China’s Development Assistance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

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.