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Stronger government-to-government relations between Africa and China in the first two decades of the twenty-first century have led to an increasing presence of African travellers at Chinese border check points. This is a novel situation involving cross-linguistic and cross-cultural communication dynamics that we need to understand from different research perspectives: linguistic, socio-economic, and legal, among others. Academic studies are already detailing some misunderstandings between Chinese customs, immigration and public security officials and African travellers and immigrants, who are clearly a visible minority group, both at border check points and in the wider Chinese communities (; ; ). A number of questions may be asked towards understanding the cross-cultural dynamics involved in this novel situation. What are Chinese immigration and customs officials' experiences with African travellers and how do they see and handle this visible minority ethnic group? What are, in turn, African experiences with Chinese immigration, customs, and public security, officials both at border check points and in the wider Chinese communities in places like mainland China and Hong Kong? To answer these questions, a profile of the most frequent African visitors to Hong Kong and China is constructed, based on research among Africans in China, particularly Guangzhou. An outline is then made of what Africans think of Chinese customs and immigration officials as a whole, what kind of treatment they expect on arrival in China and how they prepare for it. It is then claimed that the most fundamental issue that causes friction, unhappiness and sometimes lack of cooperation from African travellers at immigration and customs check points in Hong Kong and other places in China is not so much due to linguistic and cultural misunderstanding as it is due to stereotyping and, in extreme cases, (un)conscious racial profiling. Finally, it is proposed that the best way for Hong Kong and other Chinese customs personnel to serve African immigrants is to apply immigration rules using systematically fair, just and colour-blind strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standing on the cusp of a global transition from a Western-dominated world to one experiencing the effects of the "economic renaissance of East Asia," as Giovanni Arrighi calls it, Ngũgĩ's wa Thiong'o's 2006 novel Wizard of the Crow reiterates the author's well-known critique of neocolonialism but also, perhaps more importantly, registers the growing presence of Asia in Africa and offers a thought-provoking consideration of the meaning of that presence in an era of global capital. Though commonly identified as a "dictator novel," Wizard is only partly about "The Ruler" of the fictional African nation of Aburĩria. Through the titular character, Ngũgĩ develops a narrative that explores the opportunities and dangers of embracing the paths of modernization marked out by the advancing economic powers of East Asia. This paper analyzes that narrative, focusing in particular on the thematic and formal elements that reflect and are relevant to China's all-important ambitions in Africa and its core policy of offering aid "without political conditions." These issues ultimately involve the novel in contemporary debates specific to the China-in-Africa phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article surveys recent literature on Africa and International Relations (IR) and reviews the current place of Africa within the discipline. It notes that critical debates continue around claims of a mismatch between Africa and 'mainstream' IR theories and concepts. However, alongside this set of issues, there is in fact a burgeoning literature on many aspects of Africa's international relations. While some of these studies utilize existing IR theories, and others explore empirical cases that could deliver important lessons for the wider discipline, much of this promise goes unfulfilled. The article reviews literature on China's role and on HIV/AIDS governance in Africa to illustrate how the study of African international relations, the wider IR discipline and international policy could all benefit from a closer engagement between Africa and IR. The article concludes by setting out three challenges for a renewed agenda: a need to address the problematic relationship between universal analytical concepts and regional particularities; a need to give recognition to, and analyse, African agency in international politics; and a need to address inequalities in knowledge production in the field of Africa's international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese and Chinese governmental initiatives in Africa since the 1990s have cast a spotlight on the nature of their respective interests and objectives on the continent. In particular, the speed with which China has advanced in Africa has led to observations in the English-language academic literature and media that China and Japan are engaged in a rivalry for resources, power and influence in Africa, and that Japan has been working hard to ‘catch up’ with China. This article questions this ‘strategic rivalry’ view by examining Japanese and Chinese academic studies of each other's activities in Africa and outlining the main themes of Japan's China-in-Africa discourse, and China's Japan-in-Africa discourse. It suggests that there appears to be less interest and anxiety in Japan about China's activities in Africa than some assessments infer, and that, by contrast, China's Japan-in-Africa discourse shows a greater interest in, and in some cases suspicions of, Japan's objectives in Africa. The article also discusses the seemingly distant prospects for cooperation between China and Japan in Africa, in light of these respective discourses, while considering the tentative steps towards coordination in the form of such initiatives as the ‘Trilateral Consultation’ between China, Japan and South Korea and the development of new academic networks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

British reactions to China's increasing engagement with Africa in recent years have been manifested in particularly negative and reductive ways tending to depict China's presence in Africa as destructive and self-serving, in contrast to Britain's more enlightened, supportive approach. However, more recently official discourse has begun to stress the shared outlook between British and Chinese objectives, emphasising Chinese moves towards a more constructive, development-focused approach in Africa. This article discusses the ways in which China in Africa is viewed in British political circles and assesses the degree to which such views resonate with the British sense of its own idealised identity. It suggests that the two narratives represent two sides of a dual ‘liberal’ approach to the problem of ‘non-liberal’ actors in international politics: first the tendency to reject and see them as outside the international order; and second the attempt to rehabilitate them and bring them within it. The article concludes by exploring a number of reasons for the particular ways in which Britain, China and Africa are configured, arguing that this dual conception represents a sense of ambiguity about the potential universality of liberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the implications of the Chinese government's increasing engagement in Africa on the European Union's (EU) position as an established actor in the continent. It recalls the importance of the creation of the European Community (EC) since it enables EU to extend its geopolitical reach in the continent. However, it also mentions the Chinese government's effort to increase its activities in Africa, prompting EU to redefine the nature of its partnership with the continent.

