Beyond “Chimerica”: U.S.–China strategic competition and African agency in a disordered world

1 Introduction

During the first decades following the end of the Cold War, the international system appeared to be characterized by an unprecedented concentration of power in the hands of the United States. Although scholars differed in their interpretations of the durability of the so-called unipolar moment (Krauthammer, 1990; Buzan, 2013), the liberal international order seemed sufficiently resilient to accommodate the economic rise of new powers without fundamentally altering its institutional foundations. The rapid economic and political rise of China (Heldt and Park, 2025; Roland, 2021; Pan and Kavalski, 2022; Elsner and Najmehchi, 2026; Cozariuc et al., 2026) has profoundly transformed the global landscape. Instead of the peaceful integration of a rising power into an existing order, international politics has increasingly been characterized by strategic rivalry, institutional fragmentation, and competing visions of global governance (Sinkkonen et al., 2026). One of the defining features of 21st-century international relations is the evolution of Sino-American relations, which has shifted from extensive economic interdependence to comprehensive geopolitical competition. Earlier interpretations of these developments frequently relied on the notion of “Chimerica,” introduced by Ferguson and Schularick (2007), which described the deep economic symbiosis between the United States and China, “a unique geo-economic constellation” (Ferguson and Schularick, 2007: 2). This concept reflects a time when economic complementarity and mutual dependence seemed to help ease geopolitical rivalries. “On the American side, [however,] the fear is that a growing China will systematically undermine American preeminence and thus American security. […] On the Chinese side, many American actions are interpreted as a design to thwart China’s rise” (Kissinger, 2014: 228–229).

In my earlier work, I argued that even with increasing competition, the idea of “Chimerican interests” still allowed for cooperation, especially in areas like sub-Saharan Africa, where both parties had significant but differently expressed strategic interests (Tarrósy, 2013). However, over the past decade, maintaining this framework has become challenging. Intensifying technological competition, supply-chain restructuring, a ‘trade war’ (Steinbock, 2018; Meng et al., 2025), strategic decoupling, renewed alliance politics and heightened geopolitical tensions in several regions of the world have substantially altered the foundations upon which earlier assumptions rested. For instance, “Southeast Asia plays a role in today’s great-power competition analogous to Europe during the Cold War, acting as a pivot region whose alignment has significant implications for regional and global order” (Eszterhai and Druhalóczki, 2025: 17), and also in this macro region, China and the United States have long contested for better positions. “In addition to the ‘trade war’, the Trump administration competed with China in many other areas. Perhaps the most visible symbol has been the refusal of Huawei’s (and ZTE’s) participation in the construction of 5G networks” (Turcsanyi, 2024: 236). Transformations in the international system have led to broader restructuring. In a post-pandemic world, Zakaria portraits “an international realm of perpetual competition and conflict” (Zakaria, 2020: 13) Instead of progressing toward a stable multipolar order, contemporary international politics increasingly resembles an orderless or rather disordered world order (Vörös and Tarrósy, 2025). This global environment is marked by overlapping crises, fragmented institutions, selective multilateralism, and intensified geopolitical contestation (Cooper et al., 2025; Secen, 2025). Great powers continue to compete across economic, technological, military, and normative domains, while international institutions struggle to accommodate shifting distributions of power. The resulting uncertainty affects not only the principal actors themselves but also those regions that have become central arenas of strategic competition. In sum, “the international order that emerged in the 1990s has been eroded by the dynamics of great-power competition” (Rodrik and Walt, 2022: 145).

Africa is increasingly significant as an actor in global geopolitics. Once portrayed in the literature as a peripheral recipient of external policies, the continent has gradually emerged as one of the most consequential geopolitical spaces of the twenty-first century. Falola points out that: “the portrayal of African countries in contemporary Western news media often focuses on poverty and conflict while neglecting positive stories – of triumph, innovation, and growth” (Falola, 2026: 26). Multiple structural developments drive a complexity of tangible transformation: sustained demographic growth, accelerating urbanization, expanding consumer markets, abundant critical raw materials necessary for the global green transition, growing digital economies, and the growing political weight of African states within multilateral institutions. Simultaneously, African governments have diversified their external partnerships far beyond traditional Western donors, engaging simultaneously with China, the United States, the European Union, India, Türkiye, the Gulf states, South Korea, and other emerging actors such as the UAE, Brazil, Indonesia, or Thailand (Tarrósy, 2016; Tarrósy, 2018). Consequently, Africa should no longer be understood merely as an object of great-power competition. Rather, African actors exercise strategic agency by selectively engaging external partners according to nationally defined development priorities. This shift reflects broader transformations within what many scholars now describe not simply as the Global South but as the Majority World., the term that “challenges the West’s rhetoric of democracy. It also defines the community in terms of what it has, rather than what it lacks. In time, the majority world will reaffirm its place in a world where the earth will again belong to the people who walk on it” (Alam, 2008: 89). This terminology recognizes both demographic realities and the growing political confidence of states historically positioned outside the traditional centers of global power. The conceptual transition is not merely semantic; it reflects changing patterns of influence, legitimacy and norm production within international politics.

Prevailing interpretations of Sino-American competition tend to be overly focused on state actors. Much of the mainstream International Relations literature analyzes Africa primarily as a setting where external powers pursue competing geopolitical objectives. As Benabdallah puts it, “instead of questioning the validity of concepts and theories applied to the African context, the discipline continuously questions the adequacy of African societies” (Benabdallah, 2026: 252). Such perspectives risk underestimating the capacity of African governments, regional organizations – specifically the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) – and continental institutions to influence also the terms of external engagement. The expanding diplomatic activity of the African Union, the implementation of Agenda 2063, the operationalization of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and the development of more sophisticated diplomatic diversification strategies all indicate that African agency warrants significantly more analytical attention than it has traditionally received. “After half a century of formal independence, the continent is no longer overly dependent but self-sustaining, and is becoming a policymaker rather than a perpetual ‘policy-taker’” (Shaw, 2016: 109).

This article, therefore, seeks to move beyond binary interpretations of U.S.–China rivalry by placing African agency at the center of the analysis. Rather than asking whether China or the United States is “winning” influence across Africa, the article investigates how intensifying strategic competition has simultaneously expanded opportunities for African states to negotiate, diversify, and redefine their external partnerships. The central research question guiding this study is therefore: How has intensifying U.S.–China strategic competition reshaped Africa’s geopolitical position and bargaining power within an increasingly disordered international order?

