Coevolutionary Pragmatism – Xiaoyang Tang (1)

The former is sup- posed to be free of business interests, whereas the latter aims for profit. Yet, China’s own experience of market-oriented reform blurs the line between these two categories. Since China’s successful development has been achieved mainly through nurturing of business activities and construction of functioning markets, many Chinese actors believe in a close connection between development and business. Yet, they lay emphasis on incremental changes through real practices and projects rather than on prescription of liberalization policies.

What are the effects of this pragmatic method? Can Chinese efforts provide solutions to the dilemma between subsistence farming and agricultural modern- ization in Africa? The following sections will examine the various practices of Chinese aid and investments in Africa’s agricultural sector and their impacts. 4.3 From Aid to Business Agricultural aid constitutes a very significant portion of China’s official aid to Africa.

According to statistics, over the half-century from 1960 to 2010, China completed a total of 220 agricultural projects in Africa – roughly one fifth of all turnkey projects.28 In the 1960s, most of China’s agricultural aid projects in Africa were large-scale farms and agricultural technology promotion stations. Through the early 1980s, a total of 87 agricultural projects were built on up to 43,400 hectares of cultivated land. The most famous of these are the Mbarali and Ruvu farms in Tanzania, the Chipemba and Doho farms in Uganda, the Gombe farm in Congo Brazzaville, N’djili experimental farm in Zaire (DRC), Ghana’s rice and cotton farms, Mali’s sugar cane plantations, and Mpoli farm in Mauritania.29 However, many of these projects 27 FOCAC action plans 2010–2021.

www.focac.org (accessed July 14, 2020). 28 Deborah Brautigam and Tang Xiaoyang, China’s Engagement in African Agriculture: “Down to the Countryside,” China Quarterly (2009) 199, 686. 29 Yun Wenju, The Strategic Choice of China-Africa Cooperative Agricultural Development (Zhongfei hezuo kaifa nongye de zhanlve xuanze中非合作开发农 Agriculture could not sustain operations for very long.

The China-Africa economic tie has experienced lasting rapid growth since the 2000s, attracting lots of discussion on its nature and effects. A key question is whether Chinese engagements provide an alternative paradigm to existing mainstream models, such as Washington Consensus, for developing countries. However, theories on state–market dichotomy can hardly explain the strong momentum of bilateral cooperation. By examining a broad range of practices with solid field research, including trade, infrastructure, agriculture, manufacturing, industrial zones, labor, and socioenvironmental preservation, this book proposes a new angle of nonlinear circular causality to understand Chinese approaches to work with Africa.

Guided by the pursuit for sustainable growth rather than by specific models, Chinese actors are able to experiment diverse methods to foster structural transformation in Africa. In particular, the author carefully records mutual influences between Chinese and African stakeholders at all levels, from grassroots to policymaking, to illustrate the effects of coevolving industrialization. xiaoyang tang is an associate professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University and deputy director at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy.

His research interests include political philosophy, China’s engagement in Africa, and the modernization process of the developing countries. He is the author of China-Africa Economic Diplomacy (2014 in Chinese) and has published extensively on Asia-Africa relations. He completed his PhD in the philosophy department at the New School for Social Research in New York.

He also worked for the World Bank, USAID, IFPRI, and various research institutes and consulting companies. Coevolutionary Pragmatism Approaches and Impacts of China-Africa Economic Cooperation xiaoyang tang Tsinghua University, Beijing University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108415293 DOI: 10.1017/9781108233118 © Xiaoyang Tang 2020 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2020 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Tang, Xiaoyang, author.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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