Continents in Motion: How Today's China-Africa Encounter Came About and What It Means

In this talk, Howard French, associate professor of journalism at Columbia University, will discuss the processes that began drawing large numbers of new Chinese migrants to Africa in the early to mid 1990s and then speak to the question of the global geopolitical and economic setting that pushed events in this direction, albeit with some surprising outcomes. These include the end of Maoism, the launching of China’s reform and opening period, the end of the Cold War, and what has come to be known by some as the War on Terror.