Harmony as Strategy: African Agency in China’s Tianxia Diplomacy
Africa Review, cilt.1, sa.1, ss.1-22, 2026 (Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 1 Sayı: 1
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1163/09744061-bja10362
- Dergi Adı: Africa Review
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Scopus
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1-22
- İstanbul Ticaret Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
In this article we theorise how African actors exercise agency in Sino-African relations, not as passive subjects of hegemonic hierarchy but as strategic co-authors of China’s Tianxia-inspired diplomacy. Our analysis departs from classic dependency paradigms and instead introduces adaptive preference formation (APF) as a conceptual framework that captures how, through ritual deference, African actors align with Sino-centric norms while strategically repurposing them to pursue strategic interests. Our findings reveal that African agency is negotiated and exercised through strategic gratitude, discursive co-production, resistance through cooperation, selective localisation and reciprocal signalling, which convert Africa’s symbolic inclusion into bargaining leverage. We show how African actors leverage China’s discourse of harmony, mutual respect and non-interference to generate normative obligations and pursue strategic interests within Sino-African relations and broadly at the international system. Our findings thus challenge the view of Tianxia as a culturally rigid or unidirectional system, revealing instead a negotiated order co-produced through diplomatic performance.