ABSTRACT
No account of Africa’s external relations is complete without a substantive treatment of Africa-China relations. This chapter presents a critical assessment. Building on its limited relationship crafted during the Cold War, China – fired by its amazing economic success – laid the foundation of a broad framework of cooperation with African states during the 1990s. The past two decades witnessed spectacular progress in cementing cooperation covering institutional, political, security, economic and other domains. China’s success in summit diplomacy created a template that others have been motivated to follow, albeit with less impressive results. China’s Africa policy and its implementation has its admirers, critics and those who adopt a middle-of-the road approach. For China’s competitors, the pragmatic course open is to objectively evaluate her successes and setbacks in Africa and draw suitable conclusions for their own strategies, because China will remain a major player in Africa in the coming decades.
