ABSTRACT
In its pursuit of this growth-oriented model, a number of African countries have come to occupy centrestage in Chinese foreign policy as potential sources of raw materials to fuel China’s growth or as emerging markets for Chinese goods. In this way, China’s foreign policy is understood by some to be shifting from a concern with ‘ideology’ to a preoccupation with ‘business’, using what Joseph Nye (2004) terms ‘soft power’ to cajole client states into accepting Chinese contracts. For observers such as Alden (2007) and Taylor (2007), soft power is part of China’s ‘oil diplomacy’ in which notionally unconditional aid, low-interest loans and technical co-operation agreements are used to cement bilateral deals over oil supply, engineering contracts and trade agreements.
