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Africa's and South America's rich endowments of resources and great need for infrastructure development make them perfect candidates for China's “infrastructure-for-resources” loans. Over the past decade, such an arrangement for pursuing China's resource-security goals overseas – namely, securing long-term supply contracts and accessing exploration rights – has proved more effective in Africa than in South America. This article discusses the reasons for this regional variation by providing a comparative study of China's economic statecraft in Angola and Brazil, focusing on the deployment of infrastructure-for-oil deals. It argues that the variation in China's energy-security outcomes (long-term supply and access to oil equity) in Angola and Brazil can be attributed mostly to fundamental differences between the institutional structures of each country's oil industry. Although this foreign policy instrument has worked well for the centralised structure encountered in Angola, it has been less suitable for the far more liberalised and regulated environment that characterises Brazil's oil sector.

One of the most notable features of the forging of China's new activist foreign policy towards Africa is its emphasis on the historical context of the relationship. These invocations of the past, stretching back to the 15th century but rife with references to events in the 19th century and the cold war period, are regular features of Chinese diplomacy in Africa. Indeed, it is the persistence of its use and the concurrent claim of a continuity of underlying purpose that marks Chinese foreign policy out from western approaches which have by and large been content to avoid discussions of the past (for obvious reasons) or insisting on any policy continuities. However, beneath the platitudes of solidarity is a reading of Chinese historical relations with Africa emanating from Beijing that is, as any student of contemporary African history will know, at times at odds with the historical record of Chinese involvement on the continent. This article will examine the use and meaning of history in the construction of China's Africa policy. It will do so through first, a brief discussion of the relationship between foreign policy, identity and history; second, a survey of Chinese foreign policy towards Africa from 1955 to 1996; third, an analysis of the implications of Beijing's approach for its efforts to achieve foreign policy aims regionally and globally.

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This article examines Chinese-led regional forums in the developing world where the Chinese preponderance of economic power is self-evident, its financial largesse is readily utilised to sustain these endeavours, its bureaucracies are empowered to guide the conduct of institutional activities and its normative intentions and interests are given fullest expression. This assessment of two such Chinese-instigated regional forums in the developing world suggests that despite the professed norms on 'political equality' and 'mutual benefit' and efforts to ensure the maintenance of Chinese interests over time, China's stance is increasingly contested by developing country member states. These challenges invariably take the form of struggles over the structuring of key administrative organs and the decision making process and as such are reflective of norms, interests and expectations held by developing country members. In other words although China holds a preponderance of structural power within these regional forums there is an ongoing process of socialisation-driven by developing country member states-aimed at reshaping China's behaviour to bring it more closely in line with the other members' interests.