Journal of China in Global and Comparative Perspectives

Abstract: In 2013 I published a book entitled The Morality of China in Africa, with the provocative subtitle, The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent – which had been inspired by my visits to Beijing, where I discerned an alarming condescension towards Africa: it was still the ‘dark continent’ and China was still the centre of the universe, still the central, middle kingdom. But Western critiques of China’s role in Africa also looked upon the ‘dark continent’ as backward – as if Africans could not make decent choices of foreign partners and were just gullible natives awaiting somebody else’s penetration and even rape. The book was to explain China’s real role to a Western audience, but also to explain Africa to China. So, these few years later, what do I think as I look back upon a volume that has become something of a landmark book?