In seeking to cultivate external relations with African countries, China has long stressed its commonly shared roots with African nations as a developing country rather than a Western state, and as such the symbolic attraction of China clearly reverberates with many African elites who seem to look on China as a positive development model. However, it should be note...

Ghana has recently joined the ranks of oil-producing states with a projected output of 120,000 barrels per day. This has greatly elevated hopes among the general public, but also sparked fears of a ‘Nigerian scenario’ in which oil becomes a problem rather than a solution. This article argues that Ghana, as a latecomer to the oil industry, may possess a structural i...

Sino-Zambian relations are exceptional to a remarkable degree, and do not seem to fall into the common pattern used to describe the Sino-African relationship as part of a so-called ‘new scramble for Africa’. Zambia is a country where both positive and negative developments took place earlier than elsewhere on the African continent and, in this respect, Zambia has a...