China's role in Africa: a growing phenomenon.

• Author: Sperbee, Elizabeth
• Position: 'China into Africa: Trade, Aid and Influence' - Book review

China into Africa: Trade, Aid and Influence

Robert I. Rotberg (ed.)

(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 317 pages.

Since the mid-1990s, China has rapidly expanded its engagement with African states. Study of Sino-African relations has subsequently begun to burgeon. In China into Africa: Trade, Aid and Influence, Robert Rotberg's multinational slate of authors introduce key issues in this literature from a variety of perspectives. The result is a volume worth reading cover to cover. A sometimes redundant, sometimes contradictory assemblage, China into Africa nevertheless provides a fascinating introduction not only to a variety of issues at stake in Sino-African relations, but also, necessarily, to the issues at stake in the study of those relations.

China's commercial ties to Africa date back to the 9th century, its more recent history in the region includes support for African anti-colonial movements and subsequent development assistance. Yet, as World Bank economist Harry Broadman notes in his contribution to China Into Africa, "it is the current scale and pace of China's trade and investment flows with Africa that are unprecedented." Indeed, between 2001 and 2007, Sino-African trade mushroomed from $8.92 billion to a reported $73 billion. China scholar Elizabeth Economy observed in testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs that this pace has left "both sides--not to mention the test of the world ...struggling to understand the new rules of engagement." (1)

The stakes are high. From access to markets and natural resources--including potentially significant new oil reserves--to refutations of Western models of sovereignty, good governance and human rights, China's recent relations with many African states emblemize its nontraditional approach to development in an evolving international system. China's general policy of "non-interference" in the internal affairs of African states stands in sharp contrast to Western-led traditions, including conditional development aid and the use of sanctions to shape governance. Drawing on principles articulated at the Bandung Conference in 1955, Beijing's steadfast assertion of the inviolability of African state sovereignty has facilitated its ties with leaders of African states. Its position is further enhanced by China's insistence that its citizens live at local living standards while working in Africa, as well as its vast array of diplomatic...