Editorial: China’s impacts on Africa’s development

Abstract

Much has been made of China’s economic ascendency in Africa, most notably its overtaking of the US in 2009 to become the continent’s largest trading partner. Beyond trade, the broader contours of Chinese loans, export credits, investment, and aid have changed Africa’s economic landscape since 2000 when the first Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) meetings were held. In the extensive discussions – in government meetings, the media, public fora, and academic settings – that have ensued, China has been portrayed in distinctly contrasting terms; on the one hand, as a responsible partner of the global south, creating new markets for African products and supplying affordable goods to African consumers, while on the other as a rapacious superpower plundering the continent’s resources and flooding its markets with cheap manufactures that further undermine local production. Consequently, the impacts of China on African economies and Africa’s development have become one of the most controversial topics in the wider and rapidly expanding field of Sino-African relations.

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