Domestic politics and Sino-African investment relations: the case of China-Cameroon

During the last two decades, the world has witnessed China’s intensified investment activities in Africa. The growing interest in China’s economic relations with the African continent in general and in Sino-African investment cooperation in particular, as well as the increasing number of investment related issues that are of concern to citizens in developing countries highlight the need to better capture the many factors and mechanisms that shape China’s investment cooperation with African nations. Although China has been interacting with the African continent for more than five decades, its involvement as a major actor in Africa is much more recent. China’s intensified economic activities within the African continent surely did not go unnoticed. Attempts to understand the dynamics within Sino-African economic encounters have furthered our understanding of China’s economic involvement with African nations and of their outcomes. However, the literature focusing on China-Africa’s investment relations has been mainly dominated by a Chinese-Centered approach at the expense of an African perspective. This project attempts to fill that gap by inserting an African perspective within Sino-African investment discussions. It does this by highlighting the presence and the role of an Africa agency within Sino-African relations. It also specifically looks at how the domestic political context within African nations shapes how agency is expressed within specific Sino-African bilateral investment negotiations.