In full economic stagnation, the country seeks to develop the opportunities offered by Beijing, without denying its links with Western partners.
by Frédéric Bobin (Tunis, Special Envoy)
A brand new building, spreading its cream -colored facade by the expressway of the El Manar district, in Tunis: the new diplomatic academy fresh out of the ground. Flanked by coniferous groves, the establishment – fruit of a Chinese donation of 72 million dinars (21 million euros) – is the last shiny showcase of Chinese soft power on the continent, dedicated to forming Tunisian and African diplomats . During the building ceremony to the Tunisian authorities, in April 2022, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Othman Jerandi, had exclaimed: “Quick changes and developments on regional and international stages oblige us, Tunisian and Chinese, to strengthen coordination and consultations around files of common interest. “
The formula does not only hold rhetorical emphasis. It expresses the growing inclination of a Tunisia in full economic stagnation to want to seize, as much as possible, the opportunities offered by China. And the desire, in filigree, to relieve an addiction, sometimes felt as heavy, with regard to its Western historical partners. Inflect, therefore, without upsetting its geopolitical anchoring: the idea is not new but it matures. “Without wanting to hit the Western guarantee, it will be for Tunis to raise its negotiation potential and amplify its room for maneuver”, in 2018 urged the geopolitologist Mehdi Taje in the study “The new silk roads and North Africa: what synergies? “, published by the German Foundation Konrad Adenauer.
The diplomatic academy offered to Tunisia is added to the delivery by China of the University Hospital Center of Sfax, in the east of the country, or the cultural and sporting center in Ben Arous, in the suburbs of Tunis. This equipment is part of an influence strategy that illustrates also the opening of a Confucius Institute in 2018 at the University of Carthage. The number of students learning Mandarin has doubled in the past two years.
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In the infrastructure register, a Chinese company began the construction of a dam in Mellegue, near Kef, in the northwest. Other projects are in the drawers while waiting for a realization at this hypothetical stage: the development of a logistics zone around the port of Zarzis, in the Southeast Tunisian, doomed to serve neighboring Libya; the construction of a bridge connecting the island of Djerba to the coast, and a railway line between Gabès and Zarzis; even the creation of a deep water port in Enfidha, a city located a hundred kilometers south of Tunis. Some of these projects date from the time of the dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali (1936-2019) who, before being overthrown by the 2011 revolution, had played the Chinese card to “do not depend too much from certain Western countries Who began to criticize him on the human rights level, “recalls a former Tunisian diplomat.
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