Tanzania-China All-Weather Friendship in the Era of Multipolarity

How close is the Tanzanian-Chinese partnership today? Bi-lateral trade and Chinese economic activity in Tanzania today is far more significant than in the 1970s; China’s “no strings attached” policy is still attractive and political solidarities and military co-operation have remained relatively strong. However this bi-lateral relationship does not have the importance nor the exclusiveness it enjoyed in the heydays of socialism. Today China must compete economically politically and culturally with the activism and soft power of a larger group of countries particularly the United States and other emerging nations. Although both in Dar es Salaam and in Beijing this relationship is still presented as “special” it has lost the structural role that it had until the late 1970s in shaping Sino-African relations. Instead particularly since the mid-2000s it is rather the growing Sino-American Sino-Western and South-South competition in Africa that has structured Tanzania’s foreign policy convincing Tanzania to adopt what we would call a “mild hedging strategy” towards China and helping it at least to some extent to better defend its own interests.