, initiative, and even solidarity. ‘Brotherly Strangers’ for one instance, such as China, Kenya, and Zambia have through the rich history of their interactions claimed to be ‘brotherly’ and friendly. Instead of simplistically branding ‘China-in-Africa’ as either neocolonial or altruistic, this book has shown the way it driven by complicated and sometimes contradictory historically informed rationales. It hopes to contribute to, inspire, and encourage future explorations of a similar kind. 24

Sautman, ‘Anti-Black Racism in Post-Mao China’, p. 414.

Appendix I: African Trade with China, 1960–1974 (US $million)

Table 1 African trade with China, 1960–1974 (US$million) (Source: Wei Liang-Tsai, ‘Table VIII: PRC-African Trade, 1960–1975 (in millions of U.S. dollars)’, Peking versus Taipei in Africa 1960–1978 (Ann Arbor: Asia and World Institute, 1982), p. 44.

Year

Imports

Exports

1960

44.8

78.9

1962

54.1

1961

1963

1964

54.6

38.6

58.2

57

72.5

36.9

-47

88

1971

200

186

1973

310

1970

1972 1974

138 221

200

420

190

200

3.4

6.5

91

106

1969

3.1

-9.7

-84.7

68.5

3.1

4.2

52.4

161.4

African trade as percentage of total China foreign trade

-1.2

-89.2

1967

137.1

-17.2

79.8

120.5

1968

-16

-8.8

130.2 169

34.1

63.7

1965

1966

Visible balance

4.2 5.9

-92.9

5.9

-18

5.0

5.0

5.3

-14

8.2

-110

5.2

-21

-230

7.1

4.4

188

Appendix I: African Trade with China, 1960–1974 (US $million)

Figure 1 Graph of African trade with China, 1960–1974 (US$million) (graph by Author, based on Table 1). Source: ‘Table VIII: PRC-African Trade, 1960–1975 (in millions of U.S. dollars)’, by Wei Liang-Tsai, Peking versus Taipei in Africa 1960– 1978 (Ann Arbor: Asia and World Institute, 1982), p. 44.

Appendix II: Kenyan Trade with China, 1962–1980 (KSh)

Table 2 Kenyan Trade with China, 1962–1980 (K. Sh.) (Source: KNA, External Trade-Trade with China, 1963–1980, KETA/7/17.)

Year

1962

1963

1964 1965

Imports

165,400

1,071,280

1,895,420

7,274,500

687,780

13,912,380

1966

22,883,520

1968

38,879,000

1967

Exports

Re-exports

3,409,420

7,877,940

12,559,740

Visible balance 905,880

2,721,640

94,500

5,379,080

- 5,939,940

- 10,323,780

17,517,220

21,848,840

31,834,380

8,739,880

- 23,094,500

24,253,496

12,378,994

- 11,874,502

24,267,720

32,368,539

1975

83,715,230

35,692,624

- 48,022,606

1977

61,098,375

8,258,122

- 52,840,253

1969 1970

1971

23,022,276

1972

28,692,925

1974

32,252,157

1973

1976

27,835,833

1978

116,282,528

1980

81,110,328

1979

102,063,745

4,331,620

18,615,040

- 20,263,960

9,533,216

- 13,489,060

17,517,650

- 11,175,275

8,100,819

61,405,474

29,153,317

27,908,294

72,461

29,200,727

52,800

37,321,947

849,270

53,958,495

- 87,029,001

- 48,105,250 - 42,939,111

190

Appendix II: Kenyan Trade with China, 1962–1980 (KSh)

Figure 2 Graph of Kenyan Trade with China, 1962–1980 (KSh) (graph by Author, based on Table 2). Source: KNA, External Trade – Trade with China, 1963–1980, KETA/7/17.

Appendix III: Kenyan Trade with China, 1964–1976 (K £’000)

Table 3 Kenyan Trade with China, 1964–1976 (K £’000) (Source: Statistical Abstract (1967, 1977, 1979, 1981), Central Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, Kenya.)

Year

Net imports

1964

696

1966

1,944

1968

1,592

1970

1,213

1972

1,219

1965 1967

1969 1971

1973

437

- 1,155

619

- 594

1,618

399

1,151

477

876

1,677

3,070

1,471

1,395

5,814

1,460

3,055

1978

5,103

1979

- 1,013

1,092

1976

1980

931

876

4,627

1977

- 302

633

1,435

4,804

7,608

Visible balance

394

954

1974

1975

Exports and re-exports

- 321

+ 216

- 674

- 559

1,393

1,785

- 2,842

413

- 2,642

2,702

- 2,401

1,959

1,956

-76

- 4,354

- 2,845

- 5,652

192

Appendix III: Kenyan Trade with China, 1964–1976 (K £’000)

Figure 3 Graph of Kenyan Trade with China, 1964–1976 (K £’000 ) (graph by Author, based on Table 3).

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Manuscripts and Archives

Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry Archives (CFMA)

108-00126-03, ‘肯尼亚三人要求来华事’ [Three Kenyans Requested to Visit China], 18 December 1959. 108-00150-01, ‘关于肯尼亚两名学生来华学习事’ [Two Kenyan Students to Visit China], 31 December 1959. 108-00100-01, ‘赞比亚民族联合党副全国主席卡曼加访华（未成行）及我提 供援助事情’ [UNIP Vice President Kamanga’s Visit (Did Not Happen) and His Financial Request], 1 September 1960. 108-00100-01, ‘北罗得西亚民族联合党要求援助事’ [UNIP’s Financial Request], 1 December 1960. 108-00263-05, ‘报告关于北罗得西亚乔纳的情况’ [Report on Chona from Northern Rhodesia], 13 January 1961. 108-00263-05, ‘北罗联合民族独立党副主席乔纳访华情况’ [UNIP Vice President Chona’s Visit to China], 30 January 1961. 108-01001-02, ‘中国对外文化联络委员会交际司以及湖南、广西外事办公室 接待肯尼亚非洲民族联盟尼安萨省支部总书记奥论德访华工作简报’ [Brief on the Visit by KANU Nyanza General Secretary, administered by the Chinese External Cultural Contact Commission with the Hunan and Guangxi Offices for External Affairs], 27 February 1964. 108-00463-06, ‘中国对外文化联络委员会接待肯尼亚总统肯雅塔之长子彼 德.肯雅塔访华计’ [Plan by the Chinese External Cultural Contact Commission for the Visit by Peter Kenyatta, eldest son of Kenya’s President Kenyatta], 30 April 1964. 108-00563-01, ‘关于何大使访问北罗事’ [Ambassador He’s Visit to Northern Rhodesia], 11 February 1964. 108-00563-01, ‘关于何大使访问北罗的简况’ [Brief on Ambassador He’s Visit to Northern Rhodesia], 14 June 1964. 108-00472-12, ‘中国驻肯尼亚大使王雨田同农业部长麦克凯齐、国务部长 穆隆比、工程、交通和动力部长姆挖永姆巴的谈话记录’ [Minutes for the Meeting of the Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Wang Yutian

194

Bibliography

and Kenyan Minister for Agriculture McKenzie, Minister of State Murumbi, and Minister for Engineering, Transport and Power Mwamyumba], 13 May – 24 June 1964. 108-00465-02, ‘肯目前形势和我们的看法’ [The Current Situation in Kenya and Our View Thereof], 1 July 1964. 108-01117-01, ‘奥廷加对肯形势看法及对我要求’ [Odinga’s Take on the Kenyan Situation and his Requests of China], 20 September 1965.

London, United National Independence Party Archives at The British Library (UNIP BL)

EAP121_2_5_5_3, ‘United National Independence Party Northern Rhodesia (London Committee)’, 1960–1961 ‘Correspondence Letter to the United National Independence Party Northern Rhodesia (London Committee)’, 30 December 1960. EAP121_2_5_1_6, ‘Report of Zulu on His Visit to PRC’, 1975 ‘Observation on our Relations with China over Southern Africa’, 1–21 September 1975. ‘Report of his Honour A.G. Zulu MCC., Secretary-General of the Party on his Official Visit to the Republic of India, The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the People’s Republic of China’, 1–21 September 1975. EAP121_2_5_1_9pt6, ‘Correspondence by Ministry of Commerce & Report on the Visit to the PRC’, 1976 ‘Report on the Visit to the PRC’, 22 October 1976. EAP121_2_5_1_10, ‘Report of the Delegation to the Soviet Union Led by Mr. A.A. Kawonga, District Governor, Kaoma, From 10th to 17th September, 1979’, 1979 ‘Visit to the People’s Republic of China by a UNIP Delegation 22nd July – 10th August 1979’, August 1979. EAP121_2_5_4_32pt1, ‘Report of the Meeting between the Head of the International Liaison Department of the CCP and the Research Bureau of the Party’, 1980 ‘Matters Brought by the Research Bureau’, January 1980. ‘Analyse Conditions Objectively’, 23 January 1980.

London, National Archives of the UK (TNA)

FCO 141/7090, ‘Kenya: Chinese Communist Activities in the Middle East and Africa’, 1959–1962 ‘Chinese Communist Activities in Africa’, 28 March 1960. ‘Chinese Influence on Africa and in Particular in Kenya’, 1960. ‘Chinese Train African Terrorists’, June 1961. ‘Chinese Activities and Influence in Africa’, December 1961. ‘Memorandum: Sino-Soviet Propaganda in Africa’, 1961.

Bibliography

DO 213/214, ‘Ministerial Delegation from Kenya visiting China via Soviet Union’, 1964 ‘The Speech Delivered by the Leader of the Kenya Government Delegation’, 6 May 1964. ‘Letter from Office of the British Chargé d’Affaires, Peking to the Commonwealth Relations Office’, 19 May 1964. ‘Visit of Kenya Delegation to China’, 27 May 1964. DO 209/101, ‘Visit by Chinese Trade Delegation’, 1966 ‘From the British High Commission in Lusaka to London’, 24 May 1966. DO 209/71, ‘China: 10m Loan Offer’, 1966 ‘Chinese Aid to Zambia’, 11 August 1966. FCO 95/251, ‘Zambia: Chinese Aid’, 1967–1968 ‘Joint Communiqué of People’s Republic of China and Republic of Zambia’, 1967. FCO 29/336, ‘Zambia’s Relations with China’, 1968–1969 ‘Chinese Activity in Zambia’, 17 December 1968.

Lusaka, Zambia National Archives (ZNA)

FA/1/94, ‘Relations with China’, 1965–1968 ‘In the Opinions of the Chinese’, 1965. ‘Minutes for the Meeting of the 19th Aug. (morning) with Vice-­ Premier Li Hsien-nien’, 19 August 1965. ‘From Mainza Chona to the PS of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 17 March 1967. ‘From H.S. Soko copied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 19 May 1967. ‘From Mainza Chona to the PS of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 14 August 1967. ‘Admission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations’, January 1968. MFA1/1/64, ‘Communist China –Technical Assistance’, 1965–1967 ‘Under Secretary (2)’, 9 June 1967. ‘Trade: Maize Sale to China’, July 1967. MFA1/1/155, ‘China (Communist) Cultural Co-operation Agreement with’, 1966–1967 ‘Letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the Cultural Cooperation Agreement between Zambia and China’, March 1967. ‘Record of a Meeting between Mr. Yen, Chinese Chargé d’Affaires, and Mr. Chimuka, Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 20 October 1967. MFA1/1/241, ‘China Trade with’, 1967–1968 ‘Export of Maize to China’, 24 January 1967. ‘From Ministry of Commerce, Industry & Foreign Trade to Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 6 February 1967.

195

196

Bibliography

‘From Ministry of Finance to Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 22 March 1967. ‘Handwritten Note to Mark’, 4 May 1967. ‘Maize Export Contract with the China National Cereals, Oils & Foodstuffs, Import & Export Corporation’, 8 June 1967. ‘Trade Agreement between Zambia and China’, 13 July 1967. ‘Note from Mutale to Muuka’, 15 July 1967. ‘Zambia-China Maize Sale’, 4 August 1967. ‘From Ministry Commerce to Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 31 August 1967. ‘Observations on the Zambian Trade and Economic Mission to the PRC, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong led by the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Foreign Trade, from the 7th of April, to the 20th of May, 1967’, August 1967. ‘From the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, 8 December 1967. MFA1/1/244, ‘Afro-Asian Activities – General’, 1967–68 ‘“GANEFO” Federation – Indonesia’, 6 February 1966. ‘For the Attention of Mr. P. Banda’, 26 May 1966. MFA1/1/549, ‘Conferences of Heads of Non-aligned States’, 1970–1971 ‘Guiding notes on non-aligned summit – Lusaka – September, 1970’, September 1970. MFA1/1/348, ‘Zambia/Tanzania Rail Link’, 1970 ‘Letter from P. Ng’oma to Minister of Power, Transport and Works’, April 1970. MCT 2/9/010, ‘Tripartite Meetings of the Tanzania’s, Zambian’s & the Chinese’, 1980–1989 ‘Brief on the PRC for Use by KK, on the Occasion of the Visit to Zambia by the Chinese PM, Zhao Ziyang’, 30 December 1982. CO 2/3/001, ‘UNIP Central Committee’, 1984–1986 ‘Draft Central Committee Memorandum’, 17 July 1984. ITD/102/63/35, ‘Mulungushi Textiles Zambia Ltd’, 1985 ‘Possibility of Expanding and Improving Spinning and Weaving Capacities at Kafue and Mulungushi Textiles’, 28 August 1985.

Lusaka, United National Independence Party Archives (UNIP Lusaka)

7/23/14, ‘People’s Democratic China’, 1969–1972 ‘A Report on the Tour of the PRC and DPRK by a Zambian Government Goodwill Mission Led by His Honour VP Hon. M.M. Chona’, 15–30 September 1972. ‘Record of the Second Meeting Held between the Zambian Goodwill Mission and the Chinese Government Delegation’, 18 September 1972. 7/23/22, ‘Embassy of Zambia in Peking’, 1970–1973 ‘The Two Faces of Kapwepwe’, 10 February 1972.

Bibliography

7/23/65, ‘Peking-China’, 1977–1980 ‘From the Asian Affairs Desk of Ministry of Foreign Affairs’, January 1979. ‘To the Deputy Director from the Clerical Officer’, 15 January 1980. To Comrade J.S. Mumba from the Provincial Political Secretary’, 28 February 1980. ‘To the Deputy Director of Research Bureau from the Secretary-General’, 4 March 1980. ‘To the Secretary-General of the Party from the Principal Advisor to the Secretary-General of the Party and Director of the Research Bureau’, 18 March 1980. ‘To the Deputy Director, Research Bureau from the Provincial Political Secretary’, 23 June 1980. ‘Record of Official Talks at Party Level between the Communist Party of China and the United National Independence Party of Zambia’, 30 September 1980. ‘Political Report No. 5/80 For the period August 1 to September 30, 1980’. ‘Brief on the PRC on the Occasion of the Visit of the Chinese Vice Premier Li Hsien Nien from 12th January to 16th January, 1979’. 7/23/99, Peking-China, 1983 ‘Correspondence from Shonga to Goma’, June 1983.

