Sino-African Bilateral Relations (1980-2008)

China-Africa interactions thereby Horn of African countries relations with China were expanded greatly during the last century. In the first few decades following the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, relations between China and African countries had been dominated by political adventures whereby commonality in terms of the questions of anti-colonialism and anti- imperialism provided a ground for their ties. Concurrently this was dominated or replaced by economic interactions as both moved towards rebuilding their respective nations. These phenomena recently attracted attentions of academicians, politicians and media at large and led to different interpretations. This generalized view motivated this researcher to clearly look into the actual interactions between China and Africa and re-examine the historical material to see if, in fact, it bears out the arguments of the two contending groups in this live debate. It would also help in the re-framing of the debate itself if, upon investigation, the facts that come out fail to justify either of the two arguments.The research finding indicated that it was not that China wanted to disseminate its ideology; rather cooperation against the two"evils"(colonialism and Imperialism) became the basis, for their interactions. Though Africa, in particular the Horn countries had also got the same stand, its differences with China outshined cooperation and kept the two parts from forging formal diplomatic relations at least in the first two decades. While different factors came to contribute to draw them apart, both external and internal actors in both countries were to blame for and against their relations. The 1963/64 Africa visit by Premier Zhou Enlai including Ethiopia from the Horn region had in fact helped to look for the normalization of relations between China and Ethiopia.Meanwhile, the down of the 21st century came up with the creation of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. Both China and the Horn region of Africa played major roles in strengthening the forum. The forum in turn provided both political and economic opportunities and challenges. The economic interest of China in Africa in general and the Horn in particular however became the main point of discourse which this study analyzed.