China in Africa: Assessing the Consequences for the Continent's Agenda for Economic Regionalism

Abstract

Africa has become a major arena in the so-called 'multiplex world'. The growing presence of China in the last two decades along with other emerging countries has turned the continent into a space where multiple patterns of interaction between state and non-state actors can be observed. International debates have become polarised over whether this new South-South dynamics generate new dependency relations or whether they have a truly transformative potential. This article focuses on China's role in economic integration processes in the African region. Far from merely reproducing the neoliberal pattern, this interaction may highlight a certain convergence between the African regional integration project and China's strategy to promote strategies aimed at structural transformation, with investment in infrastructure being an example of this. However, the article considers that rather than a Chinese strategy of reinforcing African regional integration, this is an essentially bilateral and very pragmatic Chinese strategy that has some indirect returns on regional integration, and is actually showing some signs of decline.