By maintaining strong ties with both regional powers – India and China – the African country seeks to diversify its partnerships, reduce dependency and enhance its bargaining power.
India and China played central but distinct roles in the 1955 Bandung Conference, which brought together Asian and African nations to promote post-colonial solidarity and independence. Their engagement shaped the Afro-Asian movement that followed and laid the foundation for the modern idea of the “Global South” and South-South cooperation.
Under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, India acted as the moral and diplomatic architect, promoting peace, non-alignment, and cooperation through cultural and economic ties. China under Premier Zhou Enlai, brought political heft and used the movement strategically to position itself as a leader of anti-imperialist struggles. Its own colonial experience and revolutionary victory, along with its radical anti-imperialist ideology, appealed and inspired nationalist movements in Africa and Asia. While both nations supported Afro-Asian solidarity, and Cold-War bipolarity, India emphasised dialogue and peaceful coexistence, whereas China combined diplomacy with support for armed liberation movements, projecting a more assertive form of solidarity.
Their joint leadership at Bandung marked a transformative moment in Global South history. The “spirit of Bandung” continues even today, not as a memory but as a mission gaining intense momentum through tangible collaboration among Global South countries. As Global South countries coalesce around demands for equity, sovereignty, multipolarity and global governance reforms to end the domination by the “Global North”, India and China are increasingly vying for leadership – rooted in their historical roles and reinforced by their contemporary power capabilities. This contest manifests in economic and political arenas – from boardrooms and diplomatic summits to development projects – with countries like Kenya at the centre.
For Kenya, the answer lies not in picking a leader, but in shaping a multipolar order where no single power acts as a hegemon. Instead, Kenya seeks partnerships that advance the collective aspirations for equity, dignity and shared interests. Therefore, Kenya views India and China not as contenders, but as strategic partners – and as new opportunities to strengthen its agency by engaging both and leveraging their distinct strengths and identities to advance its own development goals.
India has positioned itself as a democratic bridge builder, championing a multipolar order that amplifies the voices of developing nations in the Global South. India’s 2023 G20 Presidency, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, illustrated this role by the historic inclusion of the African Union (AU) as a permanent member. It emphasises South-South cooperation, digital public infrastructure, technological cooperation, and balanced trade as tools of solidarity. Indian companies have provided mobile networks, affordable medicine, solar energy, among others. Its narrative emphasises shared values, democracy, pluralism, and inclusive growth that resonate with Kenya’s democratic aspirations and its desire for equitable partnerships.
However, while India’s soft power is strong its economic footprint remains modest compared to China’s. Its influence is therefore tempered by scale. Major Indian firms like Bharti Airtel and Tata Motors have made notable contributions in Kenya’s telecommunications and manufacturing sectors, yet they do not match the sheer volume of China’s infrastructure and connectivity projects. Despite China’s position as Kenya’s biggest trading partner, India remains a significant partner with a more balanced economic engagement. China brings substantial investments in railways, ports, energy as well as industrial and technological cooperation. Through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has become Kenya’s largest bilateral financier, funding megaprojects like the Mombasa-Nairobi-Naivasha standard gauge railway, the Lamu Port, the Garissa Solar Power Plant and the Olkaria IV geothermal power plant, among others. China also demonstrated its global leadership through initiatives such as relinquishing its special trade privileges at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a gesture praised by Kenya and other developing nations as a step toward fairer global trade rules.
Broadly, China’s emphasis on sovereignty and non-interference aligns with Kenya’s desire to avoid conditionalities and external meddling. This approach was evident in 2013, when China maintained a position of non-interference in Kenya’s electoral process – contrasting with the US warning that “choices have consequences”, expressing their concerns over the candidacy of Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, both of whom were under International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment for post-election violence in 2007-2008. Therefore, China’s material dominance does not automatically translate into ideational leadership as it sometimes falls short on moral authority, particularly on issues of government accountability.
Nonetheless, Kenya’s foreign policy strategy today is rooted in maximising agency rather than choosing sides in global or regional rivalries. President William Ruto has repeatedly urged African nations to avoid becoming pawns in great power competition, famously stating that “Kenya is not facing East or West, but forward, toward opportunity”. The same principle will likely continue guiding Kenya’s approach to the rivalry between India and China for influence in the Global South. By maintaining strong ties with both regional powers, Kenya seeks to diversify its partnerships, reduce dependency and enhance its bargaining power. This strategy of poly-alignment reflects a broader African stance – welcoming competition but resisting alignment.
Kenya has been active in promoting South-South cooperation through institutional partnerships and regional organisations like the East Africa Community (EAC), the African Union (AU) and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) where African countries exercise strategic autonomy and resist the instrumentalisation of the Global South agenda. It was among 11 African countries that contributed to the first African South-South cooperation report in 2019 to promote regional political dialogue and key policy and institutional aspects to enable South-South cooperation in Africa. It has also taken initiative to position itself as a regional leader in climate governance and multilateral reform, notably by hosting the Africa Climate Summit and championing the Nairobi Declaration, which calls for equitable climate finance and green industrialisation.
This underscores the view that leadership derives not from size, but from action and that every country – regardless of power or scale – has a role to play. For Kenya, therefore, the Global South is not a bloc to be led, but a network of sovereign states capable of collective action when united by common goals.
Nonetheless, there is still ambivalence in African countries about the modalities and the intentions of these two major Global South players. It may well be that South-South cooperation as a framework is more important for China and India than it is for African policymakers.
While South-South cooperation has been particularly instrumental in pushing back against Global North overreach, Kenya and other African countries may not necessarily wish to jeopardise their broader trade and investment partnerships, which remain critical for economic growth. Indeed, Kenya has been reluctant to emphasise South-South cooperation in exclusionary terms, preferring instead to maintain close partnerships with the Global North as integral components of its development and economic agenda. The former Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Amollo Odinga, noted that countries of the South are beginning to exchange and transfer technology among themselves but said that “this cannot be to the exclusion of cooperation with the countries of the North, because this globe is one and therefore triangular cooperation is what we are now calling for”.