China and the BRI(C)S in Africa: making sense of the complexities of capabilities asymmetries

Since 2009, the BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and, more recently, South Africa, have played an increasingly important role in debates and discussions about emerging geoeconomic and geopolitical relations. Their influence in Africa has been a particular concern as the BRICS have assumed a non-western leadership role on behalf of countries in the Global South. This chapter examines and assesses the strategies and impacts of the BRICS in Africa with a focus on the bilateral and multilateral engagements that have emerged since 2009. In doing so, it asks how do the BRICS with asymmetrical economic and geopolitical capabilities shape such arrangements and to what result in Africa? Focusing on China as a BRICS member state, the chapter advances an argument that as capability asymmetries between China and the other BRICS member states widen, China’s opportunities of achieving its own national objectives in Africa under the auspices of BRICS are increasing. Simultaneously, actors in Africa are exploiting the capability asymmetries among BRICS countries to advance their own domestic and international objectives whilst stoking competition among the BRICS countries. Accordingly, the chapter concludes that the engagement of China and other BRICS countries with Africa threatens the continued existence of BRICS as a bloc of emerging economies.