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Understanding Africa’S China Policy: A Test Of Dependency Theory And A Study Of African Motivations In Increasing Engagement With China, Nkemjika E. Kalu

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

African states are increasingly engaging with China--politically, socially and economically--especially through the machinations of the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). This dissertation asserts that Africans are willing partners of the Chinese, motivated by their state-centric belief that engagement with China is in their national interest. This assertion contradicts the assumption of most literature to date that appears to borrow from the logic of dependency theory and presents African nations as pawns, subject to the demands of a dominant and exploitative China, who is benefiting at Africa’s expense. Economic trends from the decade before the launch of the FOCAC and the …