Maryland, The US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Central Files

RG 59, Box 3963 (Political & Defense, POL 17 Diplomatic & Consular Representations KENYA to POL 15 Gov. KOR), 1963. ‘Incoming airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 27 July 1963. RG 59, Box 2391 (Political & Defense, POL 7 Visits. Meetings, KENYA to POL 12 KENYA), 1964–1966 ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 4 May 1964. ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 7 May 1964. ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 21 May 1964. ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 23 May 1964. ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 2 June 1964. ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 20 June 1964. ‘Airgram from Nairobi to Department of State’, 6 August 1964. ‘Kenyan Foreign Policy; Non-Alignment, Communist China, Somalia’, 15 September 1964. ‘Assassination of Pinto: Brains and Organizer of Odinga Forces’, 5 March 1965. ‘Kenyan MP Discusses Taiwan Trip’, 30 March 1965.

197

198

Bibliography

‘Arms Smuggling’, 5 April 1965. ‘Why There Has Been No Conclusive Confrontation between Kenyatta and Odinga; The Relationship between the Two Leaders’, 21 May 1965. RG 59, Box 2392 (Political & Defense, POL 12-3 KENYA to POL 15-1 KENYA), 1964–1966 ‘An evening with Oginga Odinga’, 21 July 1964. ‘Odinga Presents Views on National and International Problems; Pinto Urges More US Contact with Odinga’, 24 December 1964. ‘Internal Political Balance Sheet’, 6 August 1965. RG 59, Box 2394 (Political & Defense, POL 17 Diplomatic & Consular Representations KENYA to POL 23-10 KENYA), 1964–1966 ‘Chinese Communist Embassy Site Provoked Kenyatta’s Suspicions; Other Aspects’, 13 August 1965. ‘Memorandum to United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency: Conversation with Jeremiah Nyagah’, 20 August 1965. ‘Press Interview of Vice President Oginga Odinga’, 5 October 1965. RG 59, Box 2396 (Political & Defense, POL 17-5 Kenya - Somali to POL 12-6 KOR N), 1964–1966 ‘Conversation with the Kenyan Ambassador in Moscow Regarding the Odinga Visit, Sino-Soviet Rivalry, Kenyan Students, and Kenya’s Northeast Region’, 5 June 1964. RG 59, Box 3038 (Political & Defense, POL 1 ZAMBIA), 1964–1966 ‘Report of Conversation with Professor G. Goundrey’, 1 August 1965. ‘Memorandum of Conversation with Sikota Wina, Sean Kelly, William Jones’, 29 December 1965. RG 59, Box 3040 (Political & Defense, POL 17 ZAMBIA to POL 33-7 ZAMBIA), 1964–1966 ‘Diplomatic Representation in Lusaka – and the Importance of Encouraging an Expansion of Free World Missions’, 13 August 1965. RG 59, Box 1513 (Political and Defense, CSM 6 VIET S to CSM 3), 1967– 1969 ‘Chicoms Feature Mao at Zambia Trade Fair’, 5 July 1967. RG 59, Box 1970 (Political and Defense, POL 33 CHICOM-HK to POL CHICOM-KENYA), 1967–1969 ‘Incident at Communist Chinese Embassy in Nairobi’, 12 February 1967. ‘Principal Points March 15 Statement by Governing Party KANU’, 16 March 1967. ‘Reaction to Plans for Revolutionary Chinese Communist Diplomatic Activity’, 22 March 1967. ‘China and Kenya Trade Hostages’, 18 October 1967. ‘Kenya Bans Literature from Foreign Languages Press of Peking’, 27 October 1967. ‘Communist Chinese Protest Kenya Favoritism’, 2 November 1968.

Bibliography

RG 59, Box 2255 (Political and Defense, POL JORDAN-US to POL 2 KENYA), 1967–1969 ‘Reaction to Plans for Revolutionary Chinese Communist Diplomatic Activity’, March 22, 1967. ‘National Assembly Debate on Kenya’s Foreign Policy’, 2 April 1967. ‘Annual Policy Assessment – Kenya II FAM 212.3-5’, 17 August 1968. ‘Political Note #6’, 19 July 1969. ‘Political Note #8’, 9 August 1969. RG 59, Box 2256 (Political and Defense, POL 6 KENYA to POL 12 KENYA), 1967–1969 ‘Meeting of Vice President Moi of Kenya with President Nixon – Action Memorandum’, 3 May 1969. ‘KANU Statement on The Reds and the Blacks’, 21 May 1967. ‘Intelligence Note: Kenya: Solving the Succession Issue?’ 20 December 1967. RG 59, Box 2257 (Political and Defense, POL 13 KENYA to POL 15-1 KENYA), 1967–1969 ‘The Reds and the Blacks – A Kenyan’s View’, 2 July 1967. ‘Conversation with Mr. Theophilus A. Koske, Kenya Ambassador to Peking’, 4 July 1967. ‘The Attwood Book’, 8 November 1967. ‘Research Memorandum: Kenya: Will the Establishment Survive?’ 9 December 1968. RG 59, Box 2847 (Political & Defense, POL 7 ZAMBIA to POL 12-3 ZAMBIA), 1967–1969 ‘Kaunda’s Nairobi Press Statement of June 13, 1967’, 18 June 1967. ‘Outward telegram from the Department of State to Amembassy Lusaka’, 8 June 1967. ‘Telegram from the Department of State to Lusaka’, 30 June 1967. ‘President Kaunda’s June 28 Press Statement’, 3 July 1967. ‘Arthur Wina on the Zambian Political Situation’, 22 November 1968. ‘Sikota Wina Returns from Mainland China’, September 1969. RG 59, Box 2848 (Political & Defense, POL 14 ZAMBIA to POL 15-1 ZAMBIA), 1967–1969 ‘GRZ Foreign Minister Kapwepwe Attacks Foreign Investment’, 6 March 1967. ‘Insights into Kenneth Kaunda by Colin Morris’, 17 July 1967. Decentralised Files

RG 59, Bureau of African Affairs, Office of East African Affairs, Box 1 (Records relating to Malawi and Zambia), 1967–1975 ‘Vice President’s African Trip’, 21 December 1967.

199

200

Bibliography

Nairobi, Kenya National Archives (KNA)

C/I&E/2/11, ‘Trade with Formosa (Taiwan)’, 1956–1965 ‘Letter by J.H. Martin, Department of Trade and Supplies, Nairobi’, 15 February 1962. ABM/2/3133/91/01, ‘Technical Assistance Agreement with PRC’, 1964 ‘Agreement Concerning Economic and Technical Cooperation’, 10 May 1964. ‘Protocol to Agreement Concerning Economic and Technical Cooperation between the Government of Kenya and the Government of the People’s Republic of China’, 10 December 1964. AE/19/70, ‘China Aid Policy’, 1964–1965 ‘Minutes for the Meeting Held on Wednesday 3rd June 1964 in the Office of the Minister for Home Affairs’, 3 June 1964. ‘Correspondence from the Permanent Secretary for Commerce & Industry to the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury’, 26 August 1964. ‘USSR and Chinese Aid – National Trading Company’, 5 November 1964. MIS/17/4/62, ‘African Socialism in Kenya’, 1965 ‘Statement Issued by the Hon. Dr. J.G. Kiano’, 7 May 1965. KETA/7/17, ‘External Trade – Trade with China’, 1963–1980 ‘Correspondence from the Chinese Embassy in Kenya to the Kenyan Ministry of Commerce and Industry’, 18 September 1966. ‘Resume of the Meeting Held in the Hon. Mbiyu Koinange’s Office Harambee House at 2.30 P.M. on Monday 28th November 1966 to Discuss Sale of Maize to China’, 28 November 1966. KNA, MU/1/8, ‘Press Kenya Embassy-Peking’, 1964–1977 ‘Afro-Asian Journalists Association’, 14 January 1967. AE/3/844, ‘Kenya Supply Board, Export Control, China’, 1967 ‘From the Director of Trade & Supplies to the Secretary for Commerce and Industry’, 5 June 1967. ABM/17/65, ‘Chinese Assistance for Development Projects’, 1980–1984 ‘Preliminary Report: State Visit to China’, 13 October 1980. ‘State Visit to the PRC Memorandum by Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs’, 9 December 1980. ‘Draft Kenya/China Protocol’, December 1980.

Oxford, Bodleian Library (OBL)

Papers of the Rt. Hon. Sir Roy Welensky

247/1, ‘Communism a Threat to Federation – Sir Roy’, Rhodesia Herald, 1 April 1960. 237/1, ‘Northern Rhodesia’, 15 June 1954.

Bibliography

237/6, ‘External Influences Affecting the African National Congress of Northern Rhodesia’, 15 November 1955. 237/7, ‘Security Intelligence Review: Rhodesia and Nyasaland No. 6, October–November 1955’, 16 December 1955.

Shanghai, Shanghai Municipal Archive (SMA)

C36-2-67-16, ‘中国人民保卫世界和平委员会上海市分会关于上海市各界人民 支援阿尔及利亚人民争取民族独立斗争大会’ [Shanghai Branch of the Chinese People’s Committee for Defence of World Peace on the List of Presidium Participated in the Mass Assembly of Shanghai People from All Walks of Life to Support the Algerian People’s Struggle for National Independence], 25 March 1958. H1-12-4-211, ‘1959年8月23日阿尔及利亚、突尼斯、新加坡三国妇女代表团代 表在上海市妇联座谈’ [23 August 1959 Discussion of Three Women’s Delegations from Algeria, Tunisia, Singapore at Shanghai Women’s Federation], 23 August 1959. B126-1-495-9, ‘国家体育运动委员会国际司关于阿尔及利亚国家足球队接待 工作情况简报’ [Report of the International Department of the National Sports Committee on the Reception Work of Algerian National Football Team], 18 December 1959. C1-2-3463-30, ‘上海市总工会联络部关于阿尔及利亚工人总联合会代表团名 单’ [Liaison Department of the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions on the List of the Delegation of Algerian General Confederation of Workers], 27 May 1960. C1-2-3463-68, ‘上海市总工会联络部关于乍得、伊拉克、桑给巴尔、马达加斯 加、刚果、阿尔及利亚等工会代表在沪活动日程表’ [Liaison Department of the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions on the Shanghai Event Calendar for the Union Representatives from Chad, Iraq, Zanzibar, Madagascar, Congo, Algeria, etc.], May 1960. B92-2-1044-1, ‘上海人民广播电台关于接待阿尔及利亚新闻工作者代表团访 沪工作的计划’ [Shanghai People’s Radio on the Reception Work for the Visit of the Algerian Journalists Delegation to Shanghai], 4–23 April 1966.

Newspapers

(in order of publication name then date)

East African Standard (Kenya)

‘Source of “Forgery” Now Known by Chinese’, East African Standard, 2 April 1965. ‘Smuggling of Arms Denied: Members not Present to Back up Claim’, 3 April 1965. ‘Cold War the Danger to African Unity’, 5 April 1965.

201

202

Bibliography

‘Socialism to Solve Problems – Minister’, 5 April 1965. ‘Debate Opens on African Socialism: Confusion Costly to Kenya – Mr. Mboya’, 5 May 1965. ‘Editorial: Two Views of China’, 17 August 1965. ‘Chinese Women’s Fashion Choice – Baggy Trousers’, 24 December 1965. ‘Editorial: Chinese Crackers’, 14 July 1966. ‘Editorial (Saturday Essay): The Sayings of Confucius’, 16 July 1966. ‘Kenya Answers China Note: Peking Protest over “Hostility of Ministers”’, 13 July 1966. ‘Editorial: Chinese U.N. Membership’, 24 August 1966. ‘Envoy Who Attacked Kenya Told to Go: Ambassador Recalled from Peking’, 30 June 1967. ‘Sedition in Kenya Must Stop – Mr. Moi Warning to Chinese’, 3 August 1967. ‘Editorial: Two Views of China’, 17 August 1967. ‘KANU March on the Embassy: Protest Note Refused by Chinese Diplomats’, 22 August 1967. ‘Peking Envoy “Tried to Plant Note”’, 22 August 1967. ‘Editorial: Sabotage from Peking’, 24 August 1967. ‘Kenya Warns China “Stop Hooligan or Face the Consequence”’, 24 August 1967. ‘Kenya Warns China: We will Hit back: Note Demands Safety for Peking Embassy’, 24 August 1967. ‘UN Keeps out China’, 29 November 1967. ‘“Double Tenth” Began a New Era’, 10 October 1968. ‘Guarding Chinese Culture’, 10 October 1968. ‘Saturday Essay: Chinese Mango Mania’, 9 November 1968. ‘Zambia May Drop Food Imports from China’, 13 October 1978.

Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily)

‘赞比亚统一国家独立党’ [Zambian African National Congress], 14 March 1959. ‘奥金加·奥廷加团长的讲话’ [Speech by Head of Delegation Oginga Odinga], 7 May 1964. ‘在途经肯尼亚和埃塞俄比亚的领空时 周总理分别致电问候两国领导人’ [Pre­ mier Zhou Greets Leaders of Kenya and Ethiopia Using the Plane’s Radio System ], 6 June 1965. ‘在访问坦桑尼亚后飞过各国领空时 周总理致电问候肯尼亚等国领导人’ [Pre­ mier Zhou Greets Leaders of Kenya and Others while Passing through Kenyan Airspace to Visit Tanzania], 10 June 1965. ‘肯尼亚当局采取不友好行动无理要求我记者离境’ [Kenyan Authorities Demand our Journalist to Leave the Country without Reason], 5 August 1965.

Bibliography

‘我驻肯尼亚大使馆正告肯尼亚政府’ [Our Embassy in Kenya’s Official Warning to Kenyan Government], 4 February 1967. ‘卡翁达总统到京受到数十万群众欢迎 周恩来总理举行盛宴欢迎赞比亚贵 宾’ [President Kaunda is Welcomed by Hundreds of Thousands in Beijing, Premier Zhou Enlai Hosts Banquet to Welcome this Esteemed Zambian Guest], 22 June 1967. ‘我大使馆就肯尼亚副总统亲自出马反华向肯政府提出最强烈抗议’ [Our Embassy Strongly Protests the Anti-China Actions of Kenyan Vice President], 23 August 1967. ‘我驻肯尼亚使馆临时代办 把我红十字会捐赠物资交给肯政府’ [Our Charge d’Affaires in Nairobi Hands in Red Cross Society of China Donation to Kenyan Government], 5 May 1971. ‘前来参加亚非乒乓球友好邀请赛 七个亚非国家乒乓球代表团到京’ [Seven Table Tennis Delegations from Asian and African Countries Compete in Friendlies], 30 October 1971. ‘肯尼亚内罗毕市市长接见我乒乓球队 肯尼亚乒协举行招待会欢迎我乒乓球 队’ [Mayor of Nairobi Receives Our Table Tennis Team], 10 October 1972. ‘前来我国进行正式访问 卡翁达总统离开赞比亚’ [President Kaunda Leaves Zambia to Pay a Formal Visit to Our Country], 21 February 1974. ‘赞比亚捍卫主权粉碎封锁获新胜利 中赞友好合作关系日益发展’ [Zambia Achieves New Success in Defending its Autonomy and Breaking Containment], 21 February 1974. ‘赞比亚发展民族工业取得成就’ [Zambia Achieves Success in Developing National Industries], 25 February 1974.

The Standard (Kenya)

‘China “Ready to Assist Africa”’, 15 January 1980. ‘Chinese Vice-Premier Arrives’, 20 August 1980. ‘Kenya Has Much to Learn from China, says Kibaki’, 22 August 1980. ‘Moi to Visit China’, 22 August 1980. ‘We’re against Racism, Says Kenya’, 22 August 1980. ‘Editorial: Kenya and China’, 23 August 1980. ‘Chairman Hua Resigns as China’s Premier’, 8 September 1980. ‘Moi Clinches China Deals’, 15 September 1980. ‘President Gets down to Business’, 16 September 1980. ‘Editorial: Kenya’s Ties with China’, 20 September 1980. ‘President Moi and the New China’, 23 September 1980. ‘China to Buy More from Kenya’, 18 January 1983. ‘Zhao Tours Tea Farm’, 18 January 1983. ‘Editorial: China Winning More Friends’, 19 January 1983.