Our analysis sets out to explain the relationship between economic growth and political freedoms within the context of Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy. The images of China as a rising military power with a growing economy have drawn attention away from the degree to which democratic values and norms have been marginalized in China. The existing literature has typically focused on an increasingly competitive economic globalization that has placed China among the emerging powers of the twenty-first century. The issue of China's surging power is ripe for more probing and systematic analysis. This study contextualizes China's policy toward developing countries, with a special focus on Tibet and Africa, in order to better understand its ramifications for human rights conditions there. What is at stake here is that China's developmental path, which privileges economic growth over political freedoms, is likely to create incentives for states struggling in their transition toward democracy to rely on autocratic styles of development. The international community should insist that Chinese leaders respect the rule of law, democratic principles, and judicial reform. Failure to understand economic tradeoffs and their political dynamics will have profound consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a research project on the expanding and deepening economic and political relations of China with countries in Africa. The project analyzed the effect of Chinese-African relations on transformations of conceptions and practices of state sovereignty. It also investigated the impact of the relations on South-South cooperation and the foreign policy process in China. In addition, the research project addressed the ethical considerations of the relations between the two countries.

China, in its quest for a closer strategic partnership with Africa, has increasingly dynamic economic, political and diplomatic activities on the continent. Chinese leaders and strategists believe that China's historical experience and vision of economic development resonates powerfully with African counterparts and that the long-standing history of friendly political linkages and development co-operation offers a durable foundation for future partnership. Both in China and amongst some Western commentators a form of exceptionalism and generalisation regarding both China and Africa has been emerging. In this article instead we seek to develop theoretical tools for examining China as a geopolitical and geoeconomic actor that is both different and similar to other industrial powers intervening in Africa. This is premised on a political economy approach that ties together material interests with a deconstruction of the discursive or 'extra-economic' ways by which Chinese capitalism internationalises. From there we use this framework to analyse contemporary Chinese engagement in Africa. We examine the changing historical position of Africa within Beijing's foreign policy strategy and China's vision of the evolving international political system, looking in particular at China's bilateral and state-centric approach to working with African 'partners'. Chinese practice is uncomfortable and unfamiliar with the notion of 'development' as an independent policy field of the kind that emerged among Western nations in the course of the 1950s and increasingly China has come to be viewed as a 'rogue creditor' and a threat to the international aid industry. Rather than highlighting one strand of Chinese relations with African states (such as aid or governance) we propose here that it is necessary to critically reflect on the wider geopolitics of China-Africa relations (past and present) in order to understand how China is opening up new 'choices' and altering the playing field for African development for the first time since the neo-liberal turn of the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government and its companies have dramatically increased their presence in Africa in the last decade. There has been much media interest and commentary on the impacts of this engagement on governance in Africa, as it is often seen to be strengthening authoritarian states, such Sudan and Zimbabwe.1 However, Chinese actors are also engaging with more democratic states and spaces, such as Zambia. This article seeks to explore the impacts of increased Chinese engagement with Africa on governance through a comparative case study of two contrasting cases: Sudan and Zambia, using the concept of flexigemony. Contrary to popular perception, behaviour by Chinese actors has sometimes been a moderating force in Sudan, while provoking violence in Zambia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the challenges faced by Beijing in managing this increasingly complex relationship, reflecting upon the structural factors that encourage harmony and introduce discord in China- Africa ties. It examines how various policy solutions being considered by China, ranging from increasing participants in the policy-making process to tentative engagement with international development regimes, may still not address the most difficult issues involving adverse reactions to the Chinese presence from African civil societies and political opposition groups. In particular the lack of a strong civil society inside China inhibits the ability of its policy makers to draw on the expertise of the kind of independent pressure groups and NGOs that are available to traditional donor/ investor states. The article concludes by asking how the Chinese system can make up for these weaknesses without moving further towards the existing models and practices of the developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The forces of Chinese resource diplomacy get integrated into the lived African landscape via the experiences locals have with Chinese and 'Chineseness' (however it is defined) in their day-to-day lives. The possibilities for their integration are somewhat constrained by both history and the conditions of the present, such as the neoliberal tendencies of global interaction - just as earlier empires had been shaped by the industrial revolution and embedded liberalism in the last two centuries. The spectacle of the Olympics eases the way for China's entry into African worlds, with both Olympic prestige and the command of the money economy it indicates being worn as a badge of success. China is a new power-broker for African comprador classes, and the Olympics has served as a herald of their coming influence. It is inevitable that the Chinese will get much out of the deal, but what Africa will get is Chinese - they will forge into the crucible of Africa, African with Chinese characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents a response to the 2006 Chinese white paper "China's African Policy." He considers Chinese involvement as an actor in Africa's economic, environmental, and political spheres. China's policies have included debt forgiveness to 23 African nations and large sums of developmental aid which includes 13 billion dollars for Angola, 9 billion dollars for the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 2.5 billion dollars for Ethiopia. The article also discusses international security issues, single-party governments in Africa, the One-China principle, the use of Chinese emigrant labor in Africa, and China's relations with both the African Union and United Nations.

