My term paper will center on the relationship between China and Africa, specifically with the investment by China in African countries. First and foremost, I must distinguish between investment by the country of China itself and businesses from China. Some tend to think of actions by Chinese businesses as the carried out orders sent down by the Communist Party,
The first side of the argument is the one generally presented by Western thinkers, presenting this investment as self-promotional by China, and framing China as a country that is taking advantage of African countries and maintaining access to their natural resources.
The other side of the argument comes from the supporters of this investment in Africa by China. Certainly, this investment is a big reason that Africa has been able to transform into a legitimate investment vehicle, and an area no longer totally plagued by destitution and poverty. Similarly, supporters argue that the view that China is “taking advantage” of African countries simply comes from a Western emotion to take care of Africa after the centuries of abuse by Western countries.
I’m very interested to see how the evidence presents Chinese investment in Africa, and will probably look to see which measures Africa can take to try to increase benefits they receive from Chinese investment (potentially looking at anecdotal evidence from South and Latin American countries during their development).
Interesting questions, and addressed in a conference at VMI last year (among other places that have held such conferences). One underlying issue is that US companies may be too high in quality in what they try to sell. Another challenge is that the natural trading partners are European, not American, so get less coverage in US news sources. I’ll be interested to see how you narrow down the topic, perhaps you need to look at a single country or a single industry (construction?).