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

Summary

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.

Mamadou Gologo, 1965

Mamadou Gologo, a Malian minister and novelist, recounted his 1963 travels in China in La Chine, un peuple geant 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. 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 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.