AFRASO Lecture by Daniel Large: "Norms in Development and Conflict: China’s Foreign Policy and Evolving Security Engagement in Africa"

11. Juni 2015
Campus Westend, HZ 3

4 pm - 6 pm

Abstract

Security has evolved from the margins to a much more prominent part of China’s engagement with Africa. The military aspects of China’s engagement, inseparable as these are from geopolitical concerns, remain salient. This talk, however, will explore a set of related dynamics and questions that go beyond this by examining the changing relationship between security and development in China’s relations with Africa. In the context of a more multifaceted, embedded and consequential Chinese role, China’s role in African peace and security has been evolving. Recognizing that conflict and state fragility pose a unique set of challenges to its growing economic interests on the continent, the Chinese government has sought to respond through a process of adaptation and policy engagement. One aspect of these attempted responses is an identifiable aspiration to develop norms concerning peace and security, but the actual nature and efficacy of such efforts in practice is much harder to discern, especially when situated in the actual political economy of conflict in countries such as Sudan and South Sudan.

 Daniel Large is Assistant Professor at the School of Public Policy, Central European University. Prior to joining CEU, he was Research Director of the Africa-Asia Centre, Royal African Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies. A fellow of the Rift Valley Institute, he is also director of the digital Sudan Open Archive (www.sudanarchive.net) and a research associate of the South African Institute of International Affairs. His publications include the co-edited volumes China Returns to Africa: A Rising Power and a Continent Embrace (London Hurst 2008) and Sudan Looks East: China, India and the Politics of Asian Alternatives (Oxford: James Currey, 2011).