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The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa Reprint Edition

by Deborah Brautigam (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 82 ratings
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Is China a rogue donor, as some media pundits suggest? Or is China helping the developing world pave a pathway out of poverty, as the Chinese claim? In the last few years, China's aid program has leapt out of the shadows. Media reports about huge aid packages, support for pariah regimes, regiments of Chinese labor, and the ruthless exploitation of workers and natural resources in some of the poorest countries in the world sparked fierce debates. These debates, however, took place with very few hard facts. China's tradition of secrecy about its aid fueled rumors and speculation, making it difficult to gauge the risks and opportunities provided by China's growing embrace.

This well-timed book, by one of the world's leading experts, provides the first comprehensive account of China's aid and economic cooperation overseas. Deborah Brautigam tackles the myths and realities, explaining what the Chinese are doing, how they do it, how much aid they give, and how it all fits into their "going global" strategy. Drawing on three decades of experience in China and Africa, and hundreds of interviews in Africa, China, Europe and the U.S., Brautigam shines new light on a topic of great interest.

China has ended poverty for hundreds of millions of its own citizens. Will Chinese engagement benefit Africa? Using hard data and a series of vivid stories ranging across agriculture, industry, natural resources, and governance, Brautigam's fascinating book provides an answer. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with China's rise, and what it might mean for the challenge of ending poverty in Africa.
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  1. ISBN-10
    9780199606290
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0199606290
  3. Edition
    Reprint
  4. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  5. Publication date
    June 20, 2011
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    9.21 x 6.14 x 0.93 inches
  8. Print length
    416 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Dragon's Gift looks behind [the] media hype. It offers surprising insights and challenges us to take a new look at Africa's development.... thoughtful and well-researched...the basis for a well-informed, interesting dialogue with Chinese actors." --The Huffington Post

"Brautigam's lively and thoroughly documented account buck[s] the conventional wisdom."--Foreign Affairs

"Deborah Brautigam's superb book The Dragon's Gift offers a window into how China's foray into Africa is playing out on the ground. Rich in vivid anecdotes and informed by the author's three decades of academic work on both China and Africa, the book does many things, and does them all well. It describes how Chinese engagement in Africa has evolved, identifies its drivers, and assays its emerging impact on both economics and governance in nearly two dozen African states. It also looks behind the noble-minded rhetoric to the realities of aid-giving--Western as well as Chinese. The result is a fresh and compelling assessment of China in Africa..." --The American Interest

"The Dragon's Gift's strength is its extensive and varied array of interviews with Chinese government officials in Africa, Chinese factory managers, and other Chinese, African, and third-country participants and observers. Through these interviews, she conveys a rich sense of Chinese perceptions of how their own experience could benefit African countries." --Finance & Development

"Now comes a timely book by American academic Deborah Brautigam, an observer of Africa and Asia for three decades, which uses personal experiences combined with powerful research to puncture myths and fears that cloud understanding of one of the most important geopolitical shifts since the fall of the Berlin Wall."--The Independent

"Stands as the key booklength analysis on the subject. ...The Dragons Gift will be for a long time be the lodestone of informed discussion of how China and Chinese interact with Africa and Africans." --China Journal

"The best book so far on the developmental implications of China's engagement with Africa. Brautigam has done an excellent job in bringing together existing work on the topic and also first-class field research. As a result, the volume offers a more nuanced understanding of Beijings policies than many other previous books on the subject.... Anyone interested in Sino-African ties needs to read this book." --Perspectives on Politics

"The book tells a sweeping tale of Chinas engagement in Africa since the early 1950s, providing an important reminder that the recent trends in Sino-African relations have not turned up out of the blue (as alarmist media reports often portray) but rather have a significant history....particularly strong in addressing the question of what the Chinese are doing in their new wave of aid and economic cooperation across Africa....a superbly written and exquisitely researched book on a hotly debated topic." --Economic Record

"If you want to know what China is really doing in Africa, this is the one book to read. The Dragon's Gift corrects the misinformation of both critics and defenders of Chinas role on the continent. Beijing has a long-term, well-planned strategy that goes way beyond a drive to claim minerals and oil. Yet Africans are benefiting from Chinas mixture of aid and investment; Western aid officials could learn from it. I was surprised by new facts on almost every page. Brautigam has given us a compelling, objective, and very readable account enlivened by her personal experiences and interviews."--Susan Shirk, author of China: Fragile Superpower

"The Dragon's Gift is a path-breaking book, one that was urgently needed and one which deserves to be widely noticed and read. It not only provides an in-depth analysis of contemporary relations of China with Africa, located within their proper historical context, but meticulously presents, critiques and successfully challenges the array of myths, fears, and misinformation which abound in both press reports and some academic studies of China in Africa." --Roger C. Riddell, author of Does Foreign Aid Really Work?

