 Hello, welcome to Global Connections. I'm Patrick Bratton here. Today I've got a special guest, one of my colleagues, Grace Cheng of Y Pacific University. We're going to be talking about Grace's research on Africa and China and all sort of parts in between. So without further ado, welcome to Think Tech. Thank you, Patrick. Thank you for having me. This is your first time on Think Tech TV, right? Yes, it is. Okay, good. Hopefully not the last, though. We'll see, yeah. Depending on how things go, right? So Grace, you've been here as a professor, an associate professor of political science at HBU. You've been at HBU for quite some time since the late 90s or so? That's correct, yes. Okay. What brought you, I mean, how did you end up in Hawaii being a professor of political science? I mean, where are you from originally is my normal starting question. Okay. Well, I was born in Taiwan and my family and I moved to New York City when I was two years old. And I went to university at Georgetown in D.C. And there I did an internship when I was a junior at a refugee camp with the International Organization for Migration. So I was based in the Philippines versus asylum camp in Palawan there. And that's when I started getting very interested in international politics and especially how they impact developing countries. So my fellow intern at the International Organization for Migration was from Hawaii. And I had several other friends from Hawaii. So I had gotten to know about the place and I got to know about the programs here at University of Hawaii. So I applied for graduate school here and studied political transitions, especially in the context of the post-Cold War transition in world politics and looking how they adjusted. So that was what I came here to do and then I got a job at Hawaii Pacific University and here I am still today. Oh, interesting. So even before you'd come to Hawaii, you'd met people and it seemed to be a draw for you in a sense? Yes, that's correct. Yeah. And Hawaii was a really attractive place because my area of focus initially as a grad student was in Southeast Asia. And the University of Hawaii has a very strong center for Southeast Asian studies. And so a very vibrant community of scholars and other members of the community there. So it was a really good learning environment and a very good place to kind of take off and go and experience some research, study, travel in the region. You started originally focusing on Vietnam, right? Yeah, that's correct. So the Vietnamese camp, it was actually a Vietnamese refugee camp that I was working in the Philippines. So that gave me sort of introduction into many different things, but one of them being what life was like in Vietnam and how the war affected Vietnamese society and politics even into several decades after the conflict concluded. And so how this was reflected in the lives of the refugees, how it affected the region, how it affected and was influencing politics still today at that time. So that was kind of my entryway into studying Southeast Asia because I was interested in the country itself, but also in kind of the regional context and how international politics influenced and impacted the region. Okay, interesting. So you started off sort of doing work on Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and then you've sort of moved into doing a sort of wide variety of different projects. I mean, I know that you teach courses on Islam and politics, you teach courses on China, on international law, human rights. I mean, if you're looking at sort of all the different sort of topics for you, is there kind of a thread or is it kind of like exploration in a sense for you or do you have a thread that sort of links things together like you were here and you got interested in this and then went on to this because you saw commonality in an issue? Yeah, I mean, spending a lot of time in Asia and interacting a lot with Asian scholars and members of the community, especially working in different kinds of organizations, you get a very different view of international politics and what we study, I think, in the American University and other Western universities as well. And so I've been interested in my work and trying to understand kind of how things that I think we often take for granted and in the literature is also sort of unquestioned and how people in developing countries experience those and their views on those kinds of topic areas. So because I spend a lot of time in Asia, in the last four years I've become involved in an organization called the Asian Resource Foundation, which is based in Bangkok. And I support them and participate in these peace and conflict workshops that they conduct, mainly for people who work in conflict or post-conflict regions, including government, civil society, human rights lawyers, as well as academics doing field research in those kinds of contexts. And so learning a great deal from how they've experienced their work with trying to, I guess, reconstruct on various levels after conflict, economically, physically, politically. And of course, these days what I'm interested in, what I've always been interested in, I guess the common thread is how international institutions and international politics affects that because as I look at developing countries that are not necessarily very powerful, right, there are sometimes not always in the driver's seat in some of these transitions. And that's, I think, one of the things that the Asian Resource Foundation is trying to help address, trying to help support and create a network for people around Asia, but also we're getting a lot of participants from Africa and the Middle East as well, help them to kind of develop their own approaches to addressing the challenges of post-conflict reconstruction and development and helping them to develop these networks. So through them, I've also recently participated in an exchange among three institutions in South Asia, Tribhuvan University in Nepal, University of Hurahuna in Sri Lanka and Kamsats Institute in Pakistan. And they're supported by a Norwegian fund which is helping them to develop programs within those own institutions rather than what we typically see, is bringing over people from developing countries to study in Western universities or establishing Western campuses over