Ghana, with a population of 30.8 million (Ghana Statistical Service, 2021), enjoys the most long-standing diplomatic relationship with the PRC amongst all sub-Saharan countries, after Guinea (Amoah, 2021). First in the region to gain independence in 1957, it recognised the PRC on 5 July 1960. A year later, Ghana’s frst leader, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, paid an offcial visit to China, while Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai visited Ghana in 1964 (Sibiri, 2021). At the onset of these relations, Ghana offered Beijing diplomatic support in return for economic assistance. Throughout the 1960s, Nkrumah campaigned for the PRC to replace the ROC in the UN and supported China in its confict with India in 1962 (Idun-Arkhurst, 2008). However, Ghana-China relations suffered in 1966 when Nkrumah’s regime was toppled while visiting Beijing on his way to Vietnam, where he intended to offer his mediation services for the war (Huang, 2008). In October 1966, Beijing closed its embassy in Accra and withdrew an estimated 200 aid workers. Still, Ghana voted in favour of the PRC in 1971, when the UN General Assembly debated the question of China’s representation (Amoah, 2019; Idun-Arkhurst, 2008). In 1972, Ghana and China restored their diplomatic ties. It was, however, only in late 1985 that Ghana’s leader, Jerry Rawlings, travelled to China (where he met Deng Xiaoping). It took another ten years before he made his second China visit (Amoah, 2016, 2019).
Yet, it is in the 21st century that Ghana’s diplomatic and economic relations with China have fourished. Amoah (2016) describes the relationship at the turn of the 21st century—marked by the administration of Ghana’s second president under the Fourth Republic, John Kufuor—as the ushering in of a golden age (also see Idun-Arkhurst, 2008). Kufuor paid an eight-day visit to China in 2002, which secured infrastructure deals that rehabilitated Ghana’s National Theatre and the Apedwa-Nsawam portion of the Accra-Kumasi highway, as well as funded the Achimota-Nsawam dual carriage road (Xinhuanet/ Graphic, 2002). Kufuor returned to China in 2006 and 2008, again winning several infrastructure deals, including a US$600 million loan for Ghana’s second hydroelectric dam (Bui Dam) (GhanaWeb, 2006, 2008). Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao reciprocated Kufuor’s visits in 2003 and 2006, respectively (Idun-Arkhurst, 2008; People’s Republic of China Embassy in Ghana, 2006).
According to Strange et al. (2017), Ghana received the largest offcial Chinese fnancial fows to Africa between 2000 and 2011, accounting for US$11.6 billion out of a total US$73 billion and including 67 projects (second only to Zimbabwe’s 101 and out of total 1,511 projects). Over the past two decades, the Chinese investments have focussed primarily on the resource sector, amounting to US$13 billion in 2010 (Kpodo, 2010). In 2017, the Chinese agreed to a US$15 billion joint venture fnancing various projects in Ghana’s mining, energy, industrial, transport, health, educational, housing and entertainment sectors in exchange for fve percent of Ghana’s bauxite reserves (Myjoyonline, 2017). Other specifc projects include the US$1 billion Atuabo Gas processing plant (Citifmonline, 2015) and US$273 million Kpong Water Supply Expansion Project (Ghana Water Company Limited, 2018). With investments of US$751 million in 2020, China remains the leading investor in Ghana (Amankwaah, 2021; Frimpong, 2021). President Kufuor and his successors also presided over the rapid expansion of Ghana’s trade with China. Starting from less than US$100 million in 2000 (Government of Ghana, 2015), Ghana’s exports to China grew to US$3.68 billion in 2020, while China’s exports to Ghana amounted to US$6.76 billion (International Monetary Fund [IMF], 2021a). Overall, trade between the two countries has seen a steady growth over the past decade from almost US$2 billion in 2010 to about US$10.5 billion in 2020 (see Figure 1.1). As a result, by 2015, China has become Ghana’s biggest trading partner in terms of both exports and imports (World Bank, 2021). However, like other SSA countries, Ghana continues to run a trade defcit with China of about US$3.4 billion annually over the past decade (see Figure 1.1).
Investment and trade created opportunities for Chinese entrepreneurial migrants to settle in Ghana. Dankwah and Amoah (2019) suggest that there could be as many as 20,000 Chinese residing in Ghana, while the Chinese Consulate estimated their number at 30,000 (Zurek, 2018). The number of Ghanaians residing in China is similarly diffcult to estimate. Some studies argue that Ghanaians constitute a substantial portion of the Africans in China, especially in Guangzhou and Yiwu (Bodomo, 2010; Cissé, 2013). In Guangzhou, which hosts the largest African population (Bodomo and Ma, 2010), the Ghanaians and Nigerians reportedly account for 55 percent of West Africans (Lyons, Brown and Li, 2012). According to Bodomo (2012), Ghanaiansconstituted the ffth largest migrant group in Guangzhou in 2012. The Chinese Consulate in Ghana noted that Ghanaians made up the highest number of African students in China in early 2018 (Zurek, 2018).