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Deep Dive: Jose Eduardo dos Santos and the History of the “Angola Model”

by Cobus van Staden
A man holds up an Angolan newspaper announcing the death of Jose Eduardo dos Santos. The headline reads: "Angola loses a great statesman." Photo: Julio Pacheco Ntela/AFP

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.

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