China’s engagements in Africa have grown exponentially over the past decade leading to some scholars hailing it as one of the most prominent changes in international relations in recent times. Bilateral trade flows, investment projects and developmental assistance mainly characterize this relationship. Trade between China and Africa has grown an average of 30 percent in the past decade, and in 2008 trade and investment activities topped 106 billion US dollars. Comparing these figures with that of 1997 when China was doing 5 billion US dollars in Africa, one can appreciate the rapid increase in economic activities. This momentous increase is buttressed by China’s agenda to expand markets and secure reliable natural resources.
This makes China’s economic engagement with Ghana fundamental as well as strategic. Economic cooperation with Ghana is fundamental as this sub Saharan African nation is a useful measure for Africa’s gradual march to economic self-determination. Being the first country to achieve political independence in the sub region, Ghana’s relationship with the Chinese provides a useful political economic base for various discussions. Chinese economic and technical assistance to Ghana mainly in the energy and construction sectors depicts Beijing’s seriousness to ‘do business’ with Ghana, which has recently joined the ranks of oil producing nations on the African continent. Strategically, as Beijing strengthens economic ties with Ghana – clearly one of Africa’s stable democracies, China’s ‘image’ of doing business in Africa is greatly helped as some of its critics point to its trading activities with authoritarian and rogue regimes on the continent. This dissertation explores China’s engagement in Ghana from a wider framework of the politics of economic liberalization. First, it aims to look at the relationship between China and Ghana which has progressed from a more political and diplomatic approach to an economic nature. Through the investigation of this relationship, the differences between the Western approach to economic reform, represented by the Washington Consensus and what is now referred to as the “Beijing Consensus”, China’s approach to aiding economic development are discussed.
As this study contributes to the much needed nuanced discussion of China’s engagement in Sub Saharan Africa by providing a good country case study, it also furthers our understanding of the “alternative” economic model that Beijing is couching vis-à-vis Washington’s neoliberal policies. It also generates the conversation as to whether economic liberalization in the case of Ghana (and SSA) is imbued with some Chinese characteristics.