China's 'subtle ingratiation' in the Global South: evidence from Zimbabwe

The 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing was attended by 53 out of 54 African countries, with 51 represented at the highest level by their heads of state and government. This is paradigmatic of the success of China's political and diplomatic engagement in Africa over the past two decades. Why has China been this successful? What is its appeal or pull factor for African countries? In this paper, I challenge the sharp power characterisation of China's political engagement by building on Joseph Nye's clarification of the concept of soft power by extending principles of ingratiation (a well-established concept in social psychology and organisational behaviour) to enhance our understanding of the ways in which China approaches its relationship-building designs in the Global South. Empirically, I leverage the long-standing China-Zimbabwe political relationship, and the story of the Chinese-funded and -constructed parliament building in Zimbabwe, to demonstrate the subtle mechanisms that China employs to develop and consolidate its long-term influence. I draw on primary interviews with key informants from the Zimbabwe side who were directly involved in this project. I supplement this with focus group data and field observation notes.