The discussion explores the validity of dependency theories in the context of the emerging China-Africa trade and economic relations. Whereas the advocates of dependent theories assume that economic domination runs across north-south geoeconomic patterns, this author has concluded that the China-Africa economic links represent a distinct south-south dialectic occurring in an emerging new global economic configuration marked by a technology gap Consequently, even though synergies can be created by considering legitimate interests of each party, no matter how well-intentioned China is, Africa must still generate its own technological capacities and rid itself of its socio-economic traps. Ultimately, there will be no long-run benefit unless each contributes to the emergence of a new economic configuration that is deeply rooted in common or joint interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China's economy continues to grow, it wants to expand its markets and secure reliable supplies of resources in support of its economic development. Resource diplomacy therefore becomes a prominent feature of its modernisation diplomacy. In turn, many African governments perceive political and economic ties with China to be an important asset, which strengthens their international bargaining power, especially vis-à-vis Western governments. African countries are also depicted as China's reliable, political and economic partners, though one can hardly afford to be optimistic regarding Africa's peace and development in the future. Many small African governments have been switching diplomatic recognition between Taipei and Beijing for economic assistance too. Chinese leaders have no intention of engaging in diplomatic and strategic competition with the USA and the European Union in Africa, but they certainly will not co-operate with Western governments in helping Africa because they want to push for multipolarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The good relations between China and Africa is due greatly to China's long-time construction of soft strength in Africa, including volunteer economic aid, fair and friendly foreign policy, attraction of Chinese culture and economic construction experience. In particular, from the beginning century, China and Africa has had more extensive cooperation and mutual trust in politics, China-Africa relationship to a new level. Besides, it is more important to maintain the relationship means of the soft strength construction in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of China's Year of Africa in 2006, China-Africa relations are currently the subject of unprecedented attention. However, although those relations are widely covered they are also under-researched. This article offers an introduction to China-Africa relations, covering background to the history and politics of Chinese involvement in the continent and identifying areas of further research. It concludes by calling for the study of China-Africa relations to develop a culture of serious research beyond current 'dragon in the bush' preoccupations and so engage a complex subject that is about to become a mainstream issue in African politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's expansion into Africa has attracted a great deal of criticism, particularly regarding its implications for human rights on the continent. However, the nub of the problem is found within Africa itself, within the neo-patrimonial regimes that dominate the continent. Obviously, there is justifiable disquiet that Beijing's Africa policies may undermine political and economic reform on the continent. Nevertheless, the reasons for Africa's current predicament are complex and erecting a potential scapegoat to blame for Africa's woes makes little sense. Before critiquing China's role in Africa vis-à-vis governance and human rights, analysts need to understand both China's particular human rights discourse and the nature of most African states, for it is here that the real problem lies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the research collaborations between Africa and China involving science and technology projects. It mentions the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) initiative launch by China in November 2009 funding 100 joint demonstration projects concerning technological and scientific research in 49 African countries. It adds that the trade between the Africa and China had increased by ten-fold since 2000.

Information about the conference "Sensitive Issues in Contemporary Sino-African Relations" is presented. The conference was sponsored by the Institute of West Asia and Africa and the Office of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and was held September 20-21, 2006. Topics discussed at the conference included relations between China and Africa, economic cooperation, and mutual political trust.

The article reports on the state visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to the 48 countries of Africa. His first trip to Africa came after the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which aims to double the aid to Africa and expand access for goods of low-income countries to China. Between the countries he visited, which China has diplomatic ties, include Cameroon, Liberia and Sudan. Discussions on each country's events during the president's visit are also presented.

This paper evaluates the extent to which China adapted its Africa policy to external criticism and expectations. It is found that policy modifications mainly occurred when long-term interests were at risk, with regard to issues of limited importance and non-binding initiatives. The article departs from the vast literature on adaptation and tests this concept on several aspects of Chinas engagement in Africa. This approach not only allows us to revise the PRCs changing Africa policy but also permits to contribute to the debate whether China is a status quo or revisionist power. In this regard, it turns out that Chinas ostensible compliance with the demands of other actors is designed to give leeway to its revisionist aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]