The article advances three interrelated arguments. First, it argues that the transition from the relatively cooperative logic of “Chimerica” to contemporary strategic competition over a timespan of twenty years between the mid-2000s to the mid-2020s reflects broader systemic transformations associated with the emergence of a disordered world order. Second, it demonstrates that Africa has become one of the principal geopolitical arenas in which this strategic competition unfolds across economic, diplomatic, technological, and security dimensions. Third, most importantly, it argues that increasing great-power rivalry has expanded the strategic autonomy of African states. This shift allows them to adopt more diverse and pragmatic foreign policy strategies instead of remaining passive recipients of external influence. This is acknowledged even when agreeing with Benabdallah who underscores that over the past decade there has been “a rising optimism around African agency as arguments and hopes about growing economic development in the continent gave way to arguments about an (imagined) optimized agency for Africans in navigating global relations [… while] the gap between rich and poor within several African countries continued to deepen […] disparities between rural and urban areas persist, and the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the socio-economic inequalities that already characterized many African countries” (Benabdallah, 2026: 256–257).

This article employs a qualitative conceptual approach, and instead of focusing on individual African countries, it aims to establish a broader framework to understand great-power competition and African agency. Building on prior analyses of Sino-American engagement in Africa, it updates theoretical foundations in light of recent geopolitical changes. The remainder of the article proceeds in six sections. The first revisits the earlier concept of “Chimerica” and examines its relevance in the context of today’s increasingly fragmented international system – despite its creators’ 2011 statement that it could not persist for long in its initial form (Ferguson and Schularick, 2011). The second analyzes Africa’s changing geopolitical significance within the emerging global order. The third compares the evolving diplomatic, economic, security, and normative approaches of the United States and China. The fourth places African agency at the center of the discussion by examining how African actors navigate intensified great-power competition. Finally, the article discusses the broader theoretical implications of these developments before offering concluding reflections on the future of Africa’s position within an increasingly contested international order.

2 Methodological framework and analytical propositions

This article adopts a qualitative, conceptually driven research design situated within the interpretivist tradition of International Relations scholarship. It aims to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the evolving relationship between great-power competition, African agency and the changing architecture of contemporary international order. The article triangulates several categories of sources, including the scholarly literature on International Relations, African Studies, and global governance, paying particular attention to debates concerning multipolarity, strategic competition, African agency, and world-order transformation. Second, it adds analyses of policy documents, strategic frameworks, and declarations issued by governments and international organizations, including policy strategies, summit declarations, and multilateral policy statements. Third, the article incorporates recent empirical evidence concerning diplomatic engagement, development cooperation, security partnerships, and institutional developments to illustrate broader conceptual arguments. The analytical strategy is comparative, focusing on the evolving strategies of the United States and China in response to Africa’s geopolitical changes. Rather than measuring influence, it seeks to understand how African governments and institutions shape the behavior of external powers.

This agency-centered approach recognizes African actors as influential in international norms and diplomatic practices despite existing material asymmetries. This perspective draws upon the growing literature on African agency while extending it conceptually towards what this article defines as order-making agency: the capacity not only to respond to external initiatives but also to participate actively in shaping the institutional architecture, normative principles and partnership structures of the emerging international order. Consequently, the article should be understood primarily as a theory-building contribution. Its objective is to demonstrate that recent developments justify reconsidering Africa’s place within International Relations theory, taking into account all the narratives and discourse about the ‘Africa Rising’ mantra (Taylor, 2014), in particular, Africa’s ‘shadow rise’, which Carmody et al. (2020: 5–6) conceptualize as “largely responsive – a shadow of the real rise of Asia, and China in particular, in the global political economy”. The argument is organized around three analytical propositions providing the framework through which the article’s conclusions are assessed.

Proposition 1 (P1): The shift from the Chimerica era to increased U.S.–China strategic competition marks a significant transformation from a relatively stable liberal international order to a more fragmented, contested, and negotiable global order.

Proposition 2 (P2): Africa’s growing geopolitical significance derives not only from its demographic, economic and strategic importance but, more fundamentally, from the expanding diplomatic and institutional agency of African states and continental organizations.

Proposition 3 (P3): By increasingly shaping the strategies, partnerships and institutional practices of competing external powers, Africa has become an emerging co-producer of international order rather than merely an arena within which great-power competition unfolds.

These propositions are not considered hypotheses to be empirically tested for falsification. Instead, they serve as analytical building blocks that support the article’s broader theoretical argument regarding the evolving relationship between African agency and the development of the international system.

3 From Chimerica to a disordered world order

The international environment within which Sino-American relations unfold has undergone a profound transformation since the publication of Ferguson and Schularick (2007) influential concept of Chimerica. At the time, the term effectively captured a unique historical moment characterized by deep economic interdependence between the United States and China; “and economic but not a monetary (much less political or cultural) unit […] the symbiotic East–West relationship” (Ferguson and Schularick, 2007: 217, 229) American consumption, sustained by inexpensive Chinese manufacturing and substantial Chinese purchases of U.S. Treasury securities, appeared to constitute a mutually beneficial arrangement that simultaneously fueled global economic growth and moderated geopolitical tensions. Economic integration was widely expected to encourage political accommodation, reinforcing the liberal assumption that increasing interdependence would reduce the likelihood of strategic confrontation. This logic also informed earlier assessments of Chinese and American engagements in Africa. Although competition for influence, access to resources and diplomatic partnerships was already visible, there remained considerable room for policy coordination in areas such as peacekeeping, development cooperation, anti-piracy operations and infrastructure financing. Rather than depicting Africa as an inevitable arena of geopolitical confrontation, cooperation remained possible because both powers shared a fundamental interest in political stability, economic growth and secure access to global markets (Tarrósy, 2013).

Even where their policy instruments differed considerably, neither Washington nor Beijing questioned the value of maintaining a relatively stable international economic order. The assumptions underpinning this interpretation have gradually weakened. The transition did not occur overnight but emerged through the cumulative effect of several mutually reinforcing developments. The global financial crisis of 2008–2009 exposed structural vulnerabilities within the liberal economic order and simultaneously strengthened confidence in China’s state-led development model. Beijing’s growing technological capabilities, expanding diplomatic influence and ambitious global initiatives, notably the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched in 2013, challenged long-standing assumptions regarding the geographical distribution of economic and political power.