203

204

Bibliography

Times of Zambia

‘Chinese Go African for Tour’, 21 July 1966. ‘Humanism – the new philosophy: President presents socialist manifesto’, 28 April 1967. Grey, Anthony, ‘Thousands Welcome President in Peking’, 22 June 1967. ‘£1.2m. May be Lost on Deal’, 13 July 1967. ‘KK Makes Stirring Call for “Revolution”’, 16 August 1967. ‘Some Call Me a Communist – President’, 16 August 1967. ‘Mystery of the Chinese Dancers’, 12 October 1967. Edlin, John, ‘“East is Red” Men Say no Badges, but Plenty Thoughts of Mao’, 13 October 1967. ‘Ministry Recalls Books. Lusaka Schools’ Purge on Mao’, 30 November 1967. ‘Qualifications Doubted by Medical Council: Chinese Doctors Face Ban’, 9 September 1969. ‘Nalumango Warns Chinese Doctors’, 10 September 1969. ‘China in, Taiwan out – and UN Goes Wild’ & ‘KK Welcomes Peking Victory’, 27 October 1971. ‘China Chortles as Ousted Taiwan Throws a Tantrum’, 28 October 1971. ‘Bad Loser Nixon “Lost His Head” – Mwaanga’, 30 October 1971. ‘Don’t Play China, FIFA Warn Zambia, Tanzania’, 4 December 1971. ‘China Will Play “Old Crocks”’, 21 December 1971.

Peking Review

‘Afro-Asian Table Tennis Friendship Invitational Tournament: Gala Opening in Peking’, Peking Review 14, 45 (5 November 1971), pp. 10–12.

Memoirs

Attwood, William, The Reds and the Blacks: A Personal Adventure (London: Hutchinson, 1967). Gologo, Mamadou, China: A Great People, A Great Destiny (Peking: New World Press, 1965). Huang, Hua, 亲历与见闻: 黄华回忆录 [Experiences and Knowledge: Huang Hua’s Memoir] (Beijing: World Knowledge Press, 2007). Kaunda, Kenneth, A Humanist in Africa: Letters to Colin M. Morris from Kenneth Kaunda (London: Longmans, 1966). Ma, Faxian, 援非日记 [African Aid Diary], unpublished. Mboya, Tom, Freedom and After (London: Andre Deutsch, 1963). Moi, Daniel arap, Kenya African Nationalism: Nyayo Philosophy and Principles (London: Macmillan, 1986). Mwaanga, Vernon J., An Extraordinary Life: A Passion for Service (Lusaka: Fleetfoot Pub. Co., 2009).

Bibliography

–––, The Long Sunset: My Reflections (Lusaka: Fleetfoot Pub. Co., 2008). Odinga, Jaramogi Oginga Ajuma, Not Yet Uhuru: The Autobiography of Oginga Odinga (London: Heinemann, 1967). Stockwell, John, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (New York: Norton, 1978). Thurston, Anne, A Path not Taken: The Story of Joseph Murumbi (Nairobi: The Murumbi Trust, 2015). Zulu, Alexander Grey, The Memoirs of Alexander Grey Zulu (Ndola: Times Printpak Zambia, 2007).

Printed Primary Sources

Compiling Group of China Africa Education Cooperation and Communication, 中国与非洲国家教育合作与交流 [China-Africa Education Cooperation] (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2005). ‘The Chinese Government’s Eight Principles for Economic Aid and Technical Assistance to Other Countries’, January 15, 1964, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Chinese Foreign Ministry and Chinese Communist Party Literature Research Centre (eds), 周恩 来外交文选 [Selected Diplomatic Papers of Zhou Enlai] (Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 1990). Lin, Biao, ‘Preface to the Reprint of Quotations from Chairman Mao’, in Mao Zedong, Chairman Mao on World Revolution (Nanjing: Nanjing Revolutionary Committee, 1970). Lusaka Declaration on Peace, Independence, Development, Co-operation and Democratisation of International Relations (Lusaka: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1970). Mao, Zedong, Chairman Mao on World Revolution (Nanjing: Nanjing Revolutionary Committee, 1970). ——, Mao Zedong waijiao wenxian 毛泽东外交文献 [Selections of Mao Tse-tung’s Works on Diplomacy], quoted in Li Anshan, ‘African Studies in China in the Twentieth Century: A Historical Survey’, African Studies Review 48, 1 (2005), p. 63. ——, Selected Works of Mao Zedong (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1967). Offer of Employment on Contract (Kitwe: Zambia China Economic & Trade Cooperation Zone Development Ltd, 2013). ‘Premier Zhou Enlai’s Three Tours of Asian and African Countries’, Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/ziliao_665539/3602_665543/3604_66 5547/200011/t20001117_697814.html, accessed in July 2018. Sun, Irene Yuan, Jayaram, Kartik, and Kassiri, Omid, ‘Dance of the Lions and Dragons: How Are Africa and China Engaging, and How Will the Partnership Evolve?’ McKinsey & Company, June 2017.

205

206

Bibliography

Zambian Ministry of Labour and Social Security, The Minimum Wages and Conditions of Employment Act (Lusaka, 1994). ZCCM Investments Holdings Plc, ‘Annual Report and Financial Statements for the Year Ended 31 March 2013’ (Lusaka, 2014).

Online

‘1949年-1979年中国足球国家队大事记’ [1949–1979 Chronicle of the Chinese National Football Team], Sports 163, 19 March 2007, http:// sports.163.com/07/0319/03/39TS1BEK00051C88.html, accessed on 20 October 2018. ‘37 Killed in Factory Explosion in Zambia’, Xinhua, 21 April 2005, http:// china.org.cn/english/international/126486.htm, accessed on 5 May 2014. ‘About ZCCZ’, ZCCZ official website, http://zccz.cnmc.com.cn/outlineentem.jsp?outlinetype=2&column_no=071002, accessed in March 2019. ‘Ambassador Zhou Introducing the Outcomes of China-Zambia Co­ operation to the Newly Appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of Zambia’, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Republic of Zambia, 7 March 2014, http://zm.chineseembassy.org/chn/sbgx/zz/ t1134858.htm, accessed on 15 April 2014. ‘Blast at Zambia Copper Mine Kills 46’, The New Zealand Herald, 21 April 2005, www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10121648, accessed on 5 May 2014. Bone, R. Maxwell and Cinotto, Ferdinando, ‘China’s Multifaceted COVID-19 Diplomacy Across Africa’, The Diplomat, 2 November 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/11/chinas-multifaceted-covid-19diplomacy-across-africa, accessed in May 2021. Brautigam, Deborah, ‘Are the Chinese the Worst? A Comparative ILO Study in Zambia’, China in Africa: The Real Story, 26 April 2012, www. chinaafricarealstory.com/2012/04/are-chinese-worst-comparativeilo-study.html, accessed on 13 May 2014. ‘China-Africa Friendship Emerges still Stronger from COVID-19 Test, Says Chinese FM’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2 January 2021, www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/ zxxx_662805/t1844090.shtml. ‘China’s Initiation of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-Existence’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of People’s Republic of China, www. fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/ziliao_665539/3602_665543/3604_665547/ t18053.shtml, accessed in January 2016. ‘Chinese Embassy in Zambia Holds the First Award Ceremony of the Chinese Ambassador’s Award of Friendship’, The Chinese Embassy in Zambia, 23 November 2015, www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/

Bibliography

wjb_663304/zwjg_665342/zwbd_665378/t1317393.shtml, accessed in January 2019. Chege, Njoki, ‘My Extremely Underwhelming Madaraka Express Train Ride’, Daily Nation, 16 March 2018, www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/ Madaraka-Express-train-ride/620-4344782-u8jtkv/index.html, accessed in November 2018. Cold War International History Project of the Wilson Center, www. wilsoncenter.org/program/cold-war-international-history-project. ‘Course Outlines & Bibliographies’, China-Africa Knowledge Project Resource Hub, http://china-africa.ssrc.org/teaching-researchresources/course-outlines-reading-lists-bibliographies, accessed on 18 February 2022. Cunningham, Maura, ‘Denying Historians: China’s Archives Increasingly Off-Bounds’, The Wall Street Journal, 19 August 2014, https:// blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/08/19/denying-historianschinas-archives-increasingly-off-bounds. ‘Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensive Deepening the Reform’, Article 26, Section VII, 12 November 2013, www.china. org.cn/chinese/2014-01/17/content_31226494_7.htm, accessed in November 2018. ‘Dozens Killed in Zambia Explosion’, BBC, 21 April 2005, http://news. bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4466321.stm, accessed on 5 May 2014. Gavin, Michelle D., ‘Major Power Rivalry in Africa’, Council on Foreign Relations, May 2021, https://www.cfr.org/report/major-powerrivalry-africa, accessed in May 2021. Ghosh, Arunabh, ‘Urgent Update on Foreign Ministry Archives, Beijing’, Dissertation Reviews, 6 August 2013, http://dissertationreviews.org/archives/5411, accessed in March 2019. Githa, Wanjohi, ‘Bill Seeks to Curb Kenya’s Big Appetite for Borrowing’, Daily Nation, 31 August 2018, www.nation.co.ke/news/Bill-seeksto-limit-govt-s-appetite-for-borrowing/1056-4736938-fvd2w9/ index.html, accessed in December 2018. ‘光荣与梦想—中国有色矿业有限公司改革发展纪实’ [Honour and Dream – A Historical Record of the Reform and Development of CNMC], China Non-Ferrous Metal Newspaper, 4 July 2012, www.cnmc.com.cn/detail. jsp?article_millseconds=1341394055733&column_no=010305, accessed on 12 March 2014. Human Rights Watch, ‘You’ll Be Fired if You Refuse’: Labor Abuses in Zambia’s Chinese State-owned Copper Mines, 4 November 2011, www. hrw.org/reports/2011/11/04/you-ll-be-fired-if-you-refuse, accessed on 2 January 2014. ‘Interview with Mark Chona – Commonwealth Oral History Project’, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 22 March 2016, https://com-

207

208

Bibliography

monwealthoralhistories.org/2016/interview-with-mark-chona, accessed on 10 January 2019. Kenyatta, Uhuru, ‘Remarks by His Excellency Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta, C.G.H., President and Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces of the Republic of Kenya during the State of the Nation Address at Parliament Buildings’, 2 May 2018, http://www.president. go.ke/2018/05/02/remarks-by-his-excellency-hon-uhuru-kenyattac-g-h-president-and-commander-in-chief-of-the-defence-forces-ofthe-republic-of-kenya-during-the-state-of-the-nation-address-atparliament-buildings-n, accessed in January 2019. Lan, Zhishen, ‘非洲期待第二个’郑和时代’的到来’ [Africa Awaits the Arrival of the Second ‘Zheng He Age’], Embassy of the PRC in the Republic of Kenya, 11 July 2005, http://ke.chineseembassy.org/chn/ sbgx/t204432.htm, accessed in November 2018. Lefkowitz, Melissa, ‘Riding the Madaraka Express: Can a Brand New, Chinese-Built Railway Lay the Tracks to Kenya’s Future?’ Slate, 11 September 2017, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/09/themadaraka-express-a-ride-on-kenyas-brand-new-chinese-built-railway.html, accessed in November 2018. ‘罗涛总经理出席中赞建交50周年暨赞比亚前总统卡翁达阁下90寿辰庆祝会’ [General Manager Luo Tao Attends the Celebration of 50 Year Anniversary of China-Zambian Relations as well as the 90th Birthday of the Former President of Zambia Dr Kaunda], CNMC, 22 April 2014, www.cnmc.com.cn/zsgj/detailtem.jsp?column_no=090302&article_millseconds=1398144270046, accessed in May 2021. Kagame, Paul, ‘Why Africa Welcomes the Chinese’, The Guardian, 2 November 2009, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/ nov/02/aid-trade-rwanda-china-west, accessed in March 2019. ‘KCM Defies Sata’, Lusaka Times, 7 November 2013, www.lusakatimes. com/2013/11/07/kcm-defies-sata, accessed on 1 May 2014. ‘Kenyans Rush to Book SGR Tickets after Covid-19 Restrictions Lifted’, Daily Nation, 3 May 2021, https://nation.africa/kenya/news/ kenyans-rush-to-book-sgr-tickets-after-covid-19-restrictionslifted-3385576, accessed in May 2021. Kipling, Rudyard, ‘The White Man’s Burden: A Poem’, The Times, 4 February 1899, www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_burden.htm. Kynge, James, ‘How the Silk Road Plans will be Financed’, Financial Times, 9 May 2016, www.ft.com/content/e83ced94-0bd8-11e6-9456444ab5211a2f, accessed in November 2018. Mardell, Jacob, ‘The “Community of Common Destiny” in Xi Jinping’s New Era’, The Diplomat, 25 October 2017, https://thediplomat. com/2017/10/the-community-of-common-destiny-in-xi-jinpingsnew-era, accessed in November 2018. Marete, Gitonga, ‘Uhuru Flags off Cargo Train as New Era Begins’, Daily Nation, 31 May 2017, www.nation.co.ke/news/uhuru-flags-off-

Bibliography

cargo-train-as-new-era-begins/1056-3949046-4jw585z/index.html, accessed in December 2018. Michira, Moses, ‘Auditor: Chinese Debt Could Lead to Loss of Mombasa Port’, Standard, 20 December 2018, www.standardmedia.co.ke/ article/2001306878/how-china-could-be-handed-mombasa-portfor-free, accessed in January 2019. Minami, Kazushi, ‘China’s Foreign Ministry Archive: Open or Closed?’ Wilson Center, 2 October 2017, www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/ chinas-foreign-ministry-archive-open-or-closed, accessed in March 2019. Obwocha, Beatrice, ‘SGR Train Named Madaraka Express’, Daily Nation, 31 May 2017, www.nation.co.ke/news/SGR-train-named-MadarakaExpress/1056-3949074-11qjuipz/index.html, accessed in December 2018. ODA Statistics Portal, www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainabledevelopment, accessed in November 2018. Oriental Chinese Herbal Clinic, https://chinese-herbal.co.ke/index. php, accessed in November 2018. ‘Preserving the Archives of the United National Independence Party of Zambia (EAP121)’, Endangered Archives Programme, British Library, https://eap.bl.uk/project/EAP121. Price, Ned, ‘Secretary Blinken’s Travel to Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal’, US Department of State, 11 November 2021, www.state.gov/ secretary-blinkens-travel-to-kenya-nigeria-and-senegal, accessed on 17 November 2021. ‘Registered Health Practitioners’, Health Professions Council of Zambia, 2014, www.hpcz.org.zm, accessed in June 2017. Sayagie, George, ‘Maasai Youth Threaten to Attack Chinese Workers over Assault’, Daily Nation, 5 January 2017, www.nation. co.ke/counties/narok/Maasai-youth-issue-threat--to-ChineseSGR-workers/1183318-3506998-aoi5ipz/index.html, accessed in December 2018. Sun, Jodie Yuzhou, ‘The Two Challenges of Writing China-Africa Relations’, Oxford University China Africa Network, Official Blog, 3 February 2016, https://oucan.politics.ox.ac.uk/index.php/ blog/14178-the-two-challenges-of-writing-china-africa-relations, accessed in February 2019. The New Silk Road Project, www.thenewsilkroadproject.com, accessed in November 2018. ‘Traditional Chinese Medicine: In Depth’, U.S. National Center for Complimentary and Integrative Health, https://nccih.nih.gov/health/ whatiscam/chinesemed.htm, accessed in November 2018. ‘中国传统医术走进非洲人家’ [Traditional Chinese Medicine has Entered Homes in Africa], China Investment, www.chinainvestment.com. cn/type_fmgs_post/7025.html, accessed in November 2018.

