In recent years, no aspect of the People's Republic of China's (PRC) foreign relations has captured the public's interest more than Sino-African relations. It is to this topical subject area that Ian Taylor's new book, China's New Role in Africa, seeks to contribute. It is worth pointing out that the recent (more populist) literature on Sino-African relations has often originated from the United States and is written in the context of increasing anxiety – particularly since the rise of anti-American sentiment that resulted from the George W. Bush administration's unilateralist policies – that the USA is on the decline and about to be replaced by China as the new hegemon. This literature has thus (not surprisingly) tended to offer myopic analyses that vastly exaggerate the ‘threat’ that the PRC poses to American and Western interests in Africa.

Taylor, who is one of the few long-established observers of Sino-African relations, is justifiably critical of the often hyperbolic nature of the recent literature on China's growing presence in Africa, and one of this book's key aims is to offer a more nuanced understanding of Beijing's relations with the continent. Utilising a vast array of literature, Taylor forwards three main arguments, namely that (1) ‘China is not a unitary actor’ (p. 178); (2) ‘there has been a fair degree of scapegoating of China for its alleged negative impacts upon Africa’ (p. 179); and (3) ‘it is up to African leaders to manage their relations with China to benefit their own economies and citizens’ (pp. 181–2). He effectively demonstrates, for instance, that many unsavoury practices by the Chinese are not necessarily part of a systematic, central government-led strategy, but are often led by Chinese firms operating on the basis of capitalist economic principles, which Beijing is often unable to regulate effectively.

While the author has done a great service in attempting to move beyond the myopia and fantasy that have often coloured the recent literature in this field, a number of weaknesses remain. First, Taylor relies very heavily on secondary resources written in English for his discussions on China, and Chinese language sources are not used. This means that the author cannot access the often lively policy debates that take place within the PRC which could have given his arguments greater empirical depth and nuance. As a result, while Taylor's analyses on China's policies in Africa are balanced and informed, they essentially read like a synthesis of other scholars' arguments and will not come across as entirely new to a student of Chinese foreign policy.

To be fair, the author has undertaken extensive fieldwork trips in Africa and China in researching this book, as the vast references to interviews indicate. However, herein lies the second weakness of this volume: the author's heavy dependency on interviews – almost all of the endnotes to the chapters are references to interviews – comes with significant methodological dangers and makes some of the book's claims less credible. Some references are to interviews with a ‘market trader’ in Freetown or Abuja, Nigeria, or a ‘Chinese trader, Praia’, an ‘employee of Chungking Mansions-based cargo company, Hong Kong’, ‘African trader, Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong’, or ‘Cape Verdean hotel owner’: how can we ascertain that these interviewees are telling the researcher the truth, rather than what they think the interviewer ‘would like to know’? To what extent are their statements part of a political agenda? Furthermore, how representative are their views?

In sum, scholars or students seeking to gain detailed information on Sino-African relations will find this book of great utility, and we should also acknowledge and welcome its contribution to correcting the excessive hyperbole that has accompanied the growing literature on Sino-African relations. However, the book falls somewhat short of supplying original analytical or theoretical interpretations of China's foreign policy in the region. It remains for the field to further our research in this still often opaque area of the PRC's foreign policy, and Taylor's work provides us with a solid starting point.