American strategic thinking has shifted from engagement to competition, driven by a bipartisan belief that the anticipated ‘convergence’ with China has not occurred. By the late 2010s, this strategic rivalry became institutionalized across various policy areas. Trade disputes expanded into a broader competition in technology, including semiconductors, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, and critical supply chains. Additionally, security concerns evolved beyond traditional military considerations to encompass investment screening, export controls, cyber governance, and the protection of vital industries. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated these trends by exposing vulnerabilities in highly integrated global production networks, encouraging governments to pursue greater economic resilience through diversification, near-shoring, and selective decoupling. The pandemic “further exacerbated the burgeoning prominence of China on the world stage as an assertive power seeking to lead international cooperation and exhort multilateralism. Concurrently, the US has appeared to retreat from its global responsibilities” (Trabelsi and Tarrósy, 2025: 31). Instead of entirely reversing globalization, these developments created a more fragmented global interconnectedness, where geopolitical considerations significantly influence economic decision-making.

The transformation extends beyond bilateral relations between Washington and Beijing. More fundamentally, it reflects a broader reconfiguration of the international system itself. Numerous scholars have described this evolution using concepts such as competitive multipolarity, multiplex world order, polycentrism or fragmented multilateralism. Paikin uses competitive multipolarity as “the world’s leading powers have begun to define their national interests towards one another in increasingly competitive – even antagonistic – terms” (Paikin, 2024: 161). Acharya indicates that the emerging scenario is a multiplex world, “a world of multiple modernities […], of interconnectedness and interdependence […], a complex of crosscutting, if not competing, international orders and globalisms […, which] is not defined by the hegemony of any single nation or idea” (Acharya, 2017: 277). Sundaram and Parmar, offering a neo-Gramscian approach, call for ‘critical multiplexity’, an “examination [which] emphasizes the necessity of integrating people’s voices and agency – not as spectators in a multiplex theatre, but as interlocutors and agents – to democratize international order” (Sundaram and Parmar, 2026: 437). Kristensen and Chagas-Bastos (2026: 456) add to all these investigative angles the crucial claim of time in international relations and underline the importance of “rethinking the multiplicity of orders through temporality”. Cooper et al. (2025: 1829–1834) emphasize that “fragmentation is a defining feature of the current global order – one that reflects competing visions, asymmetrical capabilities and regionally embedded institutional legacies […] and multilateralism is increasingly under the pressure of national self-interest, and its survival is highly dependent on states’ sustained adhesion to collective interests over self-interest”. While each captures important dimensions of contemporary international politics, none fully reflects the simultaneous coexistence of intensifying competition, institutional overlap, normative contestation and systemic uncertainty that characterize the present historical moment. The notion of a disordered world order (Vörös and Tarrósy, 2026) can provide a potentially more comprehensive analytical framework because it emphasizes not simply the redistribution of material capabilities but also the erosion of previously accepted rules governing international interaction.

Disorder does not imply a complete absence of order. It reflects the coexistence of multiple, overlapping orders supported by different coalitions of states and institutions. While liberal international institutions still operate, they now exist alongside alternative financial mechanisms, regional security arrangements, and partnerships promoted by emerging powers. This landscape is neither entirely multipolar nor clearly bipolar, as states navigate a complex environment with overlapping memberships and pragmatic diplomatic alignments. Fragmentation is evident in global governance, where achieving consensus is increasingly challenging across issues such as trade, climate, technology, and conflict management. Existing institutions struggle to adapt to emerging powers, and new institutions remain only partially established. Consequently, contemporary geopolitics showcases competition among various governance arrangements operating simultaneously at different levels.

The changing vocabulary of international politics also illustrates this broader transformation. Policymakers and scholars are now referring not only to the “Global South” but to the “Majority World.” While the former concept emerged primarily from post-colonial and development studies traditions, the latter seeks to capture changing demographic realities and the growing political confidence of states outside the traditional transatlantic gravity centers of power. The terminology recognizes that countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America represent not merely peripheral actors seeking integration into an existing international system but active participants contributing to the definition of future global norms and institutional arrangements. For Africa, these systemic transformations carry particularly significant implications. “Moving beyond earlier research that conceptualized Global South countries as norm-takers in international socialization processes (e.g., Risse and Ropp, 1999), or as localizers of international norms in domestic adjustment processes (Acharya, 2004), Acharya (2011) shifted the focus to the role of Global South countries as norm-makers” (Höhne, 2025: 3).

During the immediate post-Cold War period, external engagement with Africa was largely framed through development assistance, humanitarian intervention, and governance conditionality. Although geopolitical interests never entirely disappeared, they frequently remained subordinated to narratives emphasizing poverty reduction, democratization, and conflict prevention. Contemporary strategic competition has fundamentally changed the relationship with Africa. The continent is now seen in terms of energy transition, critical minerals, maritime security, digital connectivity, food security, and demographic transformation, all of which impact international migration. As a result, Africa holds an even more central role in today’s geopolitical considerations than it did just two decades ago.

However, viewing Africa exclusively as a geopolitical arena presents an analytical limitation that has affected much of the existing literature. Both realist analyses that emphasize great-power rivalry and dependency-oriented perspectives that highlight external domination often assign limited agency to African actors. These approaches underestimate the ability of African governments to take advantage of growing strategic competition by diversifying partnerships, negotiating more favorable economic and financial agreements, and selectively engaging with competing external actors based on their own national priorities. In fact, one of the most paradoxical outcomes of intensified Sino-American competition may be the increased strategic autonomy for African nations.

As competition increases, external powers possess stronger incentives to cultivate political goodwill, offer investment opportunities, support infrastructure development, and deepen diplomatic engagement. Unlike during earlier historical periods characterized by more rigid alliance structures, contemporary African governments often possess multiple alternatives through which to pursue their development objectives. Rather than choosing between competing geopolitical blocs, many seek to maximize national benefits through diversified and issue-specific partnerships. This phenomenon reflects a broader evolution within international relations that extends well beyond Africa itself. Middle powers and regional actors across the Majority World increasingly reject binary geopolitical choices in favor of flexible alignment strategies. Their foreign policies combine security cooperation with one major power, economic partnerships with another, and diplomatic engagement across multiple regional organizations. Such practices challenge traditional realist assumptions about how alliances are formed while also questioning liberal expectations regarding the convergence of institutions. As a result, the international landscape is viewed less as a series of stable blocs and more as a dynamic network of overlapping partnerships. Consequently, the key analytical question is no longer whether the era of Chimerica has ended – it is clear that it has in many respects. Stability is yet another issue to keep in the analytical loop. Zakaria point out that: “Everyone of connected, but no one is in control. […] the world we live in is open, fast – and thus, unstable. […] If the system is open and stable, it will likely be sluggish rather than dynamic” (Zakaria, 2020: 14).

