China-Africa Relations: Geopolitical Dynamics, Cultural Diplomacy, and Literary Representations in the Belt and Road Era

Abstract

This paper examines the multidimensional character of contemporary China-Africa relations through an integrated analysis of geopolitical strategy, soft power initiatives, and literary representations. Drawing upon both academic scholarship and African literary works, the study investigates how China's engagement with Africa particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative has reshaped diplomatic, economic, and cultural landscapes across the continent. The research employs qualitative content analysis of policy documents, academic literature, and creative writing to interrogate the complex interplay between official narratives and ground-level experiences. Key findings reveal that while China's infrastructure-led approach offers alternative development pathways, it simultaneously generates anxieties around sovereignty, debt sustainability, and asymmetrical power relations. African literary voices, through works such as Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor's The Dragonfly Sea and Tendai Huchu's "The Sale," provide critical counter-narratives that complicate dominant Western and Chinese discourses. The paper concludes that China-Africa relations represent a contested terrain where African agency, though constrained by structural inequalities, continues to negotiate spaces for strategic autonomy within the evolving multipolar international system.