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Abstract
Since 2006, bilateral trade and investment between Kenya and China has increased along with the presence of state and non-state actors from China. With China's reemergence on the African continent comes a need to earn a positive reputation and image of the Chinese actors in Africa. Historically, China's relationship with poor countries has played an important role in its grand strategy. The Sino-Kenyan diplomatic arena is a medium by which China and East Africa's historical contact has been carefully crafted and conveyed to both Kenyan and Chinese publics. History has been adapted to fit the ideals and vision of Chinese diplomats in order to protect and advance their own political and economic interests in Kenya. By examining cases temporally tied to the 14th century Zheng He voyages to Kenya's coast, Afro-Asian solidarity movements, and Cold War relations between Kenya and China, this study explores the core values that are articulated in the interest-bound and culturally-bound information distributed by Chinese diplomats in Africa.
Keywords: Kenya, China, public diplomacy, soft power, Cold War, Africa
The pre-modern history of the contact between East African and Chinese civilizations, until recently, had been marginalized from Western, Chinese and African historical narratives. It has been well documented in historiographies that Eurocentric world histories mark the early modern age with the European discovery and conquest from the years 1400 to 1600; for centuries various phases of Chinese history have been suppressed by political authorities in efforts to establish legitimacy; and for Africa, according to scholars like Friedrich Hegel and Hugh Trevor Roper, only recently entered history through its colonization by Europe and slavery. Chinese diplomats have created, cultivated, and delivered a historical narrative in Africa that has emphasized the pre-modern ties between city-states on the coast of East Africa and China, while de-emphasizing its historical ties with African nations during the colonial and immediate post-colonial periods. This narrative frame has the potential to present an alternative reading of Africa's place in history; one that emphasizes pre-colonial African societies as agents in the international system that engaged in both trade and diplomacy with China. Conceptually, this narrative moves beyond the popular pronouncements of south-south solidarity, common struggles against colonialism, win-win partnerships and mutuality. Chinese diplomats have branded their country as a...