With China confident emergence on the global stage as the economic empire of the future, it would be ill-advised for African leaders to turn their backs on the sleeping giant. Instead of paranoia, this paper calls for guarded optimism regarding the deepening relationship between Africa and China. China’s involvement in Africa has serious implications not only for Africa and Africans but also for U.S. The current struggle over Africa’s resources evokes worrying memories of an earlier scramble for pieces of the continent in the late nineteenth century by Western European powers and in the 1950s and 1960s by Eastern powers, principally China and Russia.

Policy makers and analysts in the West are concerned that China could gain control over Africa’s vast and untapped natural resources, particularly the continent’s energy reserves. In the West, reaction to China’s involvement in Africa has bordered on suspicion and paranoia. Emerging discourse on the China-Africa relationship depicts China either as the new imperial power or as Africa’s benefactor.

Since January 2006, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have paid friendly visits to at least 10 African countries. In January 2006, the Chinese Government, for the first time, issued an African Policy Paper. More recently, the Beijing Summit & Third Ministerial Conference on China-Africa Cooperation took place in November 2006. The Second China-Africa Forum on Cooperation was held in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, from December 15 to 16, 2003. In October 2000, Beijing hosted the ministerial conference of the Forum (“First Ministerial Conference”). The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (“Forum” or “FOCAC”) was created by Africa and China and formally launched in October 2000 to serve as a vehicle for promoting China-Africa friendship and cooperation.

The year 2006 was dubbed “China’s Year of Africa.” Since 2000, the interest of the People’s Republic of China (“China”) in Africa has grown steadily. The emphasis is on the trade and investment dimension of the Sino-Africa relations. The paper will also seek to identify the core characteristics of China’s partnership with Africa. This paper examines the opportunities and pitfalls that renewed Sino-Africa trade relations presents for Africa, traces the evolution in China-Africa partnership discourse, identifies the basic legal and policy framework of the unfolding relationship, and calls for a clear Africa policy regarding China.

Fair trading forge of empires