209

210

Bibliography

Tan-Mullins, May, ‘China and Africa’, Oxford Bibliographies (Oxford University Press, 2016), www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199920082/obo-9780199920082-0137.xml, accessed on 18 February 2022. ‘The 50th Anniversary of the Dispatch of the Chinese Medical Teams’, CCTV, http://news.cntv.cn/special/yuanwai/index.shtml, accessed in November 2018. ‘The New Scramble for Africa’, The Economist, 7 March 2019, http:// economist.com/leaders/2019/03/07/the-new-scramble-for-africa, accessed on 9 June 2021. Van Dijk, Meine Pieter, ‘China in Africa’, Oxford Bibliographies (Oxford University Press, 2017), www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199846733/obo-9780199846733-0192.xml, accessed on 18 February 2022. Warigi, Gitau, ‘Report about Kenya’s Exposure on Chinese SGR Loan Alarming’, Daily Nation, 23 December 2018, www.nation.co.ke/ oped/opinion/Report-about-Kenya-exposure-on-Chinese-SGRloan-alarming/440808-4907212-13y6k83/index.html, accessed in January 2019. Wexler, Alexandra and Bariyo, Nicholas, ‘After Default, Zambia’s Outsized Bet on Copper Could Play into China’s Hands’, The Wall Street Journal, 27 April 2021, www.wsj.com/articles/after-default-zambiasoutsized-bet-on-copper-could-play-into-chinas-hands-11619514520, accessed in May 2021. ‘Xi Jinping Meets with the Representatives of the China-Africa Ministerial Health Cooperation and Development Conference’, CCTV, 16 August 2013, http://news.cntv.cn/2013/08/16/ ARTI1376653485609723.shtml, accessed in November 2018. Xi, Jinping, ‘Promote Friendship between our People and Work Together to Build a Bright Future’, Xinhua, 7 September 2013, www.fmprc.gov. cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/zyjh_665391/t1078088.shtml, accessed in November 2018. Xinhua, ‘Keynote speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping at opening ceremony of 8th FOCAC ministerial conference’, FOCAC, 2 December 2021, http://focac.org.cn/focacdakar/eng/zxyw_1/202112/ t20211202_10461076.htm, accessed on 25 February 2022. ‘Zambia: History’, The Commonwealth, http://thecommonwealth.org/ our-member-countries/zambia/history, accessed in July 2018. ‘Zambia’s Curse of Abundance: Of Copper Mines and Taxes’, Lusaka Times, 21 May 2014, www.lusakatimes.com/2014/05/21/zambiascurse-abundance-copper-mines-taxes, 1 May 2014. ‘Zambia’s Vice-President Badly Injured in Road Accident’, UPI Archives, 8 December 1991, www.upi.com/Archives/1991/12/08/Zambiasvice-president-badly-injured-in-road-accident/3199692168400, accessed in November 2018.

Bibliography

‘ZCTU [The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions] is Disappointed with the Happenings at the Konkola Copper Mines’, Lusaka Times, 22 March 2014, www.lusakatimes.com/2014/03/22/zctu-disappointedhappenings-konkola-copper-mines, accessed on 1 May 2014.

Seminars

Hall, Todd, ‘The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands Dispute: A MacGuffin?’ East Asia Seminar Series, University of Oxford, 13 November 2018. Hansen, Valerie, ‘Locating the Silk Road(s) in History and Today’, Global and Imperial History Research Seminar, University of Oxford, 26 October 2018.

Interviews

Anonymous construction headman for a Chinese construction company in ZCCZ, Kitwe, 5 April 2014. Anonymous investment director for the Zambia-China Economic & Trade Cooperation Zone, Lusaka, 23 March 2014. Anonymous labour relations officer, Zambian Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Lusaka, April 10, 2014. Bwalya (Mr), Director of the Health Professions Council of Zambia, Lusaka, 16 August 2017. Chembe, Martin, Public Relations Officer of the Zambian Congress of Trade Unions, Lusaka, 21 March 2014. Chewe, Billy, Chief Mining Engineer of Zambian Ministry of Mines, Energy and Water Development, Lusaka, 8 April 2014. Chikoya (Dr), Medical Superintendent of Levy Mwanawasa University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka, August 2017. Chinyamuka, Labson, Senior mining engineer of the Zambian Mineworkers Safety Department, Kitwe, 6 April 2014. Chona, Mark, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zambia (1965–1968) and Special Advisor for Political Affairs to President Kenneth Kaunda (1968–1980), Lusaka, 24–25 August 2016. Dang, Song, Former Chinese SOE manager and businessman, Nairobi, 21 November 2016. Gao, Ke’nan, former member of a Chinese medical team who now owns a private dental clinic, Lusaka, August 2016. Han, Jun, President of the Overseas Chinese Association in Kenya, Nairobi, 10 November 2016. Kayumba (Mr), Assistant to Managing Director of the Mulungushi Textile, Lusaka, August 2016. Lee, Roger, Vice President of the Association of Chinese Corporations in Zambia, Lusaka, 17 March 2014. Li, Chuan and Li, Xiaoxiao, Owners of Oriental Chinese Herbal Clinic, Nairobi, 2016.

211

212

Bibliography

Lindunda, Steven, Zambian spokesperson for the Zambia-China Economic & Trade Cooperation Zone, Kitwe, 31 March 2014. Liu, Huihuang, Taiwanese/Chinese private mine owner, Kitwe, 5 April 2014. Lyoko, Nyambe, Assistant Director of Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority, Lusaka, 21 August 2017. Muchimba, Charles B., Director of Research and Information, Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia (MUZ), Kitwe, 28 March 2014. Muriuki, Godfrey, Professor, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, 10 November 2016. Muyunda, Mukela, Chief Executive Director of ZCCM Investments Holdings Plc, Lusaka, 11 April 2014. Mwaanga, Vernon, Ambassador to the United Nations (1966–1972) and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zambia (1973–1975), Lusaka, 19 August 2016 and 7 August 2017. Ngalande, Sande, Zambian director of the Confucius Institute of the University of Zambia, Lusaka, 28 March 2014. Oyugi, Edward, Commissioner, Commission on Revenue Allocation and Professor, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, 23 November 2016. Simiyu, Vincent, Professor, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, November 2016. Sinkamba, Peter, Executive Director of the Citizens for a Better Environment, Kitwe, 4 April 2014. Yu, Huizhen, former member of a Chinese medical team who now owns a private clinic, Lusaka, August 2016. Zhang, Kevin, Human Resources director of the Zambia-China Economic & Trade Cooperation Zone, Kitwe, 5 April 2014. Zheng, Weidi, Doctoral student, SOAS, Nairobi, June 2017. Zhou, Yuxiao, Chinese Ambassador to Zambia, Lusaka, 20 March 2014.

Secondary Sources Books and Articles

Adem, Seifudein (ed.), China’s Diplomacy in Eastern and Southern Africa (Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2013). Ai, Zhouchang and Mu, Tao, 中非关系史 [History of Sino-African Relations] (Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1996). Alden, Chris, China in Africa (London: Zed Books, 2007). Alden, Chris and Large, Daniel (eds), New Directions in China-Africa Studies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019).

Bibliography

Alden, Chris, Large, Daniel, and Soares de Oliveira, Ricardo (eds), China Returns to Africa: A Rising Power and A Continent Embrace (London: Hurst and Co., 2008). ——, ‘Introduction: China Returns to Africa’ in Alden, Large, and Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa, pp. 1–23. Alexander, Jocelyn and JoAnn McGregor, ‘Adelante! Military Imaginaries, the Cold War and Southern Africa’s Liberation Armies’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 62, 3 (2020), pp. 619–50. ——, ‘African Soldiers in the USSR: Oral Histories of ZAPU Intelligence Cadres’ Soviet Training, 1964–1979’, Journal of Southern African Studies 43, 1 (2017), pp. 49–66. Alexander, Jocelyn, McGregor, JoAnn and Tendi, Blessing-Miles, ‘The Transnational Histories of Southern African Liberation Movements: An Introduction’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 43, 1 (2017), pp. 1–12. Ampiah, Kweku and Sanusha, Naidu (eds), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Africa and China (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2008). Amutabi, M. N., ‘Crisis and Student Protest in Universities in Kenya: Examining the Role of Students in National Leadership and the Democratization Process’, African Studies Review 45, 2 (2002), pp. 157–77. Anderson, David, Histories of the Hanged: Britain’s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson 2005). Anglin, Douglas and Shaw, Timothy M., Zambia’s Foreign Policy: Studies in Diplomacy and Dependence (Boulder: Westview Press, 1979). Art Troupe of Political Work Department of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, 赤道战鼓 [Battle Drum at the Equator] (Beijing: China Drama Publishing House, 1965). Bailey, Martin, Freedom Railway: China and the Tanzania-Zambia Link (London: Rex Colins, 1976). Barkan, Joel D. (ed.), Beyond Capitalism vs. Socialism in Kenya and Tanzania (London: Lynne Rienner, 1994). ——, Politics and Public Policy in Kenya and Tanzania (Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya, 1984). Barnouin, Barbara and Yu, Changgen, Chinese Foreign Policy during the Cultural Revolution (London: Kegan Paul International, 1988). Baum, Richard, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Bayart, Jean-François, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (London: Longman, 1993). Bayart, Jean-Francçois and Ellis, Stephen, ‘Africa in the World: A History of Extraversion’, African Affairs 99, 395 (2000), pp. 217–67.

213

214

Bibliography

Bennett, Huw C., Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-­ Insurgency in the Kenya Emergency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Bermingham, Jack and Clausen, Edwin G., Sino-African Relations 1949– 1976 (Michigan: Munger Africana Library, 1981). Birmingham, David, The Decolonization of Africa (London: UCL Press, 1995). Birmingham, David and Martin, Phyllis M., (eds), History of Central Africa: The Contemporary Years since 1960 (London: Longman, 1998). Borstelmann, Thomas, Apartheid’s Reluctant Uncle: The United States and Southern Africa in the Early Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). Branch, Daniel, Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). ——, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963–2012 (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012). ——, ‘Political Traffic: Kenyan Students in Eastern and Central Europe, 1958–69’, Journal of Contemporary History 54, 4 (2018). Brautigam, Deborah, ‘Aid “With Chinese Characteristics”: Chinese Foreign Aid and Development Finance Meet the OECD-DAC Aid Regime’, Journal of International Development 23, 5 (2011), pp. 752–64. ——, The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Brazinsky, Gregg, Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017). Brown, William and Harman, Sophie (eds), African Agency in International Politics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013). Burgess, Thomas, ‘A Socialist Diaspora: Ali Sultan Issa, the Soviet Union, and the Zanzibari Revolution’, in Matusevich (ed.), Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters, pp. 263–91. Burke, Fred G., ‘Tanganyika: The Search for Ujamaa’, in Friedland and Rosberg (eds), African Socialism, pp. 194–222. Burton, John W., ‘Introduction to Nonalignment’, in Burton (ed.), Non-Alignment, pp. 11–27. ——, (ed.), Non-Alignment (London: Andre Deutsch, 1966). Callahan, William A., ‘National Insecurities: Humiliation, Salvation and Chinese Nationalism’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 29, 2 (2004), pp. 199–218. Campbell, Dugald, In the Heart of Bantuland: A Record of Twenty-Nine Years Pioneering in Central Africa among the Bantu People (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1922).

Bibliography

Carmody, Pádraig and Taylor, Ian, ‘Flexigemony and Force in China’s Resource Diplomacy in Africa: Sudan and Zambia Compared’, Geopolitics 15, 3 (2010), pp. 496–515. Carotenuto, Matthew and Luongo, Katherine, ‘Navigating the Kenya National Archives: Research and Its Role in Kenyan Society’, History in Africa 32 (2005), pp. 445–56. Chan, Stephen, ‘China’s Foreign Policy and Africa: The Rise and Fall of China’s Three World Theory’, The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs 74, 296 (1985), pp. 376–84. ——, Kaunda and Southern Africa: Image and Reality in Foreign Policy (London: British Academic Press, 1992). ——, ‘The Decline of Kaunda: Essays of Praise and Complaint, 1983– 1991’ (Canterbury: Kent Papers in Politics and International Relations, 1991). ——, ‘The Search for Peace – The Basis of Zambia’s Regional Policy’, Contemporary Review 248, 1444 (1986), pp. 248–51. Chau, Donovan C., Exploiting Africa: The Influence of Maoist China in Algeria, Ghana, and Tanzania (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2014). Cheek, Timothy (ed.), A Critical Introduction to Mao (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Cheeseman, Nicholas, Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Chen, Jian, ‘全球冷战与中国“漫长的崛起”’ [The Global Cold War and China’s ‘Prolonged Rise], Cold War International History Studies, 15 (2013), pp. 27–42. Clapham, Christopher S., Africa and the International System: The Politics of State Survival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). ——, ‘Fitting China In’, in Alden, Large, and Soares de Oliveira (eds), China Returns to Africa, pp. 361–9. Clark, Paul, ‘Model Theoretical Works and the Remodeling of the Cultural Revolution’, in King et al. (eds), Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966–76, pp. 167–87. Cliffe, Lionel, Underdevelopment or Socialism? A Comparative Analysis of Kenya and Tanzania (Brighton: University of Sussex, 1973). Cohen, Paul A., China Unbound: Evolving Perspectives on the Chinese Past (London: Routledge, 2003). Cooley, John K., East Wind over Africa: Red China’s African Offensive (New York: Walker and Company, 1965). Cook, Alexander C. ‘Chinese Uhuru: Maoism and the Congo Crisis’, positions asia critique 27, 4 (2019), pp. 569–5. ——, (ed.), Mao’s Little Red Book: A Global History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

215

216

Bibliography

——, ‘Third World Maoism’, in Cheek (ed.), A Critical Introduction to Mao, pp. 288–99. Cooper, Frederick, Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Cullen, Poppy, Kenya and Britain after Independence: Beyond Neo-­ Colonialism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). ——, ‘Operation Binnacle: British Plans for Military Intervention against a 1965 Coup in Kenya’, The International History Review 39, 5 (2017), pp. 791–809. ——, ‘“Playing Cold War Politics”: The Cold War in Anglo-Kenyan Relations in the 1960s’, Cold War History 18, 1 (2018), pp. 1–17. Dally, Peter, The Sino-Soviet Split: A Trap for the West (Cheltenham: British Anti-Communist Council, 1984). Dallywater, Lena, Saunders, Chris, and Fonseca, Helder Adegar (eds), Southern African Liberation Movements and the Global Cold War ‘East’: Transnational Activism 1960–1990 (Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2019). Davis, Clarence B., Wilburn, Kenneth E., and Robinson, Ronald (eds), Railway Imperialism (London: Greenwood, 1991). DeRoche, Andrew, Kenneth Kaunda, the United States and Southern Africa (London: Bloomsbury, 2016). ——, ‘“You Can’t Fight Guns with Knives”: National Security and Zambian Responses to UDI, 1965–1973’, in Gewald, Hinfelaar, and Macola (eds), One Zambia, Many Histories: Towards a History of Post-colonial Zambia, pp. 77–97. Deshpande, Govind Purushottam and Gupta, Harmala Kaur, United Front against Imperialism: China’s Foreign Policy in Africa (Bombay: Somaiya Publications Pvt. Ltd., 1986). Eisenman, Joshua, ‘Comrades-in-Arms: The Chinese Communist Party’s Relations with African Political Organisations in the Mao Era, 1949–76’, Cold War History 18, 4 (2018), pp. 429–45. Elkins, Caroline, ‘Archives, Intelligence and Secrecy: The Cold War and the End of the British Empire’, in James and Leake (eds), Decolonization and the Cold War: Negotiating Independence, pp. 257–83. ——, Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005). Ellis, Stephen, External Mission: The ANC in Exile 1960–1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Esseks, John D., ‘Soviet Economic Aid to Africa: 1959–72’, in Weinstein (ed.), Chinese and Soviet Aid to Africa, pp. 83–119. Ferguson, James, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). Foster, Vivien, Building Bridges: China’s Growing Role as Infrastructure Financier for Sub-Saharan Africa (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2009).