"For China's cash-rich and nimbly opportunistic corporate sector, in particular, what Africa represents can be summed up quite neatly: the future. Deborah Brautigam, the author of The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa, understands all of this far better than most who have written on this subject. Her richly detailed book has many technical merits, but its greatest strength may in fact be her understanding of this psychological dynamic.... The universe of third-party experts who are deeply familiar with both China and Africa is vanishingly small, and Brautigam is easily one of the best qualified members of this select tribe." --Howard French, The National

"The Dragon's Gift is a welcome addition for general readers on why some fears are overblown and others are exaggerations of inaccuracies... This book offers many new insights into what Africa may truly want or need and how China sees itself... [and it] is an outstanding addition to resources easily readable by the general public; with a wide-range of cross application whether the reader is interested in China, economics, Africa or the humanitarian aspects of aid." --International Public Management Review

Book Description

A timely, unprecedented analysis of China's aid programs in Africa--what they're doing, how they do it, and why

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0199606293
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; Reprint edition (June 20, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780199606290
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199606290
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.21 x 6.14 x 0.93 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 82 ratings

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Deborah Brautigam

Deborah Brautigam

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Deborah Brautigam's interest in China, Africa, and international development began when she spent four years working and backpacking across Asia in the 1970s and several years researching Chinese aid in Africa in the 1980s. Thirty years and several books later, she returned to the topic of China, with The Dragon's Gift. Professor and Director of the International Development Program (IDEV) at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC, she still travels frequently, but no longer with a backpack.

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4.4 out of 5 stars
82 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

wsmrer
5.0 out of 5 stars The reason Why
Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2013
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Headline NYTimes 3/31/13: Sino- African Relations
China's inroads to Africa alarm the West.

Deborah Brautigam's book is an outstanding study in the advantages the P.R.C. has over the West in Africa and over the USA in particular. This is not a light read but it is entertaining if you are one who wonders why. It is a blistering report on the advantages the Chinese policy makers, bankers, and business people have over others in their impact on the continent of Africa as well as in other developing areas such as Latin America and the Middle East. The book should be a Must Read for The State Department and the corresponding agencies working in the fields of foreign aid and policy.

China is doing very well and why? Professor Brautigam's take based on years of careful observation and interviews with leader in many fields is not "cheer leading" as the term is often used for those who find something positive to say about China, but merely keen observation that China has a different history than its competitors today. It was and is an underdeveloped nation, and has been subject at times to the Imperialism known by many in the developing world. Thus it has come to observe successful models of development, e.g. Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore and incorporates the lessons learned. Thus, it approaches its global clients not as sources of raw materials for exploitation, which of course they are, but as partners in mutually beneficial relationships; win-win, compared with zero-sum. Brautigam story is enlightening but will the West be willing to mentally retool in time to get on the new world as it rushes forward?

This is a book for scholars to enjoy; perhaps not just the curious unless it makes you more open minded about why thing are going as they seem to be. Legacies have lasting impacts. Imagine that.

NYTimes.com 6/2/13
China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom
By TIM ARANGO and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
BAGHDAD -- Since the American-led invasion of 2003, Iraq has become one of the world's top oil producers, and China is now its biggest customer.
China already buys nearly half the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a day, and is angling for an even bigger share, bidding for a stake now owned by Exxon Mobil in one of Iraq's largest oil fields.

.... "The Chinese are very simple people," said an Iraqi Oil Ministry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to speak to the news media. "They are practical people. They don't have anything to do with politics or religion. They just work and eat and sleep."

There is a more recent less scholarly account of China-Africa interactions, Howard French, China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa (2014-05-20). It raises this issue:
... for some the honeymoon is over : In an op-ed published March 11, 2013, in the Financial Times, for example, the governor of Nigeria's Central Bank wrote: "It is time for Africans to wake up to the realities of their romance with China.... China is no longer a fellow under-developed economy --it is the world's second biggest, capable of the same forms of exploitation as the West. It is a significant contributor to Africa's deindustrialization and underdevelopment."
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Graham
4.0 out of 5 stars A useful analysis of China's aid and investment in Africa.
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2010
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China is often taciturn about the real size and scope of its projects in Africa, so this topic has suffered from much confusion and often from inflated (or guessed) numbers. Prof. Brautigam aims to describe and analyze the real Chinese aid picture, using both anecdotal data obtained from many personal visits to Chinese development projects in Africa and also statistical data obtained through carefully digging into the real numbers behind the headlines.

