Existing studies on Africa-China relations as demonstrated above often present a Chinese perspective or focus on what ‘China’ as a unitary entity does in Africa. Such Sino-centric, unitary approaches which focus on the primacy of Chinese agency in theorising Africa-China relations ignore African experiences and agency in China encounters as also observed by Otele (2020). Only a few studies have departed from the unitary perspectives. They examine people-to-people interactions, ethnic Chinese communities in Africa, Chinese entrepreneurial migration, Chinese provincial encounters with Africa, Chinese media representations of Africa and Chinese multinational corporations’ activities in Africa. At the micro-level, some consider Chinese migration to Africa (Xu, 2020; Yan, Sautman and Lu, 2019)—which have occasionally led to conficts between the Chinese migrants and African locals—as a physical manifestation of the PRC’s imperialism (Lampert and Mohan, 2014; Postel, 2017; Xiao, 2015). Others have lauded as brain-gain, African students returning from China upon completion of their studies, while those studying in the West rarely return to their home countries (Ibrahim, Edward and Obiagelli, 2021; Leff and Kiala, 2021; Li, 2018). Castillo (2020), Castillo and Amoah (2020) and Ouassini, Amini and Ouassini (2021) explore anti-China sentiments among African locals, as well as the racism Africans encounter in China. Yet, others have documented harmonious co-existence of Chinese migrants and their host communities in Africa, as well as African migrants’ cordial relations with their Chinese hosts (Benabdallah, 2018; Dankwah and Amoah, 2019; Dankwah and Valenta, 2019; Lampert and Mohan, 2014).
Some argue explicitly that the lived realities of Chinese migrants in Africa are neither synonymous with offcial Chinese foreign policy rhetoric of win-win co-operation nor Western reprove of Chinese empire building. Instead, Chinese migrants in Africa have nothing to do with China’s foreign policy objectives, pursuing their own agendas and having little to no contact with Chinese diplomats (Cook et al., 2016; Sullivan and Cheng, 2018; Tu Huynh, 2018). Others demonstrate the complexities of state-business relations in forging and directing China engagements for development in, for example, African agriculture (Amoah, Hodzi and Castillo, 2020; Newson and Trebbi, 2018; Scoones et al., 2016).
Still, Africa-focussed academic analyses remain relatively scant. Besada and O’Bright (2017) refer to this phenomenon as an ‘untold story’. Those few studies include Bodomo’s (2018, 2020) and Leslie’s (2018) examinations of African investments, settlements, tourists, student and other migratory fows to China, as well as Besada and O’Bright’s (2017), Lopes’ (2016) and Odoom’s (2021) work on African exercise of agency in relations with China. There are also a few studies exploring SSA’s efforts to promote its interests in China engagements, with examples including African business elites’ strategic derivation of benefts from Chinese migrants in Ghana and Nigeria, and Angolan state actors’ creation of hybrid institutions to negotiate Chinese investments (Bhamidipati and Hansen, 2021; Mohan and Lampert, 2013; Van Staden, Al den and Wu, 2020). Matambo (2021) also when exploring the evolution and shifting dynamics of Sino-Zambian relations highlights the growing interactions between non-state actors of both countries. Matambo (2021) observes that the optimism shared by African governments over China does not correlate with sentiments held by ordinary Africans. Yet, he concludes from a constructivist perspective that Zambia-China relations have been infuenced by intersecting identities and interests mainly constructed by state agents.
However, the present study moves beyond the ‘simplistic’ distinctions of African state/non-state actors’ perceptions of China to how they do not only map the foreign policy contours of African interactions with the PRC but also simultaneously explain the contradictory African encounters with China. Also, the book shows that Africa-China relations are not infuenced exclusively by state actors’ identity constructions and ensuing interests. By adopting a novel constructivist approach that begins with the domestic sphere as the starting point of analysis, the book portrays instead that non-state actors within Africa have a bearing on the foreign policy options of state actors in the China relationship.
Further, the present study shows that the state-non-state antithetical definitions of China mirror domestic competitions over the identities and interests of African countries. They are refections of domestic politics/contests over the ‘right’ objectives and forms of development, political systems and best governance practices. Thus, the book’s constructivist framework opens up the literature’s ‘black box’ designation of states, revealing their internal complexity and contestations, and how they affect international relations. Its three-level theorisation of agency and structure explains how it is possible that African agents’ identities and interests can change in the China relationship. African state actors do not engage China devoid of complex interactions occurring already and a priori in the domestic African sphere. Their interests and identities have been shaped by competition with a multitude of non-state actors over diverse political and economic agenda occurring in the domestic milieu of African nations. Effectively, the domestic competition shapes what is conceivable for African state actors in the relationship with China.
