In recent decades, Kenya has witnessed profound changes in its economic, cultural, and environmental landscapes resulting from its interactions with China. University students are competing for scholarships to study in China, coastal artisanal fishers are increasingly worried about Chinese-owned trawlers depleting fish stocks, fishers on Lake Victoria are grappling with the impact of frozen tilapia from China, and unemployed youth are seeking a fair shot at working on one of Kenya’s multimillion-dollar Chinese-funded infrastructure projects. Anita Plummer’s Kenya’s Engagement with China investigates the tension between official Kenyan and Chinese state narratives and individual Kenyans’ reactions to China’s presence to provide insight into how everyday Kenyans exercise their political agency. The competing discourses Plummer uncovers in person, in the news, and online reveal how Kenyans use China to question local power structures, demand policy change, and articulate different visions for their country’s future. This critical text represents the next step in research on Sino-African relations.

The People's Republic of China once limited its involvement in African affairs to building an occasional railroad or port, supporting African liberation movements, and loudly proclaiming socialist solidarity with the downtrodden of the continent. Now Chinese diplomats and Chinese companies, both state-owned and private, along with an influx of Chinese workers, have spread throughout Africa. This shift is one of the most important geopolitical phenomena of our time. China and Africa: A Century of Engagement presents a comprehensive view of the relationship between this powerful Asian nation and the countries of Africa. This book, the first of its kind to be published since the 1970s, examines all facets of China's relationship with each of the fifty-four African nations. It reviews the history of China's relations with the continent, looking back past the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. It looks at a broad range of areas that define this relationship—politics, trade, investment, foreign aid, military, security, and culture—providing a significant historical backdrop for each. David H. Shinn and Joshua Eisenman's study combines careful observation, meticulous data analysis, and detailed understanding gained through diplomatic experience and extensive travel in China and Africa. China and Africa demonstrates that while China's connection to Africa is different from that of Western nations, it is no less complex. Africans and Chinese are still developing their perceptions of each other, and these changing views have both positive and negative dimensions.

This dissertation seeks to demonstrate growing cultural influence of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in African countries and illustrates how the PRC attempts to use its economic power and cultural influences to shape African countries' foreign policies to benefit the PRC by using the Chinese media and cultural expansion in Kenya as a case study. In order to achieve this objective, this study examines the internal and external economic and political forces in both China and Kenya that have helped to establish the current pattern of China's media involvement and other cultural engagements in Kenya. This study analyzes the response of Kenyan media to China's recent engagement with the country, especially China's growing involvement in media and other cultural production in Kenya. China's growing presence in Africa has provoked a heated debate about the nature of Chinese engagement and its implication for the African continent. Critics argue that China is using its power to develop a neo-colonial system in Africa. Rather than direct political control of African countries, China operates behind closed doors to influence African countries' foreign policies to benefit Chinese interests. Despite criticism of colonialism, some observers perceive current Sino-African relations as a partnership for development. Both China and African countries are gaining significant benefits from this relationship. After analyzing two leading Kenyan newspapers' coverage of China's involvement in Kenya, this study found that both newspapers' representations of China are natural; unlike Western media's negative views of Chinese presence or China's positive self-portrait. However, the Kenyan media's framing of China's engagement in the country should not be viewed as stagnant because China-Kenya interactions are rapidly evolving.

There are few questions of greater significance in African international relations than China's actions in and engagement with other states. Chinese infrastructure, businesses, and people have blanketed the continent and revolutionized lifestyles, transportation, and political economies. The advantages and detractions of such developments, in turn, have shaped local attitudes. African attitudes towards China, nevertheless, remain largely the subject of conjecture. This article explores the contemporary attitudes of Kenyan university students to China through surveys and contributes empirical data to the literature. Combined with a comparative textual analysis of the main Kenyan newspaper, the article sheds light on largely unknown - but generally assumed - attitudes of Kenyans towards China. The findings question a stereotype of China in Kenya and, by extension, the actions and reactions of other Africans and African states towards it. They also uncover nuanced attitudes that confound the mostly negative Western narrative about China in Africa. Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as debt, perceived racism and unfair labour practices, Kenyan university students' attitudes and discourse in the elite media have become less positive. There is, in addition, the broad perception that it is Kenya's leadership that benefits from the relationship and not so much its ordinary citizens.

What has China gained from its foreign aid and investment activity? Does the instrument China chooses reveal its political motive? Does Chinese economic statecraft present a challenge to U.S. national interest? To answer these questions, this thesis examines the history of Communist China's foreign policy in Cambodia and in Kenya since 1956 and 1964, respectively. China has delivered aid to, made investments in, and traded with both states, but the interests China has pursued, and the vigor with which it has pursued them, are different in each. In Cambodia, China has a rich and continuing record of intrusive political influence and military engagement. In Kenya, China's purchase of political influence under Mao has cooled considerably to become today's arm's-length trade and development relationship. This thesis concludes that Chinese economic statecraft buys political influence in Cambodia but not in Kenya, where aid is developmental and investment is driven by business opportunity. From both realist and liberal perspectives, China's economic statecraft presents a challenge to the interests of the United States. I. INTRODUCTION * A. MAJOR RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND FINDINGS * B. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH QUESTION * C. LITERATURE REVIEW * 1. Aid Outcomes * 2. Policy Objectives * 3. International Relations * D. POTENTIAL EXPLANATIONS AND HYPOTHESES * E. RESEARCH DESIGN * 1. Similarities between Cambodia and Kenya: History, Economy, and Resources * 2. Differences between Cambodia and Kenya: Geographic, Political, and Cultural Proximity to China * F. CONCLUSION * II. CHINA'S INTERESTS IN CAMBODIA * A. PURSUIT OF ONE CHINA * B. CAMBODIA AS A COLD WAR COUNTERWEIGHT * C. PURSUIT OF SOVEREIGNTY IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA * D. PURSUIT OF DEVELOPMENT ON THE MEKONG RIVER * E. CONCLUSION * III. CHINA'S AID IN KENYA * A. AID IN THE 1960S: ONE CHINA, REVOLUTION, AND COLD WAR POLITICS * B. FREEZE AND THAW, 1965-80 * C. CHINA'S ECONOMIC STATECRAFT IN MODERN KENYA * 1. Aid * 2. Trade * 3. Foreign Direct Investment * D. CONCLUSION * IV. CONCLUSION * A. THREAT TO U.S. NATIONAL INTEREST * 1. Formulation of U.S. National Interest: Realism * 2. Formulation of U.S. National Interest: Liberalism * 3. U.S. National Interest and China's Economic * Engagement * B. HYPOTHESIS VALIDATION * 1. China Buys Influence with Foreign Aid and Investment * 2. China's Expansion of Influence Conflicts with U.S. Interests * 3. Choice of Financial Mechanism Reveals China's Intent * C. FURTHER RESEARCH * 1. Broader Scope * 2. Characterizing China as a Regional or Global Power * 3. China's Intent and the Supply and Demand of Foreign Aid * 4. Do Chinese Aid and FDI Chase Natural Resources? * 5. Is Kenya a Part of OBOR? * D. CONCLUSION