Kinas närmande till Afrika - en etablering av ett motstånd mot västvärldens hegemoni?

Abstract

China’s rapprochement with Africa is an increasingly controversial topic in the Western world and not least is China’s propensity to have a hegemonic agenda a recurring issue. A common claim is that China by emphasizing shared interests and solidarity in the South, aspires to win over African nations’ solidarity to challenge the prevailing Western hegemony. It takes on its full meaning when considering the fact that both China and Africa have fallen victim to Western countries’ exploitative imperialism. Moreover, this can be understood through the lens of the South-South cooperation (SSC) concept that was created during the process of decolonization and which is a commitment to create solidarity among postcolonial nations while strengthening the global South. Starting from these observations, this study has been conducted with the desire to clarify whether or not China in the light of an SSC-dynamic, aspires to win over the solidarity of African nations in order to challenge the Western hegemony. Thus, the purpose of this study is within the framework of SSC, to understand how China through the Chinese official discourse, can be interpreted to express a strengthening of its relation with Africa, with the intention to establish a resistance to Western hegemony. It will be approached with the theory of historical blocks which can be described as the result of social forces coming together against the existing hegemony in order to establish a new hegemony. The results of this study can strengthen the perception that China by emphasizing shared interests and solidarity in the South, aspires to win over African nations’ solidarity to challenge the Western powers. The study shows that the Chinese official discourse approaches Africa by emphasizing values characteristic for SSC. These contain anti-Western ideas aligned with the theory of historical blocks, a sign of an intention to establish a resistance to Western hegemony. However, the creation of a historical block presupposes that Africa similarly expresses a wish to unite with China, which is why it is essential that further research includes the African nations’ view of China’s rapprochement.