Apparently the Chinese have learnt from Africans, as some would have it, and jettisoned presidential term limits. The detailed story is complex, but there is nothing African about having no term limits.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, to mention one example of a non-African country without term limits, is going nowhere after more than two terms. The Germans are very happy to have her around because she is a good leader.

Even then, an informed commentator on a social media forum I frequent was quick to point out how “at least the African model has been exported to Asia,” and how he had been “tired of foreign models being copied by Africa.”

He was joking, of course, but recent developments in China show that, just like the Germans, the Chinese would like to keep their good leaders for a long time. It should give food or thought to those Africans who tend to associate term limits and the rituals of regular leadership change with “good governance” or even democracy.

So now the reportedly very popular President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, can carry on governing and giving it direction. Reports suggest he has so far done very well and many citizens of the country couldn’t be happier with him.

Not only has he presided over continued prosperity, he has increased the country’s prestige and influence using economic and other mechanisms.

The extent of his success in the latter sphere, at least as far as our continent is concerned, is the ill-disguised panic coming from those in the Western world whose influence across a range of domains in Africa, the economic one especially, is under threat.

The panic is evident in the way Africans are now the target of warnings about the danger the Chinese pose to our sovereignty. I nearly fell off my chair when I heard that from former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently, as he started his much-touted tour of the continent. Apparently the tour was intended to underline how much Africa has “always” been a priority for the United States.

I know many Africans who wouldn’t stop laughing or sucking on their teeth in derision. Not that they believe the Chinese are saints or driven purely by philanthropy. In fact, no African with their heads screwed on the right way and who is aware of how the world works, believes that.

The Chinese are not here for charitable reasons. If we continue sleeping they too will exploit and mess us around in the same way the Americans and others have done all along, even as they give us millions of dollars in aid.

The key difference between them and the others in my opinion is that the Chinese, keenly aware of their own history of struggling to overcome foreign domination and determine their own destiny, are loathe to put themselves in a position where they begin to tell us how to do this and that, especially how to organise our politics and govern ourselves.

At the very least, the attitude of the Chinese allows us the space to experiment as they do, learn from our mistakes as they do, and as other societies have done in the course of their own evolution. It includes learning the hard way as others have done.

And it hasn’t been only Tillerson warning Africans to beware the dangers of jumping into bed with the Chinese. Western media have outdone themselves repeating the same warnings in recent years, as Chinese aid and capital have flowed into the continent in ever increasing amounts.

Overtime the warnings have become one of those things one hears repeated so often that one eventually stops listening.

And then came the “attack” on the Chinese constitution by the Communist Party of China. No one was talking about “China and Africa” anymore.

The focus now became Chinese President Xi Jinping and how he — not the political party to which he belongs — was removing term limits from the constitution “so he can rule for life.” It all sounded rather familiar.

That is what happens in Africa, where decisions taken by whole groups of people, for reasons they would have considered carefully, even if they may be disagreeable to those who are watching from the sidelines, are attributed to one person whose role may be significant but hardly decisive.

So was it true in this case that President Xi Jinping wanted to rule for life and is this why hundreds of members of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee voted overwhelmingly to remove term limits from the constitution?

As we have already seen and as reported widely in media across the world, many Chinese think highly of their president and what he has done for their country.

As a result they are happy for him to stick around. And as one delegate pointed out to a Western journalist, the change was about choice and the need to strengthen the country’s leadership.

But no; Western media wouldn’t let up in their criticism of Chinese “authoritarianism.” It all makes me think there is a lot that we Africans and the Chinese should compare notes about, even as warnings about the dangers they pose mount.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs. E-mail: [email protected]