Dear Editor,
I was thrilled to meet Honorable Madi MK Ceesay last month in The Gambia at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Center, where we had an engaging one-on-one discussion about governance in The Gambia and, more importantly, the contributions that individuals like him can make to the country by drawing on their vast professional experiences. Hon Ceesay’s career spans journalism, politics, lawmaking, and authorship, giving him an unusually broad vantage point from which to reflect on governance and international affairs. He was equally pleased with our encounter and generously shared two of his books with me. I subsequently took time to read both publications, but I have decided to offer a brief reflection on Africa–China Relations: Building a Shared Future Through Partnership and Cooperation. I commend Hon Ceesay for the courage, intellectual acuity, and commitment to African knowledge production demonstrated in undertaking this timely work. At a moment when Africa is navigating an increasingly multipolar international system, a book examining the continent’s relationship with China is both relevant and necessary.
One of the book’s most important contributions is that it makes the subject of Africa–China relations accessible beyond the confines of academia. This is particularly valuable because discussions of China’s expanding engagement with Africa often remain confined to academics, diplomats, economists, and foreign-policy specialists. Ceesay helps bring these questions into a broader public conversation. The book therefore has potential value not only for students at the University of The Gambia and other African universities, but also for parliamentarians, civil servants, journalists, diplomats, civil society organizations, and policymakers. Its emphasis on partnership and cooperation encourages readers to think seriously about how African states can engage China while protecting their national interests. In this respect, the book can serve as an important bridge between academic debates and the practical realities confronting African decision-makers.
Theoretically, however, the analysis could be strengthened by engaging more systematically with competing explanations of Africa–China relations. The concept of “partnership,” for example, deserves deeper analytical interrogation. What constitutes an equal partnership when the parties possess substantially different economic, technological, and geopolitical capabilities? How much bargaining power do individual African states actually exercise in their negotiations with China? The book could engage more explicitly with theories of dependency, South–South cooperation, economic interdependence, international political economy, and, importantly, African agency. Such engagement would allow the analysis to move beyond the often polarized debate in which China is presented either as Africa’s benevolent development partner or as another external power primarily interested in extracting African resources. The empirical reality is considerably more complex. China can be a lender, investor, infrastructure developer, trading partner, diplomatically, and strategic actor, while African governments remain active participants in negotiating the terms and consequences of these relationships.
This theoretical discussion points to an important empirical area for further development. The arguments would benefit from more systematic comparative evidence showing when, where, and under what conditions Chinese engagement yields positive development outcomes and when it produces unintended or adverse consequences. Comparative cases from The Gambia, Senegal, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia, Angola, or other African countries could illuminate variation in infrastructure investment, debt exposure, employment creation, resource extraction, technology transfer, local procurement, and institutional accountability. Greater attention could also be paid to variation among Chinese actors. The Chinese government, policy banks, state-owned enterprises, private companies, and individual entrepreneurs do not necessarily share identical interests or behave uniformly across African countries. Likewise, “Africa” should not be treated as a single political or economic actor. African states have varying institutional capacities, resource endowments, political systems, and bargaining positions, all of which shape their relationships with China.
For policymakers, perhaps the most consequential question emerging from Ceesay’s book is not simply “What is China doing in Africa?” but “How are African governments negotiating with China, under what institutional conditions, and in whose interests?” This distinction matters enormously. External partnerships do not automatically produce either development or dependency. Their consequences are mediated by domestic institutions, leadership choices, transparency, regulatory capacity, and governments’ ability to negotiate and enforce agreements that serve broader national interests. African policymakers must therefore think beyond the immediate availability of loans, infrastructure, or investment and ask whether agreements generate employment, strengthen domestic industries, facilitate technology and skills transfer, protect strategic national assets, and create sustainable long-term economic benefits.
Overall, Hon Madi MK Ceesay deserves considerable commendation for contributing his voice and experience to this important conversation. Writing a book on Africa–China relations require intellectual courage because it enters one of the most consequential and contested debates about Africa’s place in the contemporary international order. The areas identified above should therefore be understood not as diminishing the work’s importance, but as opportunities to extend the conversation the book has initiated. Future editions or subsequent research could deepen its theoretical foundations, incorporate more comparative empirical evidence, and more systematically examine differences across both African and Chinese actors. For students at the University of The Gambia, the book should inspire critical inquiry rather than passive acceptance of either pro-China or anti-China narratives. For policymakers and the wider African public, its broader significance lies in encouraging Africans to think seriously about their own agency. Ultimately, the future of Africa–China relations should not be defined simply by what China wants from Africa, but increasingly by what African states and societies want from China, and whether they possess the institutions, knowledge, and bargaining capacity to secure it.
Dr Lamin Keita
Indiana, USA