In southern Mozambique where the Maputo River approaches the sea, an enormous suspension bridge stretches across the bay.
Soaring 150 metres overhead and running for three kilometres from the capital to its southern suburb, the Maputo–Katembe bridge is the longest suspension bridge on the African continent.
Costing an estimated $785 million (£577m), it became a source of pride for Mozambique.
Yet it is also a powerful symbol of growing Chinese influence.
For over a decade, China has been scaling up its influence across Africa as powers like Britain, traditionally among the biggest funders of aid as well as infrastructure projects on the continent, retreat.
Now this retreat is undermining Britain’s historic levers of soft power, damaging the UK’s reach and reputation across the continent, as China fills the gap.
How Britain is eroding its own influence
Britain has slashed funding for international aid in recent years, cutting resources for its key soft-power projects like the BBC World Service.
Britain is still investing millions in infrastructure projects including the redevelopment of trading ports in Nigeria, and a £48 million sustainable cities programme in countries including Zambia and Tanzania.
However, when it comes to aid, it is a different matter. UK aid hit its lowest level for nearly two decades last year, allocating just 0.43 per cent of national income in 2025, down from 0.5 per cent in 2024. That means that in real terms, £6bn is estimated to have been lost.
The government’s cuts risk severely undermining the UK’s soft power for decades to come, according to Sarah Champion MP, chair of the Parliamentary International Development Committee.
Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi inaugurates the Maputo-Katembe bridge in November 2018 in Maputo (Photo: Roberto Matchissa/AFP via Getty Images)Champion noted that the BBC World Service and the British Council, “two of Britain’s most powerful instruments of influence,” were facing “significant financial pressure.”
The World Service has been one of the UK’s most important cultural exports since the 1930s and a significant asset in terms of British prestige overseas.
Aid generally has traditionally been one of the UK’s strongest soft power tools, building long-term relationships, creating goodwill and giving the UK influence in international decision-making spaces, according to Shahin Ashraf, Head of Global Advocacy at Islamic Relief.
“When the UK funds health systems, education, or humanitarian responses, it’s not just helping people it’s also building trust and credibility with governments and communities,” Ashraf said. “That often translates into diplomatic influence and a stronger global voice. There is a real risk that this status will be lost over time.”
The cuts have been sudden, making the UK seem “unreliable” and eroding trust. “It’s not just about losing money it’s about losing confidence in the UK as a dependable partner, which is much harder to rebuild later,” Ashraf said.
Ryan Henson, CEO at the Coalition for Global Prosperity (CGP), said: “One of the great things about development is that it doesn’t just do development. It projects soft power.” He warned that the countries who suddenly lost aid felt “rightly betrayed”.
“Certainly, the influence that it’s taken the UK years and years to build up is being eroded,” he added.
British aid cuts were not only risking lives, but ensuring that “UK leadership as a development actor, and its standing in the world, has evaporated”, said Christian Aid’s Head of UK Advocacy, Jennifer Larbie.
China is moving into the gap
China, on the other hand, understands the importance of aid. Beijing has poured billions into funding on the continent – over the past year in particular – as other Western funds , namely from the US, dried up.
The Trump administration dramatically slashed its aid funding, closing down its development department – USAID – altogether last July.
China was quick to step into the gap. After sweeping UK and US cuts in 2025, Beijing announced in February that it would axe all tariffs on imports from Africa. China’s zero tariff policy for Africa would allow it “better access to minerals and resources, which means it can increase dominance over processing”, said Henson.
After US funding was paused for HIV programmes in South Africa last year, China stepped in with $3.5m (£2.6m) of funding. Henson said this was a “drop in the ocean” compared with the $400m (£295m) being put up by the US – but that China will “get the credit and the influence for it anyway”.
Meanwhile over the past year, China has drastically scaled up the global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) it launched in 2013.
South African Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi at the launch of a project on expanding HIV Prevention services in South Africa, funded by the China Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund, at the Chinese Embassy in Pretoria in November (Photo: Phill Magakoe / AFP)Under that scheme, China funded the Maputo-Katembe Bridge in Mozambique, as well as other major projects including 100,000km of road across Africa, and made enormous investments in clean energy. In contrast, the UK has now cut aid spending to Africa by half, with Mozambique expected to face reductions.
Last year, Beijing increased investments in Africa, with total BRI construction projects soaring 283 per cent to reach $61.2 billion (£45bn). Chinese investment in Africa stood at $42 billion(£31bn) in 2024 – the third biggest foreign investment body after the US and Europe.
China is using its trade and investments in Africa and elsewhere to increase its influence and present itself as an alternative to Western countries. Dr Patrick Schroder, a sustainability expert at Chatham House, who worked with Chinese NGOs on development, said: “China is not just using aid; it is increasingly using trade access, industrial policy, and supply-chain positioning to present itself as an alternative partner to the West.”
Schroder said that as the UK and others reduced their aid budget, China’s share of global development finance and co-operation “has certainly increased in relative terms”.
“This is less about China dramatically scaling up aid, and more about Western actors scaling down, which creates space for China to expand its visibility and partnerships. Scaling down aid, the West is losing much of its soft-power influence,” he added.
Henson said that research from the Coalition for Global Prosperity had found that “the political alignment between China and African nations increased by over 80 per cent between 2001 and 2018 – the same time as Chinese economic ties to Africa increased. At the same time, alignment between the US and African nations decreased by 8 per cent so clearly, it’s a trade-off.”
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst, MP and former British Army officer, said that “when Britain and its allies step back, China steps in”.
Shastri-Hurst warned that China’s end goal was a world order “more favourable to authoritarian interests and less anchored in the current international institutions and norms”, and that a “pullback by the UK and US is read in Beijing as a strategic opportunity”.
“Beijing understands that aid, development finance, and health support can all be used to build influence, secure leverage, and reshape the diplomatic environment in its favour,” he told The i Paper.
Champion said: “We already know that China poses a series of threats to UK national security and the last thing we should be doing is stepping back and leaving a vacuum to be filled by hostile states who do not share our values.”
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