China’s Development Assistance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Opportunities
Absztrakt :
As the increase of bilateral trade between China and sub-Saharan Africa in the last ten
years has been skyrocketing at the expense of Western countries, paralleled by the
renewed projection of Chinese soft power in the continent by means of technical aid
and economic agreements, the author will analyse the scope, the underlying factors,
and the potential consequences of Chinese development assistance to countries
in the region. In a comparative manner, the paper also briefly describes the main
features that make Chinese foreign assistance different from its Western counterpart.
The author argues that there is a contradiction between the economic agenda of
Beijing aimed at reproducing centre–periphery contradictions on the world stage with
China at the centre of the envisaged world system, and a political discourse still
based on the principle of non-interference and opposition to neo-colonialism.
