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ABSTRACT: Since 1995, China and Ethiopia have gradually forged close relations. On both sides, the establishment of this partnership was motivated as much by diplomatic, strategic, and even ideological considerations as by economic ones. For Beijing, economic and trade cooperation with Addis Ababa is a means rather than an end in itself. For Ethiopia, however, partnership with China mainly serves the internal political and economic purposes of the regime that has been in place since 1991, under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi for 20 years and, since his death in August 2012, under his successor Hailemariam Desalegn. The relationship is characteristic of the special but asymmetrical links Beijing has sought to establish with countries of the South that are strategically important but economically backward. It also illustrates the attraction the "Chinese model" of development holds in Africa and elsewhere.
KEYWORDS: China, Ethiopia, Sino-African relations, authoritarian development, Meles Zenawi.
Why has the China-Ethiopia relationship become so important and so close over the last ten years? From the Chinese government's viewpoint, this country of about 85 million people is largely de- void of raw materials and other wealth above or below the ground, unlike the two Sudans, Nigeria, or Angola. It does have some oil and gas in the eastern desert, the Ogaden, but that is a danger zone: in 2007, nine Chinese workers from the Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau were killed (and seven others kidnapped) by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). Its minerals are largely unexploited if not unexplored. Moreover, Ethiopia is among the poorest of the least developed economies, standing 157th (out of 169 countries) in the UN human development index, with a per capita GNP of a mere 350 US dollars: (1) even mild drought leads to famines miti- gated only by of the state's ability to scramble a response. The effects of the 2008 economic crisis are still felt despite an annual GNP growth rate of 8 to 10 percent between 2000 and 2011 and 11.4 percent in 2010-2011. Further, Ethiopia stands at the heart of the Horn of Africa, an area of high unrest, consisting of a failed state (Somalia), an isolated problem neighbour (Eritrea), a quasi-state (Somaliland), and a newly independent state that has yet to achieve stability (South Sudan)....