China Surpasses US In Research Spending – The Consequences Extend Far Beyond Scientific Ranking And Clout

In a span of a few years, China has outstripped the U.S. in scientific publications, spending and patents. AP Photo/Andy Wong

BY CAROLINE WAGNER

PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS,

THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

China’s rapid rise in science has hit a milestone. The country’s investment in research and development has reached parity with – and by purchasing power measures has surpassed – that of the United States, according to a March 2026 report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Both nations have crossed the US$1 trillion threshold on research spending.

For 80 years, the U.S. operated the most productive scientific and technological enterprise in human history. Breakthroughs and advances that came from American labs included the internet; the mRNA vaccine; the transistor and its children, semiconductors and microprocessors; the Global Positioning System; and many more.

U.S. scientific and technological leadership was nurtured by sustained public investment in research universities and federal laboratories, as well as a culture of open inquiry. These investments turned scientific discovery into economic strength – accounting for more than 20% of all U.S. productivity growth since World War II.

In contrast, China had previously spent little to nothing on research and development. Some estimates show that China was among the lowest research spenders worldwide in 1980.

As a policy analyst and public affairs researcher, I study international collaboration in science and technology and its implications for public and foreign policy. I have tracked China’s rise across every major database for more than a decade.

The most recent reports showing that China is now outspending the U.S. on scientific and technological research is a turning point worth understanding clearly because, historically, global leadership in one sector – including technology and warfare – feeds into others. U.S. dominance is in question.

China’s systematic and unrelenting rise

China’s R&D spending milestone caps a series of achievements that have arrived in rapid succession.

In 2019, China surpassed the U.S. in its share of the top 1% most-highly cited papers – what some call the Nobel class of research. By 2022, it had taken first place globally in most-cited papers overall.

In 2024, China overtook the United States in total scientific publications – the first time any nation has displaced American dominance since the U.S. itself surpassed the United Kingdom in 1948. Researchers found that China overtook the United States in scientific output even earlier. That same year, China pulled ahead in the Nature Index, which tracks publications in the world’s most selective scientific journals, posting a 17% advantage over the U.S. in outlets long considered the gold standard of scientific excellence.

In 2024, Chinese entities also filed roughly 1.8 million patent applications, compared to the U.S.’s 603,191 applications.

Given these milestones, it’s possible to argue that China is quickly taking the lead in global science and technology. These are not isolated data points. They mark a structural shift in where the world’s scientific frontier is being built.

More science is good – the problem lies elsewhere

China’s ascent is, in one sense, good news. More knowledge, generated by more researchers across more institutions, expands the global pool of discovery from which everyone can draw. The world benefits when science thrives.

The problem is not that China is investing, but that the U.S. is not.

First, the U.S. is divesting from basic, open science. Federal R&D spending in the U.S. peaked in 2010 at roughly $160 billion and fell by more than 15% over the following five years. Federal investment in research and development has been in a long, slow slide – from a peak of 1.86% of gross domestic product in 1964 to about 0.66% in 2021.

The federal government is no longer the largest spender in R&D: It funded about 40% of basic research in 2022, while the business sector performed roughly 78% of U.S. R&D. While not a problem in itself, industry has simultaneously withdrawn from open scientific publication over the past four decades, shifting from research toward development. The result is a shrinking pool of openly shared scientific knowledge precisely as public investment in it also contracts.

Under the second Trump administration, U.S. government science agencies have been slow-walking proposals for new research. Current budget cuts from the White House threaten to deepen cuts to government spending significantly.

The second is the active restriction of scientific exchange: tightening access to U.S. institutions, scrutinizing international collaborations and raising barriers to foreign-born researchers. These policies, though intended as security measures, work against the openness that has historically made American science productive and attractive to global talent.

I describe this issue as an example of the stockyard paradox, in which securing research assets may weaken the very system these measures aim to protect.

Disinvestment cuts deeper than it appears

The deeper danger for the U.S. economy is that disinvestment and selective engagement in research erodes the capacity to use cutting-edge science regardless of where it is produced.

Absorbing and applying cutting-edge knowledge, whether developed in Boston or Beijing, requires maintaining research institutions and trained workforces, as well as active participation in global networks. This is not a passive process. You cannot free-ride on Chinese science if you have dismantled the institutional and human capital needed to evaluate, translate and apply it.

A nation that hollows out its research base not only falls behind but also progressively loses its ability to benefit from science, including in technologies it is already able to access.

Talent compounds the problem. The U.S. built its scientific dominance partly by being the destination of choice for the world’s most ambitious researchers. The U.S. leads the world in Nobel Prizes, but, notably, 40% of the Nobel Prizes in chemistry, medicine and physics that were awarded to Americans since 2000 were won by immigrants. The flow of foreign talent is not guaranteed. It follows opportunity, funding and openness.

Researchers who might once have come to American universities are finding welcoming alternatives in Europe, China and elsewhere.

A decision point, not a trend line

China’s milestone in research funding arrives at a moment when the U.S. is deciding whether to maintain its scientific leadership.

Scientific infrastructure does not decline gradually and recover on demand. Doctoral scientists represent a decade or more of training; tacit laboratory knowledge lives in working research groups, not in documents. Once talented young researchers leave the pipeline – or international talent redirects to other countries – the capacity is very hard to rebuild. Early warning signs are already visible in the U.S. system: thousands of NIH grants terminated, a collapse in international applications and an exodus of early-career scientists.

What is at stake is not a ranking. It is whether the U.S. maintains the institutional capacity – the universities, the federal laboratories, the graduate pipelines, the culture of open inquiry – that made those returns on scientific investment possible in the first place.

China’s rise did not create this decision point, although it brings it into sharp relief. Does the U.S. still want to lead in science? The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit think tank, estimates that a 20% cut in federal research and development starting in fiscal year 2026 would shrink the U.S. economy by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years and reduce tax revenue by around $250 billion. Others point out that the scientific enterprise has contributed at least half of U.S. economic growth.

That is a lot to lose.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

China’s WWII Anniversary Parade Rekindles Cross-Strait Battle Over War Narrative − And Fears In Taiwan Of Future Conflict

Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the Cairo Conference in November 1943. Keystone/Getty Images

BY MEDREDITH OYEN

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY

A ND ASIAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF

MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY

World War II casts a very long shadow in East Asia. Eighty years after ending with Japan’s surrender to Allied forces on Sept. 2, 1945, the conflict continues to stir debate over the past, in the context of today’s geopolitical tensions.

China’s high-profile military parade commemorating the conclusion of what Beijing calls the “War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression” is a case in point.

In the run-up to the Sept. 3, 2025, event, the Chinese Communist Party has been criticized in Tokyo for stoking anti-Japanese sentiment and in the U.S. for downplaying America’s role while playing up Russia’s.

