China-Africa Relations: Intention, Aspiration, and a shared Future through the means of Football

<p dir="ltr">As the most popular sport in the world, football acts as a crucial vehicle to advance inward and outward-looking goals of local governments in China and the countries in Africa. While China’s increasing engagement with Africa in the past decade serves to achieve bilateral interests, this has resulted in ongoing debates over the asymmetrical relationship between the two regions, especially at the expense of human rights. This chapter aims to examine the role of sports, with specific reference to football, in the development of China-Africa engagement. It starts by reviewing the different stages of the China-Africa relations along with the diplomatic approaches in each of these stages and discusses the motivators that have formed these approaches. It then examines the ways sports facilitate China-Africa relations, with the focus on the deployment of football in the service of internally and externally oriented goals in Africa and China. Unpacking the philosophy that lays out the directions of foreign policy in China and the countries in Africa, this article discusses to what degree China’s sports-based strategies contribute to fostering mutually beneficial relationships; and thereby points out the future trend of the China-Africa relations through the lens of football.</p>