Colonial Patterns in the Growing Africa and China Interaction: Dependency and Trade Intensity Perspectives.

The present paper presents a hypothetical endeavour on the claim that China is a particularly rapacious neocolonialist in its interactions with individual African countries. Taking a trade-dependency perspective and using trade composition and relative trade intensity analysis, the most salient finding is that ten African countries (Angola, the Sudan, the D.R. Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Chad, Zambia, Mauritania, the Central African Republic, and Equatorial Guinea) have a high relative trade intensity index with respect to China, implying that they are now locked into a relationship of dependency on China. Given the lack of a commonly accepted or an entirely consistent definition of colonialism, this trade dependency could be seen by some critics as reminiscence of the colonial interactions. Taking to the extreme and in an analogy to the Berlin Conference of 1885 that set African borders, these results suggest that these ten countries are becoming what could be termed "Chinese zones of influence." Although our interpretation is by no means proof of China's alleged colonialism in Africa, it does provide some empirical relevance in regard to economic developments that tend to be associated—rightly or wrongly—with allegations of colonialism in modern Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]