China and Africa Rebooted: Globalization(s), Simplification(s), and Cross-cutting Dynamics in “South–South” Relations

Abstract

The relationship between and Africa in twenty-first century is a subject whose importance for contemporary globalization and development is only matched by entrenched disagreements on how to approach subject conceptually. Despite significant differences in disciplinary focus, methods, and analysis, all scholarship on relations between and Africa converges on notion that there has been a profound deepening, in both quality and quantity, of a range of China-Africa relations over past fifteen years. This deepening and thickening both augments and reflects a set of processes loosely called the Rise of China in a wider arc of neoliberal and post-neoliberal globalization, and has a set of profound and varied effects for Africa.This intensification of engagement has been most visible, and most commented on, in realms of public diplomacy and bilateral trade and economic relations. Both public diplomacy and trade are regularly promoted through FOCAC (the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation), which has a permanent secretariat, a readily accessible Web site that collects relevant official documents, and most notably has convened high-profile ministerial meetings with African states on a triannual basis since 2000. Not surprisingly, sudden increase in China-Africa trade and economic relations is a perennial topic of discussion within business and economic policymaking circles worldwide. There is now a much larger range of opportunities and competition in Africa than was case only a decade ago, largely as a result of China's involvement on continent. According to no less an authority than People's Daily (Cui Peng 2011), China-Africa trade has increased exponentially since 2000, with per annum increases of 28 percent, culminating in China's Africa's largest trade partner in 2011. This information, released as a bland official statement, refers to a welter of economic and political engagements over this time period: high profile deals in sectors as different as oil, mining, and agriculture have been concluded between Chinese and African governments. Meanwhile, under FOCAC umbrella, Chinese government has announced a large number of initiatives for aid, economic cooperation, education, training, and technology transfer. And finally, even most casual visitors to Africa are often struck by Chinese presence, reflected in everything from logos that announce major tranches of Chinese investment in basic infrastructure of Africa to Chinese characters on signs of small mom-and-pop convenience stores at crossroads of small settlements in rural parts of continent.Although ways in which is changing surface of Africa are visible and concrete (new roads, new shops, new stadiums, new signs), there is little agreement about what these changes signify underneath shiny new exterior. The official Chinese narrative is one that dominates even in private circles among Chinese. It robustly, even dogmatically, insists that this transformation of Africa is all to good. In so doing, this rhetoric of falls back on a discourse of a half century that doggedly insists on a set of unchanging principles (often obliquely juxtaposed against those of West): political equality and noninterference; nonconditionality of aid and investment; long-standing friendship with other developing nations of world. In this conception, is a nation with a long history of shared underdevelopment and friendship in common with Africa; from revolutionary Maoist period to present, it has taken moral high road in always refusing to interfere in domestic affairs of other sovereign nations. Now that is well on route to becoming a well-off country and working its way out of underdevelopment, it is in a position to help Africa through extending nonconditional loans on basis of win-win results and mutual benefit. …