Although she notes some concerns, Brautigam is on balance fairly positive on China's role, especially in its emphasis on practicalities. I learned many things, including:

* China explicitly declares that its programs are aiming for "mutual benefits" and "win-win" rather than simply dispensing charity. For example, projects may be directly profitable, or they may foster Chinese trade. Interestingly, this peer-peer style is often popular with recipients.

* The main Chinese focus is on fostering economic development (in infrastructure, agriculture, or industry) as the path to a better future, rather than on relieving today's symptoms.

* China is consciously reusing strategies that seemed to work in developing China itself. For example, in the 1950s Japan provided China with development loans and technology tied to specific projects, and was repaid with the products of the resulting Chinese factory or mine. China perceives this as a key "win-win" strategy for development.

* China emphasizes "no strings" and non-interference in countries internal affairs. However a key goal, especially in earlier years, was building up support for the PRC against Taiwan. Aid would only be given to those countries that recognized Beijing as the sole government of China. While China's "no strings" policies might appear to tolerate dictatorships and corruption, Brautigam observes that in practice the West's actions are not so very different: despite all the hopeful talk of "conditionality", much Western aid, investment and military hardware still flows to extremely unpleasant regimes.

* China provides some humanitarian aid, notably medical teams and post-disaster assistance. But this is relatively modest. Brautigam believes Chinese non-commercial aid to Africa is still only a small fraction of Western aid.

* Chinese workers (including technical experts) work relatively cheaply and typically live at close to local living standards. This is perceived as very different from the highly paid and expensively supplied Western experts.

* China's engagements are often weak on environmental issues, and on social and human rights issues. This is improving, but slowly. China tends to assume that its own internal strategy of putting development first is still the right one.

* There has been a great deal of misreporting of Chinese aid figures in Western media. This is partly because China is taciturn and partly because it uses different measurement criteria. For example, if China makes a below-market-rate loan, it only treats the reduction in interest payments as "aid", whereas a Western government treats the whole loan amount as "aid". (I think I prefer the Chinese methodology here.) But there is also enormous media confusion between (a) true non-commercial "aid" (b) subsidized "aid" loans for commercial projects (c) business loans on normal commercial terms, and (d) commercial business China does in Africa, sometimes paid for by another donor country. For all these categories, Brautigam tries to extract and compare true apples-to-apples Chinese and Western numbers.

* China is consciously trying to move its mature industries offshore. For example, the Chinese government is providing financial incentives for moving textile manufacturing out of China. (Fascinating!)

These brief notes only touch the tip of the iceberg: there is much more of interest in the book.

In general, I'd recommend this as very useful reading for anyone interested in either African development or China's foreign policy. My one caution would be that it is not light reading: Brautigam provides reams of detail and many carefully analyzed statistics. This is all useful, but can occasionally be slow going.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Believable truth
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2022
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With the world shrouded with all sorts of China-bashing hysteria, this book is a wonderful breath of fresh air. I’m from the developing world and still live there. Despite the powerful BBC, CNN, CIA, MI6 and so on, the majority of mankind, including those in Africa, remembers no evil slave masters, colonisers (like those from the West); what they are getting more and more familiar with are the wonderful and cheap imports from China, and the growing presence of Chinese built infrastructure. Some wise man/woman said, you want to eliminate poverty, build a road. Who builds roads better and faster than China these days?
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Haruna
5.0 out of 5 stars Looks neat and clean.
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2023
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Arrived on time and looks neat and clean. Thank you.
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muthee witu
3.0 out of 5 stars interesting 'western gaze' take on china in africa
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2013
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This is a very informative reading accompanied by several years of both research and experience in Africa. I am however concerned by its obvious 'western gaze' and somewhat unnecessary, and at times somewhat envious and patronizing look at the ongoing success and increasing Chinese influence in Africa, when compared to the 'underdevelopment' of the Continent by former colonial powers as well as the USA and notwithstanding what the author acknowledges as many years of Chinese support for both anti-colonial struggles and infrastructural projects, in various parts of Africa.
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Mbugwile Nkolokosa
5.0 out of 5 stars Myths debunked.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 12, 2019
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This is a well written and accessible book on the Africa-China relationship. It debunks the myths that are published in Western outlets and repeated by Western policy makers about the Africa-China engagement.

