7 May 2022

(In)roads and Outposts: Critical Infrastructure in China’s Africa Strategy

Nadège Rolland

The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) project “Into Africa: China’s Emerging Strategy” endeavors to examine where the African continent fits in relation to China’s overall strategic vision. Our first report, “A New Great Game? Situating Africa in China’s Strategic Thinking,” found that Africa is centrally situated in China’s strategic thinking in the Xi Jinping era.[1] Chinese elites have been pondering options that will lead the continent through a series of transformations, both economic and political, so that it can better fit within the subsystem that Beijing aspires to create and dominate. Among the options discussed is the possibility of exporting elements of China’s economic development model, more specifically the combined development of labor-intensive industries, special economic zones (SEZs) and industrial parks, and infrastructure building that China adopted in the early stages of its reform and opening- up period.[2]

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