But as an expert on Taiwan-China relations, I’m interested in the battle over the narrative between Taipei and Beijing. During World War II, China’s communists and nationalists became uneasy internal allies, putting their civil war on pause to unite against Japan. Afterward, the communists prevailed and the nationalists fled to Taiwan, where they set up their own government – one the mainland has never recognized. Months of bickering over the commemorations shine a light on how both sides view their respective roles in defeating Japan – and what the show of military force by Beijing signals today.

To whom did Japan surrender?

A peculiarity of the current commemorations is that Japan did not actually surrender to Communist China, or technically to China at all. On Sept. 9, 1945, a week after agreeing to the terms laid out by the Allied forces, Japan, at a ceremony in Nanjing, formally surrendered to China’s National Revolutionary Army – the military wing of the nationalist Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek.

And this gets to the heart of why many in Taiwan – where the nationalists fled at the conclusion of China’s civil war in 1949 – are unhappy with Beijing’s projection of Communist China as the victors against Japan.

By the time that war in East Asia took hold, in 1937, China was a decade into its own civil war between the nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong’s communists.

The nationalists and communists fell into an uneasy truce with the creation of the second united front in 1937. But the role of both sides in fighting the Japanese has long been the source of disagreement.

The nationalist army bore the brunt of conventional warfare. But it was criticized for being disorganized and too dependent on men forced into service. Those soldiers were often ill-trained and underfed.

To the communists, the army – and its failings – were the product of the corrupt government under Chiang. And it was largely responsible for China’s inept response to Japan’s initial advances.

n Beijing’s telling today, it was the communist forces, which relied more on guerrilla tactics, that helped push back the Japanese.

Conversely, the nationalists cast events during World War II very differently. China’s nationalist administration under Chiang was the first government in the world to fight a fascist power.

For eight or even 14 years, depending on whether you date the start of the conflict to 1937 or 1931, the nationalist army fought hard and sacrificed a lot as it put up the bulk of the resistance against Japan. To Taiwan’s Chinese nationalists, the Chinese communist contribution was minimal.

Worse, to them, the communists took the opportunity of Japan’s invasion to further their own position against the nationalists. Indeed, when the civil war began again after Japan’s defeat, Mao’s communists had the upper hand, leading to the nationalists’ retreat to Taiwan four years later.

From Japanese to Chinese rule

The status of Taiwan at the end of World War II presents another wrinkle. By then, the island had been under Japanese colonial control since 1895. Indeed, a second surrender ceremony took place on Oct. 25, 1945, when the Japanese forces in Taiwan surrendered to a nationalist official who had come over from the mainland.

What followed was a period of Chinese nationalist takeover of Taiwan and a corresponding Japanese retreat – it took several years for all Japanese officials and families to be repatriated to Japan.

Meanwhile, the nationalist Kuomintang that came into Taiwan were not terribly well received by the local population, many of whom were hoping for independence and resisted a Chinese nationalist, authoritarian takeover.

Complicating matters was that a 1943 agreement between the leaders of the Allied nations in Cairo declared that in the event of Japan’s defeat, Formosa, as Taiwan was then called, would be returned to the Republic of China.

But now you had two claimants to being “China” – the communists on the mainland and the nationalists on Taiwan. Either way, the Cairo Declaration served the interests of the “One-China” principle – under which both Beijing and Taipei view Taiwan as part of unified China, but differ over which is the country’s legitimate government – over that of those seeking the island’s formal independence from the mainland.

From the past to the future

The conflicting war narratives from Communist China, pro-unification nationalists in Taiwan and those seeking the island’s independence have been present since the end of World War II – and they tend to flare up around commemorations and anniversaries.

They did so, for example, when China held a big military celebration in 2015 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender.

This year’s event seeks to do a couple of things. First, Beijing is using it to reshape the memory of the Chinese Communist Party’s role in the world as a result of World War II.

The war is seen as a critical moment in Chinese history – not just in the context of defeating Japan and its role in the subsequent founding of the People’s Republic, but because in Asia it marked the end of the colonial era. During the war, foreign powers in China gave up their concessions and ended a century of partial colonial control over port cities such as Shanghai.

The war also marked China’s emergence as a major player on the world scene. As a result of its contributions in World War II, China gained a role on the United Nations Security Council. The Republic of China on Taiwan maintained that seat and that vote until 1971, when U.N. recognition finally shifted to the People’s Republic of China.

In recent years, promoting a prominent role in defeating fascism and shaping the postwar world order has been particularly important as China looks to carve out a space for itself in a multipolar world and show an alternative to a world dominated by the United States and Western Europe.

For these reasons, Beijing is keen to keep focus on its preferred narrative, highlighting communist contributions to the war effort.

But given Beijing’s adherence to the one-party principle, Taiwan – as part of China – could not be ignored. So, invites to Taiwanese officials to the commemorative events were sent out.

Representatives from the pro-independence ruling Democratic People’s Party and the main opposition party, the pro-unification Kuomintang, have largely declined to attend. The executive government has said that no current government officials in Taiwan should attend the military parade. Nonetheless, on Sept. 2, former Kuomintang chairperson Hung Hsiu-chu announced that she would be in Beijing for the event.

For its part, Taiwan has opted for more low-key commemorations of the end of Japanese rule of the island.

Many Taiwanese are much more concerned about current events than those of 80 years ago. The anniversary comes at a time of increased tension across the Taiwan Strait. Echoing concern over Chinese military might and potential intent, earlier this year “Zero Day Attack” – a new series depicting a future, fictionalized invasion of the island by the People’s Republic of China – dropped and has since become hugely popular.

Its streaming launch date in Japan was Aug. 15 – the 80th anniversary of the announcement of Japan’s surrender in World War II.

Tyranny Is An Ever-Present Threat To Civilisations. Here’s How Classical Greece And China Dealt With It

Mencius was a Chinese philosopher and disciple of Confucius. Pictures from History/Getty Images

BY SHANNON BRINCAT

SENIOR LECTURER IN POLITICS

AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

UNIVERSITY OF THE SUNSHINE COAST

We’re just a few months into US president Donald Trump’s second term but his rule has already been repeatedly compared to tyranny.

This may all feel very new to Americans, and to the rest of us watching on from around the world. But the threat of tyranny is an ancient one.

We can learn much from how people in ancient Greece and China dealt with this issue.
Where does tyranny come from?

The peoples of classical Greece were separated into city-states known as the polis.

A few of these, such as Athens and Argos, were democratic.

Others, such as Rhodes or Chios, had had democratic features such as civic participation in public life.

These city-states routinely faced external enemies but also the threat of tyrannical take-over from within.

Things came to a head in 510 BCE under the rule of an oppressive tyrant known as Hippias. He was ultimately expelled, leading eventually to the establishment of democracy through reforms made under an Athenian statesmen called Cleisthenes.

According to Plato, tyranny is the most degenerate political regime and emerges out of democracy’s excesses.

He argued that as democratic citizens become accustomed to living by pleasure rather than reason or duty to the public good, society becomes fragmented.

