Africa-watchers in China are closely following U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s first trip to the continent as Secretary of State. Blinken arrived in Kenya on Monday and will also travel to Nigeria and Senegal before heading back to Washington at the end of the week.

Not surprisingly, the latest U.S. outreach to Africa is largely being seen by Chinese scholars and journalists through the prism of current Sino-U.S. tensions. Even though neither the State Department nor the Secretary himself has said anything about China in relation to this trip, both He Wenping 贺文萍 from the Institute of West Asia and Africa at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences or Shu Yunguo 舒运国, honorary director of the Center for African Studies at Shanghai Normal University, both believe that the timing and choice of countries that Blinken will visit on this tour were influenced by China.