China’s Soft Power Play in Africa: Rapid Industrial Development

The Chinese embassy in Cameroon posted a short, seemingly innocuous video today that commemorated 40 years of development in Shenzhen, a once-sleepy fishing town near Hong Kong that is now one of the world’s leading tech hubs with a population of 13+ million people.

There’s a very important message here that resonates widely in Africa: how a city like Shenzhen in a country like China went from being as poor and underdeveloped as most of Africa is today to become one of the world’s most advanced societies.

To be sure, China faces a number of challenges in Africa today and its reputation in many corners is severely diminished. But none of that takes away from the potency of this kind of message: “if we did it, you can too.”

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The post China’s Soft Power Play in Africa: Rapid Industrial Development appeared first on The China Africa Project.



source https://chinaafricaproject.com/2020/08/27/chinas-soft-power-play-in-africa-rapid-industrial-development/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=chinas-soft-power-play-in-africa-rapid-industrial-development

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