Demagogues – populist leaders who gain power by appealing to base desires and prejudices of the masses – promise the people more liberties. They turn citizens away from virtue and toward tyranny.

Aristotle, who was Plato’s student, defines tyranny as the corrupted form of monarchy. The tyrant perverts the constitutional order to bring about self-serving rulership – the rule of one. Tyranny, he argued, destroys law and justice, eroding all public trust.

The approach of Plato and Aristotle to combating tyranny was closely tied to their conception of the polis and the importance of citizenship.

For the classical Greeks, citizenship was a binding relationship of reciprocal duties and obligations owed to all other citizens. The law, they believed, was king.

It was these conventions that constrained political power, especially the arbitrary rule of one.

Civic education by participation in daily democratic life promoted virtue, they believed. All citizens and the ruler were subservient to the law – a bond that tyranny destroyed.

Aristotle said a strong middle class that could best prevent tyranny because they indicated a less unequal, and therefore more stable, society.

Plato’s view was more inward looking. He saw tyranny as a political manifestation of a disordered “enslaved soul” governed by appetites rather than reason. For him, philosophical guidance back to harmony was required for the tyrant and for the people.

Only through wisdom, he argued, could the people recognise and reject demagogues and populists.
Protecting democracy from tyranny

Some city-states learned from their institutional failings when tyranny had taken them over.

For example, after a coup of aristocrats overtook Athenian democracy in 411 BCE, Athenians began to swear the Oath of Demophantos. This was among the first attempts at a constitutional safeguard of democracy against tyranny.

It legally and morally obliged citizens to resist any attempt to overthrow democracy by force. The undertaking was a reciprocal duty; as other scholars have argued, each citizen could count on the support of all others to protect the democracy when a tyrant tried again.

This made it far more likely for people to take action against a would-be-tyrant; they knew every other citizen had sworn an oath to have their back.

The Greek historians of the time support these views. For example, Herodotus in the 5th century documented the rise of several tyrants across Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). He blamed the political vacuum created by the decline of aristocratic rule. Here, the personal ambition and luxury of elites laid the path to tyrannical behaviour.

Another famous historian named Thucydides, writing at the same time, analysed the power and political corruption behind tyranny. He observed how times of crisis exposed vulnerabilities within Athens, leading to factionalism, instability, and the erosion of democracy.
Tyranny in classical China

In classical China we see a complementary, yet unique view of tyranny.

During the Warring States period (475–221 BCE), when the Zhou Dynasty was divided amongst several competing states, preventing tyranny was a central concern.

These states were mostly hereditary monarchies rather than democracies but they still emphasised accountability to the people.

Mencius, a 4th-century BCE Chinese philosopher and Confucian scholar, argued the people’s welfare was the foundation of legitimate rule.

There is, he argued, a responsibility to all under the Mandate of Heaven (天命, tiānmìng). This ancient Chinese doctrine asserted that heaven grants legitimacy to just rulers. If a ruler became despotic or failed to uphold harmony and virtue, the mandate can be withdrawn, justifying rebellion and dynastic change.

Mencius famously said a ruler who oppresses the people is not a ruler but a “mere man” who could be violently overthrown.

Xunzi, another Confucian philosopher writing in the late 4th to 3rd Centuries BCE, believed humans were inherently selfish and chaotic.

To fend off tyranny he emphasised ritual, education, and rule of law. He believed in formal ceremonies and structured practices such as court etiquette, family rites, and daily ethical conduct. These, he believed, helped cultivate virtue, regulate behaviour, and maintain social harmony.

Mozi, writing mostly in the 5th to early 4th centuries BCE, was a Chinese philosopher who opposed Confucianism and founded Mohism, offered a different view.

Opposing all hierarchies, he emphasised jiān ài(兼爱) – universal obligation or care to all others – as a core ethical and political principle.

According to Mozi, tyranny arises when rulers act selfishly – favoring their own families, states, or interests over the common good. He advocated for strong moral conduct and competence of leaders, rather than their lineage, wealth or status.
Tyranny today

Viewed together, these traditions suggest preventing tyranny requires more than just moral leadership.

Rather, it requires a notion of reciprocity – of shared obligations between citizens – and systemic safeguards against the personal ambitions of rulers.

Ethical governance, civic education, legal frameworks, and shared responsibilities are essential.

Immigration Has Always Been Complex. Just Ask The People Who Built U.S. Railroads.

Americans pan for gold at the head of the Auburn Ravine in California in the 1850s.Credit...Library of Congress

BY STEVE INSKEEP

The story of Chinese Americans really gets going with one of the great early episodes of globalization. The discovery of gold in California in 1848, brought tens of thousands of fortune seekers from around the world, including some from China.

What happened next is the sort of history that many schools, states and the Trump administration have lately deemed dangerous and divisive. Chinese people and their descendants helped to build the country while also enduring generations of abuse.

But you can’t paint a complete picture of America without this story, and the New Yorker journalist Michael Luo tells it persuasively in “Strangers in the Land,” a granular account of Chinese migration to the United States. In an evenhanded style that yields neither a woke polemic nor a sanitized past, he traces the lives of immigrants to a country that actively drew them in and then tried to push them out.

Luo, a former investigative reporter for The New York Times, relentlessly accumulates facts from old newspapers, court records and immigration cases. Parts of the story are hard to uncover, even though the outlines are well known. School children can tell you, for example, that in the 1860s the builders of the first transcontinental railroad recruited Chinese men to lay tracks through the snowy Sierra Nevadas. They outworked everyone else during this high point of America’s national development. But not even the finest scholars can figure out who most of these hammer-swinging people were. While railroad bosses took pride in them, they couldn’t tell the foreigners apart, and didn’t write most of their names on the payroll.

Despite such obstacles, Luo finds an incredible number of characters. Although he describes the book as “the biography of a people,” it succeeds through its little biographies of individuals — a range of quirky and fascinating figures, both Chinese and white, who drive the narrative. We follow entrepreneurs like the “Chinese courtesan” Ah Toy, an immigrant to San Francisco who sold sex-starved prospectors the chance to “gaze on her countenance” and saved enough gold dust to go into business as a madam.

On the other side of the country, we meet Yung Wing, the first Chinese student at Yale. By the time this enthusiast for America returned to China, he had almost forgotten his native language. Then the Chinese government, eager for Western knowledge and technology, sent Yung back in the 1870s with dozens more students in tow. Americans welcomed the scholars into their homes — until China cut short Yung’s mission, fearing the students had grown too comfortable with the local customs and religion.

I read this book while covering the early moves of the second Trump administration and also while reporting in China, and kept finding parallels to current events. In the 19th century, American capitalists welcomed Chinese laborers — the railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington said, “It would be all the better for us and the State if there should be a half million come over” — but many politicians described their arrival as an “invasion.”

