China’s political influence in Africa

While China’s political and economic engagement in Africa remains the backbone of Africa-China relations, diplomacy is the main foreign policy tool which Chinese officials use to exert influence across the continent. China’s multilateral diplomacy contributes to driving state-to-state engagement and growing party-to-party relations with the Chinese Communist Party’s interest in exerting influence on African governments and expanding its political governance and practices across the continent. The piece explores how multilateral diplomacy plays an important role in China’s political influence in Africa. It focuses on a number of aspects of Beijing’s multilateral diplomacy in Africa: the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), the UN voting, party-to-party diplomacy, and health diplomacy.

The Forum on