(Source : U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission) – Two Markets, Two Resources: Documenting China’s Engagement in Africa – By Emily de La Bruyère and Nathan Picarsic (Horizon Advisory)

This report was prepared at the request of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission to support its deliberations and published in November 2020. Here is an abstract, as well as the pdf link to the full report.

” Total trade between China and the nations of the African continent totaled $10.5 billion in 2000. In 2019, that figure topped $200 billion. China’s annual foreign direct investment in Africa stood at $75 million in 2003. By 2018, that figure had swelled to over $5 billion. Chinese companies have invested in, backed, and built road, rail, port, and air infrastructure; dozens of industrial parks and agriculture technology development areas; mines and mineral processing facilities; and, increasingly, foundations for emerging technological systems including telecommunications, surveillance, and financial technology across the African continent.
This report analyzes primary source Chinese strategic discourse about and resource allocations in Africa. The report argues that Beijing prioritizes the continent’s mineral and energy resource wealth. Beijing also values the African continent as a testbed for industrial policy, technology, and military development. “It is no mere rhetoric that China needs Africa,” wrote Zhang Hongming, Deputy Director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ African Studies Institute, in 2017. “Africa has political, economic, and even strategic resources that China uses in order more effectively to expand its interests – thus turning operations in Africa into a strategic outer line for China’s geopolitical strategy of great power relations.”

According to Zhang, the CCP prioritizes four key areas in Africa:
• Energy and mineral resources,
• Markets for goods and services,
• Industrial and security infrastructure, and
• Standards for foundational systems, especially of commerce, infrastructure, and industry.”

Illustration © “UN Comtrade: International Trade Statistics Database.” United Nations; “China FTA Network.” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs; “Investment Policy Hub.” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), as referred to in footnote #17 by Horizon Advisory, ibid

See Full Report as a PDF >>> Two Markets Two Resources Documenting Chinas Engagement in Africa

See also the following chapter about China’s Strategic Aims in Africa published in the Commission’s 2020 report to Congress >>> www.uscc.gov