China's exceptionalism and the challenges of delivering difference in Africa

Journal of Contemporary China

Volumn 20, Issue 68, 2011, Pages 21-38

  Alden, Chris ^a   Large, Daniel ^b  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC RELATIONS; GEOPOLITICS; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS;

AFRICA; CHINA;

EID: 78650044208     PISSN: 10670564     EISSN: 14699400     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2011.520844     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. See Barry Sautman, Friends and Interests: China's Distinctive Links with Africa, Center on China's Transnational Relations Working Paper No. 12 (Hong Kong: The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2006).
2. See Giles Mohan and Marcus Power, 'New African choices? The politics of Chinese engagement', Review of African Political Economy 115, (2008), pp. 23-42, for a recent, theoretically oriented account.
3. There is a longstanding debate concerning China and International Relations theory, as well as approaches to China in other disciplines as part of what has been called 'the tiresome apartheid of Chinese exceptionalism-promoted by scholars in and out of Chinese Studies, as well as political leaders around the world'. See Louise Edwards, 'Review article: The "problem of China" and Chinese exceptionalism', Journal of Contemporary History 43(1), (2008), pp. 155-164. Our approach is different, however, in engaging the Chinese government's self-proclaimed distinctiveness that can be considered exceptional.
4. Stephen Levine, 'Perception and ideology in Chinese foreign policy', in Thomas W. Robinson and David Shambaugh, eds, Chinese Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 44.
5. See Daniel Large, 'Beyond "dragon in the bush": the study of China-Africa relations', African Affairs 107(426), (2008), pp. 45-61.
6. Robert Rotberg, ed., China into Africa: Trade, Aid and Influence (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008).
7. Arthur Waldron, ed., China in Africa (Washington, DC: The Jamestown Foundation, 2009).
8. Declaration of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (draft), (16 November 2006), available at: http://english.focacsummit.org/2006-11/16/content_6586.htm.
9. See, for example, recent issues of Africa-Asia Confidential.
10. See Jing Gu, 'China's private enterprises in Africa and the implications for African development', European Journal of Development Research 21(4), (2009), pp. 570-587.
11. See Chris Alden, Daniel Large and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, eds, China Returns to Africa: A Rising Power and a Continent Embrace (London: Hurst, 2008).
12. and Ian Taylor, China's New Role in Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2009).
13. See 'Full text of Wu Bangguo's speech at the China-Africa Business Cooperation Conference in Cairo 21 May 2007', Xinhua, (21 May 2007).
14. For a recent account, see Wenran Jiang, 'Fuelling the dragon: China's rise and its energy and resources extraction in Africa', The China Quarterly 199, (2009), pp. 585-609.
15. See, for a recent example, Peter Hitchens, 'How China has created a new slave empire in Africa', Daily Mail, (28 September 2008).
16. See Michael H. Hunt, The Genesis of Chinese Communist Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).
17. Chris Alden and Ana Cristina Alves, 'History and identity in the construction of China's Africa policy', Review of African Political Economy 115, (2008), pp. 43-58.
18. See Julia C. Strauss, 'The past in the present: historical and rhetorical lineages in China's relations with Africa', China Quarterly 199, (2009), pp. 777-795.
19. To loosely adapt Michael Walzer, Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994).
20. See also Philip Snow, The Star Raft: China's Encounter with Africa (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988).
21. By this, of course, we put China's present engagement in comparative perspective to that of the past, on which see also Deborah Brautigam, Chinese Aid and African Development: Exporting Green Revolution (London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1998).
22. and Jamie Monson, Africa's Freedom Railway: How a Chinese Development Project Changed Lives and Livelihoods in Tanzania (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009).
23. Daniel Bell, China's New Confucianism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 8.
24. See Suisheng Zhao, ed., Chinese Foreign Policy: Pragmatism and Strategic Behavior (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004).
25. Bonnie S. Glaser and Evan S. Medeiros, 'The changing ecology of foreign policy-making in China: the ascension and demise of the theory of "peaceful rise"', China Quarterly 190, (2007), pp. 291-310.
