China-Africa Trade and Investment Relations: Development Partnership or New Colonialism?

Abstract

The unprecedented pace of growth of China-Africa trade and investment relationship in the last two decades has attracted greater intellectual curiosity among social scientists. In 2001, the annual trade volume between the two was estimated to be US$ 10 Billion. This figure has astonishingly increased to US$ 215 Billion by 2016. This growing relationship has been characterised by scholars under three approaches. The first one sees China as a true development partner of Africa. The second approach is that China is an economic competitor of the West in Africa with the ultimate objective of having its own share in exploiting the natural resources of the continent. The third approach is an extreme position of characterizing the engagement as a new colonialism. The paper concludes that China should be seen as a true development partner as opposed to the claims of exploitation and colonization.