[past] Brotherly Strangers: Kenya’s & Zambia’s Relations with China 1949-2019 Seminar, keynote speaker Dr. Jodie Sun

Dr. Jodie Sun is a Senior Lecturer at Fudan University, and a Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, South Africa. She will present a talk based on her recent book Kenya's and Zambia's Relations with China 1949-2019.  Her talk will be on analysing and understanding China’s growing influence in the global South via Africa, and the impact of this historical relationship. Through the triangulation of the global Cold War, African history, and Chinese history, this study provides a detailed analysis of China-Africa relations in the second half of the 20th century. Examining the encounters, conflicts, and dynamics of China-Kenya/Zambia relations from the 1950s until the present, as well as the basis on which historical narratives have been constructed, the book presents two contrasting state perspectives underlining the concept of 'African agency'.