Tensions between China and the US intensified during Donald Trump’s stint in power in various ways, which ranged from so-called ‘trade wars’ to attacks on social media. The two countries’ relations showed worrying signs of slipping into a renewed Cold War. The drama surrounding the transfer of power in the White House at the end of 2020, amid the ever formidable and persistent COVID-19 pandemic, has only made the outlook for global politics even more gloomy and unpredictable. In May 2021, the New York-based think-tank, Council on Foreign Relations, released a discussion paper entitled ‘Major Power Rivalry in Africa’. With her blunt opening remark that ‘competition for influence on the African continent is an undeniable geopolitical reality’, Michelle D. Gavin warned Joe Biden’s new administration and other major powers of the imperative to ‘avoid the mistakes of the past’, namely ‘a passive Africa strategy’. Six months later, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid his first official visit to Sub-Saharan Africa to address issues such as the conflict in the Horn of Africa. Meanwhile, the 8th FOCAC ministerial conference hosted by Senegal opened once again with President Xi’s remarks on the ‘unbreakable fraternity’ of China and Africa in fighting against imperialism and colonialism. Instead of viewing foreign interests in Africa as nothing but ‘the new scramble’, the much more burning question is: how should Africa prepare itself?

Perhaps we can learn from history. For a long time, Africa has been presented as being in an inferior position in the world system, vulnerable - if not always powerless - vis-a-vis external influences. This view has also deprived the continent of its own history and complexity. This book has been one of the first attempts to historicise postcolonial Kenya’s and Zambia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China from ideological, political, economic, and social perspectives. It has included encounters of individual Kenyans and Zambians with Chinese as well as between their states. It has analysed not only the encounters, conflicts, and dynamics of their relationships, but also the basis on which the historical narratives concerning Kenya/ZambiaChina relations have been constructed. In doing so, it has shed light on the historical underpinnings - or lack thereof - of contemporary China-Africa relations.