The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses educational institutions in Africa, namely the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School, to assist local leaders in advancing authoritarian policies across the continent, according to leading foreign policy observers.
Despite repeated assurances from the CCP that China would not be exporting its political system and ideology abroad, the school — located in the East African country of Tanzania, has done precisely that — according to an in-depth investigation by Axios published on Sunday.
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School opened in 2022 and represents a partnership between the CCP and African allied nations, including Namibia, Angola, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Tanzania. The institution is located 30 miles outside Dar es Salaam and was established following a $40 million grant from the CCP.
One participant, Collin Ngujapeua, a member of Namibia’s ruling SWAPO party, attended the institute in June and reflected the CCP is “working hand in hand [with the government]. . . . That’s one of the very important aspects that we need also to work on in Namibia and also in other African sister parties.”
“We have to work hand in hand, the political party and the government,” the official added, elaborating that one instructor, “told us we must solve our own problems. Instead of going to court, instead of using judiciaries . . . he said we must solve our own problems internally.”
A report later drafted by Ngujapeua for SWAPO included references to “take out tigers,” “swat [flies],” and “hunt down foxes,” echoing terms regularly used by the CCP.
“There’s been a reluctance from a lot of scholars to say that China is clearly trying to export authoritarianism,” Daniel Mattingly, a professor of political science at Yale University specializing in Chinese authoritarian politics, told the outlet. It is “remarkable,” the academic added, noting participants leave the leadership academy with the impression that “we need to move to a much stronger one-party state model.”
However, the CCP has denied any nefarious intentions with the school and reaffirmed its commitment that it has no design to politically influence African nations. “The [CCP] and political parties in Africa learn from each other on governance experience, and support each other’s development path that suits respective national conditions. We don’t seek to export our system,” Liu Pengyu, a spokesman from the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., told Axios.
“The [CCP] is the central leading force of all endeavors and causes in China. It is the fundamental reason why the Chinese people and Chinese nation were able to transform their fate in modern times and achieve the great success we see today.”
Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute in Australia, focused on East Asia, disagreed, telling Axios the “most important part of . . . [their] model is imbuing revolutionary parties with the idea that they are the permanent ruling party and educating them on how to achieve that aim.”