This book investigates the expanding involvement of China in security cooperation in Africa. Drawing on leading and emerging scholars in the field, the volume uses a combination of analytical insights and case studies to unpack the complexity of security challenges confronting China and the continent. It interrogates how security considerations impact upon the growing economic and social links China has developed with African states.
Beginning in earnest at the turn of the twenty-first century, China embarked on a robust multilevel engagement strategy with a number of African states on three simultaneous fronts--economic, political, and military. The push was predicated by Beijing's need to secure energy and natural resources to fuel its booming economy and bolster its position as the world's manufacturing hub. The depth of China's engagement cannot be understated, and its increasing stakes in the security dimension of Africa's myriad conflicts is affecting the geopolitical landscape of a continent that has been in the past an exclusive domain of the West. C hina in Africa examines the multifaceted effects of China's engagement with the continent, both its many risks and opportunities. It provides critical and relevant information for understanding the strategic drivers, trends, and the potential impact of China in Africa. The book covers Chinese soft and hard power, energy and arms relations, and China's relations with individual African countries: Angola, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Ultimately, this volume serves to assist in improving U.S. policymakers' understanding of China's role in Africa and ensure that appropriate measures are taken to secure American interests in the region. Contributors include Mauro De Lorenzo (American Enterprise Institute), Drew Thompson (Nixon Center), Wenran Jiang (University of Alberta), Paul Hare (U.S.-Angola Chamber of Commerce), Susan M. Puska (Defense Group, Inc.), Ian Taylor (University of St. Andrews), Chris Zambelis (Helios Global, Inc.), David Shinn (GeorgeWashington University), Joshua Eisenman (American Foreign Policy Council), Yitzhak Shichor (University of Haifa), Greg Mills and Christopher Thompson (Brenthurst Foundation), Andrew McGregor (Aberfoyle International), and John C. K. Daly (United Press International).
The geopolitical landscape of contemporary China-Africa relations has provoked wide media interest. After being conspicuously overlooked during the G8's purported 'Year of Africa', the topic generated wider debate in the build-up to the China-Africa Summit in Beijing in 2006. Despite this, China's deepening re-engagement with the African continent has been relatively neglected in academic and development policy circles. In particular, the concrete ways in which different Chinese actors are operating in different parts of Africa, their political dynamics and implications for African development as well as Western views of this phenomenon, have yet be explored in depth."China Returns to Africa" responds to this need by addressing the key issues in contemporary China-Africa relations. Taking its cue from the widely touted 'Chinese Scramble for Africa' and the accompanying claim of a 'new Chinese imperialism', the book moves beyond narrow media-driven concerns to offer one of the first far-ranging surveys of China's return to Africa, examining what this new relationship holds for diplomacy, trade and development.
This book examines China’s political, economic, and diplomatic engagement in Africa. The rapid increase of China’s economic and political involvement in Africa is the most momentous development on the continent of Africa since the beginning of the twenty-first century. China is now Africa’s largest trading partner and the largest infrastructure financier. Additionally, it is the fastest growing economy and source of foreign direct investment. This monograph seeks to understand the dynamics of the escalating Chinese investments in African economies and the political implications of this development for Africa. This work will interest scholars, students, academics, and policy makers on the fields of Chinese and African politics, development studies, and international political economy.
The book seeks to understand China's evolving political and economic role in Africa and assesses what impacts Chinese aid, trade and investment have on the politics of specific African countries, and the extent to which it excites geopolitical competition.
Examines Chinese engagement with African nations, focusing on (1) Chinese and African objectives in the political and economic spheres and how they work to achieve them, (2) African perceptions of Chinese engagement, (3) how China has adjusted its policies to accommodate African views, and (4) whether the United States and China are competing for influence, access, and resources in Africa and how they might cooperate in the region.
With the pace of trade and investment picking up, coupled with closer international cooperation with Beijing through the G20, FOCAC and BRICS grouping, South Africa-China ties are assuming a significant position in continental and even global affairs. At the same time, it is a relationship of paradoxes, breaking with many of the assumptions that underpin contemporary analyses of ‘China-Africa’ ties. This edited volume examines the South Africa-China relationship through a survey of its diplomatic partnership, economic ties, and broader community relations. These important aspects that are often conflated as a single relationship, yet what is important to explore are how these components reflect different China-South Africa relationship(s), and how they intersect.
China’s rise to power is one of the biggest questions in International Relations theory (IRT) and foreign policy circles. Although power has been a core concept of IRT for a long time, the faces and mechanisms of power as it relates to Chinese foreign policymaking has changed the contours of that debate. The rise of China and other powers across the global political arena sparks a new visibility for different kinds of encounters between states, particularly between China and other Global South states. These encounters are more visible to IR scholars because of the increasing influence that rising powers have in the international system. This book shows that foreign policy encounters between rising powers and Global South states do not necessarily exhibit the same logics, behaviors, or investment strategies of Euro-American hegemons. Instead, they have distinctive features that require new theoretical frameworks for analysis. Shaping the Future of Power probes the types of power mechanisms that build, diffuse, and project China’s power in Africa. One must take into account the processes of knowledge production, social capital formation, and skills transfers that Chinese foreign policy directs toward African states to fully understand China’s power-building mechanisms. The relational power framework requires these elements to capture both the material aspects and ideational people-centered aspects to power. By examining China’s investments in human resource development programs for Africa, the book reveals a vital, yet undertheorized, aspect of China’s foreign policy making.
"This book describes China's growing range of activities in Africa, especially in the sub-Saharan region. The three most important instruments China has at its disposal in Africa are development aid, investments and trade policy. The Chinese government, which believes the Western development aid model has failed, is looking for new forms of aid and development in Africa. China's economic success can partly be ascribed to the huge availability of cheap labour, which is primarily employed in export-oriented industries. China is looking for the required raw materials in Africa, and for new marketplaces. Investments are being made on a large scale in Africa by Chinese state-controlled firms and private companies, particularly in the oil-producing countries (Angola, Nigeria and Sudan) and countries rich in minerals (Zambia). Third, the trade policy China is conducting is analysed in China and compared with that of Europe and the United States. In case studies the specific situation in several African countries is examined. In Zambia the mining industry, construction and agriculture are described. One case study of Sudan deals with the political presence of China in Sudan and the extent to which Chinese arms suppliers contributed to the current crisis in Darfur. The possibility of Chinese diplomacy offering a solution in that conflict is discussed. The conclusion considers whether social responsibility can be expected of the Chinese government and companies and if this is desirable, and to what extent the Chinese model in Africa can act as an example - or not - for the West"--Publisher's description.
The book seeks to understand China's evolving political and economic role in Africa and assesses what impacts Chinese aid, trade and investment have on the politics of specific African countries, and the extent to which it excites geopolitical competition.
