Joshua Eisenman and David H. Shinn, "China's Relations with Africa: A New Era of Strategic Engagement" (Columbia UP, 2023)

Oct 8, 2025

David H. Shinn, a former U.S. diplomat and Africa scholar, teams up with Joshua Eisenman, a politics professor and China expert, to explore China's growing influence in Africa. They discuss how Xi Jinping’s leadership has shifted China's strategy to prioritize relationships in the Global South. The conversation covers China's multilayered diplomatic efforts, the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative, and varying levels of agency among African nations. They also analyze how China's governance model is perceived and its evolving military presence in the region.

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INSIGHT

Africa As The Global South Powerhouse

Africa's 54 countries give it the largest bloc within the Global South, making it central to China's leadership ambitions.
Growing Chinese presence and nationals in Africa forced Beijing to prioritize security to protect its interests.

INSIGHT

China's Sinocentric Worldview

China frames international order as a Sinocentric hierarchy centered on the Communist Party and Xi Jinping.
This contrasts with Western rules-based equality and helps explain Beijing's influence strategy in Africa.

INSIGHT

Agency Is Graduated, Not Binary

Agency in Africa-China ties is not binary; countries have varying degrees of leverage depending on capacity and context.
Small states with strategic value can sometimes gain outsized agency versus larger countries.

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Since Xi Jinping’s accession to power in 2012, nearly every aspect of China’s relations with Africa has grown dramatically. Beijing has increased the share of resources it devotes to African countries, expanding military cooperation, technological investment, and educational and cultural programs as well as extending its political influence.

China's Relations with Africa: A New Era of Strategic Engagement (Columbia University Press, 2023) examines the full scope of contemporary political and security relations between China and Africa. David H. Shinn and Joshua Eisenman not only explain the specific tactics and methods that Beijing uses to build its strategic relations with African political and military elites but also contextualize and interpret them within China’s larger geostrategy. They argue that the priorities of Chinese leaders―including the conflation of threats to the Communist Party with threats to the country, a growing emphasis on relations in the Global South, and a focus on countering U.S. hegemony―have combined to elevate Africa’s importance among policy makers in Beijing.

Ranging from diplomacy and propaganda to arms sales and space cooperation, from increasingly frequent People’s Liberation Army Navy port calls in Africa to the rising number of African students studying in China, this book marshals extensive and compelling qualitative and quantitative evidence of the deepening ties between China and Africa. Drawing on two decades of systematic data and hundreds of surveys and in-person interviews, Shinn and Eisenman shed new light on the state of China-Africa relations today and consider what the future may hold.

Byline

Nomeh Anthony Kanayo, Ph.D. Candidate in International Relations at Florida International University, with research interest in Africa's diaspora relations, African-China relations, Great power rivalry and IR theories.

Check out my new article https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sciaf.2025.e02699

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