Bibliography

Frankopan, Peter, The New Silk Roads: The Present and the Future of the World (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). Fraser, Alastair and Larmer, Miles (eds), Zambia, Mining, and Neoliberalism: Boom and Bust on the Globalized Copperbelt (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Freund, Bill, The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society Since 1800 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). Friedman, Jeremy Scott, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015). Fukuyama, Francis, ‘The End of History?’ The National Interest 16 (1989), pp. 3–18. Fyfe, Christopher (ed.), African Studies Since 1945: A Tribute to Basil Davidson (London: Longman, 1976). Gaddis, John Lewis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin, 2005). Gao Liang, ‘森林中的战斗之歌—介绍肯尼亚茅茅战士的歌谣’ [Fighting Songs in the Forest], World Literature, 7 (1964), pp. 48–52. ——, ‘肯尼亚茅茅战歌’ [Songs by Kenyan Mau Mau Warriors], World Literature, 7 (1964), pp. 44–7. Gappert, Gary, The Prospects for Regional Development and Planning between Tanzania and Zambia (Syracuse, NY: Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 1968). Gertzel, Cherry J., Goldschmidt, Maure Leonard, and Rothchild, Donald S., Government and Politics in Kenya: A Nation Building Text (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1969). Geward, Jan-Bart, ‘Rumours of Mau Mau in Northern Rhodesia, 1950– 1960’, Afrika Focus 22, 1 (2009), pp. 37–56. Gewald, Jan-Bart, Hinfelaar, Marja, and Macola, Giacomo (eds), One Zambia, Many Histories: Towards a History of Post-colonial Zambia (Leiden: Brill, 2008). Gewirtz, Julian, ‘The Futurists of Beijing: Alvin Toffler, Zhao Ziyang, and China’s “New Technological Revolution”, 1979–1991’, The Journal of Asian Studies 78, 1 (2019). Ghosh, Arunabh and Urbansky, Sören, ‘China from Without: Doing PRC History in Foreign Archives’, The PRC History Review 2, 3 (2017), pp. 1–3. Gillespie, Sandra, ‘Diplomacy on a South-South Dimension: The Legacy of Mao’s Three-Worlds Theory and the Evolution of Sino-African Relations’, in Slavik (ed.), Intercultural Communication and Diplomacy, pp. 108–28. Gleijeses, Piero, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa 1959–1976 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).

217

218

Bibliography

——, ‘Moscow’s Proxy? Cuba and Africa 1975–1988’, Journal of Cold War Studies 8, 2 (2006), pp. 3–51. Goodman, David S.G., Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese Revolution: A Political Biography (New York: Routledge, 1994). Gries, Peter Hays, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). ——, ‘Narratives to Live by: The “Century of Humiliation” and Chinese National Identity Today’, in Jensen and Weston (eds), China’s Transformations: The Stories Beyond the Headlines, pp. 112–28. Grilli, Matteo, Nkrumaism and African Nationalism: Ghana’s Pan-African Foreign Policy in the Age of Decolonization (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Haddad-Fonda, Kyle, ‘An Illusory Alliance: Revolutionary Legitimacy and Sino-Algerian Relations, 1958–1962’, The Journal of North African Studies (2014), pp. 1–20. Hall, Peter A. and Soskice, David W., Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Hall, Richard and Peyman, Hugh, The Great Uhuru Railway: China’s Showpiece in Africa (London: Gollancz, 1976). Han Beiping, 非洲夜会 [Nights in Africa] (Tianjin: Baihua Edition, 1964). Hanes III, W. Travis, ‘Railway Politics and Imperialism in Central Africa, 1889–1953’, in Davis, Wilburn, and Robinson (eds), Railway Imperialism, pp. 43–66. Hanhimäki, Jussi M. and Westad, Odd Arne (eds), The Cold War: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Hatzky, Christine, Cubans in Angola: South-South Cooperation and Transfer of Knowledge, 1976–1991 (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2015). Hess, Steve and Aidoo, Richard, ‘Charting the Roots of Anti-Chinese Populism in Africa: A Comparison of Zambia and Ghana’, Journal of Asian and African Studies 49, 2 (2014), pp. 1–19. Hobson, Dick, Showtime: A History of the Agricultural and Commercial Society of Zambia, 1914–1976 (Lusaka: Agricultural and Commercial Society of Zambia, 1979). Hornsby, Charles, Kenya: A History since Independence (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012). Howell, John, ‘An Analysis of Kenyan Foreign Policy’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 6, 1 (1968), pp. 29–48. Hsieh, Chiao Chiao, Strategy for Survival: The Foreign Policy and External Relations of the Republic of China on Taiwan, 1949–1979 (London: Sherwood Press, 1985). Hutchison, Alan, China’s African Revolution (London: Hutchinson, 1975).

Bibliography

Hveem, H. and Willetts, P., ‘The Practice of Non-Alignment: On the Present and the Future of An International Movement’, in Tandon and Chandarana (eds), Horizons of African Diplomacy, pp. 1–44. Iandolo, Alessandro, ‘The Rise and Fall of the ‘Soviet Model of Development’ in West Africa, 1957–64’, Cold War History 12, 4 (2012), pp. 683–704. Ingram, Callum, ‘Building between Past and Future: Nostalgia, Historical Materialism and the Architecture of Memory in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 41, 3 (2015), pp. 317–33. Irandu, Evaristus M. and Owilla, Hesbon Hansen, ‘The Economic Implications of Belt and Road Initiative in the Development of Railway Transport Infrastructure in Africa: The Case of the Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya’, The African Review 47, 2 (2020), pp. 457–80. Isaac, Jeffrey C., ‘Communism, Post-Communism, and Democracy’, Perspectives on Politics 15, 2 (2017), pp. 317–27. Jackson, Steven F., ‘China’s Third World Foreign Policy: The Case of Angola and Mozambique, 1961–1993’, China Quarterly, 142 (1995), pp. 388–422. James, Leslie, and Leake, Elisabeth (eds), Decolonization and the Cold War: Negotiating Independence (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). Jauch, Herbert and Traub-Merz, Rudolf (eds), The Future of the Textile and Clothing Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bonn: Friedrich-EbertStiftung, 2006). Jensen, Lionel M. and Weston, Timothy B. (eds), China’s Transformations: The Stories Beyond the Headlines (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Jiang, Huajie, ‘现代化、国家安全与对外援助—中国援非政策演进的再思考, 1970–1983’ [Modernity, National Security and Foreign Aid – Revisiting the Evolution of China’s Africa Policy, 1970–1983], Foreign Affairs Review 6 (2019), pp. 121–54. Jiang, Jiehong, Burden or Legacy: From the Chinese Cultural Revolution to Contemporary Art (Hong Kong University Press, 2007). Kasoma, Francis Peter, The Press in Zambia: The Development, Role and Control of National Newspapers in Zambia, 1906–1983 (Lusaka: Multimedia Publications, 1986). Kaufman, Alison Adcock, ‘The “Century of Humiliation”, Then and Now: Chinese Perceptions of the International Order’, Pacific Focus 25, 1 (2010), pp. 1–33. Kim, Samuel S., China, the United Nations and World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). King, Richard, Croizier, Ralph C., Watson, Scott, and Sheng Tian Zheng (eds), Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966–76 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010).

219

220

Bibliography

Koyi, Grayson, ‘The Textile and Clothing Industry in Zambia’, in Jauch and Traub-Merz (eds), The Future of the Textile and Clothing Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa, pp. 258–75. Kragelund, Peter, ‘Bringing “Indigenous” Ownership Back: Chinese Presence and the Citizen Economic Empowerment Commission in Zambia’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 50 (2012), pp. 447–66. Kwon, Heonik, The Other Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010). Lal, Priya, African Socialism in Postcolonial Tanzania (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). ——, ‘Maoism in Tanzania: Material Connections and Shared Imaginaries’, in Alexander Cook (ed.), Mao’s Little Red Book: A Global History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 96–116. Large, Daniel, ‘Beyond “Dragon in the Bush”: The Study of China-Africa Relations’, African Affairs 107, 426 (2008), pp. 45–61. ——, China and Africa: The New Era (Cambridge: Polity, 2021). Larkin, Bruce, China and Africa, 1949–1970: The Foreign Policy of the People’s Republic of China (Berkley: University of California Press, 1971). Larmer, Miles, ‘Historical Perspectives on Zambia’s Mining Booms and Busts’, in Fraser and Larmer (eds), Zambia, Mining, and Neoliberalism: Boom and Bust on the Globalized Copperbelt, pp. 31–58. ——, Rethinking African Politics: A History of Opposition in Zambia (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011). Lawrence, Mark Atwood, ‘The Rise and Fall of Non-Alignment’, in McMahon (ed.), The Cold War in the Third World, pp. 139–55. Lee, Ching Kwan, ‘Raw Encounters: Chinese Managers, African Workers and the Politics of Casualization in Africa’s Chinese Enclaves’, The China Quarterly 199 (2009), pp. 647–66. ——, The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor, and Foreign Investment in Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017). Lee, Christopher J., ‘Between a Moment and an Era: The Origins and Afterlives of Bandung’, in Lee (ed.), Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and its Political Afterlives, pp. 1–42. ——, (ed.), Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and its Political Afterlives (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010). Leffler, Melvyn P. and Westad, Odd Arne (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Leo, Christopher, Land and Class in Kenya (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1984). Leys, Colin, Underdevelopment in Kenya: The Political Economy of Neo-Colonialism, 1964–1971 (London: Heinemann, 1975). Li, Anshan (ed.), ‘African Students in China: Research, Reality, and Reflection’, African Studies Quarterly 17, 4 (2018), pp. 5–44. ——, ‘African Studies in China in Global Context (1950–2020)’, Brazilian Journal of African Studies 6, 12 (2021), pp. 107–69.

Bibliography

——, ‘African Studies in China in the Twentieth Century: A Historical Survey’, African Studies Review 48, 1 (2005), pp. 59–87. ——, ‘Chinese Medical Cooperation in Africa: With Special Emphasis on the Medical Teams and Anti-Malaria Campaign’, Discussion Paper 52 (Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2011). ——, ‘Contact between China and Africa before Vasco da Gama: Archaeology, Document and Historiography’, World History Studies 2, 1 (2015), pp. 34–59. ——, ‘中国援外医疗队的历史、规模及其影响’ [Chinese Medical Teams Abroad: Their History, Scope and Influence], Foreign Affairs Review 26, 1 (2009), pp. 25–45. Li, Danhui (with Zhou, Na), ‘非洲丛林中的新使命—马法贤’ [New Mission in the African Jungle – Ma Faxian], Cold War International History Studies, 2008–2019. Li, Mingjiang, Mao’s China and the Sino-Soviet Split: Ideological Dilemma (London: Routledge, 2012). Li, Qianyu, 从万隆到阿尔及尔—中国与六次亚非国际会议（1955–1965） [From Bandung to Algiers: China and the Six Asian-African Conferences, 1955–1965] (Beijing: World Knowledge Press, 2016). ——, ‘试论中国对第二次亚非会议政策的演变’ [China’s Policy towards the Second Afro-Asian Conference], International Politics Quarterly 4 (2010), pp. 115–33. Lin, Shuang, Liangmin Gao, Reyes, Melissa, Feng Cheng, Kaufman, Joan, and El-Sadr, Wafaa M. ‘China’s Health Assistance to Africa: Opportunism or Altruism?’ Globalization and Health 12, 83 (2016), pp. 1–5. Liu, Wei, China in the United Nations (Hackensack, NJ: World Century, 2014). Long, Xiangyang, ‘1966–1969年中国与非洲关系初探’ [An Initial Investigation of Sino-African Relations, 1966–1969], in Peking University African Studies Series: China and Africa, pp. 72–86. Lonsdale, John, ‘Agency in Tight Corners: Narrative and Initiative in African History’, Journal of African Cultural Studies 13, 1 (2000), pp. 5–16. ——, ‘Foreword’, in Osborne (ed.), The Life and Times of General China: Mau Mau and the End of Empire in Kenya, pp. xii–xviii. Loughran, Gerard, Birth of a Nation: The Story of a Newspaper in Kenya (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010). Lovell, Julia, Maoism: A Global History (London: The Bodley Head, 2019). Lowry, Donal, ‘The Impact of Anti-Communism on White Rhodesian Political Culture, c. 1920s–1980’, in Onslow (ed.), Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power, Black Liberation, pp. 84–109. Lu, Ting’en, 非洲问题论集 [Treatises on Africa] (Beijing: World Knowledge Press, 2005).

221

222

Bibliography

Luthi, Lorenz M., The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). MacMillan, Hugh, The Lusaka Years: The ANC in Exile in Zambia, 1963– 1994 (Auckland Park: Jacana Media, 2013). Maloba, W.O., The Anatomy of Neo-Colonialism in Kenya: British Imperialism and Kenyatta, 1963–1978 (New York: Springer, 2017). Mama, Amina, ‘Is it Ethical to Study Africa? Preliminary Thoughts on Scholarship and Freedom’, African Studies Review 50, 1 (2007), pp. 1–26. Mason, Nicole, ‘Smallholder Supply Response to Marketing Board Activities in a Dual Channel Marketing System: The Case of Zambia’, Journal of Agricultural Economics 66, 1 (2015), pp. 36–65. Matusevich, Maxim (ed.), Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters (Trenton NJ: Africa World Press, 2007). ——, ‘Introduction. Africa and Russia: An Invisible Link’, in Matusevich (ed.), Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters, pp. 1–10. Mazrui, Ali A., ‘The Yellow Man’s Burden: Race and Revolution in Sino-African Relations’, in Seifudein Adem (ed.), China’s Diplomacy in Eastern and Southern Africa, pp. 1–25. McHenry, Jr., Dean E., ‘The Struggle for Rural Socialism in Tanzania’, in Rosberg and Callaghy (eds), Socialism in Sub-Saharan Africa, pp. 37–60. McMahon, Robert J., ‘Introduction’, in McMahon (ed.), The Cold War in the Third World, pp. 1–10. —— (ed.), The Cold War in the Third World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Meebelo, Henry S., Main Currents of Zambian Humanist Thought (Lusaka: Oxford University Press, 1973). ——, ‘The Concept of Man-Centredness in Zambian Humanism’, African Review 3 (1973), pp. 559–75. ——, Zambian Humanism and Scientific Socialism: A Comparative Study (Lusaka: Government Printer, 1987). Merrington, Peter, ‘A Staggered Orientalism: The Cape-to-Cairo Imaginary’, Poetics Today 22, 2 (2001), pp. 323–64. Mohan, Giles and Lampert, Ben, ‘Negotiating China: Reinserting African Agency into China-Africa Relations’, African Affairs 112, 446 (2012), pp. 92–110. Mohiddin, Ahmed, African Socialism in Two Countries (London: Croom Helm, 1981). Monson, Jamie, Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese Development Project Changed Lives and Livelihoods in Tanzania (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011).

