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Deborah Brautigam. The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. xv, 320 pp.
The eleven-chapter book discusses one of the world's topical issues, namely Sino-African relationships. As amply instanced by the abundance of literature, for example, Robert Rothberg's China into Africa (2008), Chris Alden's China in Africa (2007), and numerous conferences, China's breath-taking rise and its consequent role as a global player is a subject of intense debate, speculation, and intrigue. Hence, this book is a welcome addition to the burgeoning pool of literature on China's ascendancy and answers the question "is China a predator or malignant development partner?'' Overall, Brautigam answers in the negative and argues that there is need to refract China's engagement through a prism that does not summarily condemn it as a predator.
The book is organized as follows: the prologue delineates the universe of the discourse by, chiefly, discussing the changing face of Chinese engagement in Africa by walking the reader through the 2006 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and foreign aid as seen from the eyes of China (it reportedly prefers the term, mutual aid). Very importantly, Brautigam provides justification for embarking on the project by asserting that "this book responds to the lack of systematic analysis of China's aid and state-sponsored economic cooperation activities in Africa? (p.19). Following the prologue, the following issues are prominent in Chapter 1: that Chinese foreign aid strategy is grounded in Zhou Enlai's Five Principles...