Coevolutionary Pragmatism


Book Description

China-Africa economic tie has experienced lasting rapid growth since the 2000s, attracting lots of discussion on its nature and effects. A key question is whether Chinese engagements provide an alternative paradigm to existing mainstream models, like Washington Consensus, for developing countries. However, theories on state-market dichotomy can hardly explain the strong momentum of bilateral cooperation. By examining a broad range of practices with solid field research, including trade, infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing, industrial zones, labor and socio-environmental preservation, this book proposes a new angle of non-linear circular causality to understand Chinese approaches to work with Africa. Guided by the pursuit for sustainable growth rather than by specific models, Chinese actors are able to experiment diverse methods to foster structural transformation in Africa. In particular, the author carefully records mutual influences between Chinese and African stakeholders at all levels, from grassroots to policy making, to illustrate the effects of coevolving industrialization.




Coevolutionary Pragmatism


Book Description

Decades-long field research, investigate Chinese approach in Africa's development, reinterpret classics on industrial capitalism, and reveal effects of non-linear synergism




China and Africa in Global Context


Book Description

This title studies the relationship between China and Africa by reviewing this history and current state of interactions, offering a valuable addition to the often heated and contentious debate surrounding China's engagement in Africa from a Chinese angle. Comprised of four parts, the book covers a kaleidoscopic range of topics on Sino-Africa relations based on materials from different languages. The first part looks into early historical contact between China and Africa and historiography of African Studies in China in recent decades. Part Two contains a broad probe into the origin, dynamics, challenges and cultural heritage of China's policies towards Africa. The third part explores the issue of development cooperation from both the theoretical and practical point of view, with a focus on the case of Chinese medical teams in Africa and China's technology transfer to the continent. The final part illustrates bilateral migration, discussing the history and life of Chinese immigrants in Africa and the African diaspora in China. The insights in this book as well as real life case studies will make this work an indispensable reference for academics, students, policy makers and general readers who are interested in international issues and area studies, especially China-Africa relations, China's rise and African development.




China’s Big Power Ambition under Xi Jinping


Book Description

Instead of emphasizing China as a developing country, Chinese President Xi Jinping has identified China as a big power and accentuated China’s big power status. This book explores the narratives and driving forces behind China's big power ambition. Three narratives rooted in Sino-centralism are examined. One is China’s demands for the reform of global governance to reflect the values and interests of China as a rising power. Another is China’s Belt and Road Initiative to construct a nascent China-centred world order. The third is the China model and self-image promotion in the developing countries. There are many forces that have driven or constrained China’s big power ambition. This collection focuses on two sets of forces. One is China’s domestic politics and economic incentives and disincentives. The other is China’s geo-political and geo-economic interests. These forces have both motivated and constrained China’s big power ambition. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of Contemporary China.




Africa's Global Infrastructures


Book Description

The boom in South–South relations since the early 2000s has seen a flurry of investment in African infrastructure from emerging markets across the Global South. While the extent to which these projects spur growth is constantly debated, few studies have addressed their impact on ground-level political and socio-economic practices in Africa—or their consequences for transnational governance more broadly. Through the lens of infrastructure, this book investigates the developmental ideas, processes and techniques that have travelled to and emerged from Africa as a result of Global South–led projects. How have they been adapted, transformed and contested by local actors? How does this shape business–society relations? And how has this challenged the Western-dominated global order? The contributors zoom in on large-scale Chinese-, Brazilian- and Indian-funded ventures—dams, ports, roads and mines—across countries including Kenya, Mozambique and the DRC. These ‘frontier zones’, bringing together politicians and practitioners, campaign groups and communities from Africa and elsewhere, offer a unique insight into the global workings of our contemporary world. Taking a bottom-up approach, Africa’s Global Infrastructures explores the longer-term significance and implications of these pluralistic socio-economic interactions, for the continent and beyond.




Indonesia’s Engagement with Africa


Book Description

This book provides a comprehensive study of Indonesia's contemporary foreign policy engagement with Africa, highlighting the archipelago’s recent reawakening to the continent. It explores thoughts on Afro-Asian relations in general and their future in the changing geopolitical context. It provides a vision of Indonesia’s foreign policy and political situation at the highest level of leadership. It places Indonesia in a multi-comparison context, which helps us reconsider Indonesia today and widens our views on Indonesia’s needs to be better known through new perspectives and voices able to better convey the realities of its polity, aspirations, and complexities. It proposes, through the study of Indonesia’s African endeavour, to better grasp the contemporary Indonesian Zeitgeist and Weltanschauung. It also analyses the political power alliance formed by President Jokowi and former General Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, leading a state-led development through state capitalism, mobilising State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). The Bandung Conference host aspires to project its domestic development achievements towards Africa, focusing on Africa for Africa and not merely as part of a sometimes-abstract Afro-Asian discourse. Nonetheless, Afro-Asianism continues to be mobilised to facilitate market penetration and serve domestic interests. The book shows how Indonesia’s foreign policy toward Africa relates to domestic political contestation and consolidation, political legacy and commodity-based industrial policy, and Chinese and “China in Africa” networks and ideational influence, foremost among other networks of influence in the Jokowi era. The book also underlines how Indonesia’s knowledge production and academic deficiencies negatively impact its foreign policy capabilities, notably as a potential robust alternative partner for Africa. It will be beneficial for students, academicians, researchers, and diplomats.




