Testbed or Thoroughfare? Africa's Place in China's Evolving Grand Strategy

Abstract

What is Africa’s place in China’s global geo-strategy, or does it have one? China’s engagements with the continent have increased markedly in recent decades but does it occupy a central or peripheral role in China’s grand strategy? Recently, there have been debates about whether China has such a strategy, but we argue that part of the confusion around these issues arises from the distinctive nature of that state and the forms of loose coordination it operationalizes. Rather than a strictly defined ‘grand strategy’, China has a grand, strategic-relational approach to its foreign policy or operates a relational geopolitical code which nonetheless reflects core interests. We bring this perspective to bear on Africa’s evolving positionality in China’s global geostrategic engagements in order to evaluate its significance.