Dragon's Gift

Prologue: The Changing Face of Chinese Engagement in Africa ; 1. Missionaries and Maoists: How China Moved from "Red" to "Expert" ; 2. Feeling the Stones: Deng Xiaoping's Aid Experiments ; 3. Going Global: Foreign Aid in the Toolkit of a Rising China ; 4. Eastern Promises: An Aid System with Chinese Characteristics ; 5. Orient Express: How Does Chinese Aid and Engagement Work? ; 6. Apples and Lychees: How Much Aid Does China Give? ; 7. Flying Geese, Crouching Tiger: China's Changing Role in African Industrialization ; 8. Asian Tsunami: How a Tidal Wave can also be a Catalyst ; 9. Exporting Green Revolution: From Aid to Agribusiness ; 10. Foreign Farmers: Chinese Settlers, African Plantations ; 11. Rogue Donor? Myths and Realities of Chinese Aid and Engagement ; Conclusion: Engaging China

Deborah Brautigam is the author of Chinese Aid and African Development (1998), Aid Dependence and Governance (2000), and co-editor of Taxation and State-Building in Developing Countries (2008). A long-time observer of Asia and Africa, she has lived in China, West Africa, and Southern Africa, and travelled extensively across both regions as a Fulbright researcher and consultant for the World Bank, the UN, and other development agencies. She is a professor in theInternational Development Program at American University's School of International Service in Washington, DC.

"The Dragon's Gift looks behind [the] media hype. It offers surprising insights and challenges us to take a new look at Africa's development.... thoughtful and well-researched...the basis for a well-informed, interesting dialogue with Chinese actors."--The Huffington Post"Brautigam's lively and thoroughly documented account buck[s] the conventional wisdom."--Foreign Affairs"Deborah Brautigam's superb book The Dragon's Gift offers a window into how China's foray into Africa is playing out on the ground. Rich in vivid anecdotes and informed by the author's three decades of academic work on both China and Africa, the book does many things, and does them all well. It describes how Chinese engagement in Africa has evolved, identifies its drivers, and assays its emerging impact on both economics and governance in nearly two dozen African states. It also looks behind the noble-minded rhetoric to the realities of aid-giving--Western as well as Chinese. The result is a fresh and compelling assessment of China in Africa..."--The American Interest"The Dragon's Gift's strength is its extensive and varied array of interviews with Chinese government officials in Africa, Chinese factory managers, and other Chinese, African, and third-country participants and observers. Through these interviews, she conveys a rich sense of Chinese perceptions of how their own experience could benefit African countries."--Finance & Development"Now comes a timely book by American academic Deborah Brautigam, an observer of Africa and Asia for three decades, which uses personal experiences combined with powerful research to puncture myths and fears that cloud understanding of one of the most important geopolitical shifts since the fall of the Berlin Wall."--The Independent"Stands as the key booklength analysis on the subject. ...The Dragons Gift will be for a long time be the lodestone of informed discussion of how China and Chinese interact with Africa and Africa