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China’s New Priorities in Africa

by Eric Olander
Somali President Mohamed Farmaajo and Chinese Ambassador Qin Jian meet to discuss bilateral ties and Taiwan's recent moves to establish diplomatic ties with the self-declared state of Somaliland.

While Africa’s value to the outside world has historically been framed largely in economic terms — as a place to extract resources and as a market to sell goods — China is changing that equation.

The fact is, Africa just isn’t that important to China economically. All 54 African countries combined account for less than 4% of China’s 4+ trillion global trade balance while Beijing still lags far behind the U.S., France, and others in terms of FDI.

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