Conclusion

ConclusionChina and Africa Rebooted: Globalization(s), Simplification(s), and Cross-cutting Dynamics in "South–South" Relations Julia C. Strauss (bio) The relationship between China and Africa in the twenty-first century is a subject whose importance for contemporary globalization and development is only matched by the entrenched disagreements on how to approach the subject conceptually. Despite significant differences in disciplinary focus, methods, and analysis, all scholarship on relations between China and Africa converges on the notion that there has been a profound deepening, in both quality and quantity, of a range of China–Africa relations over the past fifteen years. This deepening and "thickening" both augments and reflects a set of processes loosely called "the Rise of China" in a wider arc of neoliberal [End Page 155] and post-neoliberal globalization, and has a set of profound and varied effects for Africa. This intensification of engagement has been most visible, and most commented on, in the realms of public diplomacy and bilateral trade and economic relations. Both public diplomacy and trade are regularly promoted through FOCAC (the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation), which has a permanent secretariat, a readily accessible Web site that collects relevant official documents, and most notably has convened high-profile ministerial meetings with African states on a triannual basis since 2000. Not surprisingly, the sudden increase in China–Africa trade and economic relations is a perennial topic of discussion within business and economic policymaking circles worldwide. There is now a much larger range of opportunities and competition in Africa than was the case only a decade ago, largely as a result of China's involvement on the continent. According to no less an authority than the People's Daily (Cui Peng 2011), China–Africa trade has increased exponentially since 2000, with per annum increases of 28 percent, culminating in China's becoming Africa's largest trade partner in 2011. This information, released as a bland official statement, refers to a welter of economic and political engagements over this time period: high profile deals in sectors as different as oil, mining, and agriculture have been concluded between Chinese and African governments. Meanwhile, under the FOCAC umbrella, the Chinese government has announced a large number of initiatives for aid, economic cooperation, education, training, and technology transfer. And finally, even the most casual visitors to Africa are often struck by the Chinese presence, reflected in everything from the logos that announce major tranches of Chinese investment in the basic infrastructure of Africa to the Chinese characters on the signs of small mom-and-pop convenience stores at the crossroads of small settlements in rural parts of the continent. Although the ways in which China is changing the surface of Africa are visible and concrete (new roads, new shops, new stadiums, new signs), there is little agreement about what these changes signify underneath the shiny new exterior. The official Chinese narrative is the one that dominates even in private circles among Chinese. It robustly, even dogmatically, insists that this transformation of Africa is all to the good. In so doing, this rhetoric of China falls back on a discourse of a half century that doggedly insists on a set of unchanging principles (often obliquely juxtaposed against those of the West): political equality and noninterference; the nonconditionality of aid and investment; long-standing friendship with the other developing nations of the world. In this conception, China is a nation with a long history of shared underdevelopment and friendship in common with Africa; from the revolutionary Maoist period to the present, it has taken the moral high road in always refusing to interfere in the domestic affairs of other sovereign nations. Now that China is well on the route to "becoming a well-off country" and working its way out of underdevelopment, it is in a position to help Africa through extending nonconditional loans on the basis of "win-win" results and mutual benefit. China officially and unceasingly reiterates the [End Page 156] notion that its investment in and interaction with Africa is based on the positive principles of "political equality and mutual trust, economic win-win cooperation, and cultural exchanges" (FOCAC 2009). Indeed, in this view, China's loans have

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