Introduction

In the late autumn of 2006 heads of states from 41 African countries and representatives of two dozen international organisations met with their Chinese counterparts for a three-day summit in Beijing to discuss the future of China-Africa relations. This summit, the third so-called Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) marked the end of China’s ‘year of Africa’ and as such it was used to mark Beijing’s strategic ties with Africa. More importantly, however, it – intended or unintended – came to mark a new beginning of South-South Collaboration (SSC) as well as a break with North-dominated development.