In his contribution to his 2008 co-edited volume China's Return to Africa: A Rising Power and a Continent Embrace (edited with Chris Alden and Daniel Large, New York, Columbia University Press) Ricardo Soares de Oliveira criticized analyses of Chinese investment in Africa for lacking factual precision and analytical clarity, but spared Ian Taylor's work (p. 83). Now he might have to add Deborah Bräutigam's Dragon's Gift to his list of exceptions. Replete with arguments that expose timely anxieties about Chinese expansion in Africa, this book-length study is timely in providing different and persuasive perspectives. Bräutigam's work enjoys a special status among revisionists because of her abundant field research and sound understanding of Chinese approaches in Africa. She provides a historical analysis of Chinese aid institutions, compares their methodology with Western practices, reports on her first-hand observations of Chinese endeavours in Africa, and concludes that China is benefitting this continent by mixing aid and investment.
Many studies use statistics to illustrate Chinese ambitions and neo-colonial intentions in Africa, but Brautigam cares more about the origins of these numbers. She devotes five chapters to reviewing how China established its contemporary concept of assistance. Bräutigam contends that China learned to tie assistance with economic interests from Western and Japanese aid providers whose programmes China's current aid structure replicates: “China's aid system and economic engagement today reflect what the Chinese learned from their experiments of the 1980s and from their own experience as a recipient of aid and the business that was linked to aid” (p. 70). Therefore, Beijing's engagement with Africa is in fact “a well-thought-out and long-term strategy, not the hasty, desperate scramble familiar from media headlines” (p. 78). China practises a philosophy that “aid is not what the country needs, but commercial ties” (p. 139).
Respectfully, I submit that I find Bräutigam's contextualization of China's aid structure only partially true. The West has a history of tying loans with Chinese resources that dates back to the Qing dynasty, and the anti-Japanese sentiment in China makes it unlikely that China would admit to learning from the Japanese. Most studies, including Chinese sources, conclude that Chinese aid to Africa switched to a “mutual benefit” model during the 1980s because of China's economic reform policies. It is important to note that market-oriented endeavours were not abnormal for aid agencies at that time. Economic reform meant that Chinese institutions were acting capitalistically – even PLA engineering troops became profit-oriented construction companies. It would therefore be prudent to not overstate the significance of China's 1980s interactions with the West and Japan. China's new aid model came from a time during which all public units were seeking profitability.
In the remaining chapters, Bräutigam argues that many Chinese aid statistics are incorrect because scholars and the media poorly understand assistance and investment. She finds that the amount of pure Chinese aid toward Africa is actually insubstantial (pp. 168–184, the figure of $375 on p. 169 is perhaps a typo). After seeing Chinese aid help Chinese companies to set up co-operation and development centres, Bräutigam contends that the combination of investment and aid should be considered as development instead of exploitation, because Chinese are “linking business and aid in innovative ways” (p. 310). She further opines that the experience of ethnic Chinese from Hong Kong and Taiwan in Africa proves that Chinese business might contribute to and catalyze African economies. Bräutigam therefore concludes that the West should not paint China as a rogue donor; instead, China's strategy with Africa echoes African aid champion Jeffrey Sachs: “The best way to end conflict is to end poverty” (p. 285).
Nonetheless, on the whole, Dragon's Gift supports development theorists like Dambisa Moyo and Thomas Dichter. Contrary to Sachs, they believe that pure assistance should be terminated, that trade and investment are better methods to improve Africa, and that Africa will benefit while foreign enterprises seek economic interests. This is an economically sound theory, but, considering Bräutigam's findings that political disturbance and social uneasiness grow with Chinese investment (pp. 263–70), it would be prudent to expect modest results from China's economically based approaches to African development. Bräutigam's citation of Hong Kong's and Taiwan's experiences is problematic because of the substantially different social impact that Chinese businessmen have on Africa. What is more, although the author lauds China for modelling “a central government commitment to capitalist business development” (pp. 311–12), such central administrations are currently impracticable for many African states.
Overall, Bräutigam successfully provides scholars of the China–Africa relationship with a new analytical framework, information, and viewpoints. Although those who dislike China's expansion in Africa may not welcome Bräutigam's work, this highly recommended volume shows that Chinese are business-oriented developers and revolutionizes the concept that China is a hasty donor in Africa.