there. So in this way to help kind of foster a perspective that really comes from the root of the societies which are dealing and addressing with these problems. So one of the things that I find as a common thread throughout this is the struggles that they have as far as not being in the driver's seat, being materially less well off, less powerful countries and with international institutions of course being very concerned with the impact of conflicts on communities as well as regional security. They have a greater and greater presence in these countries. And so there is that kind of a power dimension, that kind of political dimension that I'm interested in. And so that is kind of one of the common threads that I look at. And so my most recent research project I've been looking at, I went to a conference in Ghana last year and it was the first Africa Asia studies conference. And part of that again is the idea of trying to build bridges across developing countries so that we don't have just, you know, the link is from developing countries to the West but without that kind of exchange across the developing world. So that was very fruitful. And my research project is looking at China-Africa cooperation in peace and security which we are seeing kind of growing especially through the forum on China-Africa cooperation. One thing that's interesting is that the, nowadays in the past say 10 odd years there's been a lot of attention in sort of media and the pundit sphere about China's move to Africa and many books, China Safari and all these other things published. I mean, but on the other hand, I mean, there has been, although we don't always perceive it in the West, there's been this long tradition of interaction between China and Africa whether it's, you know, even the Cold War, the Afro-Asian movement and things like that. I mean, do you find with your interactions today that this is sort of a continuation of longer ties that have sort of always been there or is this something new in your mind or a bit of both? Yeah, I mean, that's definitely part of the rhetoric, right, that's always kind of preface all of these meetings for, for example, the forum on China-Africa cooperation or FOCOC. That sounds kind of odd, but I'll call it that. It's shorter, I know. But, you know, that's always the preface of all of there, I think, of all the addresses. And there is, there has been a tradition of Afro-Asian cooperation and China during the, you know, during the revolutionary years was active in trying to support liberation movements in Africa. So what's, I think that kind of connection is not new and certainly, you know, what used to be called Third World, right? Third World Solidarity and this effort to develop sort of an alternate front not being subject to the more hegemonic blocks, that's always been there. But what's new is that China is, you know, such an economic powerhouse and an emerging military power. So, you know, China to position itself as a developing country is somewhat problematic and definitely, you know, the power dimension is there because there is two-way kind of exchange, though. I think a lot of us think it's all China going over to Africa and I think for the most part, yeah, there are a lot of, you know, Chinese investors, state projects, a lot of Chinese workers and other, you know, private citizens taking initiative going to Africa. But there are a lot of efforts to kind of, you know, bring the exchange the other way as well. So, that was what was interesting about the conference in Ghana is that you saw the results of that, like how much that is thriving. But there certainly are real material differences and power differences between, you know, China and the countries of Africa collectively. How much too? I mean, do you still see sort of, you know, back in the 90s, if you will, or even into the early 2000s, you know, you used to see this competition between China and Taiwan for recognition. And they would sort of do checkbook diplomacy, you know, like, I'll build you down! How many hospitals do you need? I mean, is some of the current ties today, is there still an echo of that competition that used to go on? A lot of the places I've been to, I mean, for example, a China political studies conference took place in Costa Rica a couple of years ago right after Costa Rica switched its recognition from Taiwan to China. So, this is always there. And, you know, this is true in various countries in Africa as well. I mean, so one of the things I think that's always something that people would like to kind of point out, I mean, I think that is part of China's agenda. You know, they want the world to recognize that only the Beijing government represents the state and that the state is unified, including Taiwan. So, but, you know, what I found in the China-African cooperation was that, you know, there were a lot of other interests, and not just crude economic interests on China's part and not just, you know, trying to wrestle that recognition away from Taiwan. But what I was interested in is some other dimensions of why they are cooperating that have to do with kind of the changing international political practices that we're seeing, like more interventions, like international institutions getting more involved in regional problems and how, yeah, they're trying to, I think, on the African side, they're using or they see this relationship, cooperation with China as a way to kind of help boost their voice in that process. So... I mean, one of the shorthands that was always given is that, you know, for a lot of post-colonial societies, quite sort of logically, they have sort of sensitivities about sovereignty, you know, because of having their sovereignty violated for how many hundreds of years while they were colonial subjects. Is that also, in a sense, perhaps an aspect of sort of commonality between a lot of these African countries in China, and since China is sort of almost like a meme, in a sense, that China is very sensitive about sovereignty, these countries as well, given the colonial legacies and the tendency for developed or Western nations to engage in intervention, whether military or political, is that also sort of a commonality in the way of sort of like how the rules of the international game should operate in a different fashion, or is that