Economic interdependence remains, but it is often influenced by strategic calculations rather than assumed mutual benefits. A more pressing question arises regarding the type of international order that is emerging as this interdependence declines. Instead of reverting to a clear-cut bipolar confrontation similar to the Cold War, today’s international politics seems to be characterized by selective cooperation, managed competition, and institutional fragmentation. It is precisely within this evolving context that Africa’s geopolitical significance and agency must be understood. Accordingly, the article proposes that Africa should not be analyzed merely as one geographical theatre within a broader U.S.–China rivalry, but rather that the continent represents one of the principal arenas through which the contours of the emerging international order are actively negotiated. Understanding this transformation requires moving towards approaches that recognize how African actors themselves shape the dynamics of strategic competition. The following section looks at why Africa has become one of the pivotal geopolitical spaces of the twenty-first century and how this transformation reflects broader changes in the architecture of global politics.

4 Africa in 21st-century geopolitics: from peripheral arena to strategic co-producer of world order

For much of the post-Cold War period, the African continent was portrayed primarily through narratives of humanitarian intervention, state fragility, development assistance and security challenges, mainly connected with wars and armed conflicts. Although these perspectives captured important dimensions of African realities, they simultaneously reinforced a (prevailing) image of Africa as an object rather than a subject of international politics. External actors were generally depicted as the principal drivers of political and economic transformation, while African governments appeared largely as recipients of international initiatives or theatres of geopolitical competition. From a theoretical dimension, Henderson rightly underlines that there has been an empirical neglect of African political processes in International Relations, which “does not necessarily entail an outright exclusion of African cases from large-number analyses or case studies. Scholars usually include African observations in their analyses but often pay little attention to the particularities of African political dynamics when drawing inferences from their findings” (Henderson, 2015: 8). “We are all too familiar with the doom-and-gloom narrative that pervades discussions about Africa. As we have seen, colonial and post-colonial economic realities have consigned Africa to the status of a junior partner in the international order” (Badawi, 2024: 458). Such interpretations have become increasingly inadequate, given the cumulative effects of demographic change, economic transformation, regional integration, and institutional development that have gradually repositioned Africa within global politics. And the continent “cannot be defined by its difficulties alone. […] Africans are demanding a better and brighter future, including quality education and jobs” (Badawi, 2024: 459). Among the African demands, a recent significant topic can be mentioned: to change the 16th-century Mercator world map that – according to African views – “has subtly shaped international power dynamics by minimizing the physical presence of the Global South and visually inflating northern hemisphere nations while shrinking equatorial regions. This is said to have reinforced systemic biases in international trade, development priorities and educational frameworks” (Egbejule, 2026). With the leadership of Togo, African nations took the responsibility to change not only the global narrative, but also made the United Nations to endorse a resolution about the true size of continents, including Africa, on September 4, 2026. To end ‘cartographic colonialism’, as long as maps can be considered as “rhetorical tools of colonial power” (Özyeşilpınar, 2024: 116), Togo led an African Union-backed campaign advocating that a fair map of the world will contribute to fair perceptions of all the actors and entities of our globe. “The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or impose a replacement. Instead, it encourages governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and other so-called equal-area maps when relative size matters, and to teach the limitations of any flat map in representing a spherical planet” (UN News, 2026).

It bears relevance to indicate that the continent has emerged as one of the principal spaces in which the political economy of the twenty-first century is being reshaped, reflecting the growing capacity of African actors themselves to influence international agendas, negotiate external partnerships, and contribute to the evolution of global governance. Several structural developments underpin this changing geopolitical position. First, Africa’s demographic trajectory is unprecedented in modern history. According to United Nations projections, the continent’s population is expected to approach 2.5 billion by 2050, accounting for approximately one-quarter of humanity (United Nations, 2024). More significantly, Africa will possess the world’s youngest population, providing an increasingly important source of labor, entrepreneurship, innovation and consumer demand. “The young generation will create a new Africa. They are less attached to ethnic affiliations than their elders, and they did not experience first-hand the humiliations of the colonial era. Many move around the world as confident, global citizens” (Badawi, 2024: 457). While demographic growth undoubtedly presents such considerable developmental challenges as employment creation, urban governance and educational expansion, at the same time, it constitutes one of Africa’s most significant geopolitical assets. In an era characterized by aging and diminishing populations across Europe, East Asia and parts of North America, demographic dynamism itself becomes an increasingly strategic resource.

Urbanisation further reinforces this transformation. African cities, as sociotechnical systems (Carmody et al., 2024) rank among the fastest-growing metropolitan regions globally, generating new economic corridors, innovation hubs and expanding middle classes (Melber, 2016), while “informality defines both economic frameworks and norms for interaction among the majority of urban residents” (Stark and Teppo, 2022). Africa’s urban revolution (Parnell and Pieterse, 2014) has accelerated economic diversification, technological adaptation and regional integration. Cities such as Lagos, Nairobi, Kigali, Accra, Johannesburg and Cairo are expanding as continental nodes within global networks of finance, digital entrepreneurship and higher education (Myers, 2011). Consequently, Africa’s geopolitical significance can no longer be reduced solely to the extraction of natural resources; it encompasses knowledge production, technological innovation and rapidly expanding domestic markets.