Some constituents assumed that Chinese migration was a form of slavery. Chinese workers were stereotyped as “coolies,” controlled by the Chinese bosses who contracted out their work. Luo casts doubt on this idea, but reports that Chinese laborers were sometimes used against their white counterparts. When Massachusetts shoemakers went on strike in 1870, for instance, their boss sent an aide to California to round up Chinese replacements. Opponents of Chinese migration claimed to be taking a progressive stance for free labor.

Those opponents transformed the country’s concept of border security. In early American history there was no class of people called “illegal immigrants,” because few laws governed movement to the United States. That changed specifically for the Chinese. By the mid-1880s, only certain kinds of people — merchants, teachers and students — were allowed to disembark from the ships. Even they were barred from citizenship. As a junior at Yale, Yung had become a citizen in the 1850s, but in the harsher legal climate of 1898 the State Department decided his citizenship was invalid.

Critics said the flow of Chinese migrants abetted human trafficking. Enticed by promises of marriage, some women, especially in the 1860s and ’70s, were lured into signing contracts in China and brought to San Francisco for prostitution.

And some white citizens tried to help the victims: In 1870, Otis Gibson, a missionary, established a home to which entrapped young women could flee. Yet California authorities eventually decided to fight human trafficking by passing laws that made it hard for Asian women to come at all, threatening to send them back from the San Francisco docks after they’d traveled thousands of miles. If husbands didn’t come to pick them up, they were presumed to be prostitutes. A U.S. Supreme Court justice ultimately intervened in favor of the women, ruling that a state could not legislate immigration.

Through it all, Chinese arrivals persisted in making a home in their adopted country. In 1885 white residents of Humboldt County, Calif., rioted to expel their entire Chinese community (“Wipe Out the Plague Spots,” the local newspaper urged). It’s one of many riots and murders that this book recounts in excruciating detail. After it was over, a local business directory proudly advertised Humboldt as “the only county in the state containing no Chinamen.” But it wasn’t true: Some Chinese people remained with the support of white residents; a jack-of-all-trades named Charley Moon, who survived the pogrom, was still living in Humboldt upon his death in 1943.

The Chinese American population did not grow significantly until Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which overturned the old rules and made it possible for Chinese Americans to begin bringing over their relatives. But descendants of the earlier arrivals are among us today. Luo’s book recounts the family story of Connie Young Yu, a historian from California. Her ancestors include a railroad worker from the 1860s, a woman who was separated from her children by immigration authorities in 1924 and a veteran of World War II.

Although parts of Luo’s story have been told in other books, such as Mae Ngai’s “The Chinese Question,” Erika Lee’s “The Making of Asian America” and Gordon H. Chang’s “Ghosts of Gold Mountain,” this account introduces many fascinating details. If there’s any weakness to Luo’s work, it’s contained within that strength: He offers us so many characters that it can be hard to keep track, but readers who do are rewarded with a view on the full complexity of American immigration.

We hear from Wong Chin Foo, an exuberant, self-described “missionary from China,” who staged a public debate in a Chicago theater in 1879. Extolling the industriousness of the Chinese, he refuted the claims of a white sailor who had formed a negative opinion during a port call in Shanghai.

Other characters in this book seem to debate with themselves. In the 1870s, the Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field reasoned that the recently passed 14th Amendment, guaranteeing “equal protection of the laws” to “any person,” applied to immigrants. Years later, in an 1889 decision, Justice Field called the Chinese “strangers in the land” and wrote that the federal government had the right to expel them to resist “foreign aggression,” as if immigration were an act of war.

Then there is Frederick Douglass. Fresh from the fight against slavery, he proclaimed that “a new race is making its appearance within our borders, and claiming attention.” He said the Chinese newcomers had “the right of locomotion; the right of migration; the right which belongs to no particular race; but belongs alike to all and to all alike.”

Not everyone agreed that there was a “right of migration” then, and the concept is definitely out of style now. But as “Strangers in the Land” reminds us, immigrants have always found some way to get here.

STRANGERS IN THE LAND:

EXCLUSION, BELONGING AND THE 

EPIC STORY OF CHINESE IN AMERICA

BY MICHAEL LUO, DOUBLEDAY

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

China Flexes Its Media Muscle In Africa – Encouraging Positive Headlines As Part Of A Soft Power Agenda

China’s foreign minister Wang Yi, center, holds hands with his counterparts, Senegal’s Yassine Fall, left, and the Republic of the Congo’s Jean-Claude Gakosso, after a joint news conference. AP Photo/Andy Wong

BY MITCHELL GALLAGHER

PH.D. CANDIDATE IN POLITICAL SCIENCE,

WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY

Every year, China’s minister of foreign affairs embarks on what has now become a customary odyssey across Africa. The tradition began in the late 1980s and sees Beijing’s top diplomat visit several African nations to reaffirm ties. The most recent visit, by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, took place in mid-January 2025 and included stops in Namibia, the Republic of the Congo, Chad and Nigeria.

For over two decades, China’s burgeoning influence in Africa was symbolized by grand displays of infrastructural might. From Nairobi’s gleaming towers to expansive ports dotting the continent’s shorelines, China’s investments on the continent have surged, reaching over US$700 billion by 2023 under the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s massive global infrastructure development strategy.

But in recent years, Beijing has sought to expand beyond roads and skyscrapers and has made a play for the hearts and minds of African people. With a deft mix of persuasion, power and money, Beijing has turned to African media as a potential conduit for its geopolitical ambitions.

Partnering with local outlets and journalist-training initiatives, China has expanded China’s media footprint in Africa. Its purpose? To change perceptions and anchor the idea of Beijing as a provider of resources and assistance, and a model for development and governance.

The ploy appears to be paying dividends, with evidence of sections of the media giving favorable coverage to China. But as someone researching the reach of China’s influence overseas, I am beginning to see a nascent backlash against pro-Beijing reporting in countries across the continent.

The media charm offensive

China’s approach to Africa rests mainly on its use of “soft power,” manifested through things like the media and cultural programs. Beijing presents this as “win-win cooperation” – a quintessential Chinese diplomatic phrase mixing collaboration with cultural diplomacy.

Key to China’s media approach in Africa are two institutions: the China Global Television Network (CGTN) Africa and Xinhua News Agency.

CGTN Africa, which was set up in 2012, offers a Chinese perspective on African news. The network produces content in multiple languages, including English, French and Swahili, and its coverage routinely portrays Beijing as a constructive partner, reporting on infrastructure projects, trade agreements and cultural initiatives. Moreover, Xinhua News Agency, China’s state news agency, now boasts 37 bureaus on the continent.

By contrast, Western media presence in Africa remains comparatively limited. The BBC, long embedded due to the United Kingdom’s colonial legacy, still maintains a large footprint among foreign outlets, but its influence is largely historical rather than expanding. And as Western media influence in Africa has plateaued, China’s state-backed media has grown exponentially. This expansion is especially evident in the digital domain. On Facebook, for example, CGTN Africa commands a staggering 4.5 million followers, vastly outpacing CNN Africa, which has 1.2 million — a stark indicator of China’s growing soft power reach.

