While I was recuperating, the Asia Times ran a piece, "Confucianism at large in Africa," which considers the PRC's cultural diplomacy, via Confucius Institutes, in Africa. I liked this paragraph on the possible effects of these efforts:
see the Chinese effort as removed from the constant persuasion and suasion of
American or British allurement. We must see it instead as being driven by a
"ritual of solidarity", one that slowly induces an internalization of Chinese
relativism and thus makes recipients sentimentally predisposed to embracing
China rather than convinced of the logic in the mutual benefit of such
embrasure.
I think the author is assuming, at least in this one paragraph, that a Confucian logic is at work in the PRC's foreign policy, that the PRC government is trying to avoid the "Western" notions of interest and influence (which might relate to the notion of "profit" that classical Confucian texts critique so strongly). Instead, it would seem, the establishment of Confucius Institutes is meant to instill a human solidarity between nations, incalculable in terms of "profit" or "interest," that will redound to the ultimate benefit of PRC foreign policy.
It is not at all clear to me, however, that PRC foreign policy is designed or driven by Confucian principles. Indeed, I think PRC policy makers are much more "realist" than that. They, like virtually all modern state managers, calculate the PRC's national interest and they work instrumentally to maximize it – not a very Confucian way of proceeding at all. And we can see that logic at work elsewhere in the article, when it discusses MBA programs that link China and Africa. How much of the Analects and Mencius do you think they cover in MBA classes?
Now, don't get me wrong. I believe that Confucianism is applicable to modern Africa, just as it is applicable to the modern US. I just don't think that institutions that are part and parcel of the foreign policy operations of the PRC, or that work to reproduce capitalist business practices, are the best settings for thinking through how Confucianism might apply in Africa today. If it were possible for some of the best contemporary Chinese Confucian thinkers to travel to Africa and freely exchange views with interested people there, that would be best. But, given the reach of state power into Chinese colleges and universities, that sort of freedom is rather obviously constrained. But we can hope for the future…
The article reminds us, toward the end, of the on-going difficulties that Africans encounter in their relationships with the PRC:
to be experiencing an increasing mood of prejudice, even in China's more
cosmopolitan megacities. Even in Beijing, polls continually reveal a lack of
interest among the citizenry in learning more about Africa, with a recent one
conducted by China Youth Daily showing an interest level of only 18%. A recent
report indicated an alarming rate in Africans leaving Guangzhou's famed
Chocolate city because of a perceived heightening of racial tension.
This confusion about China's and the Chinese people's real feelings towards
Africa cannot be glossed over by the mass distribution of copious quantities of
selected Confucian texts through so-called Confucius institutes.
The Useless Tree 
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