Economic restructuring similarly contributes to Africa’s changing international position. The establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) – within which trading officially started on January 1, 2021 – represents perhaps the most ambitious economic integration initiative undertaken anywhere in the developing world in recent decades. By creating the largest free trade area in terms of participating states, AfCFTA seeks not only to facilitate intra-African commerce but also to strengthen Africa’s collective bargaining position within the global economy (African Union, 2026). While implementation remains uneven and significant infrastructural constraints persist, the agreement reflects an important conceptual shift. African governments begin to define continental integration as a prerequisite for strengthening strategic autonomy rather than merely facilitating trade liberalization. The continent’s resource endowment further amplifies its geopolitical importance. While Africa has long occupied a central position within global energy markets, contemporary geopolitical competition focuses on minerals essential for technological innovation and the green energy transition. Cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, platinum group metals from Southern Africa, graphite from Mozambique, rare earth elements, lithium deposits and numerous other critical minerals have acquired heightened strategic importance as global economies pursue decarbonization and digital transformation. Consequently, Africa is no longer viewed primarily through the lens of traditional extractive industries but increasingly as a decisive contributor to future industrial and technological development.

This transformation intersects directly with evolving patterns of great-power competition. Unlike earlier periods in which external engagement was dominated by a relatively limited number of traditional actors, contemporary Africa maintains gradually diversifying relationships with an expanding range of partners. China undoubtedly represents one of the most significant external actors through its extensive investments, infrastructure financing and institutional engagement. “The result is that China’s influence in Africa has increased tremendously, having overtaken the US as the continent’s largest trading partner” (Dike and Owusu, 2024: 465). However, the United States, the European Union, India, Türkiye, Japan, the Gulf states, South Korea, Indonesia and Brazil have likewise intensified their diplomatic, commercial and development cooperation across the continent. Rather than creating dependency upon any single external power, this diversification has considerably expanded the strategic options available to African governments.

At the same time, the possible diversification of dependency (Taylor, 2014) should also be critically examined. Importantly, diversification does not necessarily imply geopolitical neutrality. Instead, it reflects a pragmatic understanding that national development objectives may be pursued more effectively through multiple simultaneous partnerships than through exclusive alignment with a single external actor. Such strategic diversification increasingly characterizes African foreign policy practice across regional and ideological divides. Governments routinely cooperate with different external partners across distinct sectors, combining Chinese infrastructure investment, European development finance, American security cooperation, Turkish construction projects, Gulf agricultural investments and Indian pharmaceutical partnerships within broader nationally defined development strategies. This capacity to diversify partnerships illustrates a broader evolution in African diplomacy (Botha and van Wyk, 2024). At the same time, it is correct to add that the diversification of external partnerships does not automatically produce greater autonomy. What has become new in Africa for the twenty-first century is “the range of competitors vying for attention. […] [and] politically it helps Africa become more assertive in the world” (Taylor, 2014: 15) To avoid the diversification of dependency, however, “a task ahead Africa is to develop an industrial base that can assist the agricultural sector in its growth and transformation” (Taylor, 2014: 16), as well as further strengthen capacities to negotiate good deals for the African side. As Mohan and Lampert argue in the Africa–China context, “Africa cannot be seen as simply a passive space increasingly subject to intervention by China. […] African agency can be realized in more transformative ways. African actors have been able to shape these relationships in ways that advance their own interests and aspirations and/or produce forms of wider social benefit” (Mohan and Lampert, 2012: 109). Although it can be acknowledged that the agency question is “a contested and messy grey area, which is context-, agent- and issue-specific” (Brown and Harman, 2013: 11), there are emerging African actors – state and non-state – and emerging spaces clearly demonstrating such agency.

During the immediate post-independence period, many African states sought to navigate Cold War rivalries through the principles of non-alignment. Contemporary diplomatic practice differs substantially. Rather than avoiding engagement with competing powers, African governments intensify their pursuit of what may be termed strategic multi-alignment, maintaining active and often complementary relationships across multiple geopolitical centers simultaneously. Such an approach reflects neither indecision nor opportunism; rather, it constitutes an increasingly sophisticated strategy for maximizing developmental opportunities while preserving policy autonomy.

Regional institutions have likewise evolved as important actors within this process. The African Union has gradually expanded its diplomatic profile across numerous international policy domains, including peace operations, conflict mediation, public health governance, climate diplomacy and institutional reform of the United Nations. Agenda 2063 of the African Union provides a comprehensive long-term developmental framework that informs both continental priorities and external partnerships. Importantly, these initiatives demonstrate that African institutions are no longer merely implementing externally defined agendas but are increasingly articulating strategic visions originating from within the continent itself. Among the significant forms of agency, the diaspora also needs to be highlighted. According to Orajiaka, “today’s Africa calls for more involvement of [its] diaspora community who have proven and distinguished themselves in their host countries as energetic, resilient, and creative. […] Africa needs a firm diasporic engagement [too] to […] place the continent on a growth trajectory (Orajiaka, 2022: xv). It is with evidence that diasporas play an “important role in social, political, and economic development in many countries of the world” (Záhořík and Roro, 2022: 618).

The evolution of Africa’s normative influence is becoming ever more evident. African states are more actively participating in discussions on climate justice, reforming international financial institutions, global public health, migration governance, and representation within multilateral organizations. Their united push for a fairer international order has gained greater visibility through expanded cooperation in forums such as the G20, BRICS+, the United Nations General Assembly, and various South–South cooperation mechanisms. Despite significant internal political diversity, African governments are beginning to acknowledge that collective diplomatic engagement enhances their ability to shape global negotiations effectively. This development invites a reconsideration of one of the central assumptions underpinning much of the literature on great-power politics in Africa. Conventional analyses frequently ask how external powers shape Africa’s future. Increasingly, however, an equally important question concerns how Africa itself shapes the strategies of external powers.

The proliferation of high-level summits, including FOCAC, the U.S.–Africa Leaders’ Summit, the EU–AU Summit, the Russia–Africa Summit, the India–Africa Forum Summit, the Türkiye–Africa Partnership Summit, and the Indonesia–Africa Summit, illustrates this reversal of analytical perspective. These initiatives do not simply represent external outreach towards Africa; they equally demonstrate that sustained engagement with African actors has become indispensable for the global ambitions of virtually every major and emerging power. Consequently, Africa should no longer be conceptualized as a passive geopolitical chessboard [using Brzezinski, 1997 chessboard term] upon which others pursue strategic competition. Rather, the continent begins to influence the rules according to which that competition unfolds. African governments determine access to critical resources, negotiate infrastructure agreements, shape investment environments, participate in peace operations, influence voting coalitions within international organizations, and contribute to the gradual evolution of international norms. In this sense, Africa has become a co-producer of world order rather than merely one of its recipients. This does not mean that structural asymmetries have vanished. Significant inequalities in material capabilities continue to define Africa’s relationships with major powers, and many states still face constraints due to debt burdens, governance challenges, and security vulnerabilities. However, acknowledging these limitations should not overshadow the parallel growth of African diplomatic agency. In fact, the coexistence of structural inequalities and increasing strategic autonomy represents one of the key paradoxes of Africa’s current position on the international stage.