China’s zero-tariff trade policy with 33 African countries showcases how it uses economic policies to mold perceptions. And state-backed media outlets like CGTN Africa and Xinhua are central to highlighting such projects and pushing an image of China as a benevolent partner.

Stories of an “all-weather” or steadfast China-Africa partnership are broadcast widely, and the coverage frequently depicts the grand nature of Chinese infrastructure projects. Amid this glowing coverage, the labor disputes, environmental devastation or debt traps associated with some Chinese-built infrastructure are less likely to make headlines.

Questions of media veracity notwithstanding, China’s strategy is bearing fruit. A Gallup poll from April 2024 showed China’s approval ratings climbing in Africa as U.S. ratings dipped. Afrobarometer, a pan-African research organization, further reports that public opinion of China in many African countries is positively glowing, an apparent validation of China’s discourse engineering.

Further, studies have shown that pro-Beijing media influences perceptions. A 2023 survey of Zimbabweans found that those who were exposed to Chinese media were more likely to have a positive view of Beijing’s economic activities in the country.

Co-opting local voices

The effectiveness of China’s media strategy becomes especially apparent in the integration of local media. Through content-sharing agreements, African outlets have disseminated Beijing’s editorial line and stories from Chinese state media, often without the due diligence of journalistic skepticism.

Meanwhile, StarTimes, a Chinese media company, delivers a steady stream of curated depictions of translated Chinese movies, TV shows and documentaries across 30 countries in Africa.

But China is not merely pushing its viewpoint through African channels. It’s also taking a lead role in training African journalists, thousands of whom have been lured by all-expenses-paid trips to China under the guise of “professional development.” On such junkets, they receive training that critics say obscures the distinction between skill-building and propaganda, presenting them with perspectives conforming to Beijing’s line.

‘Win-win’ promises

Ethiopia exemplifies how China’s infrastructure investments and media influence have fostered a largely favorable perception of Beijing. State media outlets, often staffed by journalists trained in Chinese-run programs, consistently frame China’s role as one of selfless partnership. Coverage of projects like the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway line highlights the benefits, while omitting reports on the substandard labor conditions tied to such projects — an approach reflective of Ethiopia’s media landscape, where state-run outlets prioritize economic development narratives and rely heavily on Xinhua as a primary news source.

In Angola, Chinese oil companies extract considerable resources and channel billions into infrastructure projects. The local media, again regularly staffed by journalists who have accepted invitations to visit China, often portray Sino-Angolan relations in glowing terms. Allegations of corruption, the displacement of local communities and environmental degradation are relegated to side notes in the name of common development.

The war for Africa’s media soul

Despite all of the Chinese influence, media perspectives in Africa are far from uniformly pro-Beijing.

In Kenya, voices of dissent are beginning to rise, and media professionals immune to Beijing’s allure are probing the true costs of Chinese financial undertakings. In South Africa, media watchdogs are sounding alarms, pointing to a gradual attrition of press freedoms that come packaged with promises of growth and prosperity. In Ghana, anxiety about Chinese media influence permeates more than the journalism sector, as officials have raised concerns about the implications of Chinese media cooperation agreements. Wariness in Ghana became especially apparent when local journalists started reporting that Chinese-produced content was being prioritized over domestic stories in state media.

Beneath the surface of China’s well-publicized projects and media offerings, and the African countries or organizations that embrace Beijing’s line, a significant countervailing force exists that challenges uncritical representations and pursues rigorous journalism.

Yet as CGTN Africa and Xinhua become entrenched in African media ecosystems, a pertinent question comes to the forefront: Will Africa’s journalists and press be able to uphold their impartiality and retain intellectual independence?

As China continues to make strategic inroads in Africa, it’s a fair question.

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Xi Offers African Leaders More Aid As China Challenges US-Led Global Order

BY KEN MORITSUGU AND MONIKA PRONCZUK

BEIJING (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Dozens of African leaders gathered Thursday in Beijing for a summit that signals China’s influence in a continent that it hopes will be a key ally in pushing back against a U.S.-led global order.

Chinese President Xi Jinping promised the leaders billions of dollars in loans and private investment over the next three years, and proposed that relations with all African countries that have diplomatic ties with China be elevated to the “strategic” level.

“We stand shoulder to shoulder with each other to firmly defend our legitimate rights and interests,” he said at the opening ceremony of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

China has become a major player in Africa since the forum was founded in 2000. Its companies have invested heavily in mining for the resources Chinese industry needs, and its development banks have made loans to build railways, roads and other infrastructure under Xi’s Belt and Road program.

African leaders have welcomed China’s assistance but are pushing for a closer alignment of aid with the continent’s development goals. They are seeking to industrialize their economies and expand agricultural exports to reduce a trade deficit with China, which has become sub-Saharan Africa’s largest bilateral trading partner.

“In the context of our industrialization effort, the portfolio of private investments in Africa should be sufficiently diversified to extend beyond the traditional field of mining and energy resources,” Moussa Faki Mahamat, the chair of the African Union Commission, said, addressing the forum in French.

In a reflection of China’s broadening relationship with Africa, Xi outlined 10 “partnership actions” that included training for African politicians and future leaders, further opening of Chinese markets, agriculture demonstration areas, vocational and technical training, green energy projects and 1 billion yuan ($140 million) in military assistance grants.

Xi said China would eliminate tariffs on products from most of the world’s poorest countries, including 33 in Africa, in an expansion of existing exemptions.

“While commending the overall progress so far achieved, we also appreciate the announcement of further areas of partnership actions,” said Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan, speaking on behalf of eastern Africa. “We salute a new characterization of China-Africa relations.”

China is training more military professionals in Africa than anyone else, and its widespread leadership and governance training gives the country an extra layer of influence by putting it in touch with consecutive generations of politicians, said Paul Nantulya, who specializes in relations with China at the African Center for Strategic Studies in Washington.

The relationship has moved beyond trade and investment to take on political overtones.

“Modernization is an inalienable right of all countries,” Xi said. “But the Western approach to it has inflicted immense sufferings on developing countries. Since the end of World War II, Third World nations, represented by China and African countries, have achieved independence … and have been endeavoring to redress the historical injustices of the modernization process.”

China has tried to position itself as a leader of the Global South, a catchphrase for the developing world. While others don’t necessarily see China as the leader, its message of rewriting the international order resonates with African nations that feel frustrated and abandoned by their traditional Western partners.

Many African nations have been openly critical of the U.S. role in the war in Ukraine and refused to condemn Russia’s invasion, taking a non-aligned stance that has led to political frictions with the U.S.

“As our history demands, South Africa will continue to pursue progressive internationalism,” South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa said during talks with Xi earlier this week. “Building on the firm foundation of solidarity, we continue to provide support in promoting our interests, those of the African continent and the Global South.”

