China and Africa

China’s trade relations with Africa have displayed a striking dynamism in the past decade. The spatial distribution of these trade flows is highly uneven: Chinese imports are mainly sourced from a few resource-rich nations, while Chinese exports penetrate most African markets. Small-scale business enterprises have been crucial to the recent surge in the export of Chinese manufactured goods to Africa. The scholarship on the micro-level processes through which these commodities enter Africa has so far focused on the role of Chinese entrepreneurs. This article contributes to the existing literature by addressing the ways in which both African and Chinese actors play a part in strengthening Sino–African trade relations. Based on multi-sited fieldwork with semi structured interviews and participant observation, it explores relationships of competition, complementarity and cooperation between Chinese and African traders. The macro-level trends in Sino–African trade are described using information extracted from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database. Given the economic and social significance of the exports from China to Africa, it is important to build a better understanding of the central role played by small-scale businesses and to recognize the role of Africans in shaping Sino–African links.

本文的研究对象是在非中国移民的组织化生活。我们认为在中非关系中，不仅有来自中国国家层面的交流（国企、外交团体、援助工程等）、非国家层面的交流（永久性移民、往来于中非之间的商人、学生），还有一种被以往研究忽视的交流：多数在非洲有单位的华人，或是自己经营的商人，都是某些华人社团的成员。这些社团形成了一种结社的空间，存在于国家与非国家的交集之间，这其中包括了独立创办且历史悠久的传统社团、商会，也包括了由中国国企和政府资助成立的社团（在这种情况下可以被认为是政府组织的非政府组织GONGO），还包括了中国使馆不时组织的主题式的政治动员活动。在这个空间里，中国移民、企业的个人利益和商业利益与他们所在的社团交织在一起，与其它国家的移民相比，他们的生活更具政治性。

Through the lens of China in Africa, this paper explores the transformations in the relationship between the Internet and the state. China’s economic success, impressive growth of Internet users and relative stability have quietly promoted an example of how the Internet can be deployed within the larger political and economic strategies of developing states, moving beyond the democratization paradigm promoted in the West. New evidence suggests that this model is becoming increasingly popular, but it is not clear why and how it is spreading. Through a case study comparison of an emerging democracy, Kenya, and a semi-authoritarian country, Ethiopia, where China has recently increased its involvement in the communications sector, this paper investigates whether and how the ideas of state stability, development and community that characterize the strategies pursued by the Chinese government are influencing and legitimizing the development of a less open model of the Internet. It analyses how new ideas, technologies and norms integrate with existing ones and which factors influence their adoption or rejection. It is based on fieldwork conducted in Ethiopia and in Kenya between 2011 and 2013, where data was collected through mapping Internet related projects involving Chinese companies and authorities, analysing Internet policies and regulations, and interviewing officials in Ministries of Communication, media lawyers, Internet activists, and Chinese employed in the media and telecommunication sector in Kenya and Ethiopia.

This article seeks to explain why the confrontation between the "Build Back Better World" [B3W] versus the "Belt and Road Initiative" [BRI] might well place Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as the case for many other developing countries, in a "complex dilemma". The latter is understood here as a situation in which, faced with a choice between two paths to follow, it appears not only difficult to go in one direction against the other, but also to manage to balance the two at the same time, without taking a position [neutrality or third path] and without creating pronounced imbalances between the blocks of the "conservatives" and the "progressives"represented here respectively by the United States and China. The complexity of this dilemma is viewed in the strategic choice to be made and the possible costs in the aftermath of its choice for its survival. By using secondary data extracted from international and national sources, the methodology used in the elaboration of this document is essentially qualitative, based on the strategic analytical approach. However, we privileged not only purely theoretical analyses explaining the reasons for this "complex dilemma", but also numerical illustrations via figures and statistical tables. After analysis and discussion, the results that emerge from this paper clearly show that beyond the different possible opportunities presented by the confrontation between B3W and BRI following to the "conservative-progressive competition", due to its different assets, weaknesses and problems, DRC-as the case for certain developing countries, is in the prey of this "complex dilemma". This is due to a number of fundamental reasons: its strategic character in the eyes of both "conservatives" and "progressives"; its pronounced dependence on both China and the Western world; and its fragility due to problems of leadership and political governance. To conclude, this paper reasoned that it is up to DRC to prepare, preserve itself and learn from its past mistakes in order to better define the fundamental strategic options for its best survival. It is also up to DRC to reshape its political model, in particular by strengthening its political governance, but above all by working towards the formation of an innovative leadership capable of capitalizing on the opportunities arising from such a confrontation-all the while trying to contain, limit, and even prevent the possible risks.