The African views on China’s African Policy

Through the years of Chinese involvement in Africa after decolonization, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has gradually become the largest trading partner of many African countries. Nowadays, its influence has been surpassing most of the Western powers such as Britain, France, and the United States, some of which have been involved in the African affairs for centuries. China's activities in Africa in the areas of trade, aids, foreign direct investments, and energy purchases have been growing rapidly in recent years. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze whether China is a new colonial power in Africa and to examine briefly the development Sino-African relations and the changes of Beijing’s African policy. The thesis focuses mostly on identifying and analyzing the African views about China and China’s African policy. Mainly qualitative methods are used in this research. A number of secondary published data and surveys are collected to support qualitative analysis in this study. Parallel to the rising influence of economic and political Sino-African relations, a tremendous amount of researches have been carried out on the Sino-African relations in the literature. However, despite this increase in the literature, there is still limited information about African views about China and China's African policy. This thesis analyzes the different dimensions of African’s views. In order to fill this gap and enrich the literature, the African political elites, students, media, and people’s views about China's African policy have been examined. Four important findings have been reached. The first finding is that a vast majority of Africans shares a rather positive view about China's African policy. The second finding is that not all African leaders have positive opinions about China, as Western sources indicate. In recent years, in some African countries, especially opposition parties start to adopt various kinds of anti-Chinese policies. The third finding is that the positive and negative views of the political elites and the media about China seriously affect the public's view. The fourth finding is that China is neither a colonialist nor a new colonialist power in Africa in the past and the present.

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327666346_The_African_views_on_China%27s_African_Policy