Triangular periodization of Chinese studies of African literature

The development of Chinese scholarship on African literature is a unique reflection of China’s shifting ideological, political, and intellectual positioning within the global order. While Western literature has long functioned as the primary point of comparison for Chinese scholars, leading to responses ranging from emulation to rejection, cultural and literary engagement with Africa has consistently unfolded under the shadow of a third, ever-present reference point. While this third vertex is usually assumed to be “the West,” a closer historical periodization reveals the layered and evolving dynamics of the triangular system.Footnote ⁴

Theorizing the triangular system as fluid geometry

In the current stage of Chinese engagement with African literature, a central task is to critically examine the enduring influence of the West(s) on both African and Chinese literary studies. Only through such reflection can scholars begin to imagine a genuinely South-South intellectual framework. As Jiang Hui perspicuously notes, “our study of African literature does not start from African literature itself, but from the study of African literature in the West. Our materials, topics, methods and research objectives are all influenced by the West” (Reference Hui2019, 127–28). This inherited dependency risks reproducing critiques that are neither fully African nor Chinese. Zhu Zhenwu refers to current formation as a “triangle of the Other,” wherein both China and Africa are othered by the West and largely recognize each other through Western mediation (Cheng and Zhu Reference Cheng and Zhenwu2023, 6). Nevertheless, the “triangular system” proposed here is not merely descriptive but aspirational, as it also envisions an evolving geometry of dynamically interconnected positions. The absent or unstable side of the triangle, which is direct Afro-Chinese intellectual exchange, represents both a structural deficiency and an opening for transformation. Once conscientized about previous dependency on the West(s), Chinese scholars are now poised to engage in more in-depth direct exchanges with African literary and knowledge production. As Li Anshan suggests in his preface to the VI HORAE Africa Series published by East China Normal University Press, such initiatives to systematically translate and study Africa are key “to understand both the Africa in the minds of Westerners and the Africa in the minds of Africans, in order to construct the Africa in the minds of Chinese people” (Li Anshan Reference Anshan, Robert, Yuanyuan and Zhenhuan2020, 2).

This requires a theorization of the essence of triangulation in an Afro-Chinese context, in which the scholarly attention has been focusing on the issue of race. Drawing inspiration from Claire Jean Kim’s (Reference Kim1999) study of Asian Americans’ racialization relative to and through interaction with whites and Blacks, Jamie Monson points out how whiteness is a normalized or unmarked category in Afro-Chinese interactions (Monson Reference Monson2013, 6), and Lan Shanshan studies the “persistent yet invisible influence of the West” in the racial triangulation (Lan Reference Lan2016, 312). Roberto Castillo puts forward the notion of “multiple triangulations” between race, gender, and geopolitics as an analytical tool (Castillo Reference Castillo2020, 323–24), and Lou Mo extends this geometry to analyze contemporary art, proposing a more inclusive and nonbinary global epistemology (Reference Mo2022, 85–87). This collective adoption of triangulation in Afro-Chinese studies is illuminating, for it grasps the uniquely layered nature of Sino-African interactions. Such insights align with Cheng Ying’s emphasis on non-Western encounters providing an alternative model of “mutual gaze,” “a negotiation of mutual histories and ongoing interactions” (Cheng Reference Cheng, Adejunmobi and Routledge2019, 94), and with Duncan Yoon’s idea that the “Western subject is no longer, and indeed has never been, the only Other against which postcolonial African identities conceptualize themselves” (Reference Yoon2023, 209). These approaches implicitly embrace triangulation as a method of seeing multiple perspectives and building comparative solidarities without reifying binaries. The wide applicability of triangular thinking testifies to its fundamental challenge to existing epistemology and ways of knowledge production. For instance, Lina Benabdallah’s study of Chinese “relational productive power” in Africa, which she suggests contain guanxi (social relations), knowledge production, and norm diffusion (Benabdallah Reference Benabdallah2020, 141), can now be perceived not as a unique product of a Confucian relational model of societies and individuals, but in dialogue with African relational worldviews under Bantu epistemologies as well (Rošker Reference Rošker2010; Tempels Reference Tempels1959).

