The Causes and Effects of Chinese Investment in Africa

China’s engagement in Africa represents a radical departure from the modem paradigm of development. To the West, it represents a threat to the “Washington Consensus” and the accepted aid paradigm, but to African countries, the Chinese are providing much desired investment. Due to a paucity of information on this subject, this research aims to consolidate perspectives on this type of investment and identify factors leading to as well as the possible effects of the China-Africa relationship. This is accomplished by contextualizing the China-Africa relationship within a wider discourse on development, and then separating African countries on the basis of total GDP and human development, determining China’s behavior to each of these subsets in regards to aid and investment. This study found no significant variation in Chinese involvement in these subsets, barring the unique relationship of small island nations with China. This study encourages a reconceptualization of the West\u27s perception of the China-Africa relationship and finds China’s involvement in Africa is, firstly, not as focused on resource extraction as previously thought, and secondly, that non-market factors play an important role in China’s relationship with individual African countries

What is FOCAC? Three historic stages in the China-Africa relationship

The FOCAC partnership platform between China and Africa has produced increasingly deep and complex relations between regions. Africa has benefited from significant investments and China has developed extensive soft power. In its 22nd year, Shirley Ze Yu looks at four stages in FOCAC’s evolution and how they shaped the China-Africa relationship today

Working Paper 124 - Post-Crisis Prospects for China-Africa Relations

China’s rapid growth has transformed its relationship with Africa. Industrialization has boosted China’s import demand for oil and minerals (e.g. iron ore, bauxite, nickel, copper), which Africa can satisfy. China is now Africa’s third largest trading partner and the Chinese governments going global strategy encouraged Chinese companies to become multinationals. The China-Africa relationship could be described as “commodities-for-infrastructure”, although a shift to broader cooperation on development is now evident. This paper discusses how China’s relationship with Africa is contributing to its overall development and emphasizes the central role of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). The principal conclusion is that while China is likely to remain engaged with Africa in the medium term, to reap the full benefits, African countries need to transform this engagement into additional development opportunities.

Working Paper 125 - China and Africa: An Emerging Partnership for Development? - An Overview of Issues

China’s phenomenal growth offers an opportunity to boost development in African countries. Moreover, China’s loans and concessional assistance financed a wide range of development projects. China also is reaping significant benefits from this relationship, through access to raw materials, expanded markets for exports of manufactures, the establishment of investment relationships which could generate significant profits over time and diplomatic influence. But leadership from African governments, particularly to strengthen domestic policies and governance and to harmonize regional policies so as to improve the continent’s bargaining position with China, are required to ensure that the China-Africa relationship contributes to sustainable growth and poverty reduction. The twin goals of this paper are to summarizes the analysis on the economic exchange between China and Africa, and to outline policy recommendations to improve the benefits to both parties.

FOCAC at 21: future trajectories of China-Africa relations

The China-Africa relationship has continued to evolve over the last years. In light of the 8th Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) that will take place later in 2021, the latest report from LSE IDEAS China Foresight brings together an international team of experts to shed light on emerging and consolidated areas of engagement between China and Africa that will likely shape the relationship in the years to come

APC Communiqué

This is the archive of the fall 2012 APC communiqué, a bi-annual newsletter, which has a special report on Ambassador Zhong Jianhua's visit entitled "China’s Africa Envoy discusses China-Africa relations

China-Africa’s Emerging Economic Links: A review under the Core-Periphery perspective

This essay has explored the validity of Marxist dependency theories in the context of the emerging China-Africa trade and economic relations. Whereas dependency theory assumes that economic domination runs across north-south geoeconomic patterns, this discussion has shown that the China-Africa economic links represent a distinct south-south dialectic occurring in an emerging new global economic configuration marked by a technology gap. Therefore, the discussion fails to support the idea that China’s involvement in Africa is of a conventional center-periphery type; which suggests the existence of nonexploitative, tough dependent, trade features. This dependence implies that external factors and decisions (included those related to China) also determine the real level of development in the Africa. Also worth mentioning is that for the first time Africa is drastically shifting its trade pattern away from its colonial framework: it too is becoming linked to a rapidly changing economy. Such a shift means that China’s own constant economic and social structural changes make it easy for Africa to adjust to the emerging new global economic order. At the same time, the China-Africa relationship is marked by unavoidable dialectic tensions like labor and competition issues. Even though synergies can be created by considering China’s legitimate interests in Africa and Africa’s own legitimate rights, no matter how well-intentioned China is, Africa must still generate its own technological capacities and rid itself of its legendary rampant corruption. Thus, both sides must admit that there will be no long-run benefit unless each contributes to the emergence of a new economic configuration that is deeply rooted not in mutual but in common or joint interests.China; Africa; Dependency theories; Economic Development; Globalization

Editorial: China’s impacts on Africa’s development

Much has been made of China’s economic ascendency in Africa, most notably its overtaking of the US in 2009 to become the continent’s largest trading partner. Beyond trade, the broader contours of Chinese loans, export credits, investment, and aid have changed Africa’s economic landscape since 2000 when the first Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) meetings were held. In the extensive discussions – in government meetings, the media, public fora, and academic settings – that have ensued, China has been portrayed in distinctly contrasting terms; on the one hand, as a responsible partner of the global south, creating new markets for African products and supplying affordable goods to African consumers, while on the other as a rapacious superpower plundering the continent’s resources and flooding its markets with cheap manufactures that further undermine local production. Consequently, the impacts of China on African economies and Africa’s development have become one of the most controversial topics in the wider and rapidly expanding field of Sino-African relations

South African International Relations (Ir) and the China-Africa relationship: a critical reflection

South African International Relations (IR) is a prominent source of China-Africa research and analysis, producing reports, journal articles and books that seek to illuminate the emerging relationship between China and Africa. It plays an important role in the framing of the relationship, as well as how it is perceived outside of the discipline. However, critical concerns have been raised about the context within which South African IR operates. It is therefore important that IR research, including its assumptions, dominant concepts, professed values and aspirations to studying the China-Africa relationship, be critically examined. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to critical thinking in South African IR by opening up for future discussion the new directions and possibilities for China-Africa IR. Utilising a critique located in Critical International Relations Theory (CIRT), this thesis critically reflects upon both the context of South African IR’s China-Africa research and the perspectives it has produced. The thesis argues that in spite of many descriptive and empirical studies, China- Africa research is theoretically underdeveloped in South African IR. Further, it argues that theoretical work is marginalised despite the fact that both historical and contemporary research relies on concepts drawn from IR theory. South African IR’s focus on policy relevance is advanced as a reason for the prevalence of theoretical underdevelopment. This thesis concludes by reviewing arguments for the improved use of IR theory in China-Africa IR, which will lead to a better understanding of this important relationship

Sino-African Philosophy: A Re-“Constructive Engagement”

“Constructive-Engagement” is a meta-philosophical and meta-methodological “strategy” suggested by Chinese and comparative philosophy scholar Bo Mou for analyzing and enriching philosophical exchange. In this paper, I will use this strategy towards an end, on a scale, and with a topic not attempted before. I will use it as a “template” for redesigning a poorly developing area of cross-cultural comparison I call Sino-African reflective studies (SARS). My goal in this work-in-progress is to design a plan for reconstituting SARS as Sino-African philosophy (SAP), an inclusive yet coherent field of research and innovation unified through organizing principles. I will design the overhaul of SARS in three stages. First, by surveying SARS for its basic features including its structural flaws. Second, by remapping SARS in line with “renovation” principles drawn from its literature. Third, by blueprinting SARS in line with “construction” principles theorized from the constructive-engagement strategy (CES)