Trade between China and Africa: Trends, Changes, and Challenges

Trade has become a potent tool in China’s reinvigoration of economic relations with Africa. The pattern and structure of China’s trade with Africa has significantly shifted from one which was motivated by political opportunism, support for liberation and nationalist struggles of colonized African states to economic opportunism based on resources needs of China’s expanding economy. Since 2000 China-Africa two-way trade has increased both in volume and content. However, in spite of this increase, China-Africa trade, like Africa’s trade with Europe and the United States is still dominated by the prosperous and resources rich States. As a result there is a dichotomy between net-winner African States and net-loser African States. The paper argues that China-Africa trade like Africa’s trade with Europe and United States reinforces and maintains the asymmetry that exist in the African economy