The International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (ID-CPC) has a long history of interaction with African political parties. It began with support of African liberation movements and leaders, some of whom eventually became the leaders of independent African countries. Under Xi Jinping, ID-CPC person-to-person outreach increased, experienced a pullback during COVID-19 although webinars and video meetings substituted for person-to-person contact, and now has resumed. China and the African Union declared 2026 as the China-Africa Year of People-to-People Exchanges. This will result in increased numbers of political leaders and party-to-party exchanges. In the early years, the ID-CPC’s contact was almost entirely with liberation movements and African ruling parties. With the passage of time, this approach has changed. While most of the interaction continues to occur with African ruling parties, the ID-CPC has become much more flexible in its choice of African political party partners. In 2021, China’s State Council stated that the CPC had established official contact with more than 110 political parties in 51 African states. Party-to-party cooperation serves as an important tool for Beijing to promote its governance model and global initiatives, especially the Global Governance Initiative announced by Xi Jinping in 2025. This brief analysis focuses on ID-CPC interaction with African political leaders and parties in the post-COVID-19 period when frequent travel to and from China resumed.
The ID-CPC implements party-to-party cooperation in a variety of ways. The most common engagement involves exchange visits with party leaders and cadres. Some exchanges are multilateral involving party representatives from around the world. An example was the 2021 World Political Parties Summit addressed by Xi Jinping and held by video conference because of COVID-19. China announced that more than 500 political parties and organizations from 160 countries participated, including seven presidents or prime ministers in Africa. Other exchanges are organized on a regional basis such as the 7th China-Africa People’s Forum and the 7th China-Africa Young Leaders Forum held in Hunan Province in 2024 and attended by some 200 representatives from 50 African countries. A third category is bilateral exchanges, which often includes a consultation or training component. Between 2002 and 2022, the ID-CPC conducted bilateral exchanges with political parties from all fifty-four African countries except Eswatini and Somalia. The exchange is usually with a single African political party but can include multiple parties from the same country. In 2021, for example, the ID-CPC hosted representatives of Tunisia’s nine main political parties in a video conference when they established an exchange mechanism with the parties (Benabdallah 2021, 3-5; Shinn and Eisenman 2023, 93-102).
The training component of the party-to-party exchanges probably has the greatest impact on the African participants. On visits to China, participants in training courses usually stay one or two weeks and occasionally longer. The training includes numerous topics such as a history of China, CPC party structure, China’s development and governance models, and more specialized issues tailored to the interests of the participants. The ID-CPC often uses the occasion to underscore China’s core domestic interests such as the One China policy, human rights in Tibet and Xinjiang, and convey key foreign policy goals such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the importance of multipolarity. The sessions are also used as business opportunities for China. For example, a discussion of safe city or smart city projects might include an introduction to Chinese surveillance and facial recognition products, resulting in an eventual sale of equipment to an African government. Some party training schools in Africa, for example Algeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa, have long-term training partnerships with China’s National Academy of Governance, the CPC’s Central Party School. The African reaction to these party-to-party training programs has generally been positive, although the degree to which they accept Chinese ideology and the thoughts of Xi Jinping is less clear (Benabdallah 2021, 12-15; Hackenesch and Bader 2024, 7-11; Shinn and Eisenman 2013, 104-108; Nantulya 2024).
A critical component of any party-to-party relationship is that of funding. It is challenging to document foreign funding of political parties and candidates for public office anywhere in the world. Political parties in Africa almost never disclose foreign funding sources. Many non-African governments, including China’s, engage in foreign political party and election funding but are also careful to hide that information. Nevertheless, funding of African political parties, including Chinese financial support, is probably commonplace even if it is difficult to document. Opposition political parties in Zimbabwe claimed that China helped fund the ruling ZANU-PF party in the 2013 election. South Africa’s Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI)reported that China, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Malaysia, and Angola made large donations to the ruling African National Congress (PARI 2017, 11). The China State Construction Company built the headquarters of Ghana’s National Democratic Congress (NDC) and China covered the cost but asked the NDC to refrain from mentioning that fact. The ID-CPC also gave the NDC a variety of in-kind gifts such as laptops, cell phones, and office furniture (Shinn and Eisenman 2023, 114). Pan China Construction Group built the new MPLA headquarters in Angola, although funding arrangements have not been disclosed publicly.
