I don’t think the matter can be reduced to the level of fairy stories where there are the ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’; a more nuanced approach is required. Certainly there are positive aspects, such as that China has been willing to break the stronghold of the Western powers and the international financial institutions that they control who have, since the early 1980s, been prohibiting investment in infrastructure in Africa. Indeed, African countries now have alternative trading partners rather than just being dominated by the advanced capitalist countries.
But we have to go beyond that. The entry of China into Africa was not a challenge to the neoliberal agendas that have had such a devastating impact on the majority of people in Africa. On the contrary, it has been facilitated by the same policies that ‘opened up’ Africa’s economies to the international markets. China has not challenged the policies that have led to mass privatization: it has benefited from them.