26. Chih-Yu Shih, China's Just World: The Morality of Chinese Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993).
27. Xu Jian, 'The theory and practice of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence', International Studies 1, (January 2005), pp. 22-42.
28. See Kweku Ampiah, The Political and Moral Imperatives of the Bandung Conference of 1955: The Reactions of US, UK and Japan (London: Global Oriental, 2007).
29. See China's Africa Policy, (January 2006).
30. This can be seen in China's policy on its relations with Latin America, where there is a similar emphasis on 'equality, mutual benefit and common development' or 'independence, full equality, mutual respect and non-interference in each other's internal affairs'. See China's Policy Paper on Latin America and the Caribbean, (5 November 2008).
31. The controversy during the Zambian presidential elections in late 2006 focused on the Chinese ambassador's response to opposition candidate Michael Sata's playing the Taiwan card, thus arguably in part broaching an issue in 'domestic' Chinese politics; China's position on Sudan/Darfur undoubtedly evolved but has maintained noninterference as a basic principle. See Jonathan Holslag, 'China's diplomatic maneuvering on the question of Darfur', Journal of Contemporary China 17(54), (2008), pp. 71-84.
32. Mario Esteban, 'The Chinese amigo: implications for the development of Equatorial Guinea', The China Quarterly 199, (2009), pp. 667-685.
33. Linda Jakobson, 'The burden of "non-interference"', China Economic Quarterly 11(2), (2007), pp. 14-18.
34. See Li Anshan, 'China and Africa: policy and challenges', China Security 3(3), (2007), p. 77.
35. See Daniel Large, 'China's Sudan engagement: changing Northern and Southern political trajectories in peace and war', The China Quarterly 199, (2009), pp. 610-626.
36. To paraphrase Nyerere's description of China-Tanzania relations. Quoted in George T. Yu, China and Tanzania: A Study in Cooperative Interaction (Berkeley, CA: Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, 1970), p. 97.
37. Mark George, China Africa Two-Way Trade-Recent Developments, DFID Policy Briefing Paper, (30 January 2009).
38. Chen Zhimin and Jian Jinbo, Chinese Provinces as Foreign Policy Actors in Africa, South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA) China in Africa Policy Report (Braamfontein: SAIIA, 2009), pp. 2-3.
39. Bates Gill and James Reilly, 'The tenuous hold of China Inc. in Africa', The Washington Quarterly 30(3), (2007), pp. 37-52.
40. 'Conclusion: all over Africa', in Alden et al., eds, China Returns to Africa, pp. 371-376.
41. George T. Yu, China and Tanzania: A Study in Cooperative Interaction (Berkeley, CA: Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, 1970), p. 33.
42. X. Wu, 'Four contradictions constraining China's foreign policy behavior', in Suisheng Zhao, ed., Chinese Foreign Policy, pp. 58-65.
43. As the FOCAC III Declaration asserts, 'The African countries are greatly inspired by China's rapid economic development'.
44. Philip Snow, 'China and Africa: consensus and camouflage', in Robinson and Shambaugh, eds, Chinese Foreign Policy, pp. 283-321.
45. Interview with senior Chinese official, September 2008.
46. Simon Shen, 'A constructed (un)reality on China's re-entry into Africa: the Chinese online community perception of Africa (2006-2008)', The Journal of Modern African Studies 47(3), (2009), pp. 425-448.
47. Jean Francois Bayart, 'Africa in the world: a history of extroversion', African Affairs 99(395), (2000), pp. 217-267.
48. Yoon Park, Chinese Migration to Africa (Braamfontein: SAIIA, 2008).
49. E.M. Mung, 'Chinese migration and China's foreign policy in Africa', Journal of Chinese Overseas 4(1), (2008), pp. 91-109.
50. See, for example, Moises Naim, 'Rogue aid', Foreign Policy 159, (March/April 2007), pp. 94-95.
51. for a more considered, authoritative new account, see Deborah Brautigam, The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
52. For an overview of the literature on political development, see Myron Weiner and Samuel Huntington, eds, Understanding Political Development (Boston, MA: Little Brown, 1987).
53. See Mao Zedong's famous 'New China' speech on 1 October 1949, echoed by subsequent leaders and policies.
54. To use the oft-quoted mantra, originally in the literature on conflict and development, sparked by Mary B Anderson, Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace-or War (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999).
55. Bates Gill and James Reilly, 'Sovereignty, intervention and peacekeeping: the view from Beijing', Survival 42, (2000), p. 44.
56. Alan Carlson, 'Helping to keep the peace (albeit reluctantly): China's recent stance on sovereignty and multilateral intervention', Pacific Affairs 77, (2004), p. 13.