A new battleground: Chinese culture in Sudan

Walk down any of Khartoum’s major roads and you will find Chinese products lining the roadsides. Much has been made about China’s push into Africa, and Sudan is pivotal to China’s interests in the region. But China has been slow to match its economic activity with a coherent cultural development strategy. Now there are signs this could be about to change.

Even a cursory knowledge of Sudanese youth is enough to reveal that America is still the dominant overseas influence. One student, Mohammed, at Sudan University, told me that:

'We watch their television, we listen to their music. Of course the American influence is large.'

This cultural dominance creates more than just superficial changes in the youth population. The economic spill-over effects of exporting a culture can reveal itself in enrolment at foreign universities, language courses (at home and abroad), and global emigration and tourism patterns. Of the cultural bodies currently working in Khartoum, the British Council and the American Embassy both hold regular ‘cultural events’, including poetry recitals, movie screenings and musical concerts. Both bodies, and particularly the British Council, also play pivotal roles in the local educational infrastructure. The British Council recently held and sponsored a three-day event under the maxim of 'Time for change at tertiary level in Sudan', which aimed to revamp the entire structure of university education in Khartoum.

Recent signs suggest that China may finally have decided that the time is right to join this cultural battleground. An implementation programme signed at the end of January between Ethiopia and China has pledged to enhance the two nations' cultural cooperation over the course of the next four years. This agreement kicked off with a Chinese Film Festival in Addis Ababa, but the cultural agreement is intended to produce long-lasting visible manifestations of cultural contact between China and the region. The Chinese consulate in Khartoum told me that they currently had no plans to initiate cultural or language-based activities. However, events on the ground suggest that the Sudanese population is becoming more attuned to the potential of China to influence their daily lives.

The number of students studying Chinese language at Khartoum University has risen from 35 in 2005 to more than 180 this year. The department is currently in the process of relocating to a bigger premises. One student, currently studying at Khartoum University, told me that:

'With Chinese and Arabic it is easy to get a job. If I can speak Chinese then I can get a good job as a translator with a Chinese company and earn a lot of money… Chinese is definitely more beneficial than English here in Khartoum.'

By 2008, an estimated 120,000 worldwide students will travel from abroad to go to college at a Chinese university, up from 8,000 less than a decade before. Yet the expanding Chinese presence in Africa has not developed entirely without strife. Conflicts between Chinese immigrants and local populations have erupted in Zambia (2006), Ethiopia (2007), Nigeria (2007), South Africa (2007), Cameroon (2009) and Algeria (2009).

Although the Chinese department at Khartoum University was keen to tell me about the good cultural ties between China and Sudan, local businessmen seem to possess a mild antagonism. There is a broad awareness of the Chinese preference for importing labour and materials to the detriment of the local Sudanese workforce. There is also a certain resistance to the flooding of local markets by cheap Chinese products, which can increase competition and stifle local production. And scepticism about China’s involvement in Africa has not merely come from ‘the bottom-up’. Rhetoric from figures as senior as former South African president Thabo Mbeki has warned against China’s 'new form of neocolonialist adventure' on the African continent. Yet the cultural influence of the Chinese on Khartoum remains rather elite and withdrawn, restricted to a smattering of Chinese restaurants and a restricted population based in the wealthy areas around Riyyad district.

Clearly, given China’s ever-growing stature in world affairs, Chinese cultural activity in Sudan will only increase over the course of the coming years. Yet to what extent China is able to ‘win over’ the Sudanese people and topple America as the bastion of cultural norms remains to be seen. The signs are clear that China is ready to expand its remit in Africa and Sudan, as one of China’s most significant partners, will surely not have to wait long to find out what this development means for them.

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