Diploma serves diplomacy: China's 'donor logic' in educational aid

China’s engagement in Africa is an increasing popular topic in 21st century. However there are not much attention have been paid in the field of education and little evidence can be seen about what actually happens on the ground. This paper aims to explore China’s educational aid in Africa, from both textual and fieldwork resources. It will focus on three parts: firstly, the existing arguments about donor logics and China’s aid logic of building a reciprocal relationship; secondly, an argument that China's donor logic might be informed by producing soft power through the ‘public diplomacy’; thirdly, a discussion of people’s perception collected in Tanzania. The paper will take China’s main educational approach, the Government Scholarship Scheme as an example, and look at how this educational practice has been processed in a ‘diplomatic’ way. It is concluded that China’s logic in educational aid and its features in practice, different from the texts and practice of traditional donors, could be explained by the diplomatic reasons. It may enlarge the understanding of ‘soft power’ within broader conceptions under the contemporary global political economy