Conclusions: Summary of Main Findings and Some Suggestions for Future Research

Abstract

Driven primarily by the Chinese state, the internationalisation of Chinese capital is one of the most important international political economy developments of the last decade. The analysis of the same, especially its varied ramifications around the world, is also now featuring prominently in scholarly literature. Although China has long had very close ties with Africa, the current relationship is significant in that it happens in the context of China having assumed a new-found global prominence underpinned and driven by phenomenal economic growth and by the links of its corporate entities to the capitalist global economy. Moreover, this relationship is developing at time when China has clearly carved out a distinct, home-grown neoliberalism different from Western neoliberalism or the ‘Washington Consensus.’ The fundamental variations between Chinese and Western neoliberalisms can be seen through institutional differences, the guiding principles they follow and the role of the government in economic activities. However, the analysis of the China-Africa relationship has tended to be narrowly confined to the broad binary of whether Chinese investment is good or bad for Africa. Whilst it is important to know if China is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ partner, this binary unfortunately stands in the way of a focus on some important issues linked to the internationalisation of Chinese capital in Africa. By identifying the impact of Chinese capital on state-society relations in Ethiopia as one such research gap, this book has offered an alternative to this binary as its main contribution.