The following section examines how African actors actively shape the strategies of competing powers by comparing how the United States and China have adjusted their approaches towards a continent that holds geopolitical significance. This significance stems not only from Africa’s resources and markets but also from its growing ability to influence the structure of a new international order.

5 Competing for partnership: recalibrating U.S. and Chinese engagements with an increasingly strategic Africa

The transformation of Africa’s geopolitical position has been accompanied by an equally significant recalibration of external engagement. Both the United States and China have recognized that Africa can no longer be approached primarily through traditional development paradigms or narrowly defined security concerns. Instead, the continent has become an indispensable partner in addressing many of the defining strategic challenges of the twenty-first century, ranging from supply-chain resilience and energy transition to digital governance, maritime security and multilateral diplomacy. Their competition, however, differs fundamentally from earlier historical experiences of great-power rivalry on the continent. During the Cold War, African states were frequently expected to align themselves with one ideological bloc or the other, often at considerable political and economic cost. Contemporary geopolitical competition operates under markedly different conditions. Although strategic rivalry has intensified, neither China nor the United States possesses sufficient political or economic leverage to monopolize Africa’s external relations. Instead, both compete for influence by presenting themselves as preferred partners capable of supporting African development priorities while simultaneously advancing their own strategic interests. This evolving relationship reflects a broader transition from influence based primarily upon geopolitical alignment to influence increasingly dependent upon partnership. Such partnerships remain characterized by asymmetries in material capabilities. However, they nevertheless require greater responsiveness to African priorities, i.e., as the African Union proclaimed when launching Agenda 2063: “The Africa We Want,” than was often the case during earlier historical periods. Both Washington and Beijing, therefore, frame their Africa policies in the language of partnership, mutual benefit and shared prosperity, even as important differences remain regarding implementation, institutional design and normative assumptions.

5.1 Diplomatic engagement: competing summit diplomacy

Perhaps nowhere is this transformation more visible than in diplomacy itself. Over the past two decades, summit diplomacy has become one of the principal instruments through which external powers seek to institutionalize relations with African governments. China’s Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), established in 2000, has evolved into one of the most comprehensive platforms for structured engagement between an external actor and the African continent. Through regular ministerial meetings, heads-of-state summits and detailed implementation plans, FOCAC has institutionalized long-term political dialogue while linking diplomatic commitments to concrete programs of economic cooperation, infrastructure development, educational exchanges and capacity building. These are formulated into annual action plans with tangible targets. “China’s accelerated and growing engagement with the continent [has been] made visible in the form of FOCAC and its efficient diplomatic machinery” (Tarrósy, 2020: 22). Over the past two decades, the United States has gradually adapted its own diplomatic approach in response to these developments. Whereas American engagement during the first decade of the twenty-first century remained strongly influenced by security concerns associated with counterterrorism and regional stability, as national security interests, and by another reason, i.e., trade (Copson, 2007; Rothchild and Keller, 2006), more recent initiatives demonstrate a broader transactionalist approach, while acknowledging that “the continent will not be a top priority on the agenda” (Marsai, 2025: 267). The U.S.–Africa Leaders’ Summit, first convened in 2014 (Tarrósy 2014) and revitalized in 2022, signaled Washington’s renewed recognition that sustained high-level political engagement had become indispensable. This has been even more relevant, as according to many, the bilateral Africa–USA relationship “is often seen as paternalistic, whereas other Summits such as FOCAC has offered space for a partnership between Africa and China” (Development Reimagined, 2024: 2).

Recent initiatives have centered on trade, investment, digital transformation, climate cooperation, and support for Africa’s institutional priorities alongside traditional security partnerships. The rise of summit diplomacy reflects not only great-power competition but also Africa’s growing diplomatic influence. Participation in these forums allows African governments to express expectations, negotiate commitments, and shape external policies. The presence of various competing summit frameworks highlights the importance of engaging with Africa in global diplomacy.

5.2 Economic statecraft beyond infrastructure

Economic engagement remains the most visible dimension of Sino-American interaction in Africa, yet its character has evolved considerably over the past decade. Chinese engagement has traditionally been associated with large-scale infrastructure financing, transport corridors, industrial parks and construction projects (Taylor, 2006; Carmody et al., 2020; Vörös, 2010; Vörös, 2011; Tarrósy et al., 2020) implemented through state-owned enterprises and supported by concessional lending. Such investments have fundamentally altered Africa’s physical connectivity while simultaneously strengthening China’s economic presence across virtually every subregion of the continent. Nevertheless, interpreting Chinese engagement exclusively through the lens of infrastructure overlooks important changes in Beijing’s own strategy. As debt sustainability concerns (Brautigam, 2009; Brautigam et al., 2020) have grown, local industrialization and technological innovation have assumed greater prominence; Chinese cooperation has progressively diversified toward manufacturing, digital infrastructure, renewable energy, agricultural modernization, and public health. Rather than abandoning infrastructure, Beijing seeks to integrate physical connectivity with industrial upgrading and technological cooperation, reflecting broader adjustments within China’s own economic transformation.

American economic engagement has undergone a comparable process of recalibration, albeit following a different trajectory. Long associated with development assistance and private sector investment, along with ‘democracy export’, recent U.S. initiatives stress resilient supply chains, critical minerals, digital innovation and clean energy partnerships. Programs supporting entrepreneurial ecosystems, technology start-ups and investment facilitation complement more traditional instruments such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. Under the second administration of Donald Trump, however, “foreign policy towards African countries has been characterized by transactionalism” (Hecht, 2025) As Vörös underlines, with the radical transformation of American aid policy and downsizing USAID, a legitimacy vacuum is created. “Not only is the outstanding financial contribution lost, but the credibility and coordinating role of the United States is also weakened – which has facilitated coalition-building and cooperation with partners for Washington” (Vörös, 2026: 78).