The ID-CPC has been more transparent in its financial support for African political party training schools. It has supported African party schools dating back to the 1960s, but its premier project was the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School in Kibaha, Tanzania, inaugurated in 2022. China established the school for six African ruling parties in Tanzania (CCM), South Africa (ANC), Mozambique (FRELIMO), Angola (MPLA), Namibia (SWAPO), and Zimbabwe (ZANU-PF). All of these parties have ruled without interruption since independence or majority rule in the case of South Africa. Modeled after CPC training facilities, the state-owned China Railway Construction Engineering Group built the school with $40 million in funding from the ID-CPC. The CPC flag flies alongside those of the six African parties at the entrance to the school, which continues to rely on training support from Beijing. Song Tao, then Minister of the ID-CPC, emphasized at the inauguration of the school the importance of strengthening communication in international affairs, supporting each other’s core interests, practicing multilateralism, and safeguarding the fundamental interests of developing countries. The six like-minded African political parties have become part of a strategy that advances China’s interests and isolates its adversaries (Chan 2022; Nantulya 2023; ID-CPC website 2022).
In 2023, Zimbabwe received assistance from the ID-CPC to refurbish ZANU-PF’s training facility, the Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology. Political party schools in Burundi, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Morocco, and Uganda, among others, have approached the ID-CPC for support but there is no confirmation they received any funding (Nantulya 2024). Kenya’s ruling United Democratic Alliance (UDA) offers an instructive example of negotiations with the ID-CPC for obtaining financial assistance. In 2024, the UDA held talks with the ID-CPC to explore party-to-party cooperation, leadership exchange programs, and technical support for institutional development. In 2026, a senior UDA delegation visited Beijing seeking up to $7.75 million for a new party headquarters and party school. Although no funding agreement was announced, the UDA delegation expressed confidence that Kenya’s strong ties with China will secure the assistance (Kipkemoi 2026). Kenya also has a registered Communist Party that ‘cherishes the fraternal relationship’ it shares with the CPC (Kenya Communist Party website 2023).
While the ID-CPC maintains contact with political parties across the continent, the engagement has been particularly strong with ruling organizations in southern Africa. Its closest relationship has arguably been with South Africa’s African National Congress, which operates in coalition with the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the labor movement, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The ID-CPC has a separate and significant relationship with botht he SACP and COSATU (Shinn and Eisenman 2023, 103-108). Its ties are also close with Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF, Namibia’s SWAPO, Mozambique’s FRELIMO, and Angola’s MPLA. These parties tend to share ideological similarities with the CPC and look to it as a role model (von Sydow and Pårup 2025, 4-5).
In 2025, then Minister of the ID-CPC, Liu Jianchao, joined these five parties and Tanzania’s CCM, South Africa’s Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, and the Western Sahara’s POLISARIO in South Africa where they reaffirmed the ideological foundations of the southern African liberation movements. The presidents of South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe attended the Liberation Movements Summit while senior party leaders represented Angola and Tanzania. The ANC opened the Summit by expressing concern over renewed imperial pressures and attempts at neo-colonial interference in Africa. Minister Liu and the African leaders went to great length praising each other and the support the ID-CPC was giving to their political parties.
Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa, for example, commented that ZANU-PF values its close relationship with the CPC and appreciated the cadre training and construction of the party school. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said ‘the ANC hopes to further enhance exchanges with the CPC, learn from each other and jointly face international challenges.’ Minister Liu responded that the CPC and African political parties ‘should strengthen party building to ensure that the Party remains the core leadership in the process of promoting national modernization.’ Curiously, Minister Liu, after returning to Beijing from this visit to South Africa, Algeria, and Singapore, disappeared amid speculation he had been detained for disciplinary reasons and has been replaced by Liu Haixing (Friends of Socialist China 2025a; Mistreanu 2025).
