China is training Africa’s next generation of transport and aviation experts
Lily Kuo | Quartz Africa
July 18, 2017
https://qz.com/1030978

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Photo credit/description: (EPA/Daniel Irungu) China Southern Airline launched its first direct flight from Guangzhou to Nairobi in August 2015

China is moving beyond building Africa’s roads, railways and ports to investing in the continent’s transportation and aviation industries as a whole.

Plans to build five transportation focused universities and a China-Africa aviation school on the continent are going ahead, according to the dean of Chang’an University in Xi’an, China, speaking at a conference in South Africa last week. Starting this year, 500 aviation personnel from Africa will start training in China each year, Chinese officials said earlier this year.

Education and the transfer of technological know-how are increasingly part of China’s soft power efforts in Africa. There are more than 20 Chinese-run agricultural training centers and over 40 Chinese language schools, Confucius centers, across the continent. China’s minister of foreign affairs Wang Yi said last week his government would offer 10,000 scholarships to African officials to study in China over the next decade. China is already the top destination for African students from English-speaking countries, ahead of the United Kingdom and the United States.