China in Africa: Articulating China’s Africa Policy by Jean Kachiga, and: Afrasia: A Tale of Two Continents by Ali A. Mazrui and Seifudein Adem (review)

Afro–Asian relations offer an intriguing context for scholarly investigation, in particular because of new dynamics that stem from historic ties, ongoing projects, and expanding partnerships between Asian and African actors in the international arena. In the broader framework of the global South and the global North, South–(Far) East relations have recently become dominant, if not superseding the former North–South dichotomy. As a natural consequence, therefore, the scholarly literature has grown at a tremendous pace with works providing either overviews or case studies of Afro–Asian cooperation. These two volumes contribute to that literature, albeit in markedly different ways. Although Jean Kachiga’s book, with its simple title, may not draw as much attention as Ali Mazrui and Seifudein Adem’s provocative title, its handbook-like structure will offer many readers useful insights into China’s Africa policy. The unconventional approach of Afrasia, on the other hand, with its dramatic tale “about the mating of two continents across centuries of interaction and historical change” (ix), may create more perplexities than it resolves.

Maybe the most striking similarity between Kachiga’s work and Mazrui–Adem’s is the obvious structural imbalance among the chapters in each volume. Kachiga presents his arguments in fourteen chapters which vary a lot in length; chapter 10, for example, is only four and a half pages and there is a two-page conclusion. This problem, however, is more visible in the latter book, which consists of twenty-one chapters, roughly half of which were written by each author. These vary even more in length as well as content, from the extended discussion by Adem of Japan’s cultural experience and its possible relevance for Africa’s development (chapter 18) to short essays like Mazrui’s brief chapter on the Arab Spring and female empowerment. A firm introduction about the authors’ aims and the structure of the book would have been helpful, but their intentions are never made clear. In its final form Afrasia feels like a draft manuscript, and the promised narrative about the “drama of African–Asian relations in all [their] complexity” (viii) seems to be a tale that is still in the planning phase: different scenes come flashing up, but the story of the actors, their interactions, and the resulting consequences is not coherent.

In China in Africa: Articulating China’s Africa Policy Kachiga has not only built upon previous fundamental scholarship, but also extended the horizon by exploring new aspects of several historic junctions of Sino–African relations. Egypt’s role as the “stepping stone into Africa” for a “diplomatically isolated China in a quest for international recognition” (31) proved vital in building up China’s future presence in the continent. Another obvious motivation for China was its rising demand for natural resources from the 1970s onward, which “coincided with the rising status of Africa as a producer of non-mineral raw materials (gas and oil)” (47). But have there been other drives and aims beyond this evident energy-security dimension leading China to intensify its engagements with Africa? As Kachiga suggests, both African and Chinese foreign policies meet “in the arena of diplomacy where each … seeks to secure its utmost preferable outcome” (51); his argument underscores the notion of partnership and mutual benefit that informs the attitudes of both parties. As a result, China’s Africa policy—what Kachiga explains as “The Chinese Way” (chapter 6)—is a pragmatic strategy reflecting its own interests, but with a moral face that pretends to understand the other’s interests as well.

“The Chinese Way” is China’s unique approach to penetrating all walks of life on the...