Firoze Manji gave Mapping China an interview on May 4th on the state of China – Africa Relations. Firoze’s book “African Perspectives on China in Africa” is part of our upcoming top book picks on China in Africa. The interview with Firoze is the kick-off of a new series focusing on different resources on Sino-African relations. It will comprise references to academic literature as well as blogs, video-documentaries and much more. The contributions to this series will be posted over the coming weeks. We would like to thank Firoze for the series a truly interesting start!
Firoze is a Kenyan-born activist and author who is working on social justice in Africa. He not only has extensive knowledge on Chinese-African relations but also on health, social policy, human rights and political sciences.
You can watch the video below or on youtube!
01:10 Why did you become interested in Sino-African relations?
04:20 How is China related to issues of social justice in Africa?
07:15 What was particularly important in editing your books on Sino-African relations?
09:00 What has changed in terms of “African agency” in the relationship with China since your books were published ten years ago?
13:50 How well do African civil society actors understand China? How well do Chinese living in Africa understand Africa?
17:30 Why do we not see much African scholarship on Sino-African relations?
20:15 Where do we have to search to find African voices on the topic?
21:30 Are the Chinese “exporting” an “unfree media model” to Africa?
25:06 In the public discussion of Sino-African relations, “Africa” is often treated as if it was one country, “China” as one monolithic block: What is missed this way?
30:45 Politically, is there such a thing as a “Chinese model” that is being exported to Africa?
34:52 What do you think about the Western claim that China is “exploiting Africa”?
The interview was conducted by Julia Tatrai.