Inclusive globalization or old wine in a new bottle? China-led globalization in sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT

This article questions whether China’s economic initiatives lead to ‘inclusive globalization’ or tend to sustain the distributional inequalities of neoliberal globalization in the context of sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that many considerations, including China’s so-called ‘no strings attached’ policy and lending behaviour, unfavourable trade relations, concentration of Chinese investments in a few sectors, and limited technology and knowledge transfer, cast doubt on the realization of inclusive globalization. Even though economic relations with China may foster economic growth and provide short-term relief to the poor, which is also conditioned by the recipient countries’ degree of state capacity, it is questionable to what degree these relations lead to sustainable pro-poor development. No matter what the underlying political economy explanation is (China’s motivations and approach to globalization, weak state capacities in sub-Saharan Africa, structural impediments to development), it is misleading to conclude that China-driven economic globalization is inclusive.

KEYWORDS:

• China-led globalization
• neoliberal globalization
• inclusive globalization
• pro-poor development
• inclusive development
• sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the three anonymous referees of Globalizations for their valuable and constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See, for instance, Liu et al. (2018) and Liu and Dunford (2016).

2 See, for instance, van der Merwe (2019).

3 Ziso (2018) and Jepson (2020) offer perspectives on state capacity.

4 There is no single form of neoliberalism, i.e. the Chicago school, German ordoliberalism, Austrian school, Washington vs. post-Washington consensus, etc. Notwithstanding the differences, neoliberalism ‘has been purposively promoted and championed by individual states, transnational corporations and key international organizations [ …] all driven by a belief in the benefits of free markets and free trade’ (Martin et al., 2018, p. 4).

5 China is the exception, with both decline in the poverty rate and absolute numbers of the poor. Nevertheless, even though a massive reduction of poverty in China is associated with neoliberal globalization (Bishop & Payne, 2021, p. 5), some of China’s development policies implemented since 1978 are at odds with the fundamental principles of neoliberalism, sharing similarities with the East Asian developmental state model (Beeson, 2009).

6 For a thorough political economy critique of neoliberalism, see, for instance, Bruff and Tansel (2019).

7 For resistance by civil society organizations and citizens to neoliberal development practices, for instance, see Carroll and Jarvis (2015).

8 For a critique of MDGs, see Weber (2015).

9 See, for instance, Liu et al. (2020).

10 Although it does not change the overall conclusion, we should highlight that local actors also play a role in these adverse consequences (Shen, 2020, p. 9).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stepan Verkhovets

Stepan Verkhovets is a PhD student at Bilkent University, International Relations Department. He got his MA from the Department of International Relations, Kadir Has University. His research interests include international political economy, emerging powers, and political economy of development.

H. Emrah Karaoğuz

H. Emrah Karaoğuz, Dr, is an assistant professor at Kadir Has University, International Relations Department. His research is mainly on international/comparative political economy, political economy of development, and technological nationalism. His articles have appeared in Third World Quarterly, Turkish Studies and Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies among others.