The Covid-19 crisis has put a massive strain on what was a growing positive economic and political relationship between China and the continent of Africa. As Chinese President Xi Jinping’s centerpiece “Belt and Road initiative” continues to expand Chinese power, the response to the spread of Covid-19, as well as the African government’s growing debt to China, has seen pushback. What are some of the growing economic and political issues between China and Africa?
Dr. Lina Benabdallah is an assistant professor of Politics and International Relations at Wake Forest University. She is the author of Shaping the Future of Power: Knowledge Production and Network-Building in China-Africa Relations (University of Michigan Press, 2020). Her research has appeared in the Journal of International Relations and Development, Third World Quarterly, African Studies Quarterly, and Project on Middle East Political Science, as well as in public-facing outlets such as The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage and Foreign Policy. Dr. Benabdallah is also a Johns Hopkins China Africa Research Initiative research associate and a contributing editor for Africa Is a Country. She earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Florida in 2017 and has conducted fieldwork in Beijing, Jinhua, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, and Bamako.
Read more about Dr. Lina Benabdallah here.
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