China and Sub-Saharan Africa’s Economic Development: A Multipolar Specification

Abstract

Within the purview of contemporary international development discourse, China, alongside other regional powers are perceived as growth poles or drivers of global development. In the context of Africa’s development around which some of the emergent issues have been framed, analyses often proceed along a bilateral framework where the influence of China is isolated and assumed to be neither connected with nor shaped by the influences of other growth poles. Inspired by recent development in policy circles, this paper develops a multipolar framework to explain ways by which dimensions of possible interactions amongst activities of growth poles can affect development outcomes in other regions. It is then used to demonstrate how a nexus of Sino-EU activities has had limited impact on the development of Africa’s manufactured exports in comparison with similar nexus involving China and US.