The book is based on facts. The author is a frequent visitor to Africa. She has visited numerous Chinese aid projects and businesses in many African countries. She has spoken to Chinese ambassadors to African countries and to Chinese businesspeople doing business in Africa. She has spoken to African government officials. She has spoken to Chinese officials in China.

The story that emerges is that of an emerging power trying to apply the lessons it learned during its own journey to development to Africa's struggle to develop her own economy.
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Bayardo
5.0 out of 5 stars This a refreshingly balanced approach to the question of China's ...
Reviewed in Australia on August 19, 2015
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This a refreshingly balanced approach to the question of China's role in Africa. Neither celebratory or Sinophobic as so many other discussions are.
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Ultraume
5.0 out of 5 stars 真摯な態度で書かれた内容に感銘を受けた
Reviewed in Japan on December 22, 2011
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アフリカの援助にODAを通して係わる者としては、中国の援助について興味がある。

先日は、「アフリカを食い荒らす中国」というフランス人グループが編集した本を読んで、強烈な印象を与えられた。この本はそれとはまったく逆と言っていいほどの内容である。アフリカにおける中国の進出について、記述の背景が確かであることは両者共に違いはないが、その見方が少し違うようだ。「アフリカを食い荒らす中国」は、作者たちにその気がないとしても、中国批判に傾きそうな内容である。一方この本は、できるだけ中国の負の面を出さないようにして書いた、と思わざるを得ない箇所が多々あった。確かに、この本の中で書かれている、中国人の成功の理由が（これはODAではなく、個人による投資によって成功した事例であるが）東アジア人の生来の勤勉さと、中国本土での貧困から脱した経験がなさしめたものである、との著者の指摘に納得し（反語として、西欧人はここまでしなかった、と言う意味でもある）、中国人の忍耐強さと丁寧な仕事ぶりには共感を覚えた。

作者によると、この本の目的は、「アフリカに対する中国の経済支援の実態を通じて、アフリカの貧困と発展と、先進国が行ってきた開発と支援の意味を知ること、」となっている。その意味ではこの本は成功している。よく調べて書いてあると思った。また、努めて事実を書こうとしていることが感じられるので、読者としても、偏見なしに読もう、という気になる。

著者は「中国の援助は西側が批難するような内容ではない」、「援助金額は思ったほどに大きなものではないし、ODAよりも投資金額のほうが大きいくらいであるが、それとても驚くほどの金額ではない。」と中国恐怖論をなだめるような記述の一方で、「アフリカにおける中国の存在は大きなものがあり、その援助は戦略的であり、計画的で、長期的で、展開的である。」と方向付けている。とはいえ、やはり中国の非干渉主義を建前とした無差別援助には疑問を呈せざるを得ない。そういうことがこの本では多く語られていないが、中国の援助方針が資料として載っているので、それとこの本に書かれている、援助の内容を注意深く読むと、援助方針と実際にやっていることとが矛盾していることが分かる、援助に当たっては結構内政に干渉しているし、条件もつけているのである。
　
著者によると、中国は日本が行ってきた中国を含む東南アジアでの援助方式を見習ってアフリカに援助をしているのだという。日本の援助は資源外交であり、日本製品を輸出するための援助だった、と述べるのである。一方で、そのおかげで東南アジアは発展した、と言い添えることも忘れていない。著者はこの方式について許容も批難もしていないが、私は中国がやろうとしている日本式の援助（私にはそうとは思えないところもある）が、アフリカに通じるものかと疑問に思う。この本からも感じることだが、国民のことを真剣に考えない指導者がアフリカには多すぎる。そういう国々に中国が無差別に援助をしても、それらが一般の人々に平等に行き渡らないので国は発展しないのではないか、と思ってしまうのだった。
　
　この本から得るものがあったのは、見方を変えての中国の支援を知ることが出来た、ということである。読み応えのある、そして終始中立であろうとして書いた著者の見識に、敬意を表したい。
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San Patch
4.0 out of 5 stars A tale of two worldviews
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 25, 2012
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China's recent engagement with Africa has been greeted with deep suspicion by Western media and policymakers. For instance, U.S. secretary of state Hilary Clinton has insinuated that the Chinese are the `new colonisers' of the continent. But how true is this story of putative economic and social domination? Professor Deborah Brautigam drills down beneath the superficial media reports to understand the role that the Chinese on the continent. As a management researcher, I wanted to see detailed case study accounts as well as some statistical analysis of the numbers on trade and FDI. Thankfully, Ms. Brautigam did not disappoint me.

