(Photo: ISS.)
The Africa Center for Strategic Studies has undertaken a series of analyses tracking China in Africa.
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Chinese State-Owned Enterprises and Market Capture in Africa
Chinese SOEs serve as tools of national power—securing minerals, building alternative corridors to China’s economy, and shaping long-term influence—with far-reaching implications for African citizen interests and development.
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China’s Military Footprint in Africa Deepens with PLA-led BRICS Naval Drills
China’s continued efforts to integrate African governments into China’s global security architectures risk undermining Africa’s longstanding preference to avoid being pulled into competing geopolitical camps.
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What to Expect from Africa-China Relations in 2026
African countries seek to rebalance their ties with China toward debt sustainability, value addition, and industrialization to move toward a more equal and transparent partnership that prioritizes long-term African development.
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China’s Critical Minerals Strategy in Africa
China has gained a dominant position in Africa’s critical minerals sector through long-term investments in mining and refining capacity—factors that make it challenging for African countries to advance up the value chain.
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Africa as a Testing Ground for China’s Global Security Initiative
China’s Global Security Initiative aims to advance China’s geostrategic posture by building coalitions of actors that align with Chinese norms on international security and domestic law enforcement.
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The Limits to China’s Transactional Diplomacy in Africa
China’s regime agnostic diplomacy in Africa—investing in countries irrespective of a government’s adherence to the rule of law—holds inherent risks for Chinese investments and regional stability.
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China Widening Its Influence in Africa through Expanded Security Engagements
China’s expanding security engagements in Africa are part of Beijing's geostrategic aims to advance its global security posture.
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Mapping China’s Strategic Port Development in Africa
Chinese firms are present in over a third of all African port developments, some of which could be used for expanded Chinese naval presence on the continent.
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What to Expect from Africa-China Relations in 2025
African countries will be looking to recalibrate their strategic partnerships with China to advance African interests as the continent positions itself to exercise greater agency in its external partnerships.
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The Growing Militarization of China’s Africa Policy
China is leveraging its military training exercises with African forces to advance China’s expeditionary capabilities and geostrategic ambitions.
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Reimagining African Agency in Africa-China Relations—Lessons from FOCAC 2024
Overcoming the ongoing asymmetry of Africa-China relations will require institutionalizing more robust and transparent African monitoring of commitments, strategic representation, and harnessing of African expertise.
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FOCAC 2024: Elevating African Interests Beyond the Africa-China Summit
To enhance the impact of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, African countries need a more coherent strategy of engagement with China along with increased public transparency, awareness, and citizen agency.
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China Escalates Its Political Party Training in Africa
China promotes its dominant party model in Africa through a suite of training programs for party and government officials even though this model is antithetical to Africans’ preference for multiparty democracy.
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China’s Strategy to Shape Africa’s Media Space
China’s ruling party is leveraging its funding of African media outlets, content sharing, and training of African journalists to advance Chinese narratives, policies, and norms on the continent.
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Lessons from China’s Forum Diplomacy in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean
African, Latin American, and Caribbean countries can enhance the benefits of their engagements with China by expanding coordination and lessons sharing to ensure that citizens’ interests are prioritized.
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China’s First Political School in Africa
The Nyerere Leadership School, supported by China’s Central Party School, provides ideological training to cadres from African liberation parties that have governed uninterrupted since independence.
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China’s “Military Political Work” and Professional Military Education in Africa
China envisages professional military education in Africa as an opportunity to promote China’s governance model while deepening ties to Africa’s ruling political parties.
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China’s United Front Strategy in Africa
China’s United Front work co-opts well-placed individuals and organizations to cultivate support for and defend China’s goals and interests while isolating China’s opponents in Africa.
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Africa’s Interests in Strengthening the United Nations System
African countries have played an overlooked role shaping the UN international system, remain committed to preserving and improving it, and oppose efforts to destabilize, dismantle, or overturn it.
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China’s Policing Models Make Inroads in Africa
China’s expanded police engagements in Africa could have potentially far-reaching consequences for African security governance.
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China’s Influence on African Media
China media expert Bob Wekesa reflects on the Chinese Communist Party’s model of total state control of information and its export to Africa.
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Africa’s Role in China’s Multilateralism Strategy
China’s efforts to reshape existing global institutions and norms rely on the support of African governments, though this can often be at odds with African citizen interests.
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China’s Deepening Ties to Africa in Xi Jinping’s Third Term
Embarking on his third term in power, Xi Jinping is firmly in control of China’s foreign policy, which is expected to accentuate the enlistment of African support for reshaping global institutions and validating China’s governance norms.
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China’s Diplomacy in the Horn—Conflict Mediation as Power Politics
China’s support for ruling parties undermines its ability to be an impartial arbiter of conflict resolution in the Horn of Africa and highlights China’s use of mediation to pursue its geostrategic interests.
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TICAD’s bottom-up, multisectoral, and co-partnership approach is welcome in Africa and offers a model for the value of long-term partnerships to strengthen development, peace, and security.
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Considerations for a Prospective New Chinese Naval Base in Africa
China's reported plans to add another naval base in Africa raise questions about China's increasingly militarized strategy and may stoke fears of compromised sovereignty amid a new "scramble" for Africa.
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Guānxì: Power, Networking, and Influence in China-Africa Relations
China-Africa relations thrive on interpersonal ties of mutual dependence, obligations, and reciprocity that African elites tend to skew to their benefit at the expense of the public interest.
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The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation at 21: Where to Next?
African countries can negotiate a more equitable role in FOCAC, but this requires a more strategically focused approach, better coordination, and greater accountability to their citizens.
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Chinese Security Firms Spread along the African Belt and Road
The deployment of Chinese security firms in Africa is expanding without a strong regulatory framework. This poses heightened risks to African citizens and raises fundamental questions over responsibility for security in Africa.
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Reshaping African Agency in China-Africa Relations
The power imbalance between China and Africa poses a challenge for negotiating equitable investment deals. The interests of African citizens can be strengthened through agreements that are transparent, involve experts, and facilitate public engagement.
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The Spread of Surveillance Technology in Africa Stirs Security Concerns
The spread of surveillance technology in Africa without adequate checks and balances is reshaping the governance landscape while potentially enabling another tool of repression.
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China Promotes Its Party-Army Model in Africa
China’s party-army model, whereby the army is subordinate to a single ruling party, is antithetical to the multiparty democratic systems with an apolitical military accountable to elected leaders adopted by most African countries.
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“China Also Has to Win”: A Discussion with Yun Sun on One Belt, One Road in Africa
In an interview with the Africa Center, China expert Yun Sun offers a look at Beijing's engagement with Africa and African governments' evolving expectations of their relationship.
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Implications for Africa from China’s One Belt One Road Strategy
China's Belt and Road Initiative forges intertwining economic, political, and security ties between Africa and China, advancing Beijing’s geopolitical interests.
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Chinese Hard Power Supports Its Growing Strategic Interests in Africa
China’s growing military engagement in Africa is aimed at advancing Beijing’s economic and strategic interests, in particular its Belt and Road Initiative.
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Grand Strategy and China’s Soft Power Push in Africa
China is doubling down on its soft power initiatives in Africa as part of China's Grand Strategy to tap emerging markets, shape global governance norms, and expand its influence.
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Pursuing the China Dream through Africa: Five Elements of China’s Africa Strategy
China’s expanding involvement in Africa is an integral piece in President Xi Jinping’s grand strategy to restore the country to its perceived rightful place of global prominence.