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I have been intrigued by this subject since 1994–5, when I worked as an English teacher in Lishui, Zhejiang and met Ethiopian students in Nanjing, and especially since undertaking research in Kenya and Sudan from 2004, where among others I met entrepreneurs from Lishui and Zhejiang. This book relies on research in many places conducted since then; I acknowledge with great appreciation all whom I have met and learned from in the process. These include Philip Winter and John Ryle for asking ‘why China?’ in Athi River, near Nairobi, in April 2004. They also include Adekeye Adebajo, Seifudein Adem, Ana Alves, Kweku Ampiah, Ross Anthony, Tatiana Carayannis, Stephen Chan, Lucy Corkin, Richard Dowden, Neuma Grobbelaar, He Wenping, Jok Madut Jok, Mohaned Kaddam, Thomas Kellogg, Li Anshan, Liu Haifang, Roland Marchal, Emma Mawdsley, Angus McKee, Giles Mohan, Jamie Monson, Leben Moro, Sanusha Naidu, Shu Zhan, Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, Cobus van Staden, Julia Strauss, Jonathan Sullivan, Sun Xiaomeng, Thiik Giir Thiik, Tang Xiaoyang, Gai Thurbil, George T. Yu, Yu Ruichuan, Alex Vines, Wang Suolao, Zhang Chun, Zheng Yixiao, CEU colleagues and students who have taken my Politics of South–South Development in Africa course. I am indebted to Deborah Brautigam for her example and support since 2006, and the China–Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins for granting me a Research Fellowship in 2019, when I was fortunate to work with Lina Benabdallah, and use of their graphs, in which Marie Foster kindly helped.

Special thanks are due to Julia Davies, Susan Beer and especially George Owers at Polity for their exceptional assistance, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. Posthumous thanks are due to the late Ian Taylor and his original recommendation, without which this book would never have happened. I am thankful to Thorsten Benner for his feedback on the initial proposal. I am grateful to this book’s anonymous external reviewers for providing considered and very helpful feedback on the complete draft. Others read chapters and offered useful advice, including William Mangimela, Yu-Shan Wu, Lina Benabdallah and especially Yoon Jung Park. I am particularly grateful to Chris Alden, for his invaluable guidance and support; Luke Patey for his generous help and quality feedback; Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, for unfailingly exceptional assistance; and Sarah Brockmeier-Large for feedback during challenging 2020 lockdown conditions. Any remaining errors, naturally, are my responsibility. This book owes considerably to my family’s support, and my biggest thanks go to Carlotta, Leo and Sarah.