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Interest in China–Africa relations has grown exponentially.¹¹ It is expressed in ever more diverse ways, including in literature, art and film. China–Africa is an intensely mediated subject and reflects changes in the global media landscape under the impact of digital technologies and social media, which has recently become more prominent in African countries (some more than others) and in global conversations about China and Africa.¹² Chinese diplomats in Africa now use social media like Twitter to promote official views, for example, but in China, the tightly controlled media must, as Xi Jinping has said, ‘love’, ‘protect’ and serve the interest of the CCP, or be ‘surnamed Party’. Like domestic issues, media coverage of Africa relations in China has to follow the official line.

China–Africa relations are often described in simplistic and sensational ways, not just by commentators but also by politicians in and outside African countries. Binary terms are commonly used, such as ‘win–win development’ or ‘new imperialism/colonialism’; ‘partner or predator’; ‘saviour or monster’; ‘parasitism or mutualism’ etc. In addition, simple, monocausal metanarratives officially explain China’s engagement as win–win development or reduce this to imperialism, dependency, or exploitation. It follows that grand causal claims frequently attend the subject; such as that China has undermined democracy or human rights, or has engaged in a deliberate strategy of entrapping African governments in debt. Such claims can place unwarranted agency in China and neglect actual African politics, multistranded external relations and forms of agency. While it is all too easy to blame the media, this influences opinion, can shape worldviews and impact policy engagements. In short, images and language matter, especially when added to personal experience in African countries. The topic of China’s relations with Africa has become an information minefield. Rumours, misunderstandings, or those looking for profitable attention can manufacture myths that can take on a life of their own and fuel politics in an age where social media matters.¹³ Emotive online news stories about Chinese exports of human flesh or plastic rice to Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal, for example, have been proved false but have nonetheless continued to appear, spread disinformation and influence popular perceptions about China.

The subject of China and Africa relations has grown as an area of academic research, moving from a previously peripheral small field mainly concerned with international relations towards much more multi-disciplinary approaches.¹⁴ African studies have grown within China. Efforts have been made to promote China-related research and education about China in an increasing number of African countries. As well as being relevant to business, this is also a very policy-oriented subject. One obvious problem with the meta-organizing tag ‘China–Africa’ is that this is shorthand for an increasingly diverse range of studies, conversations, media coverage, human encounters, and forms of political contestation. More than a conversation or subject of debate by spectators, this is also a meaningful, lived reality for many. China–Africa is not a subject that follows any neat, coherent narrative but has become a topic about which opinion is required and, increasingly, judgement.

Much China–Africa analysis takes development and economics as its starting point or primary interest.¹⁵ This is essential; however, any focus on economics is insufficient when it comes to approaching China–Africa relations. This has become more readily apparent in recent years with the evolution of more complex relations that, at a minimum, combine history, economics, politics and international relations. In this way, political economy approaches seek to better locate and explore China’s role beyond forms of methodological statism that ignore wider structural forces.¹⁶ The tendency to isolate and magnify China’s role has been criticized; some have argued that studies of China–Africa engagements throw broader processes like neoliberalism in Africa into starker relief. Studies utilizing a global political economy framework have thus offered reflections on the extent to which economic investment in Zambia, for example, is or can be considered ‘Chinese’, or reflects qualities, political relations and patterns of exploitation familiar in the global behaviour of capital.¹⁷ This perspective recasts the Chinese role as a new chapter in global capitalist relations.¹⁸ Such an approach, while important, risks downplaying CCP New Era Chinese characteristics and connections. In the attempt to demonstrate conformity to historical extraversion or the logic of capital, the Chinese qualities of these dynamics, even when mediated by hybrid global dynamics, can be stripped away and questions about forms of CCP-governed Chinese power avoided.

This book thus explores the interplay between political, economic and social dynamics in relations. As well as offering a deeper and broader framework, this general political economy approach helps overcome a number of problems. For instance, available data, including the accuracy of economic statistics from Chinese, African and other sources, is problematic. Even where data exist, traditional statistics like trade don’t capture global value chains well. Another problem is over reliance on official Chinese foreign-policy principles. Because these are constitutive of relations, they cannot be either taken at face value or dismissed as pure hypocrisy. Much like the architect of China’s economic reforms from 1978 Deng Xiaoping’s emphasis on seeking ‘truth from facts’, examining the empirical substance of relations – what is, not what is supposed to be – enables analysis to go beyond that based on official rhetoric.

A fundamental challenge in studying China–Africa relations is the abstraction inherent in ideas about and uses of ‘China’ and ‘Africa’. With an official population of some 1.4bn in 2019, China is a continental-sized country with 23 provinces, five autonomous regions (including Xinjiang), four municipalities, and two special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The complexity of ‘China’ must be always borne in mind. It also needs to be disaggregated. Although there are multiple Chinas, China has a dominant political centre controlled by the CCP party-state-military. ‘Africa’ can mean many things, including a place, an idea, a project, a centre or a periphery. Obviously, there are thus multiple Africas, including regions, diverse politics and economies, and some 2,140 living languages. In political terms alone, the African Union (AU) has 55 member states divided into five geographic regions.¹⁹ This means a huge variation in the political map of the continent – and China’s official interlocutors – featuring all manner of regime types, from established democracies to authoritarian regimes or conflict-afflicted states.

The 53 highly diverse African states with which China maintains diplomatic relations can be grouped into three general categories: first, states like Botswana, Benin, Ghana, Senegal, Mauritius or South Africa that have established, open and competitive democracies, even while many remain institutionally weak. A second group includes such different cases as Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, DRC or Zimbabwe, ruled by leaders with authoritarian tendencies but in contexts where there are popular opposition parties. Third, there are authoritarian governments with strong control but no qualms about holding elections, such as Cameroon, Chad or Rwanda.²⁰ China, by contrast, is governed by an authoritarian party-state-military system. With over 91.91m members at the end of 2019, CCP membership alone is larger than the populations of all but three African countries: Nigeria, Ethiopia and Egypt. The contrast between China’s authoritarian capitalist party-state and diverse political systems in Africa is one starting point for putting relations into broad context. It also helps bring out the need to go beyond a state focus in Africa–China relations by including the diverse range of participants, such as the active role of different civil society groups or independent media in many countries in the continent.

Many books warn against generalization and then generalize; this book is no different but does not go beyond the ways in which Africa is, in its terms, part of China’s foreign policy.²¹ Africa may be an abstraction but is one that remains necessary to use. The main reason why both China and Africa need to be used, on top of or along with defined African countries, is because the CCP, Chinese state, corporations and others frame and approach relations in these very terms. Africa has meaning as a category in China’s foreign policy, as FOCAC shows. However, China’s relations with 53 individual African countries mean relations have a strong bilateral character. Likewise, China’s Africa policy has a continental policy framework in theory, and 53 (or 54, if Taiwan-recognizing Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, is included) African policies in practice, and has evolved to incorporate a range of other actors and levels of politics. In China’s terms, then, it makes sense to consider China–Africa, even if these should always be qualified and the difficulties of moving from particular African contexts to generalized claims recognized. Finally, this book recognizes that China’s relations with Africa/African countries remains a project in the making. One way to conceptualize relations between China and Africa is as in a process of becoming, rather than something that already exists, and involving networks of agents, rather than static categories. This matters for such questions as the evolved but still evolving theme of China’s ‘power’ in Africa.