Chinese lessons for Africa's renaissance

Continent faces challenge to emulate model that can produce a better tomorrow

Is there a link between the "Chinese Dream" unveiled by President Xi Jinping in November 2012 and the African dream as propounded by many others? I dare answer yes.

One of first places where Xi linked the Chinese Dream to the rest of the world was in Africa, during his visit to Tanzania and South Africa last March.

His comment that in the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, people should dare to dream, work assiduously to fulfil their dreams and contribute to the revitalization of the nation" resonates with the aspirations of Africans. His words have a sense of deja vu when you consider former South Africa president Thabo Mbeki's words in 1998: "Those who have eyes, let them see. The African renaissance is upon us. As we peer through the looking glass darkly, this may not be obvious. But it is upon us."

Seventeen years since Mbeki's invigorating words, cautious optimism can be entertained, given that many African countries - Angola, Ghana and Rwanda, for instance - are registering decent economic growth. However, this optimism is blighted by violence in certain parts such as South Sudan, Central African Republic, Somalia, northern Kenya, Egypt and Libya.

Former UN deputy secretary-general Asha-Rose Migiro of Tanzania has pointed out that the Chinese Dream is very much also the African dream: alleviating poverty, working together and mutual trust being among the principles.

The mobilization of the Chinese people to embrace the Chinese Dream offers lessons for African leaders, media and people. The heady publicity and saturation of airwaves with the Chinese Dream will clearly have a salutary impact on mobilizing Chinese citizens to increase the impetus of their already booming economy and rapidly modernizing society. Everywhere you go in China you see or hear about the Chinese Dream: the launch of education campaigns, ads on streets, photo exhibitions, interpretations of what the Chinese Dream means for Chinese nationals and for foreigners in China.

The Chinese Dream buzz is such that it has become one of the most searched terms on the Internet. Chinese media have created platforms to specifically promote the idea. The concept has gone viral in China and the infectious energy can only mean revitalization of the positive energy for which Chinese society is famous. Of course, even within China, criticism has accompanied this rallying call, for instance relating to environmental protection.

Can Africa use this model to the same effect? Can it latch onto such a central organizing idea to inspire hope for a better tomorrow? Yes. For instance, Kenyans will recall their being called the "most optimistic people in the world" in 2003 by Gallup International on the back of a smooth leadership transition. South Africans will recall how their nation came to acquire the "Rainbow Nation" moniker at the behest of Nelson Mandela and his compatriots. Africans will recall the great optimism for an African renaissance that swept through the continent at the turn of the century when the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa's Development were launched.

Unfortunately many such heady feelings have often fizzled out, mainly due to class and ethnic discord. The singular zest with which the Chinese approach unifying concepts such as the Chinese Dream and Hu Jintao's Harmonious Society and Scientific Development, Deng Xiaoping's Four Modernizations and Jiang Zemin's the Three Represents is something Africans could do well to emulate.

Granted, most African socio-political systems are of the liberal, adversarial and polarized variety, marked as they are by generous doses of Eurocentric watchdog values. However, fractious political competition need not preclude drawing on unifying concepts to rally African societies in confronting ignorance, disease and poverty - as China has successfully done. Gotcha! journalism and politics have their role, but the concepts of development communication and the developmental state are attractive too - and perhaps have an even more important role for developing societies. The journalism that CCTV is practicing in Africa - for instance, airing a program on Somalia's recovery from chaos when received wisdom is that that country is the worst place on Earth - provides a path for African media to emulate.

The challenge for African societies will be how to strike a balance between managing competing ethnic-based elitism and creating mechanisms that would result in citizens embracing collective interests. A further challenge will be how a 54-nation continent can forge unity of purpose with the understanding that there is strength in numbers. The homogeneity of China's 1.3 billion citizens is hard to emulate but offers a path that needs to be followed if the millions of Africans saddled by poverty are to make a clean break with the Hobbesian "nasty, short and brutish" lives they endure today. Which African leader will champion such a continental agenda?

The author is a PhD candidate at Communication University of China and visiting researcher at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/10/2014 page10)