These conceptual affinities open space for what Brazilian comparatist Benjamin Abdala Júnior terms “solidarity-based comparisons” that explore commonalities and particularities within the Global South, rather than “comparisons driven by need” between the North and South (Júnior Reference Júnior1996, 89). The solidarity-based approach allows for greater autonomy, aligning with Fernanda Dusse’s vision of a Global South “dedicated to building a community aware of the violence of totalization and willing to embrace differences” (Dusse Reference Dusse2019, 167). Such efforts also foster “cross-cultural translation” as proposed by Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos in the uphill battle against Western “epistemicide” (de Sousa Santos Reference de Sousa Santos1999, 283) and the prevalent “abyssal thinking” which divides the world through imaginary, polarizing lines, rendering the other side to “disappear as a reality, to become nonexistent, or even to be produced as nonexistent” (de Sousa Santos Reference de Sousa Santos, de Sousa Santos and Almedina2010, 32). In this framework, Afro-Asian literary exchanges become a means of recovering lost intellectual agency and resisting the global structures that delegitimize subaltern thought. Whereas Boaventura primarily advocates for understanding and trust among social groups across countries, Afro-Asian interactions among writers and literary scholars form a collective force capable of reshaping the global order, especially considering the seminal role that writing still plays as a privileged form of expression in many African contexts.

As Chinese studies on African literature increasingly recognize the triangular nature of its mode of operation, it becomes clear that theoretical constructions of interactions among China, Africa, and the West must always remain cognizant of their mutual dependencies and comparative contexts. The next step involves actively leveraging the geometrical fluidity of the triangle to introduce fresh theoretical insights and practical approaches, thereby deepening our understanding of South-South relationships. In revisiting the triangle’s geometric attributes, contributions from the Portuguese-speaking world are especially pertinent, not merely due to the distinctive socialist histories of Portuguese-speaking Africa within Sino-African interactions, but also because lusofonia’s ambiguous relationship with the West offers critical insights into alternative possibilities for triangulation.

A triangular system offers valuable geometric metaphors to rethink global epistemology. First, unlike a linear model of center-periphery, a triangle has multiple internal centers. Africa ideally should be central in African literary scholarship, but material asymmetries in global publishing and funding limit this. Thus, the triangle helps conceptualize both internal diversity and external imbalance within systems of knowledge production. To counter the academic hegemony of the West and the outdated notion of the West as sole provider of theories, it is essential to engage in mutual learning from other Global South regions. For example, João Cezar de Castro Rocha’s model of “emulative poetics,” rooted in Brazil’s negotiation of European and US influence, resonates with China and Africa’s shared struggle to balance external discourses and internal agency, as his assertion that “the contemporary world is, by definition, a world that multiplies, almost infinitely, and at various levels of complexity, triangular relationships” (Rocha Reference Rocha2015, 55) is highly relevant to the current discussion.

This geometry is not just theoretical. Angolan author Pepetela (Reference Pepetela2011) rebuked BBC’s criticism of China’s investment in Africa, seeing it as creating new bargaining space for Africans vis-à-vis the West—not necessarily as a threat, but as an additional option for asserting autonomy. In literary production, this means African writers may gain new platforms and readers, while also renegotiating the constraints imposed by Western publishers and markets. One example is how some African photographers have turned to Chinese printing factories to significantly reduce the cost of their books and make them more accessible to domestic audiences (MacGarry Reference MacGarry2024), transforming the author-reader relationship in the process.

While Rocha highlights both the productive and problematic aspects caused by the interplay of influences, his main argument is that the creative potential of triangulation lies in its invitation to compare, borrow, and co-author across traditions, as nonhegemonic cultures excel precisely because of their emulative creativity and openness to plural sources (Rocha Reference Rocha2017, 32–33, 199–200). As Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa claims in his novel Os vivos e os outros [The Living and the Others], the alegria de efabulação (joy of storytelling) “has largely been lost in much of contemporary European literature, but not here, in Africa. We, as a general rule, still love to tell stories” (Agualusa Reference Agualusa2020, 84). While Western and Chinese publishing industries increasingly depend on multimedia forms like audiobooks and short videos of book reviews (BookToks) in social media platforms to counter declining sales of print books, Africa’s vibrant oral storytelling tradition could inspire profound reflections on literary form and essence.

