Kinas mjuka makt - Zambias hårda verklighet

Sammanfattning: During the past century China has increased its economic engagement in Zambia which has captured the attention of International Relations studies. The magnitude of Chinese economic linkages to Africa in terms of investment, trade and aid is nothing but of great importance at many levels in relation to its implication for the Zambian people (Morgan 2018). Soft power is often explained by the research society as a way to increase chances of power and influence without being required to rely on hard power, in terms of coercion through military means and economic sanctions. It is defined as an ability to attract others to wanting to emulate values, examples and strive towards similar prosperity (Nye 2004:5). China’s economic activities in Africa constitutes the primary source on how Africa perceive China’s presence, which makes investment, trade and aid argued as fundamental to Chinese efforts to build soft power on the African continent (Morgan 2018). China’s incentives in Zambia is further explained as being in line with the effects of soft power, a way for Zambia to gain a big brother and role model in the strive for increased growth. This approach is nevertheless controversial. Voices from non elite residents in Zambia blow the gaff on how they inherit a different opinion about China’s involvement. This research study aims to investigate the differences in how Zambia’s elite swallows China’s commendations, when the theories of China’s soft power in Africa at the same time does not correspond to how the non-elites perceive the actual outcomes. This leads us to the question if the theory of soft power really is soft in the case of Zambia, or what the implicit meaning rather is. This will be conducted through a case study of Zambia and analysed in relation to the idea of soft power. From analysing the elites and non-elites perceptions of China in Zambia, we found that soft power has a hard time explaining the non-elites perceptions. We can conclude that hard power is a concept more adequate describing how the non-elites are affected by Chinese engagement in Zambia, and also that the elites are exposed to hard power to some extent.