Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo

China-Africa relations: a neo-imperialism or a neo-colonialism? A reflection

Based on the intensity and the volume of financial and economic dimensions as it pertains to the relationship between China and various African countries since the end of the 1990s, the debate on these relations has just begun within a global context. The discussion on the nature of South-South relations, especially between a newly emerging industrial country, located in Asia, and the African countries, which represent the least industrialized area of the world, has more recently brought the subject of the unequal balance of power between the two regions under intellectual scrutiny. Several intellectual debates on China-Africa relations have been mostly reactive in the sense that many analyses have focused on Africa’s past relations with the Global North. The existing literature on these relations has, to a large extent, not sufficiently located the discourse within the existing dominant ideologies, namely neo-imperialism and neo-liberalism. It is also important to localize these relations within the World Trade Organization’s dogmas and practices, the United Nations Charter, and African Union Charter in order to assess whether or not they can be characterized as either neo-imperialist or neo-liberal. Furthermore, it is important to identify on which specific areas these economic relations have generally focused and in which specific African countries they have been dominant. How do the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party perceive and define them? How do the African Union and specific African countries perceive and define these relations? And what are the policy implications in China and in the African public sectors? The main objective of this paper is, using the data and figures from Chinese sectoral investments and export-import of China and specific African countries to make a critical evaluative analysis of these relations and determine if they are qualified to be called neo-imperialist or neo-liberal. The article is both an empirically-based analysis and a reflection.

International Interventionism, Democracy, and Peace-building in the Great Lakes of Africa: A Regional Perspective to the Challenges

Since the end of Cold War era, the conflict in the Great Lakes Region of Africa has exploded. The causes of this explosion can be located in the structure and the dynamics of the world capitalist economy, the nature of Africa’s international relations, the demographics of the region, and the vicious forms of power struggles in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda. With approximately 4 millions Congolese deaths, the impact of the explosion and its manifestations have tragically resembled those of dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States. This article examines the nature the geopolitics and that of political leadership’s motivation that led to the tragedy in the region. It is argued that the instrumental actors involved African and Asian Studies, volume 4, nos. 1-2 also available online

Africa-Asia Relations since the End of “Unipolar” Globalization: Focus on Education and Research

Abstract The role of education and research in social progress is vital. Since China was admitted into the World Trade Organization in 2001, its economic, financial and trade assistance with Africa has intensified, reflecting certain aspects of the claims associated with the Bandung Conference in 1955. And Japanese relations with Africa, which were at their peak from the end of 1980s through the beginning of the 1990s, have steadily been declining. Furthermore, as China has become the second largest economy in the World since 2010, it has begun projecting its influential power in Africa. Despite the newfound emergence of Chinese power in Africa, it is Japan that has created the strongest institutional support of its activities in the name of new Japan International Cooperation Agency ( JICA), which redefines Japan relationship with Africa through the TICAD initiative. The competition between these two powers can benefit Africa if she can build her political leverage in her own capacity to identify her priorities with confidence and determination. Using comparative and historical perspectives, this article focuses on the examination of the new trends regarding Chinese and Japanese assistance to Africa with a particular focus on education and research.

Pan-African Curriculum in Higher Education

How might we explore the possibility of incorporating the concept and politics of Pax Africana into the curriculum of African higher education systems? How can African political institutions and people connect coherently among themselves, and between them and the African diaspora, within the framework of a realist pan-African epistemology? What can we learn from pan-Africanism in efforts towards redefining knowledge and new education systems in Africa? These questions provide an intellectual guide for us to focus on the complex topic of a pan-African curriculum in higher education.

The owl of Minerva on a baobab tree, schooling, and African awakening: half a century of post-colonial education for development in Africa

N’Dri Assié-Lumumba,*,a with Ali A. Mazruib and Martial Dembéléc a) Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University Email: n.assie-lumumba@cornell.edu b) Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Binghamton University, SUNY Email: amazrui@binghamton.edu c) Département d’administration et fondements de l’éducation, Faculté des sciences de l’éducation, Université de Montréal Email: martial.dembele@umontreal.ca