China’s development loans to Africa have fallen sharply from a 2016 peak, though they bounced back from COVID-era lows to $4.6 billion last year, according to the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University.

The drop-off came partly in response to government budget crises in several recipient countries that are unable to repay their loans from multiple lenders.

Many heavily indebted African countries cannot meet the basic needs of their populations, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told the forum.

“This situation is unsustainable and a recipe for social unrest,” he said, highlighting the need for deep reform to what he called an “outdated, ineffective and unfair international financial system.”

Kenya is seeking financing to finish a partially built rail project that was meant to connect the port city of Mombasa to neighboring Uganda, but it is unclear whether China would agree.

Pronczuk reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg and Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi, Kenya, and video producers Olivia Zhang and Caroline Chen in Beijing contributed.

How US Military Planning Has Shifted Away From Fighting Terrorism To Readying For Tensions And Conflict With China And Russia

BY ERIC RODENBACH

SENIOR LECTURER IN PUBLIC POLICY

HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL

President Joe Biden’s recent approval of a major shift in U.S. nuclear weapons strategy highlights the attention the country’s national security officials are paying to Chinese ambitions for influence in the world.

As changes emerge in the types of threats facing the U.S., the American military adjusts its strategic focus, budgets and planning. For instance, after 9/11, the U.S. military refocused away from its Cold War emphasis on preparing for combat against a powerful nation – the Soviet Union – and toward fighting small terrorist and insurgent groups instead.

Over the past decade, the Pentagon’s efforts have shifted back to preparing for what officials call “great power competition” among the U.S., Russia and China.

The most important strategic shift that’s evident in planning for great power competition is a focus on deterrence. In classic military strategy, deterrence focuses on making an adversary believe they can never achieve their goals by military force, because the response would be overwhelming and decisive. The National Defense Strategy released in October 2022 – the document that articulates the nation’s goals, objectives and resource allocation for the next two years – explicitly recognizes the potential risk of tensions and open conflict with Russia or China, and it calls for “integrated deterrence” to prevent it. That means combined efforts from the military, intelligence and diplomatic agencies across the U.S. government.

The National Military Strategy – the military’s section of the overarching National Defense Strategy – lays out how the U.S. armed forces will contribute to that effort. As a former assistant secretary of defense and Pentagon chief of staff, I see that the military is focusing on three main goals to achieve integrated deterrence and prevent a conflict with Russia or China.

New operational plans

For the military, integrated deterrence means the armed forces will depend both on where forces are located and what they can do once they’re in action to influence adversaries’ decisions about when, where, how – and whether – to use military force against the U.S. or its interests.

In the shift away from counterterrorism toward preparation for a great power conflict, the Defense Department has developed new ways to deal with the fact that Russia and China, unlike small terrorist groups, can fight in the air, on land and at sea anywhere around the world – and online and in space, too.

First among those methods is what the Pentagon calls “dynamic force employment,” in which U.S. military forces are deployed rapidly around the world, without predictable rotation schedules. This approach can reassure allies facing threats from Russia or China.

For example, the U.S. has, at times, deployed as many as 10,000 troops to Poland. The troops are not permanently stationed there, but a continuous presence of U.S. forces keeps Russia guessing about the size and capabilities of the force and demonstrates a commitment to support nervous NATO allies in Eastern Europe.

Second is a shift of personnel and capabilities to what is called “multi-domain operations,” in which units with different missions across air, land, sea, space and cyberspace plan and train together. That way, they can be prepared to work closely together in actual conflicts.

This level of collaboration allows the nation to respond to threats in a variety of ways. For instance, challenges to American naval power on the high seas do not have to be met directly with corresponding naval action, but instead could be answered with cyberattacks or from space.

This approach might make the Chinese People’s Liberation Army think twice about launching military operations against Taiwan. Not only would the Chinese potentially face a fierce direct conflict, but U.S. cyber and space operations could also disrupt or destroy Chinese military communications, hindering their attack.

Investments in modernization

Recent research has shown that China’s investments in its military personnel and capabilities – particularly in air, naval and nuclear forces – have grown exponentially over the past two decades, to a level estimated at near parity with the United States. This has prompted the U.S. to modernize its own military’s corresponding capabilities. For the 2024 budget, the Department of Defense allocated a whopping US$234.9 billion for programs to support integrated deterrence, which likely represents a 10% increase over previous spending plans.

Some of this money will go to developing and acquiring F-35 fighter jets and building Columbia-class, nuclear-powered submarines. When the U.S. and its allies in the Pacific region, such as Japan, South Korea and Australia, deploy these planes and submarines, they will remind potential adversaries of American military power – which is itself a deterrent against foreign aggression.

Over the past 10 years, China’s rapid expansion of its nuclear weapon supply has alarmed senior policymakers in the U.S. Although then-President Barack Obama pushed countries to envision a world free of nuclear weapons, he approved the most expensive and significant upgrade ever to the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In 2022, the Biden administration renewed a financial commitment to “field a modern, resilient nuclear triad” consisting of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and long-range nuclear bombers.

Advancing technology

In 2019, the Space Force was established as a separate branch of the armed forces and tasked with defending American space-based assets and upholding international law. Because of the importance of satellite communications to military operations and civilian life – including internet connectivity – the Space Force works closely with Cyber Command, the military organization charged with defending the nation against cyberattacks, to prevent malicious hackers from disrupting systems vital to the world, such as the Global Positioning System, widely known as GPS.

Recent intelligence indicates that China plans to conduct destructive cyberattacks against U.S. domestic critical infrastructure, including the electric grid, during any conflict. To counter those plans, Cyber Command continues to enhance its abilities to defend U.S. systems and companies against cyberattacks, as well as to conduct attacks against systems in other countries.

The Pentagon is also seeking to counterbalance China’s rapidly expanding military forces by using artificial intelligence software in a program called the Replicator Initiative. The effort seeks to build thousands of low-cost, AI-directed autonomous aircraft and boats that can be used in combat to “counter the (Chinese military)’s mass with mass of our own,” in the words of Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks.

Integration with allies and partners

The U.S. military has also sought to strengthen alliances with other countries, especially over the past four years of the Biden administration.

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine led NATO to expand its membership as well as the numbers and capabilities of troops available to the organization. The U.S. has reinforced its commitment to NATO, increasing troop deployments in Eastern Europe and support for European defense initiatives by committing nearly $3 billion in funding for additional fighter aircraft, air-defense batteries and munitions.

In Asia, around the Indian Ocean and across the Pacific Ocean, a vast region that the government often calls “the Indo-Pacific,” the U.S. has strengthened alliances with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines by conducting numerous military exercises and increasing military assistance. Efforts like the annual Marine Aviation Support exercise are aimed at countering Chinese military and political influence.

