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"China in Africa" to be offered in Spring 2016 with Undergraduate International Studies Program

November 2, 2015

"China in Africa" to be offered in Spring 2016 with Undergraduate International Studies Program

China in Africa

The East Asian Studies Center is partnering with the Undergraduate International Studies Program to offer a course on "China in Africa" in Spring 2016. Listed as "International Studies 4195: Selected Problems in International Studies" (class number 33700), the course will be held on Thursdays from 4:00 - 6:45 p.m. in Enarson Hall, room 245. Interested students may enroll through BuckeyeLink. This course is offered with partial support from a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant for the East Asian Studies Center.

Course Description: This course is designed to be a multi-faceted analysis of the rapid and large-scale growth of China's presence in the African continent, a clear indication of the expanding and deepening relations between China and Africa in the third millennia - year 2000 to now. Its fundamental objective is to investigate the interests, goals, and strategy driving China's Africa policy. To date, African countries and peoples have been subject largely to European and, later, U.S. influence and tutelage, but there is now a 'changing reality' as China positions itself to compete with the West for influence, access to agricultural land and strategic raw materials, and for a share of a goods and service market comprising 1.2 billon people. In a nutshell the Chinese are positioning themselves to carve out an economic and political space in Africa that might eventually sideline, perhaps even displace, Western influence there. Against the background of the continent's long colonial history, the hows and whys of Chinese medium- and long-term economic and political strategies will be the principal focus of investigation.