perhaps, again, rhetoric when people get together? No, actually, that's really core to what I'm finding and what my, I guess, my interpretation of the nature of this cooperation is, because, I mean, actually, China's role in material support for African peace and security is much smaller than coming from Western countries, but it's their cooperation at the international institution and political level. That's important. And a lot of it has to do with this concept of sovereignty. And I think within Western countries, you know, we talk a lot about human rights in other countries. Like, we should speak out when our president visits, they should criticize, you know, the state leaders about their human rights and try to push them for, yeah, as you were saying, for former colonial subjects, that's kind of a very, very intrusive approach to their political independence. And so that is one aspect of it, but it's no longer this, what you can see, I think, when you look at the relationship, the cooperation developing between China and Africa block, I guess, is that they're, I mean, they're not pushing for absolute sovereignty. Even China, and China's a little less easy to discern as far as its rhetoric, but in practice, you can see, because Africa, the African states through the African Union are much more open to kind of conditioning sovereignty to certain, you know, to certain kinds of performances by the state. You know, if there's a grave threat to human rights and so forth and security. But the, you know, the African Union and a lot of individual African states and commentators, they're very wary of intervention, as far as if it's externally led, that is external to Africa, from Africa. So in 2015, the African Union called for a meeting and met with the UN Security Councils. They were very, very unhappy with the Security Council authorized interventions in Cote d'Ivoire and in Libya in 2011. They felt that, you know, a lot of their proposals, their perspectives, the concerns they brought to the table when discussing those resolutions were not taken into consideration. And especially in Libya, they were really alarmed at how this impacted the state, you know, the barely existing state these days. So, you know, they've called for the Security Council to say, hey, we want, we don't want interventions to be something imposed from outside. So there is a, as far as sovereignty is concerned, it's not that they think states should not be meddled with at all, but that, you know, the sovereignty, I guess, more the political independence of African actors vis-a-vis non-African actors. And China has really, I think, been influenced by this, like through their practice and even through some of the scholarly writings and some of the people participating, parts of the FOCAC forums. Okay, interesting. Well, we'll take a short break and we'll come right back and continue to talk about China and Africa. Hi, I'm Keeley Ikeena, President of the Grass Root Institute. I'd love you to join us every week Mondays at 2 o'clock p.m. for Ehana Kakao. Let's work together. We report every week on the good things going on in our state as well as the better things that can go on in the future. We have guests covering everything from the economy, the government and society. See you Mondays on Ehana Kakao at 2 o'clock p.m. Until then, I'm Keeley Ikeena. Aloha. Welcome back to Global Connections. I'm Patrick Bratton. I'm talking with Grace Chang about Chinese and African cooperation on peace and security issues. Before the break, you had been talking to us about sort of this similarities or convergence, if you will, between sort of Chinese and African views about sovereignty and how they relate to international institutions. I'm going to ask you maybe a slightly mischievous question now. One of the things that's interesting that you brought up earlier was this kind of paradox, in a sense, of China engaging with Africa as a fellow developing countries. Yet at the same time, well, it's true. I mean, China is a socially, economically in many ways, a developing country. It's also the second largest economy in the world now. It's got a very robust, powerful military. It has a very robust, powerful diplomatic presence. So both in hard and soft power, China is becoming maybe not a superpower, but it is certainly very much a leading regional power. And so one of the things that I find interesting about Chinese diplomacy is that there is all of these sort of legacies of a sort of revolutionary, post-colonial state. But then at the other, these are somewhat sort of awkwardly sometimes reconciled against a country that is now a leading power. So what's been interesting to me the past 10 years is how sort of some tenants of Chinese foreign policy have been shifted. So for example, you know, back in the 90s, you know, China's view about economic sanctions, right? Economic sanctions were an imperialist tool, right? China would never use them. Seemed the past 10 years maybe a more willingness to think about economic statecraft. Similarly with overseas bases, right? Overseas bases is something the Americans have in Asia that are part of an imperialist power. Now China is talking about places and bases, not bases but places abroad, in places whether it's Djibouti and other places on the string of pearls and so on in the Indian Ocean. I mean, how do you see this sort of interesting balancing that China is doing between this sort of revolutionary developing country rhetoric with sort of, dare I say sometimes the needs or the desires of a strong regional power that would like to act as a strong regional power might? Ah, okay, big question. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think a lot of the literature we have in this country about China as well as, you know, the public kind of popular representations that China is an emerging world power and so doing those typical things to kind of, that, you know, in order to protect its interests as it projects those interests everywhere overseas, especially economic as we are hearing a lot about, right? China seeking resources and markets and other places to invest overseas and so that it's a rational, it kind of parallels that development that they would want to enhance their presence that way. So I think, you know, that's certainly, I think something that, you know, is a part of what's happening but I think because they're, they have, I think because they have this kind of close cooperation with the African states through the Focac, I think in this case, you know, the African states did a very good job themselves also to make this forum something where they can, you know, express African perspectives and not just being a China dominated, China led forum where China can kind of impose its presence, its preferences and so I was always saying before, I mean, I think that because, you know, because China hasn't become aligned with the other world powers, right? It hasn't like adopted and conformed to western, you know, western modern practices and policy, you know, positions. So it's, you know, it doesn't want to, I think it doesn't believe in some of these things like political conditionalities and intervention the way that westerners understand it. So it needs to kind of seek that kind of relationship with other countries and so I think through this forum, they're, you know, they're being sort of actually influenced a lot by their experiences in Africa, like having, you know, a lot of workers. So unlike, I think, unlike western investors that invest in Africa, you know, Chinese investments come with a lot of Chinese workers, which is one of the criticisms that they don't use local labor. But, you know, as a consequence, they see that, you know, their presence is problematic. Like they have to think about the power relations that are physically there in the communities where they're, you know, they're bringing their interests. They see attacks on their nationals who are working over there. They see attacks on their investments. They have to be a lot more wary of, you know, being an outside power coming in. And I think that the way that they're experiencing it in Africa is very different from the way I think westerners have, because of the physical presence of more Chinese moving in there. And, you know, and one of the things, you know, the kind of economic activities that China's engaged in, you know, one of the things is they're engaged in a lot of infrastructure, very direct development projects. And so they're physically much more present that way also. And that's one of the differences, whereas I think, you know, in the past, some of the other interests haven't been, you know, willing to kind of lay down those kinds of projects and construction on the continent. Okay, interesting. One other thing maybe to problematize a bit more I think is interesting is that one of the criticisms often that people make when we, as people in the developed world, the western world, we look at Africa, we tend to treat Africa as like some sort of unitary unit, right? It's just one country even though it's a continent with many countries. I mean, do you find in your research and experiences that there are some interesting nuances or differences between on the sort of sub-regions of Africa or the different countries that, you know, Nigeria thinks this way, Ghana that way or something like that? Do you have found sort of interesting differences in how Africa reacts and then interacts with China? I think, you know, when the African Union was created to kind of succeed the Organization of African Unity in the early 2000s, the idea was sort of to bring back a pan-Africanism. And I think that's not been unproblematic. I mean, there are the national interests or at least state interests, not necessarily national, because sometimes there are differences within the states. There's definitely power differences among the states on the continent, some economically and military, much more powerful than others. So I think that's, as far as a pan-Africanist vision, that's something to aspire to and whether, you know, that's we're going to keep moving forward to that or see the African Union move forward that we'll see, because they're undergoing a change in leadership currently. So the past leadership has been very much, you know, supporting, trying to integrate the region more. I mean, one of the things that, you know, I think has been problematic economically is that African economies are more linked to outside economies than they are with each other. So they're trying to promote that a great more. And, you know, there are a lot of material issues, you know, practical issues with getting there. And, you know, I think the political will and interest in that project I think is there. I think there's a lot of, you know, there are a lot of issues to be worked out, however, you know, at the same time. So, yeah, definitely, you know, to say that there's one coherent unified voice, that's not, you know, always practical to say that that exists. One thing kind of developed this thing further. I mean, one of the other we talked about kind of, I don't know, stereotypes or memes about China. One that often comes up is when China deals with, say, like Southeast Asia, China seems to have a preference, as most large powers do, to try and deal with smaller powers bilaterally rather than in a multilateral forum where smaller powers might be able to more counteract China's influence. Do you see a similar dynamic with China interacting with the African Union in African countries, or is it totally different? I think it's very different. I think that's one of the interesting things to kind of eventually look at more closely is that it's very different. The approach that China has in its own, you know, neighborhood, right, is there's a longer or at least more intimate history, we could say, with that versus its kind of relations that are developing on the African continent. And as I said, I think the African states as a group as well, you know, as well as the African Union have done a good job in kind of creating, you know, a more African-led agenda, although, of course, problematic say that there's any pure unified voice, but, you know, as far as representing Africa in its relations with China, very different from what's going on in Southeast Asia. Okay, interesting. All right. Well, we've got more we could talk about, but that's all the time that we have today on Global Connections. But Grace, thank you very much for joining us and talking to us about topics that we do and always think about here in Hawaii. And with that, I will see you guys next week on Global Connections.