The U.S. has also sought to strengthen its alliances with the U.K. and Australia, with a commitment to sell up to five conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines to the Australian navy by 2030.

Collectively, the U.S. has combined all of these efforts into a coordinated approach seeking to avoid open conflict with China and Russia. But the work is not yet done: The global political and military landscape is ever-changing, and new security challenges are always emerging.

Grace Jones, a master’s student in public policy and research assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, contributed research to this article.

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Has Africa Become A Battleground For The New Cold War? It’s China Vs America In Mother Continent

Rich in resources and strategic opportunities, Africa has become the new hunting ground where China and the US are vying for influence. This rivalry, rooted mainly in economic ambitions rather than ideology, bears striking similarities to the old US-Soviet Cold War

BY PRABHASH K. DUTTA

From mining to road construction to fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) to economic and political governance model training, China is ubiquitous in Africa. The West, espeically the US, today sees China as its principal challenger almost everywhere but despite the flare-ups in the Pacific particularly the South China Sea, the simmering tension is equally palpable in Africa.

The US-led West might have missed the trick but China’s Africa story begins in the 1950s, when Western powers rivalled, at times one another, to maintain their superiority in Africa. China — along with India — vouched for freedom and self-reliance of African countries through several channels and platforms including the most-famous Bandung conference hosted by Indonesia.

Soviet Russia, rivalled for hegemony. This time, the key players are not the United States and the Soviet Union, rather the US and China. Africa has emerged as a critical theatre in this geopolitical contest.

Incidentally, the new cold war, if we can call it so, involves post-Soviet rising communist power which like the former seeks to challenge the leading capitalist power on the globe. Back then, Asia was seen as the hunting ground for its known exploitable natural resources and manpower, Africa is now viewed as the new minefiled to dig prosperity and security from.

However, the crucial question remains: Is Africa really becoming the new battleground in this global power game?

How China has expanded its footprint in the Mother Continent

Africa is called the Mother Continent as the theory of evolution tells us that humanity sprang from the earlier branches of humans that shot from eastern African roots. In the post-War age of ideological expansion, China set its eyes on Africa as the USSR and the US-led West were involved at various points in Asia, East Europe and Central and Latin Americas.

China’s relationship with Africa has been building for decades. At the Bandung conference, representatives from 29 Asian and African countries gathered to voice their opposition to colonialism and to seek economic cooperation among the Global South —- back then called the “Third World”.

In early decades, China’s interest in Africa was primarily driven by a sense of solidarity with other nations that were also shaking off the chains of colonial rule.

Fast forward to post-Cold War, especially after the 2008 global meltdown, and China’s presence in Africa has grown immensely. The country has poured billions into the continent, building roads, railways, ports, and power plants.

China gradually in the middle years, and in recent years electrifyingly, overtaken the United States as Africa’s biggest trading partner, and its investments continue to shape the continent’s economic landscape. But these investments often come with strings attached, such as requiring African countries to use Chinese companies and materials for their infrastructure projects, further cementing Beijing’s influence.

This isn’t just about business — it’s also about strategy. Africa’s wealth of natural resources, from oil and minerals to fertile agricultural land, is vital to China’s booming economy. In return for access to these resources, China has offered financial aid, loans, and development assistance to African nations.

This hands-off approach made China a popular partner for many African leaders, even as it draws criticism from those who worry about the lack of transparency, environmental damage, and the support of authoritarian regimes.

China’s game in Africa has moved in phases — solidarity in early decades to investments and low-interest loans in middle years to complete domination in trade and now to political governance training, something that African leaders earlier accused the US and its allies of doing. China earlier policy of non-political interference helped it edge out the Western countries in developing cooperation with African countries.

According to the African Centre for Strategic Studies (ACSS), “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has escalated its training of African party and government officials as part of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping’s ‘new model of party-to-party relations,’ particularly in the Global South.”

“An indication of this renewed emphasis is the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School. Launched in 2022, the Nyerere School trains ruling party members from the Former Liberation Movements of Southern Africa (FLMSA) coalition—Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe,” it says.

However, political training by China is not new as they began this programme back in the 1960s. But the recent and rapid change is the emphasis on propagating the governance idea of Xi Jinping.

The Nyerere School is the first institute to be modeled after the CCP Central Party School, which trains China’s top cadres and leaders. It is also the first of its kind to cater to multiple African political parties.

“This school parallels the China-Africa Institute, a continental CCP initiative to train African party and government leaders. The Institute, which started in 2019, is based within the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa [Ethiopia],” says ACSS.

Why America is concerned and how it responds

The US seems increasingly alarmed by China’s growing influence in Africa as Washington DC sees Beijing as a challenge to American interests on the continent. For a long time, the US has been used to calling the shots in Africa. Now, with China’s rise, that dominance has been seriously challenged. In several countries — from Ethiopia to Uganda to Angola — China has practically come to dictate market terms.

American leaders, though overtly critical of China’s action in the South China Sea, have been particularly concerned that China is exploiting Africa in ways that mirror the colonial powers of the past. There are fears that Chinese loans are leading African countries into a debt trap, potentially compromising their independence. The recent Kenya riots — following an economic crisis linked to Chinese debts — were seen as fitting similar patterns witnessed in countries like Sri Lanka.

The US has also accused China of propping up corrupt and authoritarian regimes, turning a blind eye to human rights abuses, and undermining democratic institutions—all in pursuit of its own economic and strategic goals.

Of late, the US has also courted some of the African dictators to counter Chinese influence on the continent. For example, US President Joe Biden hosted President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea reportedly to fend off China’s efforts to build a naval base in that country.

The naval base would give China a new military foothold in the Atlantic Ocean on the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of West Africa. Biden ignored America’s own complaints of human rights abuse against the regime led by the world’s longest-serving ruler.

Incidentally, Equatorial Guinea, too, is facing acute economic crisis and 82-year-old Obiang, who has been in power for 44 years, has appointed a former banker as the prime minister this week to fix economic woes of the country.

The US, on its part, has been trying hard to counter China’s influence with its own initiatives — including the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which aim to promote economic development and good governance in Africa.

Additionally, the US has expanded its military presence across the continent, establishing a network of bases and partnerships designed to combat terrorism and protect its strategic As America continues to influence Africa in the face of China’s relentless economic engagement, the cold war narrative looks only natural on the continent.

What Africa is doing to stave off two rival powers

While China and the US compete for influence, African nations are not just passive bystanders in the new geopolitical struggle. Several African leaders have become adept at playing both sides, using their relationships with China and the US to secure benefits for their countries. However, this balancing act is fraught with challenges, given their rivalry heats up over even a seemingly minor issue.

Africa’s home to some of the world’s fastest-growing economies — including Niger, Senegal, Libya, Rwanda, Ethiopia and the Gambia — and holds vast reserves of the natural resources that, in the first place, make both China and the US interested in the region.

