Understanding China-Africa Cooperation: Development Partnership or Neo-Colonialism

In the recent two decades, China‟s economic involvement in Africa was accused of colonialist actions by many Western observers. Nonetheless, most of these accusations have no basis. China tends to build a “development partnership” with African countries with the aim of treating African countries as a strategic partner. In this article, after comprehensively exploring China‟s engagement with Africa based on data and case studies, it argues that China‟s engagement in Africa in recent decades has nothing to do with neocolonialism. On the contrary, China‟s engagement not simply facilitates Africa‟s independence from the West and also promotes a fledgling new world order in Africa based on win-win and equal sovereignty. Due to the emergence of new order, the South-South cooperation is increasingly expectable.

Keywords: Africa, China, Development Neo-colonialism, Partnership.