4 - Political Transition and Multifaceted Engagements: China, Zambia, and Kenya in the late 1970s and 1980s

Summary

The Chinese themselves dispelled any fears that African issues would now take secondary place. It would, however, be nai’ve not to harbour such fears because China cannot effectively pose as the champion and friend of the oppressed while at the same time embracing Africa’s traditional exploiters.

UNIP Delegation to China, 1979

The state of Kenyan politics as the 1960s drew to a close was a great disappointment to Chinese leaders: Oginga Odinga, the left-wing figure they had chosen to back, had been excluded from the ruling party KANU and subsequently marginalised on account of his position as the leader of a Communist-backed opposition. Economically, Kenya traded largely with Britain, while political and sociocultural exchange with China was minimal in comparison to that with the West. International organisations, however, provided meaningful platforms through which the Chinese government could engage with Kenyan leaders. Jomo Kenyatta’s distaste for Communism did not, for instance, deter him from supporting China on the issue of its UN membership. The normalisation of China-US relations in the 1970s also convinced the Kenyan leadership to reassess its policy towards China. The early 1980s witnessed simultaneous leadership transitions in Kenya and China: in 1980, President Daniel arap Moi met Deng Xiaoping in Beijing to discuss the future of Sino-Kenyan relations, which would be driven by economic interests and trade opportunities.

Zambia, by comparison, was a more unpredictable and surprising partner for the Chinese. President Kenneth Kaunda, whom the West had initially considered as a moderate, eventually developed his Humanism philosophy into an all-encompassing national ideology. Throughout the 1970s, his ruling United National Independence Party (UNIP) became increasingly authoritarian in character. The declaration of a one-party state in 1972 can be seen as the culmination of Kaunda’s supreme leadership over both party and state. Meanwhile in China, the new leadership was grappling with Mao’s revolutionary legacy and rehabilitation efforts in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. The result was, as this chapter will demonstrate, that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the increasingly left-wing UNIP came to believe that post-Mao China had been co-opted by US-led neo-imperialism. Even more problematic were the Sino-Zambian divisions with regard to southern African liberation movements.