North Africa is also an important target for the ID-CPC. Unlike southern Africa where ID-CPC contact is confined largely to ruling parties, it reaches out to a wide range of political parties in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. Because of civil strife, Libyan political parties have not attracted much ID-CPC interest. From an ideological perspective, the CPC has the most in common with Algeria’s National Liberation Front(FLN).In 2025, following his visit to the Liberation Movements Summit in South Africa, ID-CPC Minister Liu stopped in Algiers where he met with FLN leadership and the senior officials of two other parties—the National Democratic Rally of Algeria and the Movement of Society for Peace. While there are frequent exchanges between the ID-CPC and North African political parties, the relationship has not reached the level seen with ruling parties in southern Africa (Hackenesch and Bader 2024, 4-6; Friends of Socialist China 2025b).
East Africa offers a mixed picture. The ID-CPC once had a strong relationship with Ethiopia’s now defunct Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. It struggled in making the transition to the current ruling Prosperity Party but is methodically improving the relationship (Shinn and Eisenman 2023, 108-112). It has had cordial relations with Tanzania’s ruling party dating back before independence when the CCM was known as the Tanganyika African National Union. In 2024, the secretary-general of the CCM, Emmanuel Nchimbi, during a visit to China stated that the CPC provided financial support, technical assistance, and capacity building aimed at strengthening Tanzania’s governance and administrative capacity. Nchimbi added that the history of CCM and CPC relations ‘have been a glorious period of solidarity and unity’. He concluded that the future of the relationship portends frequent high-level visits, exchange programs, and the sharing of governance experiences (Hamid 2024; Li 2023). The ID-CPC has good but less developed relations with ruling parties in Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya but minimal ties with other parties in the region. The ID-CPC has less interaction with most political parties in West and Central Africa where the party systems tend to be weaker. It has engaged actively with Ghana’s political parties but less so in Nigeria’s multiparty democratic system. Surprisingly, the ID-CPC has had limited engagement with the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, an authoritarian party which has governed under President Paul Biya since 1982 (Hackenesch and Bader 2024, 4-6).
China’s governance model prioritizes the role of the party. ID-CPC training for African political parties emphasizes party supremacy over the state and government, which is at odds with the multiparty democratic framework in most African constitutions. On the other hand, the CPC approach is well accepted by those African ruling parties that wish to remain permanently in power. China’s training has the potential to entrench ruling parties in power and may have contributed to recent democratic setbacks in Africa(Nantulya 2024).A study by Jani Grey Kasunda found a glaring disconnect between China’s socialist rhetoric and its business practices in Africa, especially in the extractive sector where exploitative working conditions, environmental degradation, and suppression of labor rights contradict Marxist principles. While China’s ideological appeal may be gaining approval with African political parties, leaders such as President Paul Kagame in Rwanda are motivated by pragmatic development considerations rather than abstract political doctrine (Kasunda 2025, 15-16). Put another way, there is room for African agency so long as African leaders and parties are willing to exercise it.
There is also African party support for Xi Jinping’s Global Governance Initiative (GGI), which deals with much wider issues than governing models for individual countries. Nigeria, for example, warmly embraced the GGI soon after its unveiling, concluding that it reflects the aspirations of all peoples and upholds the principles of shared responsibility and mutual respect (Anyanwu 2025).Solly Mapaila, general secretary of the South African Communist Party, which is a coalition partner in the South African government, gave an exclusive interview to China’s People’s Daily. Mapaila strongly supported the GGI, describing it ‘as a visionary framework that champions fairness, equality, and respect for sovereignty in the international system.’ He added that the GGI promotes a multipolar world, which is urgently needed (Motaung and Mohamme 2025).
Africa is effectively a testing ground for expanding the reach of the CPC and the export of its authoritarian governance model. Political party training works hand-in-hand with similar Chinese programs for African journalists. Together they explain how the CPC monitors, guides, and manages public opinion. The ID-CPC training program works to gain acceptance for its core political values among party leaders in Africa (Jianli2021). ID-CPC efforts in Africa have raised concerns in Washington. In 2023, John James, chairman of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, said he was “incredibly worried” about the CPC’s effort to export its authoritarian governance model throughout Africa (Committee on Foreign Affairs, 2023). It is a certainty, however, that ID-CPC outreach to African political parties will remain an important component of China’s interaction with the continent.
References
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Further Reading on E-International Relations
