Kenya’s recent engagement with China highlights how African countries can secure tailored investments while navigating global trade uncertainties.
President William Ruto’s state visit to China from April 22 to 26 marked a significant step in Kenya’s pursuit of deepened commercial and strategic ties with Beijing, as global trade patterns shift under U.S. protectionist policies. His visit – the first by an African head of state to China since the ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC 9) in September 2024, where China and Africa declared the first “all-weather community with a shared future” for an entire continent – reflects Nairobi’s bid to assert agency in a multipolar world.
Since taking office in September 2022, Ruto has traveled to China each year. During this latest visit, Ruto and President Xi Jinping upgraded their nations’ relationship to a “China-Kenya Community with a Shared Future for the New Era,” placing Kenya among a select group of African states – alongside South Africa and Ethiopia – with top-tier bilateral ties with China.
This elevation of ties is more than symbolic; it creates a foundation for robust and ambitious cooperation and signals the potential for Kenya to act as an inspiration for African development partnerships in an uncertain world.
In a way, this is to be expected – it is wholly in line with Kenya’s engagement with China to date. Kenya was one of the first African countries to formally sign up to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2017 and has already realized landmark infrastructure projects in cooperation with China, like the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and the Nairobi Expressway. Building on these successes, during Ruto’s latest visit, the two countries finalized deals for the SGR’s extension from Naivasha to Malaba and the dualing of the Nairobi-Nakuru-Mau Summit-Malaba highway. These infrastructure projects aim to boost Kenya’s position as a regional logistics hub and enhance export competitiveness by cutting transit times across the Northern Corridor.
Notably, to finance these projects, China and Kenya agreed on a blended model: 30 percent of funding will come from the Kenyan government, 40 percent from a public-private partnership between Chinese and Kenyan banks, and 30 percent as a concessional Chinese loan. This reflects a growing preference for diversified financing amid concerns over sovereign debt exposure from other creditors to African countries as well as – to a degree – Chinese lenders themselves.
Infrastructure is just one facet of China-Kenya cooperation. Ruto’s visit also resulted in a $1 billion cooperation package aligned with Kenya’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda. Of this, $320 million is expected to target manufacturing, $430 million to support agribusiness, and $230 million will be directed toward tourism infrastructure.
These strategic alignments show the importance of African nations embedding their national priorities into state visits. As we at Development Reimagined always advise, successful diplomacy with China hinges on clearly articulated national goals. If you don’t ask, you don’t receive.
Some commentators have cast this visit as a “symbolic win” for Beijing, suggesting its origins lie in Nairobi’s mounting frustration with Washington. But this not only de-centers Kenya’s agency in undertaking the state visit, but is also an overly antagonistic interpretation of Kenya’s foreign policy position.
The fact is, and as he stated in a speech at Peking University during the Beijing visit, Ruto wasted no time engaging the United States after taking office. That said, progress has been slow. To date, for instance, Kenya has held eight rounds of bilateral Strategic Trade and Investment Partnership (STIP) talks with the United States, with little to show for it. Now, with the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) renewal fading amid the Trump administration’s escalating levies, most, if not all African countries are unclear about the direction of their relationship with Washington.
Kenya is not taking this lightly. Reportedly, a U.S. delegation is expected in Nairobi this week, to discuss the removal of the 10 percent tariff. In his Peking University speech, Ruto pushed back against the new tariffs, framing them as unjustified and incompatible with the post-World War II growth of global services trade. He emphasized how American firms have benefited from Kenya’s open markets and services sector, arguing for fairer trade terms.
Still, engaging China does not require conflict with the United States. For Kenya, building ties with Beijing is about maximizing benefits and resilience. Kenya’s exports to China – valued at over $200 million – are already triple those to the U.S., although trade remains imbalanced. For every 1 yuan of exports to China, Kenya imports 13 yuan worth of goods from China. With a fairly low-level of natural resources, Kenya remains a low 33rd among African exporters to China. Additionally, as a middle-income country, Kenya does not qualify for China’s 100 percent duty-free trade scheme for least developed countries.
Hence, Ruto’s visit offered hope for improved market access. The president inaugurated the Kenya Tea Trade Center in Fujian, signaling a push to grow China-bound exports. Currently, China is only the 10th largest market for Kenyan tea, despite being the world’s top tea consumer. A new Framework Agreement on Economic Partnership for Shared Development also promises greater access for Kenyan tea, coffee, avocado, and macadamia, and may lay the groundwork for a longer-term preferential trade agreement.
Long-term success, however, depends on Kenya – and Africa more broadly – moving up the value chain into processed and industrial goods. Private sector collaboration is essential. Business deals signed during the Kenya-China Private Sector Roundtable included a $50 million smart traffic systems factory in Murang’a and a $30 million poultry and feed plant in Kajiado.
Ruto also toured the headquarters of CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, signaling Kenya’s ambitions in renewable energy and battery storage. With its solar and wind potential, Kenya is positioning itself as an attractive site for low-cost green industrialization and supply chain diversification worldwide, including for reshoring Chinese firms hedging against Western trade barriers.
As the global order becomes more fragmented, there is no doubt that state visits like Ruto’s will be increasingly scrutinized through a geopolitical lens. But reading them as “tilts” toward China or the U.S. misses the point. Ruto’s approach reflects strategic non-alignment – pursuing national interests by engaging all partners based on clearly defined development goals.