The African Integration Forums and the Role of China in African Integration

JOSÉ MARÍA RESIALE VIANO; GUSTAVO SANTILLÁN

Beijing

Conferencia; International Conference on China's Constructive Engagement in Africa's Peace and Security; 2016

Social Sciences in China Press

Some relevant theoretical approaches to imperialism have considered the so called ?fragmentation of the periphery? as one of the means by which imperialism is being carried forward. (Braillard and De Senarclens, 1981). In this sense, it is argued that, within an imperialist order, the peripheral countries concentrate their essential exchanges with the central powers, thereby neglecting their relations with the rest of the international community.In this work, our attempt is to ?go back? to the empirical facts of the China-Africa relationship, in order to inquire if the consistent economic expansion of the People's Republic of China and its growing interaction with the traditional peripheries (i.e., Latin America and Africa) constitute an example of the above-stated ?fragmentation of the periphery? phenomenon. Concretely, we will perform an exam of the real development of the multilteral African integration forums, during the period in which the Sino-African relationship was being in turn intensified. The extent of this period goes, in our work, between 2000 and 2013.To do so, we first start by acknowledging some basic difficulties obstructing African integration. Within this context, we enumerate the main multilateral African Forums. Then, we proceed to the exam of these Forums and their relationship with China. We draw our work both from quantitative data (provided by the UNCTAD) and a qualitative review of literature and press sources.