Ms. Brautigam's thesis is simple: Chinese aid to Africa is modeled on the Chinese experience receiving aid from the Japanese after 1978. The Chinese state received technology and infrastructure aid from Japan after the Cultural Revolution; in return, China paid Japan by providing mineral concessions to Japanese companies. Chinese aid then was not based on compassion, but on complementarities of needs: the Chinese wanted technology and machinery while the Japanese wanted natural resources.

Ms. Brautigam's account of the Chinese presence in Africa is informed by her extensive research (over 30years) in Africa and by her access to African leaders and the foreign aid establishment in China. Her accounts of Chinese projects in Sierra Leone and Zambia are very rich. She tells the story of the key protagonists and their motivations: the ministers of agriculture, the farmers, the sometimes clueless Chinese investors and local communities. She paints a nuanced picture of China's engagement in Africa. The Chinese are not interested in only natural resources, but also in accessing markets, potential outsourcing locations and in furthering their geo-political agenda.

The authors challenges a few myths about China's engagement in Africa:

1. CHINA THROWS MONEY AT DICTATORS LIKE MUGABE. Not really. Mugabe has received more money from the West than from China. Moreover, resource-rich dictators did not really need China to raise money. The Western banks were always willing to lend money. Examples Nigeria's Sani Abacha and Angola's kleptocratic leaders.

2. CHINA ENABLES SUDAN TO GET AWAY WITH GENOCIDE IN DARFUR. Yes, to a point. China did not put as much pressure as it could have on Sudan's leaders. However, they did finally put pressure on the leaders to end the fighting, but by then, the cat had been let out of the proverbial bag: the leaders in Khartoum could no longer control the violence.

3. CHINA HURTS EFFORTS TO IMPROVE HUMAN RIGHTS IN AFRICA. Uh, not really. This argument assumes that outsiders can affect the human rights record of African countries through conditionalities attached to loans. The evidence to support this position, however, is patchy. IMF and World Bank loans disbursed on conditions of human rights and good governance have not any measureable impact on human rights. Furthermore, Western governments and banks have been all too willing to offer loans to friendly African dictators. So why single out the Chinese?

There is much I like about the book that I will not rehash in this review. My main criticism is that Ms. Brautigam appears to be too sympathetic to the Chinese. This perhaps necessarily so given the amount of negative publicity that they have received in the West.

At the heart of the debate about China's role in Africa is a difference in world view between China and the West. The West thinks it knows what is good for Africa. Afterall, Africa is Europe's backyard. The 19th century Great Powers took up the `White Man's Burden' to bring Christianity, Commerce and civilization to the Dark Continent. Since the end of formal colonization, the West has acted as the continent's self-appointed spokesman. Enter a new kid on the block, China, who does not share the West's convictions about the `Dark Continent' and does not have a post-colonial hangover. While the Chinese are aware of the continent's troubles, they also perceive its economic potential.

The most demoralizing aspect of the West's discourse about Africa is that Africans are not protagonists in this tale of exploitation. Ordinary Africans are always victims to be saved from the either the dark forces of history or the machinations of an Eastern superpower. Ms. Brautigam challenges this preconception using rich empirical evidence. The Chinese are challenging the West's power--and African leaders are listening intently. In China, they see an alternative to failed Western aid development. This is an unfolding story and Ms. Barutigam's book gives the reader a front row seat. It deserves four stars.
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黒羽夏彦
5.0 out of 5 stars 中国バッシングだけでなく違う視点も
Reviewed in Japan on March 1, 2010
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　アフリカに進出した中国の経済活動を脅威視する国際世論が高まっているが、それは果たして事実なのか？と疑問を投げかけ、誇張された中国脅威論の「神話」をデータや実地調査に基づいて解きほぐしていくのが本書の趣旨である。現在の中国のアフリカでの活動は援助とビジネスとを融合させた形が中心であるが、これは日本をモデルにしていると指摘される。かつて中国市場に入ってきた日本や欧米は援助をテコに市場開拓したが、中国はこの受け手としての経験を今度は供給側としてアフリカに対して応用しているのだという。

　中国がアフリカで様々な軋轢を引き起こしているのは事実である。ただし、経済活動というのはプラス・マイナス様々な要因が複雑に絡まりあっており、どの側面に注目するかによって違ったイメージが浮かび上がり、何が「真実」なのか黒白はっきりと断定するのは難しい。分かりやすく単純化された図式的批判はかえって問題解決の方向性を誤りかねない。もちろん中国の行動にも問題が多々あるわけで、それは当然批判されるべきにしても、現実に何が実効性を持っているのか、違う視点から考えていくことも必要だろう。
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