Very interesting article, many thanks indeed.
Would there be any chance to get those graphics with a better definition?

Best,

Nico

Good article, with a cracking title. Perhaps you can tease out this idea of “legitimate concerns over human rights practices” with exactly what you mean by “business driven development”? Which human rights exactly are you talking about? Ecosoc rights and political rights for example are not the same things, and interact with what you are terming “business driven development” in many ways. You have treated here human right concerns solely as they stand imported from China; what about domestic abuses of human rights allowed by external funding (sort of Jack’s point 1)? And what happens when different human rights intrinsically conflict- doesn’t business driven development just make these problems internal to the country? To be clear, and to not get us caught up in a pointless epistemological debate, my comment is solely that human rights concerns here are worth specifying and integrating tightly into your model rather than being lumped together as “human rights”.

Jack, point 1, you are presuming that tying aid to “humanitarian concerns” leads to “democracy and liberalism”- err, is that always the case? That’s a wee bit simplistic isn’t it?
Ryan

I like how you are balancing the multiple intentions and drivers of China’s motivation of its engagement in Africa. In my opinion, clearly China’s key driver is a grown understanding of the limitations of its economy: shortages of natural resources. So China started to build allys: with Russia-as a more a less settled economy- through a clearly defined contract for oil supply, as well as with Africa.

The point is, the (rather turbulent) situation in Africa just needed to be treated a little bit more subtle – therefore China has developed a highly advanced network of direct and indirect investments in African infrastructure projects over the last decade! Gradually China will be able to increase its sourcing of natural resources in Africa and reduce the risk of dependencies of the Middle East.

A classic portfolio diversification; a smart move if you look at Europe and the US, that a rather increasing its dependencies from Russia, respectively the Middle East!

A good article.

The enlarged graphics were helpful.

What is a preferential loan? Concessional?

Best wishes

Andrew

Where such behavior has occurred in the past with support given to non-Communist regimes, these days it is no longer au fait to provide support to dictatorships.