Through the critical case study of Ethiopia, this book project identifies three core mechanisms of China’s image-making in Africa: tangible enticement through material and experiential offerings, ideational promotion of values and governance practices, and censorial influence through guarding the production and diffusion of China narratives. The in-depth fieldwork in China and Ethiopia further demonstrates the fractures in China’s image-making as Chinese messengers can improvise official agendas and Ethiopian recipients strategically appropriate and negotiate Chinese power. Counterintuitively China’s engagement with Africa has also reinforced a shared longing for the West as a professional destination and standard setter. Challenging the popular claims about China as replacing the West in the Global South, therefore, this study reveals the ambitions, but also the inconsistencies in China’s influence-wielding, as well as the looming shadow of the West in mediating the Sino-African encounter.

Dr. Maria Repnikova is an Associate Professor in Global Communication at Georgia State University. This year she is also a non-residential Wilson China Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. She received her doctorate (DPhil) in Politics at the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

This event is co-sponsored by the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies.