China has become Africa’s largest trading partner since 2009, driven by Beijing’s demand for raw materials and the continent’s appetite for affordable manufactured goods. Trade between the two sides has expanded under the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which promotes investment, infrastructure financing and preferential market access.
In recent years, China has sought to rebalance its trade relationship with Africa by opening its market to more agricultural and value-added products, while African governments have pushed for fairer terms and reduced dependency on Chinese loans. The ongoing tariff war between China and the United States has meanwhile prompted Beijing to deepen ties with emerging markets, including Africa, to cushion the impact on its export-driven economy.
China has steadily strengthened its commercial footprint in Africa over the past two decades, becoming the continent’s largest trading partner in 2009. The relationship has been driven largely by Africa’s exports of oil, minerals and agricultural commodities, and by China’s supply of manufactured goods, machinery and increasingly, automobiles. Trade and investment have expanded through the Forum on China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which provides a platform for policy coordination, concessional financing and market-access initiatives.
In recent years, Beijing has sought to reposition itself as a supporter of African industrialisation, promising to boost imports of agricultural and value-added products to help reduce the continent’s chronic trade deficit.
African governments, for their part, have continued to press for more balanced trade, local job creation and technology transfer. The escalation of tariff disputes between China and the United States has added new impetus to Beijing’s engagement with emerging markets.
As trade with the US becomes more volatile, China has increasingly turned to Africa and other developing regions to stabilise export demand and deepen strategic economic ties.
China’s trade relationship with Africa has undergone a major transformation since the early 2000s, when Beijing began accelerating its economic diplomacy across the continent.
The launch of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000 marked a turning point, institutionalising political and commercial ties and paving the way for large-scale Chinese investment in infrastructure, energy and mining.
Over the past two decades, Chinese firms have built roads, ports, railways and power plants across Africa, helping to ease longstanding infrastructure gaps while also opening new markets for Chinese goods.
This has supported a surge in two-way trade: from just US$10 billion in 2000, China–Africa trade exceeded US$200 billion by 2013 and has continued to rise despite periodic slowdowns in commodity markets.
China’s demand for oil, copper, cobalt, iron ore and agricultural commodities has made African resource exporters from Angola to Zambia central to its supply chain security. At the same time, African consumers and businesses have turned to China for inexpensive textiles, electronics, machinery and, more recently, cars and construction equipment. These dynamics have contributed to a persistent trade imbalance in China’s favour, which African governments have repeatedly raised in bilateral and multilateral forums.
In response, Beijing has rolled out initiatives aimed at stimulating African exports. These include tariff-free access for thousands of products from least-developed countries and expanded quotas for agricultural items such as coffee, tea, cocoa and fruit. Chinese e-commerce platforms have also launched programmes to promote African brands, while state-owned banks have provided financing to support Africa-based manufacturing and processing.
Geopolitically, China’s engagement has intensified as global trade patterns shift. The ongoing tariff confrontation with the United States has pushed Beijing to diversify export destinations and deepen ties with the Global South. Africa, with its fast-growing population and rising consumption, has become a key component of this strategy. For many African states, China remains an attractive partner due to its willingness to finance infrastructure and offer market access, even as concerns persist about debt sustainability, the environmental impact of some projects and the limited transfer of technology.
Despite these debates, China’s economic influence in Africa continues to expand, reinforcing its role as a crucial trade and investment partner for the continent.
