French media and scholars have long struggled to understand the nature of Chinese engagement in Africa, often framing the issue in the context of their own brutal colonial past on the continent. Much of the discourse on the topic in France is whether China is the “new colonial power in Africa” and, for the most part, it doesn’t go beyond that.

Thierry Pairault, a longtime China-Africa scholar who is emeritus research director at the National Center for Scientific Research, is among the few French scholars who regularly seek to dispel many of the deeply entrenched myths about China’s policies and activities in Africa.