China’s advance on the African continent is often depicted as an inevitable consequence of the vast power asymmetries between a large global power (i.e., China) and its comparatively small and weak partners (i.e., African countries). Indeed, China enjoys an enduring advantage over even the largest African states on the international level (i.e., state power), the state level (i.e., state capacity), and the individual level (i.e., policy coordination and training). But are these large and multi-tiered asymmetries insurmountable, or can they at least partially be overcome? How have small African countries sought to gain agency vis-à-vis China, and how, in turn, has China responded? To investigate such questions, over the last three years Joshua Eisenman and Ambassador David H. Shinn have conducted more than 200 elite interviews in China and five African countries. Their research will culminate in their second co-authored book, which is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press

Speaker: Joshua Eisenman, Associate Professor, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame

Professor Joshua Eisenman’s research focuses on the political economy of China’s development and its foreign relations with the United States and the developing world—particularly Africa. His newest book, Red China’s Green Revolution: Technological Innovation, Institutional Change, and Economic Development Under the Commune (Columbia University Press, 2018), explains how more capital investment and better farming techniques increased agricultural productivity growth in Maoist China. In China Steps Out: Beijing’s Major Power Engagement with the Developing World (Routledge, 2018), Eisenman and Eric Heginbotham analyze China’s policies toward the developing world. China and Africa: A Century of Engagement (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), which Eisenman co-authored with Ambassador David H. Shinn, was named one of the top three books about Africa by Foreign Affairs. Eisenman and Shinn’s next book, under contract with Penn Press, will examine the China-Africa political and security relationship. Eisenman holds a Ph.D. in political science from UCLA, and a MA from Johns Hopkins University (SAIS).