Media narratives often present various initiatives as direct competitors; however, African governments tend to view them as complementary rather than mutually exclusive. Infrastructure projects funded by Chinese institutions can coexist alongside American investments in digital technologies, European support for renewable energy, and Gulf financing for agricultural development, all integrated in the same national development strategy. This diversification showcases the growing sophistication of African economic diplomacy, rather than indicating any uncertainty about geopolitical alignment.

5.3 Security cooperation in a changing strategic environment

Security remains another decisive area in which both continuity and transformation are evident. American engagement has traditionally prioritized military cooperation, counterterrorism, intelligence sharing, and support for regional peacekeeping operations. The establishment of AFRICOM in 2007 symbolized Washington’s commitment to African security, along its national security interests. Although its activities have evolved considerably in response to changing regional dynamics, particularly in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the western Indian Ocean, “by the end of 2024, US military presence and credibility significantly weakened in Africa” (Marsai, 2025: 262). China’s security presence, by contrast, has expanded more gradually. Initially cautious regarding military engagement beyond United Nations peacekeeping operations (Vörös and Tarrósy, 2020), Beijing has progressively increased its participation in maritime security, anti-piracy operations, peacekeeping missions and defense cooperation. The establishment of China’s logistical support facility in Djibouti represented a significant milestone, signaling Beijing’s willingness to assume a more visible security role commensurate with its expanding global interests. Despite the increasing strategic competition, security cooperation in Africa remains a collaborative effort rather than a zero-sum game. Both powers continue to share significant interests in maritime stability, secure commercial routes, counter-piracy initiatives, and conflict prevention. Moreover, African regional organizations shape the terms under which external security partnerships operate, insisting upon greater alignment with continental frameworks such as the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) and the principle of African ownership.

5.4 Soft power and normative engagement

Competition extends well beyond material capabilities into the realm of ideas, education and normative influence. Universities, scholarship programs, language institutes, media cooperation and professional exchanges have become significant components of external engagement. China has substantially expanded educational cooperation through scholarships, vocational training, university partnerships and cultural institutions, in particular, the Confucius Institute network, “one of the most dramatic examples of China’s soft power offensive” (King, 2013: 12), while simultaneously increasing the global reach of its media organizations across Africa. China’s Global Television Network, CGTN Africa has certainly become one of the most accessible sources of African news across the globe. The United States continues to have significant strengths in higher education, scientific collaboration, entrepreneurship, and civil society engagement. However, the recent administration’s decision to cut funding for initiatives like the flagship Fulbright program has raised concerns. Despite this, programs such as the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), academic exchange programs, and research partnerships have played a crucial role in establishing lasting transnational professional networks. Unlike infrastructure projects, which can experience varying degrees of political visibility over time, educational and societal exchanges tend to create long-lasting relationships that influence perceptions across generations. As a result, investing in these exchanges may indicate a long-term strategic approach. However, this approach has recently come under scrutiny, especially following the decisions made during the second Trump administration.

Instead of focusing on which model has been more successful, it is more beneficial to acknowledge that African societies are increasingly selective in their engagement with various sources of knowledge, technology, and institutional experiences. The presence of diverse educational partnerships, technological ecosystems, and cultural exchanges strengthens the broader trend of strategic diversification that defines Africa’s current external relations.

5.5 Beyond binary competition, African diplomacy at play

Taken together, these developments suggest that the prevailing narrative of a “new scramble for Africa” (Carmody et al., 2020; Scholvin, 2015) captures only part of the contemporary geopolitical landscape. While competition between the United States and China is undeniable, interpreting every aspect of external engagement through the lens of zero-sum rivalry risks overlooking the more significant transformation underway. Both powers are adapting their strategies to an Africa whose negotiating power has fundamentally transformed. Indeed, one of the defining features of contemporary African diplomacy is its refusal to reduce international relations to binary geopolitical choices, in particular in a Western/Euro-centric view of the system of international relations. “African diplomacy presents a distinct form or style of diplomacy. […] [and since 2000 with the launch of FOCAC] China has created an alternative discourse designed to appeal to Africa” (Botha and van Wyk, 2024: 23–24). Governments across the continent seek to maximize opportunities created by strategic competition while avoiding exclusive dependence upon any single external partner, however. Such an approach reflects neither equidistance nor non-alignment in the traditional sense. Rather, it represents a sophisticated strategy of strategic multi-alignment, through which partnerships are evaluated according to developmental priorities rather than ideological affinity. About the ‘scramble’, Obadare raises a critical point, underscoring that: “the image of a ‘scramble’ in which helpless African states are exploited and manipulated by global powers who care nothing for their welfare hardly stands up to scrutiny. On the contrary, there is evidence that many African countries see an opportunity to play the United States, China, and Russia – not to mention non-traditional powers like India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) among others – against one another” (Obadare, 2023). Or rather we witness the African agency at play when it makes a choice whom to invite and collaborate with.

This perspective encourages a broader reinterpretation of great-power competition. Instead of seeing Africa merely as a battleground for U.S.–China rivalry, we can argue that Africa increasingly shapes the actions of these competing powers, taking into account its expectations and demands. Diplomatic initiatives, financing mechanisms, institutional innovations, and partnership frameworks have all developed partly in response to African expectations and negotiation strengths. In this sense, the continent functions not simply as an arena of strategic competition but as an actor contributing to the rules according to which that competition is conducted. To truly grasp the future of world order, it is essential to better understand how African governments and continental institutions actively influence the changing structure of international politics. At the core of these dynamics is the concept of African agency: Africa’s increasing decision-making and bargaining power. This will be the focus of the final section.

6 African agency and order-making: beyond great-power competition

If the previous sections have demonstrated that Africa occupies an increasingly strategic position within contemporary geopolitics, the more fundamental analytical question concerns the consequences of this transformation for international order itself. More attention is needed to understand the expanding capacity of African actors themselves to shape the conditions under which external engagement takes place. This article argues that the most significant geopolitical transformation occurring across the African continent is the consolidation of African agency as an increasingly influential force in global governance. While this captures the ability to respond to external initiatives, it also encompasses the capacity to formulate autonomous political priorities, establish institutional frameworks, negotiate partnerships, influence international norms, and contribute actively to the production of international order. George Ayittey’s “African solutions to African problems” concept from 1994 is detected in numerous forms and instances. The gradual manifestation of an order-making agency draws attention to Africa’s international significance from its own political initiatives. Ayittey popularized the growing prominence of a principle that has long resonated within African political thought, underscoring that the phrase originally emerged as a critique of externally imposed development models and international interventions that frequently overlooked local political realities. Over time, the principle has evolved beyond governance reform to become an influential normative foundation of African diplomacy itself, underscoring the original thought that a long-term solution to Africa’s problems can come only from Africans themselves (Ayittey, 1994).