Its rapidly growing population and increasing urbanisation makes Africa a massive future market for goods and services. At this junction, African countries usually take a middle path but that is also fraught with risks, given their sandwiched situation between Chinese money and America’s muscle.

How the new cold war may shape up Africa

It is a difficult proposition to predict the future of Africa in this new cold war as the post-Covid realities of the world are changing at a rapid rate. China’s economy is stagnating. The country is witnessing a flight of big companies as Beijing continues to antagonise the West, which is home to most of the top multinational firms.

However, there is another possibility that Africa may actually benefit tremendously from the increased attention and investment not only from rivals China and the US but also from emerging economic giants such as India and Brazil.

For Africa to emerge stronger from this geopolitical oneupmanship, its leaders look for ways to pass through these turbulent waters carefully. The sudden collapse of growing economies like Sri Lanka have driven home the point that too much dependence on opaque Chinese loans may endager their long-term prosperity.

Whether Africa can extract benefit from this China-US or communist-capitalist tug-of-war and build a secure future depends on how its current crop of leadership explores and chooses their options. For, the continent has to find solutions to its food, energy, environmental, and social crises that threaten to devastate not just Africa but potentially the entire world.

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Chinese Migration To US Is Nothing New – But The Reasons For Recent Surge At Southern Border Are

BY MEREDITH OYEN

ASSOCIATE POFESSOR OF HISTORY AND ASIAN STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY

The brief closure of the Darien Gap – a perilous 66-mile jungle journey linking South American and Central America – in February 2024 temporarily halted one of the Western Hemisphere’s busiest migration routes. It also highlighted its importance to a small but growing group of people that depend on that pass to make it to the U.S.: Chinese migrants.

While a record 2.5 million migrants were detained at the United States’ southwestern land border in 2023, only about 37,000 were from China.

I’m a scholar of migration and China. What I find most remarkable in these figures is the speed with which the number of Chinese migrants is growing. Nearly 10 times as many Chinese migrants crossed the southern border in 2023 as in 2022. In December 2023 alone, U.S. Border Patrol officials reported encounters with about 6,000 Chinese migrants, in contrast to the 900 they reported a year earlier in December 2022.

The dramatic uptick is the result of a confluence of factors that range from a slowing Chinese economy and tightening political control by President Xi Jinping to the easy access to online information on Chinese social media about how to make the trip.

Middle-class migrants

Journalists reporting from the border have generalized that Chinese migrants come largely from the self-employed middle class. They are not rich enough to use education or work opportunities as a means of entry, but they can afford to fly across the world.

According to a report from Reuters, in many cases those attempting to make the crossing are small-business owners who saw irreparable damage to their primary or sole source of income due to China’s “zero COVID” policies. The migrants are women, men and, in some cases, children accompanying parents from all over China.

Chinese nationals have long made the journey to the United States seeking economic opportunity or political freedom. Based on recent media interviews with migrants coming by way of South America and the U.S.’s southern border, the increase in numbers seems driven by two factors.

First, the most common path for immigration for Chinese nationals is through a student visa or H1-B visa for skilled workers. But travel restrictions during the early months of the pandemic temporarily stalled migration from China. Immigrant visas are out of reach for many Chinese nationals without family or vocation-based preferences, and tourist visas require a personal interview with a U.S. consulate to gauge the likelihood of the traveler returning to China.

Social media tutorials

Second, with the legal routes for immigration difficult to follow, social media accounts have outlined alternatives for Chinese who feel an urgent need to emigrate. Accounts on Douyin, the TikTok clone available in mainland China, document locations open for visa-free travel by Chinese passport holders. On TikTok itself, migrants could find information on where to cross the border, as well as information about transportation and smugglers, commonly known as “snakeheads,” who are experienced with bringing migrants on the journey north.

With virtual private networks, immigrants can also gather information from U.S. apps such as X, YouTube, Facebook and other sites that are otherwise blocked by Chinese censors.

Inspired by social media posts that both offer practical guides and celebrate the journey, thousands of Chinese migrants have been flying to Ecuador, which allows visa-free travel for Chinese citizens, and then making their way over land to the U.S.-Mexican border.

This journey involves trekking through the Darien Gap, which despite its notoriety as a dangerous crossing has become an increasingly common route for migrants from Venezuela, Colombia and all over the world.

In addition to information about crossing the Darien Gap, these social media posts highlight the best places to cross the border. This has led to a large share of Chinese asylum seekers following the same path to Mexico’s Baja California to cross the border near San Diego.

Chinese migration to US is nothing new

The rapid increase in numbers and the ease of accessing information via social media on their smartphones are new innovations. But there is a longer history of Chinese migration to the U.S. over the southern border – and at the hands of smugglers.

From 1882 to 1943, the United States banned all immigration by male Chinese laborers and most Chinese women. A combination of economic competition and racist concerns about Chinese culture and assimilability ensured that the Chinese would be the first ethnic group to enter the United States illegally.

With legal options for arrival eliminated, some Chinese migrants took advantage of the relative ease of movement between the U.S. and Mexico during those years. While some migrants adopted Mexican names and spoke enough Spanish to pass as migrant workers, others used borrowed identities or paperwork from Chinese people with a right of entry, like U.S.-born citizens. Similarly to what we are seeing today, it was middle- and working-class Chinese who more frequently turned to illegal means. Those with money and education were able to circumvent the law by arriving as students or members of the merchant class, both exceptions to the exclusion law.

Though these Chinese exclusion laws officially ended in 1943, restrictions on migration from Asia continued until Congress revised U.S. immigration law in the Hart-Celler Act in 1965. New priorities for immigrant visas that stressed vocational skills as well as family reunification, alongside then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s policies of “reform and opening,” helped many Chinese migrants make their way legally to the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s.

Even after the restrictive immigration laws ended, Chinese migrants without the education or family connections often needed for U.S. visas continued to take dangerous routes with the help of “snakeheads.”

One notorious incident occurred in 1993, when a ship called the Golden Venture ran aground near New York, resulting in the drowning deaths of 10 Chinese migrants and the arrest and conviction of the snakeheads attempting to smuggle hundreds of Chinese migrants into the United States.

Existing tensions

Though there is plenty of precedent for Chinese migrants arriving without documentation, Chinese asylum seekers have better odds of success than many of the other migrants making the dangerous journey north.

An estimated 55% of Chinese asylum seekers are successful in making their claims, often citing political oppression and lack of religious freedom in China as motivations. By contrast, only 29% of Venezuelans seeking asylum in the U.S. have their claim granted, and the number is even lower for Colombians, at 19%.

The new halt on the migratory highway from the south has affected thousands of new migrants seeking refuge in the U.S. But the mix of push factors from their home country and encouragement on social media means that Chinese migrants will continue to seek routes to America.

And with both migration and the perceived threat from China likely to be features of the upcoming U.S. election, there is a risk that increased Chinese migration could become politicized, leaning further into existing tensions between Washington and Beijing.

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