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China's African Engagement:
Benevolence or Dominion?
1. Introduction:
In the past decades, China has greatly
expanded its sphere of influence. This has
been especially prevalent in the African
continent through investing in the continent
by funding various projects, providing loans
and sending chinese construction teams, all
to aid African nations. Today, China has a
project in every nation within Africa with
the only exception being Eswatini. What we
must question is their motive. Is this truly
being done for the good of the African
people or is there something much more
sinister at play?
2. History and Background:
In the 1971 vote in the United Nations
General Assembly to decide the
representative government for China. The
United States was the main opposition to the
People’s Republic of China; essentially, it
was the U.S. 's sphere of influence versus
the world. 35 African nations including
Chad, the C.A.R. and Liberia voted against
the People’s Republic of China. In 2007
during the vote to condemn the human rights
situation in North Korea, everything
changed; This was China’s sphere of
influence versus the world. This time 43
African nations either abstained or voted
against alongside China. In the 40 years
between these two votes, the entire political
landscape of the world had changed and this
Was entirely due to the fact that China has
been funding projects in Africa and has been
loaning money to nations within that very
continent to such an extent that in 2018
China’s share in African trade was 18
percent. This began in the 1970s but only
became serious in 2000 when the Forum on
China-Africa Cooperation was established.
Since then, China has continued to fund
major projects in Africa which has greatly
benefitted the continent’s economy.
Figure 1: The Impact of Chinese investment on the
economies of African nations
3. Major Investments and their
Impacts:
3.1 African Union Headquarters:
The A.U headquarters was built in 2012.