Bibliography

——, ‘Making Men, Making History: Remembering Railway Work in Cold War Afro-Asian Solidarity’, Clio. Women, Gender and History 38 (2013), 120–47. Mudimbe, Valentin Yves, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988). Mukula, P.M., Information About the National Archives of Zambia: A More Than Three-Decade Service of the Memory of the Party, its Government and the Nation, 1947–1981 (Lusaka: National Archives of Zambia, 1982). Musambachime, M.C., ‘The Archives of Zambia’s United National Independence Party’, History in Africa 18 (1991), pp. 291–6. Mwaipaya, Paul A., African Humanism and National Development: A Critical Analysis of the Fundamental Theoretical Principle of Zambian Humanism (Washington, D.C: University Press of America, 1981). Mwanakatwe, J.M., End of Kaunda Era (Lusaka: Multimedia, 1994). Nasong’o, Shadrack Wanjala, Contending Political Paradigms in Africa: Rationality and the Politics of Democratization in Kenya and Zambia (London: Routledge, 2005). Nugent, Paul, Africa since Independence: A Comparative History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Ochieng, William R. (ed.), A Modern History of Kenya 1895–1980: In Honour of B.A. Ogot (London: Evans Brothers, 1989). Ogola, George, ‘Confronting and Performing Power: Memory, Popular Imagination and a “Popular” Kenyan Newspaper Serial’, African Studies 64, 1 (2005), pp. 73–85. Ogot, Bethwell Allan, Who, If Anyone, Owns the Past? Reflections on the Meaning of ‘Public History’ (Kisumu: Anyange Press Ltd, 2010). Ogunsanwo, Alaba, China’s Policy in Africa, 1958–1971 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). Okoth, P. Godfrey, United States of America’s Foreign Policy toward Kenya 1952-1969 (Nairobi: Gideon S. Were Press, 1992). ——, ‘US Foreign Policy Impact on Kenya’s Domestic and Foreign Policies’, Journal of East and West Studies, 18, 1 (1989), pp. 153–77. Okumu, John, ‘Some Thoughts on Kenya’s Foreign Policy’, The African Review 3, 2 (1973), pp. 263–90. Onslow, Sue (ed.), Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power, Black Liberation (London: Routledge, 2009). ——, (ed.), ‘The Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power, Black Nationalism and External Intervention’, in Onslow (ed.), Cold War in Southern Africa, pp. 9–34. Orwa, Katete, ‘Foreign policy, 1963–1986’, in Ochieng (ed.), A Modern History of Kenya 1895–1980: In Honour of B.A. Ogot, pp. 219–44.

223

224

Bibliography

Osborne, Myles (ed.), The Life and Times of General China: Mau Mau and the End of Empire in Kenya (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2015). Oser, Jacob, Promoting Economic Development: With Illustrations from Kenya (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967). Osgood, Kenneth Alan, Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2006). Pang, Laikwan, The Art of Cloning: Creative Production during China’s Cultural Revolution (London: Verso, 2017). 《北大非洲研究：中国与非洲》[Peking University African Studies Series: China and Africa] (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2000). Pettman, Jan, Zambia: Security and Conflict (Lewes: Julian Friedmann Publishers Ltd, 1974). Planning Department of the Foreign Ministry, 中非关系史上的丰碑— 援建坦赞铁路亲历者的讲述 [Grand Monument in the History of Sino-­ African Relations – Participant Accounts of the Tan-Zam Railway] (Beijing: World Knowledge Press, 2014). Potts, Deborah and Bowyer-Bower, Tanya (eds), Eastern and Southern Africa: Development Challenges in a Volatile Region (London: Routledge, 2004). Power, Marcus, Mohan, Giles, and Tan-Mullins, May, China’s Resource Diplomacy in Africa: Powering Development? (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Prashad, Vijay, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (London: New Press, 2007). Quick, Stephen A., ‘Socialism in One Sector: Rural Development in Zambia’, in Rosberg and Callaghy (eds), Socialism in Sub-Saharan Africa, pp. 83–111. Ranganathan, M.A., The Political Philosophy of President Kaunda of Zambia (Edinburgh: Holmes McDougall, 1985). Ranger, Terence (ed.), Emerging Themes in African History: Proceedings (Nairobi: East Africa Pub. House, 1968). ——, ‘Towards A Usable African Past’, in Fyfe (ed.), African Studies Since 1945: A Tribute to Basil Davidson, pp. 17–30. Rodney, Walter, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, 1972). Rosaldo, Renato, ‘Imperialist Nostalgia’, Representations 26, 1 (1989), pp. 107–22. Rosberg, Carl Gustav and Callaghy, Thomas (eds), Socialism in Sub-­ Saharan Africa: A New Assessment (Berkley: University of California, 1979). Rotberg, Robert I., China into Africa: Trade, Aid, and Influence (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2008). ——, The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa: The Making of Malawi and Zambia 1873–1964 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966).

Bibliography

Saunders, Chris and Onslow, Sue, ‘The Cold War and Southern Africa, 1976–1990’, in Leffler and Westad (eds), The Cambridge History of the Cold War, pp. 222–43. Sautman, Barry, ‘Anti-black Racism in Post-Mao China’, The China Quarterly 138 (1994), pp. 413–37. Sautman, Barry and Yan Hairong, The Chinese Are the Worst? Human Rights and Labor Practices in Zambian Mining (Baltimore: University of Maryland School of Law, 2012). Shambaugh, David, ‘China’s Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes and Efficacy’, The China Journal 57 (2007), pp. 25–58. Shuman, Amanda, ‘Elite Competitive Sport in the People’s Republic of China 1958–1966: The Games of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO)’, Journal of Sport History 40, 2 (2013), pp. 258–83. Shaw, Timothy M., ‘International Stratification in Africa: Sub-­ imperialism in Southern and Eastern Africa’, Journal of Southern African Affairs 2, 2 (1977), pp. 145–66. ——, ‘The Foreign Policy of Zambia: Ideology and Interests’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 14, 1 (1976), pp. 79–105. Shen, Gordon C. and Fan, Victoria Y., ‘China’s Provincial Diplomacy to Africa: Applications to Health Cooperation’, Contemporary Politics 20, 2 (2014), pp. 1–27. Shen, Xipeng, 中国援建坦赞铁路研究 [A Study of China’s Aid to the Tan-Zam Railway] (Hefei: Huangshan Publishing House, 2018). Shinn, David H., ‘Military and Security Relations: China, Africa, and the Rest of the World’, in Rotberg (ed.), China into Africa: Trade, Aid, and Influence, pp. 155–96. Shinn, David H. and Eisenman, Joshua, China and Africa: A Century of Engagement (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). Shubin, Vladimir G., The Hot ‘Cold War’: The USSR in Southern Africa (London: Pluto Press, 2008). ——, ‘Unsung Heroes: The Soviet Military and the Liberation of Southern Africa’, Cold War History 7, 2 (2007), pp. 251–62. Sikes, Michelle, ‘Print Media and the History of Women’s Sport in Africa: The Kenyan Case of Barriers to International Achievement’, History in Africa 43, (2016), pp. 323–45. Slavik, Hannah (ed.), Intercultural Communication and Diplomacy (Malta/Geneva: Diplo Foundation, 2004). Slobodian, Quinn (ed.), Comrades of Color: East Germany in the Cold War World (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015). Smale, Melinda and Jayne, Thom, ‘Maize in Eastern and Southern Africa: “Seeds” of Success in Retrospect’, EPTD Discussion Paper No. 97 (Washington, D.C.: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2003). Snow, Philip, The Star Raft: China’s Encounter with Africa (New York: Cornell University Press, 1988).

225

226

Bibliography

Speich, Daniel, ‘The Kenyan Style of “African Socialism”: Developmental Knowledge Claims and the Explanatory Limits of the Cold War’, Diplomatic History 33, 3 (2009), pp. 449–66. Stoler, Ann Laura, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). ——, ‘Colonial Archives and the Arts of Governance’, Archival Science 2, 1 (2002), pp. 87–109. Stoneman, Colin, ‘Structural Adjustment in Eastern and Southern Africa: The Tragedy of Development’, in Potts and Bowyer-Bower (eds), Eastern and Southern Africa: Development Challenges in a Volatile Region, pp. 58–88. Strauss, Julia C., ‘The Past in the Present: Historical and Rhetorical Lineages in China’s Relations with Africa’, The China Quarterly 199 (2009), pp. 777–95. Sun, Jodie Yuzhou, ‘Historicizing African Socialisms: Kenyan African Socialism, Zambian Humanism, and Communist China’s Entanglements’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 52, 3 (2019), pp. 349–74. ——, ‘Viriato da Cruz and His Chinese Exile: A Biographical Approach’, Journal of Southern African Studies 46, 5 (2020), pp. 845–61. Suri, Jeremi, ‘The Cold War, Decolonization, and Global Social Awakenings: Historical Intersections’, Cold War History, 6 (2006), pp. 353–63. Takougang, Joseph, ‘Nationalism, Democratisation and Political Opportunism in Cameroon’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies 21, 3 (2003), pp. 427–45. Tandon, Yashpal and Chandarana, Dilshad (eds), Horizons of African Diplomacy (Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau, 1974). Taylor, Ian, China and Africa: Engagement and Compromise (London: Routledge, 2006). ——, ‘Kenya’s New Lunatic Express: The Standard Gauge Railway’, African Studies Quarterly 19, 3–4 (2020), pp. 29–52. ——, Review Article, ‘Zambia’s Foreign Policy: Themes and Approaches’, Politikon 24, 2 (1997), pp. 57–65. ——, ‘Taiwan’s Foreign Policy and Africa: The Limitations of Dollar Diplomacy’, Journal of Contemporary China 11, 30 (2002), pp. 125–40. Teiwes, Frederick C. and Sun, Warren, The End of the Maoist Era: Chinese Politics during the Twilight of the Cultural Revolution, 1972-1976 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2008). Terretta, Meredith, Nation of Outlaws, State of Violence: Nationalism, Grassfields Tradition, and State Building in Cameroon (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2014). The Industrial Development Corporation of Zambia Limited, Maize Industry in Zambia: A Feasibility Study (Lusaka: INDEC, 1968). Van Wyk, L.A., ‘African Economies: Communist Influences’, Bulletin of the Africa Institute of South Africa 10, 2 (1972).

Bibliography

Vogel, Ezra F., Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Cambridge: Belknap of Harvard University Press, 2011). Vučetić, Radina, ‘Tito’s Africa: Representation of Power during Tito’s African Journeys’, in Vučetić and Betts (eds), Tito in Africa: Picturing Solidarity, pp. 13–45. Vučetić, Radina and Betts, Paul (eds), Tito in Africa: Picturing Solidarity (Belgrade: Museum of Yugoslavia, 2017). Wang, Qinmei, ‘毛泽东与中非关系’ [Mao Zedong and China-Africa Relations], Foreign Affairs Review 4 (1996), pp. 3–6. ——, ‘中非关系中的一个曲折起伏’ [Twists and Turns in Sino-African Relations], in Peking University African Studies Series: China and Africa, pp. 59–71. Wang, Yanlai, Chen, Aimin, and Song, Shunfeng, China’s Economic Development and Democratization (London: Routledge, 2016). Wang, Yuan and Wissenbach, Uwe, ‘Clientelism at Work? A Case Study of Kenyan Standard Railway Project’, Economic History of Developing Regions 34, 3 (2019), pp. 280–99. Wang, Yunsheng, and Guo, Xingjuan, ‘近年来《关于正确处理人民内部 矛盾的问题》的研究述评’ [Commentary Review of Studies on ‘The Question about Correctly Processing the Contradictions Among the People’], Journal of University of Science and Technology Beijing 23, 3 (2007), pp. 108–13. Wei, Liang-Tsai, Peking versus Taipei in Africa 1960–1978 (Ann Arbor: Asia and World Institute, 1982). Weinstein, Warren (ed.), Chinese and Soviet Aid to Africa (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975). Weinstein, Warren and Henriksen, Thomas H. (eds), Soviet and Chinese Aid to African Nations (New York: Praeger, 1980). Wenzel, Jennifer, ‘Remembering the Past’s Future: Anti-imperialist Nostalgia and Some Versions of the Third World’, Cultural Critique 62 (2006), pp. 1–32. Westad, Odd Arne, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Makings of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). ——, ‘The New International History of the Cold War: Three (Possible) Paradigms’, Diplomatic History 24 (2000), pp. 551–65. White, H., Import Support Aid: Experiences from Tanzania and Zambia (The Hague: Institute of Social Justice, 1994). White, Luise, ‘Introduction – Suitcases, Roads, and Archives: Writing the History of Africa after 1960’, History in Africa 42 (2015), pp. 265–7. ——, Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Widner, Jennifer A., The Rise of a Party-State in Kenya: From ‘Harambee!’ to ‘Nyayo!’ (Berkeley: University of California, 1992).

227

228

Bibliography

Wilcox, Emily, ‘Performing Bandung: China’s Dance Diplomacy with India, Indonesia, and Burma, 1953–1962’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 18, 4 (2017), pp. 518–39. Williams, Christian A., ‘Living in Exile: Daily Life and International Relations at SWAPO’s Kongwa Camp’, Kronos, 37 (2011), pp. 60–86. ——, National Liberation in Postcolonial Southern Africa: A Historical Ethnography of SWAPO’s Exile Camps (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Wissenbach, Uwe and Yuan Wang, African Politics Meets Chinese Engineers: The Chinese-Built Standard Gauge Railway Project in Kenya and East Africa (Washington, D.C.: China Africa Research Initiate, 2017). Worby, Eric and Ally, Shireen, ‘The Disappointment of Nostalgia: Conceptualising Cultures of Memory in Contemporary South Africa’, Social Dynamics 39, 3 (2013), pp. 457–80. Yan, Hairong and Sautman, Barry, ‘“The Beginning of a World Empire”? Contesting the Discourse of Chinese Copper Mining in Zambia’, Modern China 39, 2 (2013), pp. 131–64. Ying, Ruocheng, He, Tu, and Su, Min, 刚果风雷 [Congo Wind and Thunder] (Beijing: China Drama Publishing House, 1965). Yu, George T., China’s Africa Policy: A Study of Tanzania (New York: Praeger, 1975). ——, ‘Dragon in the Bush: Peking’s Presence in Africa’, Asian Survey 8, 12 (1968), pp. 1018–26. ——, ‘Working on the Railroad: China and the Tanzania-Zambia Railway’, Asian Survey 11, 11 (1971), pp. 1101–17. Zhang, Denghua, ‘The Concept of “Community of Common Destiny” in China’s Diplomacy: Meaning, Motives and Implications’, Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies 5, 2 (2018), pp. 196–207. Zhang, Heng, ‘土地自由军’ [Kenya Land and Freedom Army], World Knowledge, 8 (1963), p. 19. Zhang, Yang, ‘美国对中国援建坦赞铁路的阻挠’ [American Obstructions to the Chinese-aided Construction of the Tan-Zam Railway], Contemporary China History Studies 19, 3 (2012), pp. 65–126. Zheng, Kejun, ‘八十年代初期中国对非洲政策的调整’ [Adjustments of China’s Policy towards Africa in the Early 1980s], in Peking University African Studies Series: China and Africa, pp. 87–99.

