SOAS Research Online

Abstract

China’s presence in West Africa is shrouded in myth, misconception, and often comical misinformation, invoking simplistic tendencies to present each region as a monolithic entity. I remember the China-Africa Beijing Summit in 2006, the largest ever conference on Africa held outside the continent, and the hysterical headlines it provoked, characterising the China-Africa equation as if there is one ‘China’ and one ‘Africa’. The narrative of ‘The Chinese are Coming’ has ominously gathered momentum and belies an underlying assumption that African politicians are not smart enough to protect their interests when negotiating deals. China has been cast as yet another exploitative neo-colonial force, stripping the African continent of its wealth and diverting resources for its own gain. Anyone who has spent time in these two parts of world, as I have, knows that this two-dimensional assumption should be treated with caution, as the realities are far more complex, nuanced and multi-layered.