What to Read: China in Africa

Winner Takes All: China’s Race for Resources and What it Means for the World

Dambisa Moyo (Basic Books) 2012

Commodities permeate virtually every aspect of modern daily living, but for all their importance—their breadth, their depth, their intricacies, and their central role in daily life—few people who are not economists or traders know how commodity markets work. Almost every day, newspaper headlines and media commentators scream warnings of impending doom–shortages of arable land, clashes over water, and political conflict as global demand for fossil fuels outstrips supply. The picture is bleak, but our grasp of the details and the macro shifts in commodities markets remain blurry.

Winner Take All is about the commodity dynamics that the world will face over the next several decades. In particular, it is about the implications of China’s rush for resources across all regions of the world. The scale of China’s resource campaign for hard commodities (metals and minerals) and soft commodities (timber and food) is among the largest in history. To be sure, China is not the first country to launch a global crusade to secure resources. From Britain’s transcontinental operations dating back to the end of the 16th century, to the rise of modern European and American transnational corporations between the mid 1860’s and 1870’s, the industrial revolution that powered these economies created a voracious demand for raw materials and created the need to go far beyond their native countries.

China in Africa: Partner, Competitor or Hegemon?

Chris Alden (Zed Books) 2007

Nowhere in the world is China’s rapid rise to power more evident than in Africa. From multi-billion dollar investments in oil and minerals to the influx of thousands of merchants, laborers and cheap consumer goods, China’s economic and political reach is redefining Africa’s traditional ties with the international community. This book investigates the emerging relationship between China and Africa to determine whether this engagement will be that of a development partner, economic competitor or new hegemony. Alden argues that in order to understand Chinese involvement on the continent, we need to recognize the range of economic, diplomatic and security rationales behind Beijing’s Africa policy as well as the response of African elites to China’s entreaties. Only then can the new challenges and opportunities for Africa and the West be accurately assessed.

China into Africa: Trade, Aid, and Influence

Robert I. Rotberg (Brookings Institution Press) 2008

Africa has long attracted China. We can date their first certain involvement from the fourteenth century, but East African city-states may have been trading with southern China even earlier. In the mid-twentieth century, Maoist China funded and educated sub-Saharan African anticolonial liberation movements and leaders, and the PRC then assisted new sub-Saharan nations. Africa and China are now immersed in their third and most transformative era of heavy engagement, one that promises to do more for economic growth and poverty alleviation than anything attempted by Western colonialism or international aid programs.Robert Rotberg and his Chinese, African, and other colleagues discuss this important trend and specify its likely implications. Among the specific topics tackled here are China’s interest in African oil; military and security relations; the influx and goals of Chinese aid to sub-Saharan Africa; human rights issues; and China’s overall strategy in the region.

China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa

Serge Michel, Michael Beuret (Nation Books) 2010

This title looks at the dramatic – and largely unknown – rise of China’s economic empire into Africa and how it will change the 21st century and impact America’s role in Africa. This is the dramatic – and largely unknown – story of the rise of China’s economic empire in Africa, and how it will transform geopolitics. China has now taken Britain’s place as Africa’s third largest business partner. Where others only see chaos, the Chinese see opportunities. With no colonial past and no political preconditions, China is bringing investment and needed infrastructure to a continent that has been largely ignored by Western companies or nations. Travelling from Beijing to Khartoum, Algiers to Brazzaville, the authors tell the story of China’s economic ventures in Africa. What they find is tantamount to a geopolitical earthquake: The possibility that China will help Africa direct its own fate and finally bring light to the so-called ‘dark continent’, making it a force to be reckoned with internationally.