Second, the triangle does not presume equal closeness/interrelatedness among the three vertices. While it is aesthetically and morally intuitive to chase the model of the equilateral triangle, which would appear to be the most stable, in reality triangles exist in all shapes and sizes, and triangular thinking demands a pragmatic recognition of unequal ties. The Sino-African link remains far less institutionalized than either’s connection to the West. Hence, solidarity must be critically engaged, not romanticized. For example, Yuan Mingqing and Zhang Lifang challenge the central position of nation-states and the heavy reliance on institutionalized visits in Sino-African cultural exchanges during the Cold War, citing how Mau Mau veteran Gitu Kahengeri, who visited China in 1964 as President of the Kenyan Writers’ Union, revealed he fabricated the institution and title to meet Chinese imagined ideals of literary-political unity (Reference Mingqing, Lifang, Ying and Lifang2023, 149). Jiang Hui also stresses the need to establish the “possibility of comparison,” seeing China’s study of African literature as a dialogue between two historically shaped subjectivities (Reference Hui2017, 75). He argues that African literature’s contradictions, linguistic diversity, and postcolonial dependency resist simple analogies with Chinese literary history (Reference Hui2017, 65–66). Yet, these differences also open dialogue. For example, some African scholars are appealing to China’s Confucius Institute to offer help in preserving African languages and cultures in addition to the promotion of Chinese (Ihuoma Reference Ihuoma2024), signaling how triangulation can be reappropriated for shared intellectual empowerment.

Third, triangular thinking also offers a critical insight: between any two points, there exists another path. Echoing Robert Frost, taking this less-traveled pathway makes all the difference. This imagination of an alternative possibility is crucial in dismantling the entrenched identification of universality with the West. Sonia Miceli underscores the importance of “frontier and triangular thinking, attentive to pluralities and unforeseen and unpredictable connections” (Miceli Reference Miceli, Marta, Oliveira, Sanches and Chaves2019, 101). For instance, Cheng Ying traces her interest in contemporary popular performance culture in Nigeria to her “own struggle with the retreat of youth from the public sphere in China in the past three decades” (Cheng Reference Cheng2021, 142). This forced retreat has traditionally been viewed through ideological competition between China and the West, but going through African theatrical practices allows Cheng Ying and her students deeper insights into African, Western, and their own sociopolitical experiences. Hence, she goes on to quote Nnaemeka, asserting that “border crossing in an intercultural context entails learning about the ‘other,’ but more importantly, it should also entail learning from the other” (Reference Cheng2021, 146).

In this way, triangulation becomes not just a method of analyzing Afro-Chinese-Western relations, but a mode of critical self-reflection. It invites humility, resists totalization, and aspires to plural, co-authored knowledge. The triangular system is thus not merely an academic metaphor, but a normative vision for rethinking literary relations in a deeply unequal but potentially solidaristic world.

Triangular collaboration as practice and aspiration

The perception of the triangularity of Chinese-African literary exchanges by Chinese scholars arises from looking back at the disciplinary history as well as direct contact with African people and their works. While the introduction and translation of Soviet or American monographs on African literature in earlier stages can be seen as triangulation compelled by contextual limitations, contemporary efforts reflect more deliberate and aspirational modes of collaboration. Translation, in particular, remains the most immediate yet politically charged site of materializing triangular dynamic.

Rather symbolically, the publication of Zheli bu pingjing [No Serenity Here] in 2010, an anthology of translated African poems, was organized by a triangular team: Chinese poet Xiao Kaiyu, German poet Isabel Ferrin-Aguirre, and South African poet Phillippa Yaa de Villiers. Xiao’s eight-year experience in Germany and contact with African poets there inspired the anthology. Albeit somewhat ironically, he resorts to the need for bypassing European mediation to gain insights into African literature from primary sources as the primary motivation for their endeavor (Batchelor Reference Batchelor2019, 409). Still, it is important to note that the editorial team made an effort to include not only “elders” like Wole Soyinka and Keorapetse Kgositsile, but also “young voices” such as Nii Ayikwei Parkes and “unsung co-creators of literature” such as Fatima Naoot from Morocco and Veronique Tadjo from Côte d’Ivoire (de Villiers, Ferrrin-Aguirre, and Xiao Reference de Villiers, Ferrrin-Aguirre and Kaiyu2010, iv), with a clear tendency to include more of the latter two groups. As de Villiers states in the preface, “the internet has played a major role in collecting and compiling this work, which speaks to the technological fluency of African writers” (Reference de Villiers, Ferrrin-Aguirre and Kaiyu2010, v). The image that the tripartite editorial team tries to present is a vibrant and open-minded Africa, challenging the dominant stereotype regarding the continent.

