Review Essay: The Chinese Brother in Africa, Christina Seyfried, African Bargaining Power with China: Foreign Investment and Rising Influence. Abingdon: Routledge, 2023.

In the context of an often-polarized debate on the Western fear of Chinese presence in Africa, the research presented in this book has interesting and important implications for the future economic development strategies of African countries and the foreign investors who want to work with them. This 227-page book, the result of the author’s 301-page Ph.D. dissertation at Yale University, directed by Professor Ian Shapiro at the Department of Political Science, provides a detailed account of the political economy around investment deal negotiations between African governments and private Chinese investors.