Africa e Cina: vecchie e nuove geografie del potere

This article analyzes the evolution of the academic debate on the Chinese presence in Africa. The paper argues that China in Africa should be analyzed keeping in mind that today China forms an integral part of the global capitalist system. It shows the way in which the debate on African agency is now dealing with the conundrum of a persistent unbalance of power between an ever powerful China and the different African countries, and the need to recenter African agency, away from voluntarist conceptions of agency which fail to explain how agents are differently affected by their structural contexts. The article also highlights that traditional concepts of global North and Global South as well as those revolving around South-South cooperation fail to explain how geographies of power have been changing.