Unpublished Theses

Altorfer-Ong, Alicia N., ‘A Historical Re-examination of Sino-Zanzibari and Sino-Tanzanian Bilateral Relationships in the 1960s’ (London School of Economics and Political Science, 2014). Chipande, Decius, ‘Chipolopolo: A Political and Social History of Football (soccer) in Zambia, 1940s–1994’ (Michigan State University, 2015).

Bibliography

Chongo, Clarence, ‘Decolonising Southern Africa: A History of Zambia’s Role in Zimbabwe’s Liberation Struggle, 1964–1979’ (University of Pretoria, 2016). Haddad-Fonda, Kyle, ‘Revolutionary Allies: Sino-Egyptian and Sino-­ Algerian Relations in the Bandung Decade’ (University of Oxford, 2013). Jiang, Huajie, ‘冷战时期中国对非洲国家的援助研究 (1960–1978)’ [A Study on Chinese Aid to African Countries in the Cold War Era, 1960–1978] (East China Normal University, 2014). Kasoma, Francis Peter, ‘The Press and the Multiparty Politics in Africa’ (University of Tampere, 2000). Mwangala, Raymond Mwangala, ‘Found a Modern Nation-State on Christian Values? A Theological Assessment of Zambian Humanism’ (University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2009). Nzomo, Maria, ‘The Foreign Policy of Kenya and Tanzania: The Impact of Dependence and Underdevelopment, 1961–1980’ (Dalhousie University, 1981). Procopio, Maddalena, ‘Negotiating Governance: Kenyan Contestation, Cooperation, Passivity toward the Chinese’ (London School of Economics and Political Science, 2016). Roberts, George, ‘Politics, Decolonisation, and the Cold War in Dar es Salaam c. 1965–72’ (University of Warwick, 2016). Serj, Battsetseg, ‘Building Bridges across Cultures: A Case Study of the People-to-People Campaign, 1956–1975’ (University of Kansas, 2014). Wu, Di, ‘The Everyday Life of Chinese Migrants in Zambia: Emotion, Sociality and Moral Interaction’ (London School of Economics and Political Science, 2014).

229

Index

African agency 3, 12, 13, 21, 142, 175, 177, 181, 182 Africanisation 58 African Mineworkers’ Union 39 African Revolution 60 African Socialism and its Application to Planning 57, 64, 178 see also Sessional Paper No. 10 Afro-Asian Conference 27 Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organisation 101 Afro-Asian solidarity 4, 6, 13, 44, 177 Agreement Concerning Economic and Technical Cooperation (between China and Kenya, 1964) 52, 66 Algeria 29, 34 Algerian Provisional Government 29 Alvor Agreement 122 Angola 11, 114, 122, 123, 124 Anglo-Kenyan relations 8, 49 apartheid 8, 30, 80, 83, 125, 129, 180 Asia 9, 25, 180 atomic weapons 89 Attwood, William 47, 50, 56, 74, 78 Banda, Hastings 115 Banda, Rupiah 18 Bandung Conference 10, 19, 23, 27, 41

Beijing, China 20, 38, 43, 47, 65, 68, 78 Beijing (Chinese government) 13, 24, 25, 28, 32, 34, 35, 40, 46, 68, 85, 92, 101, 126, 127, 160, 177, 178 and Angola 112, 122, 123 and Kenyan radicals 61, 66, 71 and President Kenneth Kaunda 39, 44, 87, 179 and Odinga Odinga 4, 38, 51, 55, 56, 182 and trade 45, 106, 135 Belgrade Conference 114 Bella, Ahmed Ben 34 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) 21, 148, 168, 169, 175 Bemba (people) 90, 113 Branch, Daniel 8, 35, 37, 57 Brautigam, Deborah 5, 158 Britain 92, 111, 116, 165 British colonial rule 39, 43, 52, 57, 59 British Empire 38 see also British colonial rule British (government) 3, 13, 20, 30, 31, 35, 43, 49, 53, 55, 60, 73, 92, 96, 109 British South Africa Company 166 Bush, George H.W. 118 Cameroonian National Liberation Army 31

232

Index

Cape to Cairo Railway 166 capitalism 7, 26, 64, 83, 86, 87, 130, 143, 152 Central African Federation 38, 166 Central Committee of the Communist Party of China 18 Chambo, G.P. 129 Chan, Stephen 84 Chen Yi 32, 64, 65 Chewe, Billy 152 Chiang Kai-shek 116, 117 Chicoms 59 see also Chinese Communists Chiluba, Frederick 145, 160, 161 Chimba, Justin 38, 106, 107, 108 China in Africa (research) 1, 2, 3, 21, 143, 175 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 7, 25, 29, 40, 65, 66, 94, 113, 125, 126, 130, 133, 179, 182, 184 Chinese Communists 59, 60 Chinese Foreign Ministry 17, 32, 41, 62, 63, 77, 179 Chinese medical teams (CMT) 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 165 Chinese Nationalist Party 24 see also Kuomintang Chinese Society of African Historical Studies 3 n.8 Chinese Song and Dance Ensemble 99 Chona, Mainza 41, 94, 101, 118, 130, 131 Chona, Mark 19, 80, 88, 94, 97, 100, 107 Christianity 94 Cold War 2, 3, 10, 19, 23, 27, 55, 101, 112, 120, 121, 141, 176, 185, 186 and Africa 25, 81, 98, 125, 178, 181 and China 43, 91, 182

end of 14, 21, 141, 144, 146, 147, 158, 175, 183 global 11, 20, 44, 57, 59, 77, 84, 110, 122, 159 and Kenya 60, 64, 73, 80, 180 rhetoric 8, 12, 49 superpowers 4, 9, 17, 34, 45, 118, 179 and Zambia 79, 97, 123 colonialism 1, 27, 30, 49, 83, 93, 113, 170, 176, 184 communism 3, 30, 38, 42, 60, 62, 86, 111, 113, 115, 141, 146 Communist China 2, 17, 28, 34, 43, 44, 76, 88, 94, 99, 112, 115, 134, 135, 178, 180 and Africa 9, 22, 143, 177 and Kenya 46, 49, 72, 116, 134, 162 and Zambia 20, 79, 80, 141 Communist Party of the Soviet Union 121, 185 Confucius 66 Congo Wind and Thunder (play) 95 Copperbelt 18, 90, 107 n.146, 113, 149, 152, 153 copper mining 5, 21, 143, 147, 175 Council on Foreign Relations 176 COVID-19 147, 165, 175, 176 Cuba 11, 180 Cullen, Poppy 8, 49 Cultural Revolution 5, 14, 62-5, 68, 71, 76, 78, 94–7, 100, 110, 112, 113, 117, 119, 129, 131, 133, 179 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 14, 60, 62, 105, 120, 141 decolonisation 3, 9, 11, 12, 19, 23, 24, 26, 27, 35, 42, 44, 45, 57, 64, 177, 180

Index

Deng Xiaoping 10, 111, 119, 123, 125, 128, 129, 182, 183 DeRoche, Andy 8, 80 East African Standard (EAS) 18, 42, 65, 66, 68, 71, 99, 117 Eastern Bloc 13, 36, 37, 52, 55, 74, 77, 104, 159, 164, 178 East Germany 11 East-Is-Red Song and Dance Ensemble 96 Egypt 26, 39, 45 Ethiopia 25 Fang Yi 120 Federal Republic of Cameroon 31 Fédération Internationale de Football Association 102 Ferguson, Glenn W. 75 Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence 26, 27 Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) 102, 103 Ford, Gerald 80, 123 foreign direct investment 146 Forum of China-Africa Cooperation 144 Four Principles of Chinese aid 135 Frankopan, Peter 169 Friedman, Jeremy 24 Frontline States 123 Fukuyama, Francis 146 Games of the New Emerging Forces Federation (GANEFO) 101, 102 Gao Ke’nan 160, 162 Gao Liang 36 Garvey, Terence 53, 56 Gathigira, Henry 134 Gavin, Michelle D. 176 General China 42, 50 see also Waruhiu Itote

Gewald, Jan-Bart 42 Ghana 8 Gichuru, James 51, 52 Gleijeses, Piero 11 globalisation 144 Gologo, Mamadou 22 Good, Robert 89, 90 Go Out policy 146 Goundrey, G. 85 Grain Marketing Board of Zambia 106, 108, 109 Great Leap Forward 128 Guide to the Implementation of Humanism in Zambia, A 86 Han Beiping 1 Hansen, Valerie 169 Hatzky, Christine 11, 103 H-bomb 89 He Ying 43, 44, 62 Hichilema, Hakainde 145 Howell, John 48 Hua Guofeng 125, 128, 133, 183 Human Rights Watch Report 152 humanism 86, 87, 93, 109, 111, 121, 128 Humanist in Africa, A (Kaunda) 86 Hutchison, Alan 46 Hu Yaobang 129, 133, 182 imperialism 1, 27, 30, 65, 89, 112, 113, 116, 134, 143, 176, 178, 184, 185 Infrastructure Consortium for Africa 148 Jiang Qing 99 Ji Pengfei 132 Kabwe, Zambia 160 Kaggia, Bildad 56 Kamanga, Reuben 40, 41, 89

233

234

Index

Kapwepwe, Simon 89, 90, 97, 113, 128 Kaunda, Betty (wife of Kenneth Kaunda) 99 Kaunda, Kenneth 4, 5, 18, 92, 113, 122, 124, 129 China relations 43, 44, 81, 88, 93, 95, 108, 117, 119, 138, 155, 179, 181 and foreign policy 83, 84, 85 and humanism 82, 86, 87, 111, 121, 178 and one-party rule 110, 112, 114, 128 and UNIP 39, 41, 102, 109, 118, 120, 126, 180, 182 U.S. relations 8, 40, 80, 89, 123 Kenneth Kaunda Foundation 86 Kenya African Democratic Union 35 Kenya African National Union (KANU) 3, 4, 20, 35, 47, 49, 63, 68, 74, 77, 111, 145, 178, 180, 181, 182 Kenya Group 60, 61 Kenya Land and Freedom Army 36 Kenya National Trading Company 54, 55 Kenyan National Assembly 58 Kenya People’s Union (KPU) 47, 64, 67, 73, 75, 77 Kenyatta, Jomo 4, 5, 20, 21, 47, 48, 52, 62, 64, 73, 126, 131 British relations 8, 35, 49, 77 China relations 55, 61, 93, 111 and Daniel arap Moi 74, 76, 112, 132 government of 65, 68, 78, 92, 116 and KANU 72, 178, 180, 181 and Oginga Odinga 38, 43, 51, 56, 60, 63

Kenyatta, Uhuru (son of Jomo) 5, 145, 173 Kenyatta University College 132 Kiano, Julius Gikonyo 58 Kibaki, Mwai 63, 65, 132, 145 Kimathi, Dedan 36 Kipling, Rudyard 165 Kissinger, Henry 74, 119, 123 Koinange, Mbiyu 72 Konkola Copper Mines Plc (KCM) 150, 151 Korean War 159 Koske, Theophilus arap 68,71 Kuomintang (KMT) 24, 94 La Chine (Gologo) 22 labour unions 26, 29, 35 Larkin, Bruce 9, 71 Larmer, Miles 8 Latin America 9, 25, 34, 95, 101 Leaning to One Side policy 24 Lee, Ching Kwan 143, 153 Levy Mwanawasa University Teaching Hospital 161, 165 Li Anshan 3, 26, 100, 158, 161, 170 Li Chuan 162 Li Fenqiang 94 Li Qianyu 34 Liu Shaoqi 68, 101, 128 Li Xiannian 120, 121, 123 Lovell, Julia 91 Luanshya, Zambia 160 Lumumba, Patrice 95 Lungu, Edgar 145 Luo (people) 73, 74, 77 Lusaka Agricultural Show 97, 104 Lusaka Declaration (1970) 115 Lusaka, Zambia 92, 97, 100, 114, 159 Lusaka (Zambian government) 83, 85, 89, 112, 123

Index

Lu Xuejian 141 Maasai (people) 172, 173 Macmillan, Harold 22 Madaraka Express railway 173 Ma Faxian 19, 91, 92, 93, 94 Magana, Peter 51 Major Power Rivalry in Africa (report) 176 Makota, Jonathan D. 40 Malaya, Morris 42 Maoism 26, 76, 81, 93, 112, 129, 143, 178 Mao Zedong 5, 12, 25, 32, 46, 64, 66, 71, 78, 88, 96, 120, 134, 179, 184 African policy 2, 24, 44, 110, 140, 177 and Cultural Revolution 62, 65, 113, 117, 131 writings/teachings of 35, 63, 67, 68, 90, 94, 97, 99, 100, 130 and Zambia 81, 93, 103 See also Maoism Marxism 25, 26 Matusevich, Maxim 177 Mau Mau war 3, 23, 35, 36, 42, 45, 166 Mazrui, Ali A. 166 Mboya, Tom 4, 23, 37, 43, 45, 47, 49, 50, 55, 58, 63, 73, 74, 75, 77, 115, 182 Medical Council of Zambia 100, 101 Meebelo, Henry 86, 127, 128 Militant Africa performance 95 military 11, 13, 20, 30, 44, 56, 68, 81, 87, 90, 91—4, 110, 117, 122, 124, 129, 141, 169 Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia 149 Minimum Wages and Conditions of Employment Act 153 Mohamed, Abdulrahman ‘Babu’ 62

Moi, Daniel arap 4, 21, 46, 47, 48, 65, 67, 72, 74, 76, 78, 111, 112, 131—4, 141, 145, 181, 182 Mombasa-Nairobi SGR (railway) 147, 148, 169, 170 Monson, Jamie 3, 98, 139 Morris, Colin 85, 88 Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) 145, 149, 160 Mulemba, Humphrey 120 Mungai, Njoroge 61, 116 Muriuki, Godfrey 64 Murumbi, Joseph 51, 52, 55 Mutale, G.H. 108, 109 Mutoko, Caroline 173 Muturi, Mukiria 38 Muyunda, Mukela 156 Mwaanga, Vernon 19, 40, 79, 85, 101, 104, 115, 117, 118, 120 Mwanawasa, Levy 160, 161 Mwanawasa, Maureen (wife of Levy Mwanawasa) 161 Nairobi, Kenya 46, 65, 137 Nanjing, China 185 Nanking Military Academy 30 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 33, 38 National Archives Act 16 National Liberation Front of Angola 122 National Liberation Front of Algeria (FLN) 29, 31 National Sports Complex (Kenya) 137 National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) 112, 123, 124 nationalism 8, 13, 26, 37 neocolonialism 6, 134, 143 neo-Marxism 6 Ngala-Abok, Clement Berder 116 Ngei, Paul 56 N’goma, Philemon 139, 140

