Africa in China in Africa in Global History: A Handbook

An investigation into what Julia Strauss called “historical and rhetorical lineages in China[’s] relations with Africa,” is of historiographical importance and great contemporary significance. In particular, the ways in which this older Afro-Asian solidarity discourse is used to legitimise more recent political, economic, and cultural connections between former “Third World” allies remains under-researched and underappreciated. The uniqueness of China-Africa relations in the socialist and post-socialist periods is reflected in its challenge to the “East/West” and the “North/South” divides. Therefore, an examination of China-Africa relations beyond the Cold War enables an understanding of the extent to which the Cold War itself was the key influence on the evolution of these enduring and complex relation- ships.

This chapter provides an overview of post-colonial Africa’s relations with the People’s Republic of China. The comparative approach of studying countries’ engagements with China reveals the structural differences in their domestic and foreign politics that were informed and shaped by the Cold War. The resulting contestation of power should not simply translate into foreign manipulation. Facing similar challenges of state-building and economic development, newly independent African nations approached, deepened, and negotiated their relations with China as they searched for ideological and material support. In this way, it hopes to contribute to the much-cited, but little explained concept of “African agency”.