BOOK REVIEW Robert I. Rotberg, China Into Africa: Trade, Aid, and Influence The Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 2008, 360p. $ 29.95 paperback Hans Han-Pu Tung Published online: 23 November 2010 # Journal of Chinese Political Science/Association of Chinese Political Studies 2010 Before China’ s WTO accession, students of China’ s political economy were mainly interested in understanding various puzzles surrounding how China opened up and sources of its economic success. Now, 30 years after Deng Xiaoping’ s brave political move, China’ s success has gone beyond its national border and raised a whole new set of questions in the international political economy. In the recent burgeoning literature on China’ s rise on the world stage, Robert I. Rotberg’ s edited volume, China into Africa, carves out a niche by providing a detailed descriptive account for questions about China’ s political and economic activities in resource-rich Africa. First and foremost, what does China want in Africa? Li Anshan’ s and Wenran Jiang’ s chapters on the evolution of Sino-Africa relationship in both pre- and post-reform periods argue that the relationship has changed from one serving ideological goals to another driven by economic demands for Africa’ s natural resources. This point is then further substantiated by anecdotal as well as statistical evidence in Harry G. Broadman’ s chapter on bilateral trade patterns between China and Africa, and Henry Lee and Dan Shalmon’ s two case studies on China’ s oil diplomacy in Angola and Sudan. Given this understanding of Sino-Africa relationship, the following chapters in the book offer insights into another even more fiercely debated issue: “Is the current relationship déjà vu of Africa’ s colonial past?” Stephenie Rupp’ s chapter confronts this question directly by arguing that, given China’ s respect for African countries’ sovereignty and emphasis on reciprocity, both sides are actually engaged in what she calls “the post-colonial interdependence”. Moreover, on more solid empirical ground, Harry G. Broadman’ s chapter, on the one hand, shows positive shifts in complementarities between China and Africa, and Martyn J. Davies’ research on the transplantation of SEZ (special economic zone) model to Africa, on the other hand, also rejects the view that China’ s presence in Africa is purely extractive since its investment in African SEZs is mostly in the manufacturing sector. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI (2011) 16:121–122 DOI 10.1007/s11366-010-9138-7 H. H.-P. Tung (*) Department of Government, Harvard University, CGIS Knafel Building, 1737 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA e-mail: tung@fas.harvard.edu