Chinese normative communities of practice: Comparative study of China’s relational governance of Africa and central Asia

This chapter attempts to understand the use of “cooptive power” or soft power by India and China in Africa, the impact of which cannot be measured with exactitude, but can be significant. In the new multipolar international system, Africa has emerged as a major player in global geopolitics and in the economic arena, and it figures prominently in the foreign policy and growth strategies of China and India, two of the emerging power houses in the Global South. The year 2010 marked 150 years since the arrival of Indian indentured labour in South Africa, while in the pre-colonial period the Swahili coast and Western India were connected through trade, including slave trade that resulted in the transportation of Siddis peoples of East African descent to India. Migratory movements of Indians have ebbed and flowed over time, whereas migration of Chinese peoples to the continent is only about two decades old.