235

236

Index

Nixon, Richard 74, 80 Njonjo, Charles 72, 73 Nkrumah, Kwame 33, 41 Nkumbula, Harry 128 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) 33, 114, 115 non-state actors 12, 19, 29, 79, 171 Northern Corridor Integration Projects 170 Northern Rhodesia 13, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45 Northern Rhodesian African National Congress 39 Not Yet Uhuru (Odinga) 50 Novo, Estado 122 Nyayo philosophy 132 n.101 Nyerere, Julius 26, 62, 91, 102 Odanga, Joshua 131 Odinga, Oginga 4, 23, 37, 43, 45, 47, 49-53, 55, 56, 60, 62—5, 73, 74, 77, 111, 180, 182 Odinga, Raila 145 official development assistance 167 Ogot, Bethwell 147 Ogutu, Matthew 38 Okoth, Godfrey 49 Okumu, John 48 Okwanyo, John 116 One Belt and One Road 168 See also Belt and Road Initiative One China Principle 43, 116 Oneko, Achieng 57, 61, 63 one-party rule 93, 110, 128, 130, 184 see also one-party state one-party state 4, 64, 75, 83, 86, 93, 102, 111, 112, 114, 118, 120, 128, 142, 144, 181 Orange Democratic Movement 145

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 158, 167 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) 89, 123, 124 Oriental Song and Dance Ensemble 95 Orland, General Secretary 51 Oser, Jacob 58 Otiende, Joseph 60 Patriotic Front 145, 149 People’s Daily, The 63 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 91, 93, 122, 125 People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) 112, 122, 123, 124, 125 People’s Republic of China (PRC) 3, 10, 23—6, 43, 65, 72, 102, 117, 122, 130, 159, 177, 183 see also Communist China Philemon N’goma 139 Phiri, Wilted 40 Pinto, Pio Gama 59, 60, 77 Prashad, Vijay 12 privatisation 128, 149, 150 Qiao Guanhua 123 Ranger, Terence 6, 12, 46 realism 84 Red Guards 63, 64, 66, 68 Reds and the Blacks, The (Attwood) 50, 74 refugee political groups 85 n.28 Republic of China 102, 117. See also Taiwan Rhodes, Cecil 166 Rhodesia 80, 82, 88, 92, 104, 105, 112, 119, 129, 140, 180

Index

Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) 80, 89, 104, 105, 108, 109, 119, 180 Ribao, Renmin 18 Roberto, Holden 122 Russian Revolution 25 Sagini, Lawrence 43 Sata, Michael 145, 150, 155 scientific socialism 125, 127, 128 Scramble for Africa 143, 165, 170, 184 Second Afro-Asian Conference 32, 34 Second Republic of Zambia 102, 118 Second World War 13, 22, 25, 177 Seko, Mobutu Sese 123 Sessional Paper No. 10 58, 64 Shaw, Timothy 48 Silk Road 168, 169 Silk Roads, The (Frankopan) 169 Sino-African Friendship Association 51 Sino-African relations 127, 147, 148, 177, 178 Sino-African trade 135 Sino-American relations 76, 87 Sino-Kenyan relations 6, 15, 46, 66, 72, 75, 78, 111, 117, 132, 137, 186 Sino-Kenyan trade 72, 136, 181 Sino-Soviet split 20, 24, 25, 34, 47, 51, 53, 76, 77, 127, 138, 178 Sino-Zambian relations 79, 81, 110, 139, 165 slave trade 177, 184 Slobodian, Quinn 11 Snow, Philip 10 socialism 4, 13, 25, 26, 47, 50, 57, 58, 60, 64, 77, 86, 87, 114, 129, 130, 166, 167, 178

Socialist Constitution 121 South Africa 8, 89, 92, 125, 129, 180 Southern Rhodesia 38, 80 Soviet Union 9, 10, 19, 23, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 49, 53, 71, 96, 100, 101, 114, 120—25, 130, 178, 180, 182 Stalin, Joseph 26 Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) 21, 173, 174, 175 Standard, The 132, 134, 136 state-owned enterprises 146 Strauss, Julia 6, 126, 143 Subulwa, L.S. 139 Taiwan 23, 24, 25, 41, 43, 102, 115, 116, 158, 160 Tan-Zam railway 5. See also Tanzania-Zambia Railway Tanzania 2, 3, 5, 7, 14, 26, 28, 62, 76, 82, 91, 114, 119, 120, 122, 166, 167, 180 Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA) 5, 9, 83, 100, 119, 139, 140, 152, 154, 166, 173 Taylor, Ian 115 The Lunatic Line 173. See also Uganda Railway Third World 6, 7, 10, 12, 20, 21, 24, 25, 44, 47, 48, 77, 95, 120, 125, 131, 141, 178, 179, 181, 182, 185 Third World Festival of Youth and Students 26 Three Worlds Theory 120 Tibet 27 Times of Zambia (ToZ) 18, 81, 99, 103, 117, 118 Tito, Josip Broz 38, 114 trade unions 74, 153 traditional Chinese medicine 164

237

238

Index

two Chinas policy 43, 44, 45, 115 Uganda Railway 165, 166, 170, 173 Uhuru Railway 142, 173, 181 see also Tanzania-Zambia Railway Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) 89, 92, 105, 109, 180 Union of the Peoples of Cameroon 31 United Kingdom (UK government) 43, 117. See also British United Kingdom (UK) 39, 41, 136 United National Independence Party (UNIP) 3-5, 16, 18, 39, 79, 86, 94, 102, 103, 108, 118, 119, 131, 145 Central Committee 118, 121, 128 and China 20, 40, 45, 112, 127, 129, 141, 178 in-fighting 89, 110, 113, 125, 181, 182 and Kenneth Kaunda 41, 82, 83, 109 radicalization of 111, 125, 126, 130 United Nations (UN) 9, 24, 52, 112, 115, 117, 118 United Party for National Development 145 United Progressive Party 113 United States 24, 37, 49, 100, 114 United States government (US) 10, 50, 55, 61, 73—8, 85, 89, 130, 168, 179, 182, 186 University of Nairobi 132 USSR 130, 185 see also Soviet Union

U.S. State Department 89, 116 Vietnam 87, 89, 127 Waiyaki, Munyua 76 Wang Teming 61 Wang Yueyi 76 Wan Li 131 Waruhiu Itote 42, 50 Welensky, Roy 38, 42 Westad, Odd Arne 10 White, Luise 41 white supremacy 23 Widner, Jennifer 49 Wina, Arthur 89, 90 Wina, Sikota 85, 100 Xi Jinping 148, 157, 167, 168, 169, 176 Xinhua Agency 61 Xu Bing 99 Yang Hsi-kun 44 Year of Africa 22, 28 Yellow Peril 3 Yu, George 2 Yugoslavia 114 Yu Huizhen 101, 159, 160 Zaire 123 Zambia African National Congress 39 Zambia-China Economic & Trade Cooperation Zone (ZCCZ) 150, 151, 154 Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) 152, 156 Zambia National Archives (ZNA) 16 Zambian Copperbelt 149 Zambian Defence Force 93 Zambian Defence Ministry 139 Zambian Humanism 82, 83, 86, 178

Index

Zambia’s Second Republic 16, 182 Zambia Trade Fair 104 Zanzibar Revolution 179 Zanzibar 55, 62 ZCCM Investments Holdings Plc 156 Zhang, Kevin 154 Zhao Ziyang 21, 129, 131, 133, 135, 136, 141, 182 Zheng He 169

Zhou Enlai 5, 23, 28, 32, 61, 64, 119, 128, 135 Zhou Yuxiao 33, 154 Zimbabwe African National Union 112 Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) 112, 124 Zukas, Simon Ber 39 Zulu, Grey 92, 93, 120, 121, 123, 130

239

Eastern Africa Series Women’s Land Rights & Privatization in Eastern Africa BIRGIT ENGLERT & ELIZABETH DALEY (EDS)

War & the Politics of Identity in Ethiopia KJETIL TRONVOLL

Moving People in Ethiopia ALULA PANKHURST & FRANÇOIS PIGUET (EDS)

Living Terraces in Ethiopia ELIZABETH E. WATSON

Eritrea GAIM KIBREAB

Borders & Borderlands as Resources in the Horn of Africa DEREJE FEYISSA & MARKUS VIRGIL HOEHNE (EDS) After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan ELKE GRAWERT (ED.)

Land, Governance, Conflict & the Nuba of Sudan GUMA KUNDA KOMEY

Ethiopia JOHN MARKAKIS

Resurrecting Cannibals HEIKE BEHREND

Pastoralism & Politics in Northern Kenya & Southern Ethiopia GŰNTHER SCHLEE & ABDULLAHI A. SHONGOLO

Islam & Ethnicity in Northern Kenya & Southern Ethiopia GŰNTHER SCHLEE with ABDULLAHI A. SHONGOLO

Foundations of an African Civilisation DAVID W. PHILLIPSON

Regional Integration, Identity & Citizenship in the Greater Horn of Africa KIDANE MENGISTEAB & REDIE BEREKETEAB (EDS)

Dealing with Government in South Sudan CHERRY LEONARDI The Quest for Socialist Utopia BAHRU ZEWDE

Disrupting Territories JÖRG GERTEL, RICHARD ROTTENBURG & SANDRA CALKINS (EDS) The African Garrison State KJETIL TRONVOLL & DANIEL R. MEKONNEN

The State of Post-conflict Reconstruction NASEEM BADIEY Gender, Home & Identity KATARZYNA GRABSKA

Women, Land and Justice in Tanzania HELEN DANCER Remaking Mutirikwi JOOST FONTEIN

The Oromo & the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia MOHAMMED HASSEN

Lost Nationalism ELENA VEZZADINI Darfur CHRIS VAUGHAN

The Eritrean National Service GAIM KIBREAB

Ploughing New Ground GETNET BEKELE

Hawks & Doves in Sudan’s Armed Conflict SUAD M. E. MUSA

Ethiopian Warriorhood TSEHAI BERHANE-SELASSIE

Land, Migration & Belonging JOSEPH MUJERE Land Tenure Security SVEIN EGE (ED.)

Tanzanian Development DAVID POTTS (ED.)

Nairobi in the Making CONSTANCE SMITH

The Mission of Apolo Kivebulaya EMMA WILD-WOOD

The Crisis of Democratization in the Greater Horn of Africa KIDANE MENGISTEAB (ED.)

The Struggle for Land & Justice in Kenya AMBREENA MANJI

Imperialism & Development: The East African Groundnut Scheme and its Legacy NICHOLAS WESTCOTT Kamba Proverbs from Eastern Kenya JEREMIAH M. KITUNDA

Sports & Modernity in Late Imperial Ethiopia KATRIN BROMBER

Contested Sustainability STEFANO PONTE, CHRISTINE NOE, DAN BROCKINGTON (EDS)

Reimagining the Gendered Nation CHRISTINA KENNY

Decolonising State & Society in Uganda KATHERINE BRUCE-LOCKHART, JONATHON L. EARLE, NAKANYIKE B. MUSISI & EDGAR C. TAYLOR (EDS)

EASTERN AFRICAN STUDIES

These titles published in the United States and Canada by Ohio University Press

Revealing Prophets Edited by DAVID M. ANDERSON & DOUGLAS H. JOHNSON East African Expressions of Christianity Edited by THOMAS SPEAR & ISARIA N. KIMAMBO

The Poor Are Not Us Edited by DAVID M. ANDERSON & VIGDIS BROCH-DUE Potent Brews JUSTIN WILLIS

Swahili Origins JAMES DE VERE ALLEN

Being Maasai Edited by THOMAS SPEAR & RICHARD WALLER Jua Kali Kenya KENNETH KING

Control & Crisis in Colonial Kenya BRUCE BERMAN Unhappy Valley Book One: State & Class Book Two: Violence & Ethnicity BRUCE BERMAN & JOHN LONSDALE Mau Mau from Below GREET KERSHAW

The Mau Mau War in Perspective FRANK FUREDI

Squatters & the Roots of Mau Mau 1905–63 TABITHA KANOGO Economic & Social Origins of Mau Mau 1945–53 DAVID W. THROUP Multi-Party Politics in Kenya DAVID W. THROUP & CHARLES HORNSBY Empire State-Building JOANNA LEWIS

Decolonization & Independence in Kenya 1940–93 Edited by B.A. OGOT & WILLIAM R. OCHIENG’ Eroding the Commons DAVID ANDERSON

Penetration & Protest in Tanzania ISARIA N. KIMAMBO Custodians of the Land Edited by GREGORY MADDOX, JAMES L. GIBLIN & ISARIA N. KIMAMBO Education in the Development of Tanzania 1919–1990 LENE BUCHERT

The Second Economy in Tanzania T.L. MALIYAMKONO & M.S.D. BAGACHWA Ecology Control & Economic Development in East African History HELGE KJEKSHUS

Siaya DAVID WILLIAM COHEN & E.S. ATIENO ODHIAMBO

Uganda Now • Changing Uganda Developing Uganda • From Chaos to Order • Religion & Politics in East Africa Edited by HOLGER BERNT HANSEN & MICHAEL TWADDLE Kakungulu & the Creation of Uganda 1868–1928 MICHAEL TWADDLE Controlling Anger SUZETTE HEALD

Kampala Women Getting By SANDRA WALLMAN

Political Power in Pre-Colonial Buganda RICHARD J. REID

Alice Lakwena & the Holy Spirits HEIKE BEHREND

Slaves, Spices & Ivory in Zanzibar ABDUL SHERIFF Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule Edited by ABDUL SHERIFF & ED FERGUSON

The History & Conservation of Zanzibar Stone Town Edited by ABDUL SHERIFF Pastimes & Politics LAURA FAIR

Ethnicity & Conflict in the Horn of Africa Edited by KATSUYOSHI FUKUI & JOHN MARKAKIS Conflict, Age & Power in North East Africa Edited by EISEI KURIMOTO & SIMON SIMONSE

Property Rights & Political Development in Ethiopia & Eritrea SANDRA FULLERTON JOIREMAN Revolution & Religion in Ethiopia ØYVIND M. EIDE Brothers at War TEKESTE NEGASH & KJETIL TRONVOLL

From Guerrillas to Government DAVID POOL

Mau Mau & Nationhood Edited by E.S. ATIENO ODHIAMBO & JOHN LONSDALE

A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1991(2nd edn) BAHRU ZEWDE

Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia BAHRU ZEWDE Remapping Ethiopia Edited by W. JAMES, D. DONHAM, E. KURIMOTO & A. TRIULZI

Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia Edited by DONALD L. DONHAM & WENDY JAMES A Modern History of the Somali (4th edn) I.M. LEWIS

Islands of Intensive Agriculture in East Africa Edited by MATS WIDGREN & JOHN E.G. SUTTON Leaf of Allah EZEKIEL GEBISSA

Dhows & the Colonial Economy of Zanzibar 1860–1970 ERIK GILBERT African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya TABITHA KANOGO African Underclass ANDREW BURTON

In Search of a Nation Edited by GREGORY H. MADDOX & JAMES L. GIBLIN A History of the Excluded JAMES L. GIBLIN

Black Poachers, White Hunters EDWARD I. STEINHART Ethnic Federalism DAVID TURTON

Crisis & Decline in Bunyoro SHANE DOYLE

Emancipation without Abolition in German East Africa JAN-GEORG DEUTSCH

Women, Work & Domestic Virtue in Uganda 1900–2003 GRACE BANTEBYA KYOMUHENDO & MARJORIE KENISTON McINTOSH Cultivating Success in Uganda GRACE CARSWELL War in Pre-Colonial Eastern Africa RICHARD REID

Slavery in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa Edited by HENRI MÉDARD & SHANE DOYLE The Benefits of Famine DAVID KEEN