Despite its publication coinciding with the Shanghai Expo in 2010, Zheli bu pingjing was more a case of individual attempt at international collaboration. Meanwhile, institutional efforts such as the Africa Humanities Classic Translation Series—a joint initiative of Zhejiang Business University Press and Zhejiang Normal University inspired by the Pan-African “100 Best Books” list—reflect growing interest in bypassing Western consecration. In this way, Chinese editors attempted to reorient selection criteria toward African priorities rather than Western preferences. In tandem, the editorial team also produced an edited volume of articles on thirty African writers from the twentieth century (Bao and Wang Reference Xiuwen and Lin2016), many of whom are being translated for the first time through the initiative. This synergy between translation and literary criticism reflects a distinct feature of Chinese engagement: scholars are often expected to both research and help shape the publishing infrastructure that defines the literary canon. Moreover, recent efforts have also expanded into indigenous African-language literatures. The aforementioned VI HORAE Africa Series have launched direct translation from Swahili of an anthology of poems of Tanzanian poet Shaaban Robert (Li Anshan Reference Anshan, Robert, Yuanyuan and Zhenhuan2020), as well as a selection of short stories and fables from Hausa (Sun Reference Xiaomeng2021), reinforced by increasing academic research on literatures from such languages (Sun Reference Xiaomeng2022; Ma Reference Jun2023).Footnote ¹⁰ Conversely, African publishers have begun translating Chinese literature into local languages. In Reference Majia2016, Kenyan publisher Twaweza Communications released Maneno Ya Moto Kutoka China, a Swahili-language collection of poems by the ethnic Yi Chinese poet Jidi Majia.Footnote ¹¹ These bilateral translations point toward a slowly emerging infrastructure of mutual exchange.

However, as Catherine Gilbert (Reference Gilbert2016) notes, mutual translations still lack a coherent strategy and channel, and direct collaboration between Chinese and local African publishers remains rare. Notably, in 2024, Zhu Zhenwu’s team visited Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda—the first promotional tour in Africa for Chinese work on African literature—signing cooperation agreements and translation memos with local literature bureaus and writers’ associations. Such efforts suggest that China’s approach to African literature may be evolving from domestically oriented scholarship to more dialogical and field-based inquiry. At the same time, it is important to critically assess the true nature of these partnerships. African counterparts should not be symbolic participants in Chinese-led projects, as sustainable South–South cooperation demands not only mutual visibility but also mutual agenda-setting. Future collaborations will depend on the creation of long-term institutional relationships that combine research, publishing, and pedagogy in order to answer some difficult questions: what kind of African literature should get translated and studied? How could the reading activities of African literature in different regions connect with African writers, and more importantly, African people? Can foreign publishing houses find a third road to African literature that is neither political nor market-oriented, which is more suitable for this digital age? How do we make African literature an integral part of the ongoing global debates on, for example, environmental protection, care for the underprivileged, and preservation of linguistic and cultural multiplicities?

Revisiting the historical triangular trajectory of Chinese studies of African literature may prove critical to answering these questions. Workers’ commentary groups and their role in the reception of foreign literature in the 1960s and 70s offer a historical parallel to today’s participatory reading cultures. Online platforms for web fiction in China now feature immediate reader feedback that shapes narrative development, a model that may inspire new forms of Afro-Chinese co-authorship and engagement, especially if we were to accept that a major tension in African literature is in the distance between Western critical preferences and African domestic interests. The collective authorship of literary translations and commentaries during the Cultural Revolution, with all its drawbacks like the disregard for individual agency and lack of accountability, serves also as a challenge to the very foundation of the Western model of literary production. There is still much to be done in the same vein of comparing Chinese practices with the preference for anonymity or plural authorship in the English journal The Call by the Colombo-based Afro–Asian Writers’ Bureau (Yoon Reference Yoon2015), or the anonymous contributions of later prominent writers like Mia Couto in national theater in the 1980s (Madureira Reference Madureira, Hamilton, Huddart and Currey2016).

