Looking East: African States' Bargaining Power and the Rise of China as a Donor

Abstract

This thesis focuses on African agency in China-Africa aid relations by examining how Chinese development aid influences African states’ bargaining power in negotiations. Existing literature often emphasizes Chinese aid’s economic impacts or geopolitical competition, thereby neglecting recipient states’ role as strategic actors. A central issue in this field is the lack of conceptual clarity around agency, which is often conflated with the space to negotiate, the effectiveness of aid implementation, or the normative desirability of outcomes. These issues become especially apparent when Chinese aid is contrasted with Western donor models, which have traditionally emphasized policy reform, governance conditionalities, and technocratic oversight. In response, this thesis centers the negotiation process and the strategic role of recipient states within evolving aid relations shaped by China’s rise as a donor, suggesting a potential shift toward a new aid paradigm. To analyze these negotiation dynamics, the thesis combines Lindsay Whitfield’s negotiating aid framework with Min Ye’s State-Mobilized Globalization (SMG) theory. Whitfield’s concept of negotiating capital determines how recipient and donor bargaining power are shaped and leveraged through ideological, institutional, political, and economic conditions. Ye’s SMG complements this by characterizing China’s aid model as driven by infrastructure-led financing, strategic flexibility, and decentralized implementation by subnational actors operating under a state-directed policy framework. These features determine and shape donor practices increasing recipient states’ bargaining power while exacerbating institutional incoherence through elite collusion. Through a case study of Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), the thesis traces how bargaining power was exercised and contested across project phases. The findings show that while Chinese aid enhanced Kenya’s bargaining power in specific rounds of negotiation – particularly through strategic alignment and less intrusive conditionalities – it also enabled elite bargains that bypassed formal institutions and weakened bureaucratic coherence. Bargaining power is thus shown to be relational and dynamic, shaped by the interaction of donor structures and recipient strategies. This study contributes to a more nuanced, agency-centered understanding of China-Africa aid negotiations and advances conceptual clarity on how recipient agency is defined and assessed in the context of development aid. This thesis focuses on African agency in China-Africa aid relations by examining how Chinese development aid influences African states’ bargaining power in negotiations. Existing literature often emphasizes Chinese aid’s economic impacts or geopolitical competition, thereby neglecting recipient states’ role as strategic actors. A central issue in this field is the lack of conceptual clarity around agency, which is often conflated with the space to negotiate, the effectiveness of aid implementation, or the normative desirability of outcomes. These issues become especially apparent when Chinese aid is contrasted with Western donor models, which have traditionally emphasized policy reform, governance conditionalities, and technocratic oversight. In response, this thesis centers the negotiation process and the strategic role of recipient states within evolving aid relations shaped by China’s rise as a donor, suggesting a potential shift toward a new aid paradigm. To analyze these negotiation dynamics, the thesis combines Lindsay Whitfield’s negotiating aid framework with Min Ye’s State-Mobilized Globalization (SMG) theory. Whitfield’s concept of negotiating capital determines how recipient and donor bargaining power are shaped and leveraged through ideological, institutional, political, and economic conditions. Ye’s SMG complements this by characterizing China’s aid model as driven by infrastructure-led financing, strategic flexibility, and decentralized implementation by subnational actors operating under a state-directed policy framework. These features determine and shape donor practices increasing recipient states’ bargaining power while exacerbating institutional incoherence through elite collusion. Through a case study of Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), the thesis traces how bargaining power was exercised and contested across project phases. The findings show that while Chinese aid enhanced Kenya’s bargaining power in specific rounds of negotiation – particularly through strategic alignment and less intrusive conditionalities – it also enabled elite bargains that bypassed formal institutions and weakened bureaucratic coherence. Bargaining power is thus shown to be relational and dynamic, shaped by the interaction of donor structures and recipient strategies. This study contributes to a more nuanced, agency-centered understanding of China-Africa aid negotiations and advances conceptual clarity on how recipient agency is defined and assessed in the context of development aid.