Why the China branding Africa challenge is bad

China is a power that every other country has to reckon with. Such acceptance explains the attitudinal shift in the way China projects itself. It has moved from the Deng Xiaoping advice to keep a low profile, to one of showing off. Deng, some argue, has been overtaken by time; that there is no need of hiding Chinese power. The implied bragging is evident in the form of offensive branding in countries like Kenya.

President Xi Jinping accepts the attitudinal shift as he works to go beyond Deng at domestic and global levels by promoting and upholding everything “with Chinese characteristics”. He focuses on winning the world through his signature theme of Belt and Road Initiative infrastructural development and the doctrinal drive of shared common destiny. The United States, through Donald Trump and hatchet man John Bolton, is bolting from global institutions and inadvertently helps to promote Xi.