Examples from African literature similarly challenge Western models of singular authorship. The distinct African literary tradition that emphasizes agency by each narrator during storytelling is echoed in a recent collaboration between Mia Couto and José Eduardo Agualusa in (Elegant Terrorist and Other Stories) (Reference Couto and José2019) without specifying who wrote which parts, embracing a more communal, narrative-driven poetics. Agualusa describes such collaboration as an effort to create “a third universe, which is the sum of both our worlds” (Silva and Telles Reference Silva and Teles2022, 4). As Angola and Mozambique both emphasized collective artistic creation during their socialist phase, this attempt by Mia Couto and Agualusa can be seen as a contemporary revival of that historical collectivism, another confrontation between the traditionally community-oriented African philosophy and Western individualism. Since Angola and Mozambique share with China similar histories of armed struggles, civil wars, experiments in socialism followed by openness towards neoliberal capitalist ideas, and so on, there has been development in Chinese studies of Angolan and Mozambican literary works and the underlining philosophy. Studies of Pepetela, Henrique Abranches, and Ruy Duarte de Carvalho’s proposal of Animist Realism as the most African way of expression (Wang Reference Yuan2025a), and “terrorists” that are in fact misunderstood and even framed becoming positive representatives of African identity in the works of Pepetela, Agualusa, and Mia Couto (Wang Reference Yuan2024), showcase the critical potential of Chinese scholarship on African literature.

Another emerging focus is contemporary Chinese writers’ acknowledgment of the creative influence of African literature, and how traditional disciplinary boundaries between Chinese literature and foreign literature, literary criticism and creative writing, are being reshaped. This is partly a response to the drifting apart of the circles of literary production and criticism in China, following the institutionalization and the supposedly scientific way of training literary critics. Previously, much of Sino-African literary exchanges escaped the attention of scholars because most critics of foreign literature come from a background of foreign languages and lack proper training or vision regarding Chinese literature. However, if Chinese scholars were to maintain the “consciousness of subjectivity” (Yuan Reference Junqing2022, 135) that many adherents of the Chinese discipline on African literature repeatedly emphasize, it is paramount to familiarize themselves with the domestic literary scene and especially the direct connections between Chinese and African writers and their works. In fact, some of the most well-known Chinese writers have expressed how their writing and creative mindset have been influenced by African literature. Novelist Qiu Huadong has commented on the influence of Ben Okri, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and Maryse Condé, crediting the “strange and fantastical imagination of African literature” as fundamental in reshaping his writing to create his own understanding of history (Qiu Reference Huadong2023, 7). The aforementioned ethnic Yi poet Jidi Majia similarly states his debt to literary giants of the Négritude movement, such as Léopold Sédar Senghor and David Diop, even claiming that “Africa has been thrice the object of my keenest attachment, emotional, intellectual and poetic” (Reference Majia2014). Jidi Majia also has been organizing the Qinghai International Poetry Festival for nearly a decade, which has bonded poets from all over the world including Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, and others. There needs to be more studies on the impact of initiatives like literary festivals or writer residence programs on literary exchanges, and their potential for inspiring Sino-African joint writing programs. As Jiang Hui states, the only way for Chinese scholars on African literature to innovate is to:

