Description
China’s expanding role in peace and security architecture in Africa has generated questions about whether it offers a contrasting vision to the liberal peace for African and Asian countries. Despite some distinguishing features in China’s approach, important areas of convergence exist between the two in how development is conceptualised. The underlying assumptions of modernization theory remain at the heart of both Chinese ‘developmental peace’ and the liberal peace, which is most evident in the way that peacebuilding is visualised. While Chinese public diplomacy efforts use social media images to represent an alternative vision of peace, the images also reveal an orthodox framing of development. Using social media images depicting China’s peacebuilding efforts throughout African countries, this paper examines China’s ‘developmental peace’ as a vision of peace and security that continues conventional norms of peacebuilding. Drawing on innovative visual and social media methodologies, this critique offers an opportunity to think through why these peacebuilding efforts often reproduce the sources of conflict they are designed to overcome. In doing so, it indicates the underlying grounds on which development practices must be engaged and transformed.
