Q&A
Matt Ferchen
{
"authors": [
"Matt Ferchen"
],
"type": "legacyinthemedia",
"centerAffiliationAll": "",
"centers": [
"Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
"Carnegie China"
],
"collections": [
"China and the Developing World",
"China’s Foreign Relations"
],
"englishNewsletterAll": "",
"nonEnglishNewsletterAll": "",
"primaryCenter": "Carnegie China",
"programAffiliation": "",
"programs": [],
"projects": [],
"regions": [
"North Africa",
"Southern, Eastern, and Western Africa",
"East Asia",
"China"
],
"topics": [
"Economy"
]
}
Source: Getty
In The Media
Is China A Partner or Predator in Africa (Or Both)?
China’s relationship with Africa is becoming increasingly more complex as the country continues to invest and send workers across 54 countries on the continent.
By Matt Ferchen
Published on Feb 18, 2017
Source: China-Africa Project
Depending on who you speak with, China’s engagement in Africa is often described in extreme terms as either the best thing to happen to the continent in the post-colonial era or just the latest foreign predator coming to pillage Africa of its resources. With China’s presence in Africa now stretching across nearly all 54 countries where an estimated one million Chinese immigrants now live and hundreds of billions of dollars in annual trade/investment, the relationship between these two regions is extremely complicated.
Beijing’s commitment to African infrastructure development is a central part of the government’s “win-win development” agenda, also a key message in its propaganda campaign that emphasizes China’s “peaceful rise” to superpower status.
So is China’s a partner or predator? The short answer, according to numerous leading Sino-African scholars, is that this vast complex relationship is not binary and cannot be reduced to either “good” or “bad.” It is the same in Africa as it is for China’s relations with other regions: “Both approaches offer oversimplified understandings of the complex interaction among the economic, geopolitical, and security dimensions of China’s relations with the rest of the world,” said Dr. Matt Ferchen from the Beijing-based Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in a new paper on the perception gaps surrounding China’s economic and military rise.
Matt joins Eric and Cobus to explain why he thinks views about the Chinese are so polarized in Africa and elsewhere and what impact the Trump revolution in the United States will have on China’s engagement in Africa.
This podcast was originally published by the China-Africa Project.
About the Author
Matt Ferchen
Former Nonresident Scholar, Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy
Ferchen specializes in China’s political-economic relations with emerging economies. At the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, he ran a program on China’s economic and political relations with the developing world, including Latin America.
- How China Is Reshaping International Development
- Why Unsustainable Chinese Infrastructure Deals Are a Two-Way StreetArticle
Matt Ferchen, Anarkalee Perera
Recent Work
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
More Work from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- The Plaza Accord and Its Relevance for ChinaCommentary
The Plaza Accord was not an externally imposed punishment of Japan but part of a broader restructuring that Japanese economists and policymakers themselves recognized was necessary. Its effects were undermined, however, when Tokyo responded to the resulting slowdown with policies that exacerbated investment, credit expansion, and the very imbalances the adjustment was intended to resolve.
Michael Pettis
- What to Watch When Trump and Xi Meet in WashingtonCommentary
The real test may come after the leaders leave the room.
- +1
Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Oriana Skylar Mastro, Yukon Huang, …
- The Impacts of the Houthis’ Advance Could Extend Well Beyond Saudi ArabiaCommentary
The Horn of Africa countries are among those facing a new security calculus.
Andrew Leber, Lesley Anne Warner
- Untangling the Nuclear Knot: A Constructive Agenda for Managing China’s Nuclear Relations with the United States and Its AlliesPaper
The nuclear relationship between China and the United States is increasingly shaped by widening perception gaps rather than deliberate strategic design.
Tong Zhao
- A Black Sea Truce Is About Global Food Security, TooCommentary
A summer of escalation in the Black Sea has hurt Ukraine economically and is exacerbating world food security. A truce is needed—as is a broader reframing of Europe’s Ukraine strategy.
Thomas de Waal