Triangular thinking also helps broaden the topics of Chinese scholarship. While the representation of Chinese people and culture in African texts is of natural interest for Chinese researchers (Ling Reference Shuzhen2022), issues like the global history of material exchanges could also benefit from a Chinese perspective even when China is not explicitly invoked. As Mozambican writer João Paulo Borges Coelho puts it, Africa’s relationship with history is globally significant, because many second-hand items end up in Africa before becoming part of human history (Duarte Reference Duarte2022, 14–15). As the largest manufacturer of consumer goods, China’s recent transformation from a country of cheap labor to world leader in high-tech industries, and the life experiences of Chinese scholars with these commodities, put them in an advantageous position to use these embodied experiences to discuss related topics of material production and circulation in African literature. Even when the things in question are not specifically made in China (e.g., João Paolo’s Reference Duarte2022 novel (Museum of Revolution) mainly deals with the journey of a Japan-made Toyoka Hiace), Chinese scholarship is still poised to delve into the interconnectedness of material circulation and social values and identities (Wang Reference Yuan2025b). Cheng Ying summarizes it best: “research is the process for me to go towards others, as well as going from others towards myself” (Reference Cheng, Ying and Lifang2023, 15). Chinese studies on African literature need more of these two-way journeys in a globally triangular context because in today’s world, all interactions of people and things are a global encounter, all localized reflections should be regarded as universal contributions, and the triangular mindset helps Chinese scholars engage in dynamic and meaningful knowledge production with Africans about Africa.

Ultimately, the triangular model underscores that translation, criticism, and teaching must operate in tandem to produce a more inclusive literary ecosystem. The goal is not merely to “study” African literature, but to engage it in co-constructed, multilingual, and mutually transformative ways. To achieve this, institutional structures must evolve to support this triangular vision. The Doctoral program in Developing Country Studies launched in 2011 at Tsinghua University has sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa/West Asia as two of its six targeted regions.Footnote ¹² While pioneering in mandating African fieldwork, this multidisciplinary program still excludes literary studies as a serious object of empirical inquiry. Expanding such programs to encompass literary fieldwork would allow Chinese scholars to move beyond textual analysis and directly engage with African writers, publishing houses, and readership. Another way of implementing the triangular system and for such academic collaborations to bear fruit is through co-developed curricula between Chinese and African universities. In 2019, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences launched the China-Africa Institute, which facilitated the signing of bilateral pacts and memorandums of understanding between nine African universities and seven Chinese counterparts, with special focus on academic collaborations in the humanities and social sciences (Waruru Reference Waruru2019). This is a promising start for more substantial academic collaborations between China and Africa. The growing number of African students and scholars in China also offers underutilized potential for co-creating research agendas and joint teaching platforms. Due to the stricter procedure of approval for hosting academic conferences in China if involving participants of other nationalities, direct dialogue between Chinese and African scholars has not been made available to the fullest extent.

State involvement and academic agency in South–South dialogues

This ultimately leads to the question of state involvement in Chinese knowledge production about Africa. It is necessary to recognize the entanglement of the economic, political, and the cultural in China, partly due to the embrace of Marxist economic ideas as base, and culture and politics as superstructure. But while complete untangling is impractical, drawing attention to cultural and literary exchanges between China and Africa is still beneficial, as they represent an underexplored form of agency that crucially needs rebalance.