The Urban Question in Africa


Book Description

Illuminates the path to more generative urban transitions in Africa's cities and developing rural areas Africa is the world's most rapidly urbanizing region. The predominantly rural continent is currently undergoing an “urban revolution” unlike any other, generally taking place without industrialization and often characterized by polarization, poverty, and fragmentation. While many cities have experienced construction booms and real estate speculation, others are marked by expanding informal economies and imploding infrastructures. The Urban Question in Africa: Uneven Geographies of Transition examines the imbalanced and contested nature of the ongoing urban transition of Africa. Edited and authored by leading experts on the subject, this unique volume develops an original theory conceptualizing cities as sociotechnical systems constituted by production, consumption, and infrastructure regimes. Throughout the book, in-depth chapters address the impacts of current meta-trends—global geopolitical shifts, economic changes, the climate crisis, and others—on Africa's cities and the broader development of the continent. Presents a novel framework based on extensive fieldwork in multiple countries and regions of the continent Examines geopolitical and socioeconomic topics such as manufacturing in African cities, the green economy in Africa, and the impact of China on urban Africa Discusses the prospects for generative urbanism to produce and sustain long-term development in Africa Features high-quality maps, illustrations, and photographs The Urban Question in Africa: Uneven Geographies of Transition is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students in geography, urban planning, and African studies, academic researchers, geographers, urban planners, and policymakers.




African Bargaining Power with China


Book Description

This book provides a detailed account of the political economy around investment deal negotiations between African governments and private Chinese investors. The book draws on evidence from experiments and hundreds of interviews with policy makers and Chinese investors across Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania. It shows that governments of authoritarian or one-party dominant states, which are among the top-receivers of Chinese investments, are able to easily and successfully act collectively to impose human capital and technology transfer requirements. The book argues that, rather than treating African countries as "price-takers" in the face of increasing Chinese influence in the continent, we should instead recognise the significant bargaining leverage that many African governments have to influence deal conditions, especially with smaller private Chinese companies. It demonstrates that several African governments can instead act "as price-setters" and that the success of the rising Chinese presence in Africa, and whether this leads to positive or negative development outcomes, fundamentally depends on the development strategies that individual African governments decide on. In the context of an often-polarised debate, the original research presented in this book has important implications for the future economic development strategies of African countries. As such, it will be of interest to researchers working on Chinese and African investment, politics, institutions, business, economics, and international relations.




Chinese Global Infrastructure


Book Description

Infrastructure is at the heart of China's presence in global development and is also central to larger debates about Chinese influence. This Element provides a comprehensive account of major, Chinese government-financed infrastructure projects in the Global South since 1949. Using new datasets, it demonstrates that Chinese global infrastructure is distinct in terms of its historical tenacity and massive contemporary scope. But this does not imply that contemporary Chinese global infrastructure or the Belt and Road Initiative should be studied in a vacuum. Historical and comparative perspectives show that contemporary projects often emerge based on similar political logics to those that shaped infrastructure investment in earlier periods of Chinese history and other international contexts. The Element then examines how infrastructure projects have created both purposeful and unintended sources of influence by serving as valuable but risky political capital for host country governments as well as the Chinese government.




Asia-Afria- Multifaceted Engagement in the Contemporary World


Book Description

This book provides an insight into the complex entanglements between African countries and India, China, and South Korea from multidisciplinary perspectives connecting approaches from cultural, anthropological, literary, and music studies and art history. The three parts present a regional focus, namely Africa-India, Africa-South Korea, and Africa-China while the single contributions speak to each other and offer complementary insights. At the same time, the chapters also link across the regional realms as they deal with similar topics, such as travelling music genres. In part I, for Pombo material culture is the starting point to investigate the connections between the islands of the Indian Ocean and India by questioning the construction of memory. It highlights various aspects of the multilayered history of connections between Africa, the islands, and India. Part II gathers contributions that are complimentary to each other and therefore contribute to the understanding of the complex entanglements in area studies. Part III (Africa-South Korea) explores the impact of African-American arts and artists on South Korea's popular culture as well as the changing perception of artists of African descent in visual popular culture. It shows the impact of Korean content in South Africa. Ute Fendler holds the chair of Romance and Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Bayreuth. She is the deputy spokesperson of the Cluster of Excellence "Africa Multiple. Her research interests cover literature and film cultures of the Caribbean, West Africa, the Indian Ocean, and South America. Yongkyu Chang is a professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in South Korea and teaches in the Division of African Studies and Graduate School of International Area Studies. He earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology at KwaZulu-Natal University in South Africa and researched various social and cultural issues across Africa. He has expertise in African belief systems and currently working on a project exploring spirit possession in Zanzibar.