Conference on Asia-Africa Relations – The New Scramble for Africa?: Contemporary Formations between Asia and Africa

Conference on Asia-Africa Relations -- The New Scramble for Africa?: Contemporary Formations between Asia and Africa

Thursday, April 22, 2010 - 4:30pm to Friday, April 23, 2010 - 5:00pm
Auditorium (Room 101), Henry R. Luce Hall See map
34 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 6511

Keynote Address The language of the “new scramble for Africa” has become the subject of popular conversations and has led to increasing concern by US American and European competitors. Yet China’s interest in Africa is certainly not new. Histories of interaction and influence on both sides preceded it. Chinese-African alliances grew during the Cold War of the 1960s and centered on building ideological solidarity with a range of newly independent states. Since the end of the Cold War, Chinese and African alliances have revolved around trade, energy and investment projects. Of late, a range of East and South Asian countries, such as China, Japan and India, have identified the African continent as an area of growing strategic and economic interests. Yet, by depicting these states as simply aiding and abetting oppressive African dictatorships, a growing US-based literature has represented these growing alliances between Asia and Africa as not only a security threat, but as having the potential of undermining the establishment of democracy, stability, and free-market development within the parameters of the rule of law.

The goal of this collaborative symposium is to explore the implications of this recent rise in East Asian economic, political and military collaborations with various African actors. The subsidiary issues to be considered include: US protectionism on an international scale; the representation of Asia and Africa in connection with international practices of democracy and humanitarian assistance; the relation between diplomacy, trade and arms dealing in a supposedly post-ideological period; and the politics of the “image” in media markets not dominated by New York or Hollywood.

DAY ONE
Moderator: Kamari Clarke - Yale University, Speaker: Robert Rotberg - Harvard University

DAY TWO
Moderated by David Simon - Yale University, Haun Saussy - Yale University, Michael McGovern - Yale University, and Kamari Clarke - Yale University

Panel One: Political Economy and Global Geo-Politics
9:00 – 10:45 – Luce 202
Moderated by David Simon, Yale University

Margaret Lee, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Andrew Mwenda, Uganda Independent Newspaper
Nils Tcheyan, World Bank

Panel Two: Dialectics of Media and Experience
11:00 – 12:45 – Luce 202
Moderated by Haun Saussy, Yale University

Josh Hammer, Independent Foreign Correspondent
Andrew Leonard, Salon.com
Evan Osnos, The New Yorker

Panel Three: Human Rights, Conflict, Militarism and Resources
1:45 – 3:30 – Luce 202
Moderated by Michael McGovern, Yale University

Muna Ndulo, Cornell Law School
Stephanie Rupp, City University of New York
Timothy Webster, Yale China Law Center

Panel Four: The Future of the China-Africa Nexus
3:45 – 5:00 – Luce 202
Moderated by Kamari Clarke and Haun Saussy

Symposium Conveners:
Kamari Clarke, Haun Saussy, and Jason Warner

Co-sponsored with the Council on African Studies, Center for Transnational Cultural Analysis, Yale China Law Center, Kempf Fund
Tags: 
Region: 
China, Transregional