China-Africa Relations: What Lies Beneath?

Abstract

China’s involvement in Africa has caused much debate. The increasing presence in Africa has drawn mixed reactions from the academic and media platforms. It has been argued that China is sapping Africa’s manufacturing potential and also extracting Africa’s resources without any significant benefits to Africa. Thus China is seen as a contributor to Africa’s underdevelopment and deindustrialization. However, some have seen China as Africa’s partner for development. They see China’s presence in Africa as beneficial to China and Africa. As a result, there is no settled opinion as to whether China’s increasing presence in Africa is sustainable to Africa or whether the relationship is unsustainable. Although the relations between China and Africa are widely covered in the media, empirically the area has been underresearched. This article, therefore, contributes to literature by surveying the major political and economic issues around the China-Africa relations. The article considers several issues relevant to the China-Africa relationship.

Keywords:

• Africa
• China
• economic relations
• political relations
• trade

Notes

It is believed that there were relations between China and Africa before 1950 but these relations were not formal. For instance, Richard Dowden dates African-Chinese relations to 1414 (Ndulo, 2012).

Lin (2014) notes that the choice of economic strategy determines the success or failure of a country’s economic development and this may also determine a country’s economic destiny.

In China, exports are a significant driver of economic growth (Das, 2012) and Africa should adopt the Chinese export-led model to promote economic growth and development.

China even issued an angry reaction to news that the U.S. President, Barack Obama, would meet with the Dalai Lama in the United States (VOA, 2014).

A South African court ruled that the South African government deliberately delayed a decision to grant the Dalai Lama a visa.

Mutambara (2013b) maintains that the Africa-centerd critique against the Chinese in Africa are genuine critiques because they come from the African people.

However, some of them have been seen to side with China and entered into secret agreements with the Chinese companies (Gadzala & Hanusch, 2010).