In 2013 China launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), including in Indonesia a “Twenty-first Century Maritime Silk Road (Road)” that crosses the Indian Ocean (IO) and continues up into the Mediterranean. For Africa this produced an early Eastern focus for which there has been no...

Africa’s largest trade partner, China, criticised for exchanging resources for manufactures, has promised to increase imports and optimise the structure of trade with Africa. Using a gravity model of China’s imports for the years 1995-2009, we explore potential dynamics for this promise,...