The Geopolitical Economy of Heterarchical Solidarity in Afro-Asian Relations

Studies cast in the heuristic frame of hierarchy often impute imperialist and non-progressive motives in the transactions of Asian states in Africa given the power asymmetry between the two continents. To the extent that the analytical logic and conclusions derived from studies of this nature are valid, they are informed by the thinking that African actors cannot decipher and counter imperialist designs and as such are willing victims of imperialism, cannot encode and actively pursue strategic interests, do not value the status of being sovereign, are not rational, and as former imperial subjects of European, suffer from historic amnesia. This chapter avoids the analytical drawbacks of the hierarchy heuristic with the aid of the concept of heterarchical geopolitical economy and meta-institutions. It demonstrates that African actors have leveraged agency-enhancing dividends from interactions with Asia to correct disruptive legacies of Western imperialism.