Assessing Chinas role in Africa: a search for a new perspective

Publication date: Wednesday 13 February 2008

Open any newspaper and you would get the impression that the African continent, and much of the rest of the world, is in the process of being devoured by China. Phrases such as the new scramble for Africa, voracious, ravenous or insatiable appetite for natural resources are typical descriptors used to characterise Chinas engagement with Africa. In contrast, the operations of western capital for the same activities are described with anodyne phrases such as development, investment, employment generation (Mawdsely, 2008). Is China indeed the voracious tiger it is so often portrayed as?