African solutions should not be seen as calls for isolationism or disengagement from global partnerships; on the contrary, they call for extensive international cooperation. The central idea is that external partnerships should reinforce, not replace, African ownership of political decision-making and developmental priorities. Increasingly, African governments expect international cooperation to align with objectives that are defined nationally and continentally, rather than adhering to externally designed policy templates. This expectation fundamentally reshapes the nature of external engagement. Both China and the United States have encountered African partners that are considerably more willing to negotiate the conditions of cooperation than during previous decades. Infrastructure projects, investment agreements, security partnerships, and development programs are evaluated not solely on financial value but also on their contribution to nationally defined development strategies, regional integration, and long-term structural transformation. Accordingly, the principle of African solutions may also be extended beyond domestic governance into the broader architecture of international relations. If African actors insist upon exercising primary responsibility for addressing African political and developmental challenges, it follows logically that they should likewise participate in defining the institutional arrangements through which international cooperation is organized.

In this sense, African agency assumes the previously mentioned order-making dimension, revealing the participation of African governments and institutions in shaping their evolving norms, partnerships and governance mechanisms. This evolution also invites reconsideration of the concept of strategic autonomy. Traditionally associated with middle powers or major regional actors, strategic autonomy characterizes African diplomacy at both national and continental levels. Rather than pursuing rigid geopolitical alignment, African governments demonstrate considerable sophistication in combining multiple external partnerships according to issue-specific priorities. Such strategic multi-alignment allows governments to pursue Chinese infrastructure finance, American technological cooperation, European climate partnerships, Gulf investment and South–South cooperation simultaneously. Far from representing inconsistency, this diversification constitutes a rational diplomatic strategy within the fragmented international system. From this perspective, the African experience reveals a more complex reality in which regional actors actively engage in institutional innovation while redefining the norms that govern international cooperation. It is evident that the defining characteristic of Africa’s current international position is not merely that more external actors are interested in the continent; rather, Africa itself increasingly influences the behavior, expectations, and institutional practices of these actors. Consequently, the continent is no longer just observing and following an evolving world order; it is actively contributing to its formation.

7 Conclusion

The transformation of the international system over the past two decades has generated a substantial body of scholarship examining the implications of China’s rise, the evolution of U.S.–China strategic competition and the emergence of a gradually contested global order. Much of this literature has approached Africa primarily as one of the geographical arenas in which these broader geopolitical dynamics unfold. This article has argued that such a perspective has become insufficient for understanding both Africa’s changing international position and the evolving architecture of contemporary world politics.

Returning to the first analytical proposition (P1), the study demonstrated that the decline of the Chimerica concept reflects more than a deterioration in bilateral relations between Washington and Beijing, as it signifies a broader systemic transition towards an international environment characterized by fragmented governance, selective multilateralism, overlapping institutional arrangements and continuously negotiated partnerships. Contemporary geopolitics is therefore more accurately understood as a disordered yet negotiated world order than as either a renewed bipolar system or a fully institutionalized multipolar order. The second proposition (P2) has likewise found considerable support throughout the discussion. Africa’s growing strategic significance certainly reflects material developments, including demographic expansion, accelerating urbanisation, increasing demand for critical minerals and expanding economic integration. However, these structural factors alone do not explain the continent’s changing role in international politics. Equally important has been the consolidation of African agency through stronger continental institutions, expanding regional cooperation and increasingly confident participation in global governance. Agenda 2063, the African Continental Free Trade Area, the diplomatic activities of the African Union and Africa’s growing role within multilateral fora collectively illustrate that African actors define rather than merely receive international political agendas. The third proposition (P3) constitutes the article’s core argument, and suggests that Africa should no longer be conceptualized primarily as an object of great-power rivalry; instead, the continent has shown numerous manifestations which influence the behavior of external actors themselves. Both the United States and China have adapted their diplomatic strategies, partnership frameworks, investment priorities, and institutional engagement in response to evolving African expectations and demands. This adaptation reflects a broader normative shift towards African ownership, encapsulated in the long-standing principle of African solutions to African problems, whose contemporary relevance extends well beyond conflict resolution or governance reform. This principle also expresses the expectation that Africa should participate directly in defining the institutions, partnerships and rules through which global engagement with the continent is organized.

Accordingly, this article proposes extending the growing literature on African agency by introducing the concept of order-making agency. Africa visibly occupies a dual position: it remains an important arena of strategic competition while simultaneously becoming one of the actors through which the future rules of that competition are negotiated. This latter argument also carries broader implications for International Relations theory. As long as the contemporary world order is negotiated through interactions among diverse regional actors rather than determined exclusively by major powers, Africa should be recognized as a source of theoretical innovation regarding the nature of global order itself.

The concept of a negotiated world order proposed here remains necessarily provisional and invites further empirical investigation. Future research may explore how order-making agency varies across African regions, how individual states exercise different forms of strategic autonomy, and how emerging partnerships with actors beyond the United States and China, such as India, Türkiye, the Gulf states, and Brazil, contribute to reshaping global governance. Comparative analyses examining similar developments in Southeast Asia, Latin America, or the Indo-Pacific may likewise help determine whether Africa represents a distinctive case or part of a broader transformation affecting the international system as a whole. Ultimately, the article suggests that the most important question is no longer whether Africa matters within contemporary geopolitics. Recent developments have largely answered that question. The more consequential question concerns how Africa matters. The central argument advanced here is that African actors themselves are becoming indispensable participants in creating the emerging international order. And as Anku highlighted it in her article titled ‘The New African Order’, “African countries would stand a better chance of thriving in the postliberal international order if they came together. Closer coordination among even just a few influential African states could quicken the pace of economic integration on the continent, foster larger markets, and accelerate industrialization. Greater cohesion would also give the region more leverage in trade and investment negotiations with outside powers” (Anku, 2025).

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Footnotes

Edited by: Viktor Eszterhai, National University of Public Service, Hungary

Reviewed by: Jan Záhořík, Zapadoceska univerzita v Plzni Centrum africkych studii, Czechia

Mohamed Salih, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands