A Critical Evaluation of Health Diplomacy as an Altruistic Underpinning of China–Africa Relations

Post-Cold War studies on foreign policy analysis pay increasing attention to ‘soft power’ politics as an effective diplomatic construct to attaining a state’s objectives. In this chapter, health diplomacy is understood as non-coercive repertoires of engagement that are constituted as a subset of foreign policy. Health diplomacy is international cooperation or aid focused on promoting health programmes to attain public health objectives. This chapter acknowledges a dearth of scholarship on China–Africa health relations. The available literature is preoccupied with China–Africa socio-economic and political relations and therefore locates the discussion within the broader limits of political  challenges. This minimalist approach does not exhaustively analyse China’s involvement in African public health issues. Therefore, work on health diplomacy has contributed to new interpretations of China–Africa relations by proffering alternative perspectives beyond the traditional conceptions of hegemonic power interests in Africa. These alternatives demonstrate the developmental trajectory pursued by a developing country, China, towards a developing African region. In the broadest sense, China’s health policy in Africa is encapsulated in the 1964 ‘Eight Principles for Economic Aid and Technical Assistance to Other Countries and the 2006 ‘China’s African Policy’ that promulgated the bedrock for the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).