Chinese firms learn to win friends and influence Africans offering contracts
- ‘Local patrons’ help China’s private companies to make inroads in the continent amicably, rather than alienating the authorities or public
- Knowledge and contacts gained through local staff enhances Chinese entities’ ability to compete for projects
Chinese capital and state financiers including policy banks fuelled the initial wave of Chinese expansion to African markets in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Then came the Chinese government’s “go out policy”, encouraging companies to venture into Africa and resulting in growing competition, especially in the construction sector.
Their inroads met challenges, particularly as Africans became “increasingly wary of the Chinese”, who were feared to be “taking their jobs”, according to the paper, published this month by foreign policy think tank LSE IDEAS and based on surveys of private Chinese construction companies in Ghana between November 2019 and July 2020.
“These events have thus compelled the Chinese to localise in the African business environment by making friends not only with the elites but more importantly the local patrons on whom the success of their business largely depends,” wrote Chris Alden, a professor of international relations, and Nathaniel Ocquaye, respectively LSE IDEAS’ director and project assistant.