It is important to recognize that knowledge production in China, especially in the humanities, is often closely tied to state institutions, and funding bodies such as the NSSFC and the National Publication Foundation play a central role in supporting projects like the Africa Humanities Classic Translation Series or Zhu Zhenwu’s “Chinese African-literaturology” initiative. However, equating state funding with political co-optation oversimplifies the motivations of Chinese scholars and obscures the complexities of intellectual life in a state-influenced academic environment. For instance, state sponsorship is often crucial in circumventing market logics to promote commercially less attractive enterprises. Édouard Glissant’s idea of creolization and poetics of relation, and Boaventura de Sousa Santos’s theory of “epistemologies of the South,” remind us that the key question is not whether power structures exist, since all knowledge production is embedded in them, but whether these structures permit multiplicity, translation, and relational thinking rather than enforcing unilateral narratives (Glissant Reference Glissant and Wing1992; de Sousa Santos Reference de Sousa Santos, de Sousa Santos and Almedina2010). In this spirit, Li Anshan envisions a global academia based on decentralization, plurality, and collaboration (Li Anshan Reference Anshan2023, 27). For Li, Chinese scholarship should not replace Western hegemony with Sinocentrism, but concentrate on Africa-centered topics highlighting Africans’ historical agency (Li Anshan Reference Anshan2023, 19). Liu Shaonan and Xu Liang concur that Chinese African studies should not aim to dominate African studies, but China can contribute by relying on the richness and multilayered nature of China–Africa interactions, with Chinese enterprises, migrations, and infrastructure providing natural entry points into broader African contexts (Liu and Xu Reference Shaonan and Liang2024, 60). These studies prove that emphasis on African agency and leadership, together with in-depth research on Sino-African interactions and similarities, are the two major concerns in current African studies in China. While sticking to Chinese perspective in an equal dialogue, scholars also warn of the danger of Chinese exceptionalism and condescending preaching, which falsely base their analysis on the foundation that Chinese scholars are naturally objective and neutral judges between the West and Africa because of the lack of Chinese colonial involvement on the continent. Liu and Xu draw a parallel between this self-imposed impartiality with how British scholars viewed themselves as neutral arbiters between Africans and colonial officials in the early twentieth century, and how mid-century American scholars believed that their American identity allowed them to remain entirely neutral between the colonial powers and the colony (Reference Shaonan and Liang2024, 60). This caution against ethnocentric biases is testament to Chinese scholars’ serious self-reflection about the pursuit of objectivity? The triangular mindset in Chinese research does not equal to China standing outside the triangle as arbitrator, rather it calls for a more panoramic understanding of the intricate relationships between multiple perspectives and multiple mirrors for a more panoramic self-understanding. “Never ever presume to tell us what is ‘wrong with us’ and how we can ‘fix ourselves’”; “We are not on some train headed toward your version of the world” (Macharia Reference Macharia2015). Although these pieces of advice from Kenyan scholar Keguro Macharia were originally aimed at select Western researchers, Chinese scholars have repeatedly found it instructive. Just like how Chinua Achebe views the “crisis in the soul” as Nigeria’s biggest challenge (Nkosi et al. Reference Lewis, Nwoga, Duerden, Serumaga and Africana1972, 7), and how Mia Couto views Mozambique’s underdevelopment as its “inability to generate productive, bold, and innovative thinking” (Couto Reference Couto2009, 29), the struggle for intellectual autonomy and identity design is the main driving force for a lot of African writing, and the majority of Chinese scholars with knowledge of their nation’s own historical struggles fully respect Africans’ right to reclaim their own history and voice.

This is not to claim that political agendas do not interfere with Sino-African literary interactions. Chinese publishers have occasionally prioritized the works of African diplomats and officials for translation, not necessarily for readership impact, but for use as diplomatic gifts (Batchelor Reference Batchelor2019, 8). Similarly, poetry festivals may reflect geopolitical alignments more than literary judgment. The 2024 International Youth Poetry Festival, focused on the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), exemplifies such strategic alignments, featuring African poets selected based on political bloc membership rather than literary merit. Nonetheless, it would be reductive to dismiss these events outright. They can create spaces for interaction, experimentation, and unexpected resonance—what Édouard Glissant (Reference Glissant and Wing1992) calls “poetics of relation.” The key is to ensure that these encounters are not bounded by state scripts but open to plural meanings and authorship. Concerns about state-driven knowledge production must be situated within a broader historical context in which all forms of institutional knowledge—Western included—are politically embedded. The challenge for Chinese scholarship on African literature is not to deny the state’s involvement, but to actively cultivate spaces of intellectual plurality, critical distance, and transnational dialogue that prevent any one narrative—whether Western or Sino-centric—from becoming totalizing. As Édouard Glissant reminds us, the world is made up of infinite fluid relations, which are “not made up of things that are foreign but of shared knowledge” (Reference Glissant and Wing1992, 8), and “in Relation the whole is not the finality of its parts: for multiplicity in totality is totally diversity” (Reference Glissant and Wing1992, 193). In the context of Chinese scholarship on African literature, this insight offers a powerful alternative to both instrumentalist state narratives and the demand for total transparency or ideological alignment. Glissant’s idea of the unpredictable nature of creolization is reflected in Afro-Chinese literary encounters, which may manifest as assemblages, reinventions, and collages, forms that resist full absorption by any national will. By embracing opacity—accepting that African texts, histories, and epistemologies may not be fully legible within Chinese frameworks—scholars can move beyond appropriation toward mutual recognition through difference. In this light, the triangle is not just a metaphor but a call to action: to forge new lines of relation, to respect multiplicity, and for literature to transform one another without collapsing difference.