The death of Angola’s former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos on 8 July, brought to an end a pivotal Africa-China relationship, one that reshaped the whole continent’s relationship with the rising superpower.
This great obit by South China Morning Post’s Jevans Nyabiage, shows how Dos Santos, initially a Soviet ally, warmed up to China and how they set up the oil-for-infrastructure deal called the “Angola Model,” which was replicated across the Global South. Angola’s debt to China still makes up a third of all Chinese loans to the continent.