Importantly, Chipaike and Bischoff (2019: 4) note how African agency in the China relationship is multifaceted in character encompassing state elites, private sector, traders, students, civil society and the ordinary African public. They recommend these different agents should be the subjects of study. The present study heeds to the recommendations of Chipaike and Bischoff (2019). However, it moves beyond documenting the agency of these varied and especially non-state actors in the China relationship to a more contextual theorisation of how their agency intersects with that of state elites. Put differently, the agencies of non-state elites and state actors do not operate in isolation or are not distinct islands. Arguably, rather than a strict separation as if they are insulated from each other, African state and non-state actors are two sides of the same coin in the China relationship. They interact and compete, and in effect map the boundaries of what actions are possible in the China relationship. In doing so, the study reveals the domestic context, which is the locus of competition between state and non-state actors, as critical to understanding the Africa-China relationship.
By beginning analysis from the domestic facet, this study’s unique constructivist approach sheds light on an understanding of the Africa-China relationship not conceived by other approaches, namely domestic competition between varied state and non-state actors shapes the interactions and foreign policies of African countries in their relationship with the PRC. And this is why sometimes African policies or relations with China appear inherently conflictual, supporting the offcial Chinese win-win narrative on the one hand, and at the same time curtailing the negative impacts of Chinese interactions in African countries on the other hand. Non-state actors thus at least keep in check the excesses of state actors in the China relationship. They ensure that African state elites are not unrestricted in their policy options in interactions with Beijing. Though the level of infuence may vary between both kinds of actors, they nonetheless shape each other.
More so, in constructing China, the diverse African agents defne their own identities and interests in the relationship with Beijing. The present study thus directs attention to Africa in the China relationship rather than the other way round as has been the predominant focus of a major part of the literature. It deviates from Alden’s (2007) approach, by exploring the char acter and content of Africa’s engagements, interactions and policies towards China in contrast to mapping China’s foreign policy towards the continent. Unlike Alden (2007), the present study also deploys a conceptual approach namely ‘constructivism-at-home’ in theorising its fndings. This provides a segway to grounding empirical Africa-China knowledge in the academic rigours or theoretical precincts of International Relations. Notably, the book demonstrates that the constructivist approach can be used to explain Africa’s international relations in comparison to the predominant focus on Europe, North America and Asia. It thus contributes to a key gap in the empirical rigour of constructivism, moving it beyond the confnes of explaining cases in the Global North to a demonstration of its theoretical adequacy in the Global South.
Notwithstanding the critique of Alden (2007: 60), the book agrees to some extent with its foresight that as "African civil society […] develops a voice on the range and breadth of Chinese involvement in continental affairs, this begins to set parameters on Chinese action in collusion with African elites". Thus, while Alden (2007: 128) was right to predict that non-state interactions in the Africa-China relationship will matter as much as the diplomacy and concessions made at the government level, this book argues both kinds of infuence/impact are not insulated from each other. From a constructivist perspective, the book makes the case that African non-state elites have perhaps always shaped the foreign policy contours of Africa’s engagements with China. If it is the case that there is a collusion, then it is because the domestic competition from non-state elites, otherwise known as intra-African politics, has made it possible. This non-state infuence has been ignored by the literature’s rationalist, state-and unitary-centric focus, highlighting the usefulness of a constructivist approach—that begins with the domestic sphere as the analysing point—to studying Africa-China relations.
Thus, this book joins the Africa-centred scholarship on Africa-China relations, while at the same time, challenging the unitary actor approaches. As such, it explores the roles played by various domestic African actors—both state and non-state—in constructing China. It is also innovative in terms of its deployment of a domestic-focussed constructivist framework and its com parative perspective, which will be discussed at length below and in subsequent chapters. In sum, this study contributes to addressing the shortcomings in the scholarship on Africa-China relations, refecting on the centrality of African domestic politics and discourses to inter-state interactions and upon intra-African contests over China as a development partner. It identifes the plurality of African agents who construct China, seeking to affect African poli cymaking towards the PRC in general and its agents more specifcally. In doing so, it avoids the excessively structural perspectives that disavow African agency and preclude discernment of African initiative in China interactions in innovative ways. Redolent of the constructivist notion of mutual constitution of agency and structure however, it ascertains those networks, ideological apparatus, authority and power architectures, as well as relationships within which African agents shape policies towards the PRC.