The impetus for this special issue is the inescapable fact of China's growing presence across Africa, as part of China's wider internationalisation strategy. While the growth of Chinese influence was greeted by an explosion of media interest, involving some rather reactionary and ‘knee-jerk’ journalism declaring that China was behaving unacceptably and cynically, the past few years have seen realities on the ground as well as analysis changing. So, the first reason for this special issue was to collect papers that would reflect this new scholarship. Our second reason was that much of the early commentary was from the US and of the political right and saw China as a direct threat to US interests, which these authors insisted were less self-serving and more respectful of ‘decent’ values. Key arguments here are that China is cynically using development aid to ‘buy’ favours from despotic leaders; termed ‘rogue aid’ by Moisés Naím, the editor in chief of the US journal Foreign Policy. Moreover, China's blasé attitude to good governance and respect for human rights is treated by the right wing analysts as an extension of China's ‘natural’ way of conducting politics in contrast to the enlightened approach taken by US and its allied donors. These neo-conservative analyses also point out the ways China wilfully flouts labour and environmental laws and then the analysts find the relatively few examples of where Africans have angrily contested China's presence on the continent to prove the venal nature of China in Africa. While this journal and work commissioned for this issue are not here to be apologists for China, we also wanted to collect papers which contrasted to this neo-conservative analysis through a broadly critical approach to political economy.
Having commissioned the majority of papers we can discern three functions which they serve in meeting these two goals. First, after the subject of China and Africa emerged on the radar there has been a raft of papers that are speculative, light on details and tend to recycle one or two cases, which Mohan's review essay assesses in more depth. This is understandable given the novelty of the phenomenon and the need to act quickly in a fast changing world. However, with greater awareness and the evolution of relationships on the ground it is time to take stock and reflect more thoroughly and more theoretically on the issue. To this end the papers by McCormick, Kaplinsky and ourselves on aid, trade and politics respectively seek to develop analytical frameworks and set up research agendas for the future. McCormick's paper focuses on the uses of Chinese aid and homes in on the impact on manufacturing. While avoiding quick and unsubstantiated conclusions she argues that the impacts can be positive in terms of infrastructure and technical training, but are less clear in terms of plant and equipment, which depend upon existing manufacturing capacity. Kaplinsky offers a similarly balanced framework, which teases out the possible impacts of trade and inward investment. Using a value chains approach his conclusions are that African manufacturing is likely to suffer unless states put in place some protection. Further, both our paper and that by Chris Alden and Ana Cristina Alves underline the need to look to the past as well as to the future and to think about the historical context of China-Africa relations and the use and meaning of history in the construction of China's Africa policy.
Second, is a group of papers which seek to deepen the empirical content of our knowledge in systematic ways. The briefings section edited by our colleagues at The Centre for Chinese Studies at the University of Stellenbosch demonstrates the importance of thorough and up-to-date data collection and analysis around these fast changing processes. What they demonstrate, as well as the papers by Kaplinsky and McCormick, is that we need to think about China and India and not fixate just on China. Naidu's briefing shows the extent of India's involvement in Africa, which is undoubtedly set to increase. Corkin looks at China's multinationals and how they compete with South African firms in key sectors of banking, construction and telecommunications. She highlights the role that Chinese aid plays in aiding these companies and assesses future strategies around collaboration in order to capture more benefits locally. Davies shows how China is creating an infrastructure corridor across Africa to secure access to strategic resources. Dan Large's paper argues that the nature of China's role within Sudan lacks detailed and thorough examination and is frequently reduced to headlines concerning oil and arms, stripped of any context. He examines key areas of tension emerging in China's ‘non-interference’ approach, including pressures on its bilateral stance, Sudan's new political framework after the 2005 peace agreement, and expanding economic links.
Third, other papers are beginning to tease out the governance effects of China's role in Africa. The starting point is to move beyond horror stories of Chinese aid simply entrenching authoritarian regimes. While this is undoubtedly one effect of China in some countries it is not the only effect and we need to detail these. The paper by Shaun Breslin and Ian Taylor argues that it is important to understand the origins and motives of western critiques of China's human rights policies (both domestically and how they play out in Africa) and that concern over competition, particularly over energy resources, has reintroduced human rights in to the diplomatic discourse after many years of neglect and oversight. Thus it could be argued that many analyses of Sino-Africa relations reveal as much, if not more, about the economic and political motivations of ‘The West’ as they do about the complex political economies of China in Africa.