China overtakes US as ‘most favored nation’ among Kenyans

Donald Trump (R) and China’s President Xi Jinping (PHOTO: GETTY) 

NAIROBI, KENYA: China has overtaken United States as Kenya’s favourite ally, a new survey by Ipsos now says.

According to the study, more Kenyans see China as the development partner of greatest benefit, even compared to the US (34 percent vs. 26 percent), despite the latter having a much bigger ‘footprint’ in the country in terms of the duration of its presence, and greater cultural proximity (through the English language, as well as the magnitude of the Kenyan diaspora population there).

This is so even if the nature of the perceived benefits of the relationship is somewhat more varied with regard to the latter country (with those associated with China almost entirely of an economic nature).

Moreover, this reality has a significant partisan dimension, with nearly twice as many Jubilee supporters of this view as compared with those of NASA (44 percent vs. 24 percent).

In terms of this comparison over the last three years, the significant boost in positive attitudes towards the US stemming from President Barack Obama’s mid-2015 visit quickly dissipated, though it is only in this survey where China has ‘out-scored’ the US in terms of such positive opinion.

Here, it seems that the recent ‘bashing’ the US (and in particular, the out-going US Ambassador Robert Godec) has taken from the Opposition has contributed to this downward slide.

Godec wound up a long tour of duty ridden with controversy and a couple of firsts.

Critics have accused Godec of openly siding with the Government in the face of rising accusations of human rights abuses, corruption, and electoral malpractices.

He became the first US ambassador in Kenya to face street protests by opposition supporters, who burnt his effigy and the US flag outside the embassy in Gigiri, accusing him of political bias.

(Whether the recent derogatory remarks about Africa as a whole attributed to President Donald Trump contributed to this cannot be determined from the data obtained in this survey.) On the negative scale these two countries are about even, with China’s negatives only slightly greater than those of the US (17 percent vs. 14 per cent).

But a considerable contrast is seen in terms of the reasons for such negative views.

Whereas towards China they are almost universally of an economic nature, there is rather more variety in terms of the US, with its (diplomats’) perceived role in last year’s elections also attracting significant mention (15 percent).

Nevertheless, over the last three years at least, there has been almost no change in their relative ratings in these negative terms.