Books by Jodie Yuzhou Sun
James Currey, 2023
Africa has become a major platform from which to analyse and understand China's growing influence... more Africa has become a major platform from which to analyse and understand China's growing influence in the global South. Yet, the impact of their historical relationship has been largely overlooked. Through the triangulation of the global Cold War, African history, and Chinese history, this study provides a detailed analysis of China-Africa relations in the second half of the 20th century. Examining the encounters, conflicts, and dynamics of China-Kenya/Zambia relations from the 1950s until the present, as well as the basis on which historical narratives have been constructed, the book presents two contrasting state perspectives underlining the concept of 'African agency'.
Driven by a class-based analysis of world revolution, Communist China's foreign policy did not distinguish significantly between Kenya and Zambia. Both countries sought ideological and material support from China in the years after their independence. The Kenya African National Union under both Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Moi pursued a consistently pragmatic foreign agenda, and despite political tensions and ideological rifts with China since the mid-1960s, Sino-Kenyan trade has continued to grow steadily. In contrast, China-Zambia relations under Kenneth Kaunda were cordial despite their political differences. Zambian leaders maintained a relatively high consensus that any alleged Chinese Communist threat would not be allowed to fuel power struggles within their United National Independence Party. Challenging both the widely accepted role of China-Africa's historical lineage, as well as the tendency to assume uniformity in China's relationships across the continent, the author explains the development of these relationships and sheds light on the historical underpinnings - or lack thereof - on contemporary China-Africa relations.
Driven by a class-based analysis of world revolution, Communist China's foreign policy did not distinguish significantly between Kenya and Zambia. Both countries sought ideological and material support from China in the years after their independence. The Kenya African National Union under both Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Moi pursued a consistently pragmatic foreign agenda, and despite political tensions and ideological rifts with China since the mid-1960s, Sino-Kenyan trade has continued to grow steadily. In contrast, China-Zambia relations under Kenneth Kaunda were cordial despite their political differences. Zambian leaders maintained a relatively high consensus that any alleged Chinese Communist threat would not be allowed to fuel power struggles within their United National Independence Party. Challenging both the widely accepted role of China-Africa's historical lineage, as well as the tendency to assume uniformity in China's relationships across the continent, the author explains the development of these relationships and sheds light on the historical underpinnings - or lack thereof - on contemporary China-Africa relations.
Reviews of my book by Jodie Yuzhou Sun
H-Africa, 2023
Reviewed by Ruodi Duan
Jodie Yuzhou Sun. Kenya's and Zambia's Relations with China 1949-2019. Eas... more Reviewed by Ruodi Duan
Jodie Yuzhou Sun. Kenya's and Zambia's Relations with China 1949-2019. Eastern Africa Series. Martlesham: James Currey, 2023. 260 pp. $115.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-84701-339-2.
Jodie Yuzhou Sun. Kenya's and Zambia's Relations with China 1949-2019. Eastern Africa Series. Martlesham: James Currey, 2023. 260 pp. $115.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-84701-339-2.
Africa. Rivista semestrale di studi e ricerche, 2023
Antonio Messina's review of Jodie Yuzhou Sun, Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949-2019... more Antonio Messina's review of Jodie Yuzhou Sun, Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949-2019, Woodbridge, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2023, 260 pp.
Global Media and China, 2024
In the last two decades many books and articles have been published on the topic of China-Africa... more In the last two decades many books and articles have been published on the topic of China-Africa relations, but few take the longue dure ́e and comparative view that Sun (2023) does in her first monograph: Kenya’s and Zambia’s Relations with China 1949–2019. The work examines the history of post-colonial Kenya’s and Zambia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from ideological, political, economic, and social perspectives.
Vienna Journal of African Studies, 2024
Jodie Yuzhou Sun's monograph Kenya's and Zambia's Relations with China 1949-2019 provides readers... more Jodie Yuzhou Sun's monograph Kenya's and Zambia's Relations with China 1949-2019 provides readers with a comparative longue durée perspective on ideological, economic, political, and social relations between Kenya and China as well as Zambia and China.
Journal Articles by Jodie Yuzhou Sun
Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 2022
The Bandung Conference of 1955 is often described as the beginning of what Vijay Prashad called t... more The Bandung Conference of 1955 is often described as the beginning of what Vijay Prashad called the “Third World” project. While it is undeniable that intergovernmental gatherings had largely facilitated the political connections between Chinese and African leaders, no less significant in cultivating a heightened Bandung Spirit in the decolonizing world were the “transnational networks” such as the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Conference (1957), the Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference (1958), the Afro-Asian Women’s Conference (1961) and the Afro-Asian Journalists’ Association (1963). These platforms allowed a privileged group of writers to travel to Africa. Feng Zhidan, Du Xuan and Han Beiping were among them. Their travel notes, later published as 西非八国漫记(Glimpses into West Africa, 1962), 西非日记(West Africa Diary, 1964) and 非洲夜会(Nights in Africa, 1964), carefully described local landscapes, climate and architecture, as well as their personal encounterswith Africans from diverse social backgrounds outside the state apparatus. Likewise, a Malian minister and writer, Mamadou Gologo, recounted his tours in China and his deep appreciation for the country. China: A Great People, A Great Destiny (La Chine, un peuple géant, un grand destin) was published in both English and French by New World Press in Beijing in 1965. Like an X on a map, crossing marks both a place and a process, an intersection and a journey. This essay aims to explore the multi-dimensional “crossings” of individuals, texts and circulation networks that went beyond national boundaries and the Cold War binary. It argues that travelogues, as both under-explored archives and literary writings, help to reveal the tangible nature of Afro-Asian solidarity, felt through individual encounters and sometimes fragile emotional bonds.
中国非洲学刊Journal of China-Africa Studies, 2021
冷战史新研究为书写非洲对外关系史提供了新机遇， 也对学者在史料运用和研究视野等方面提出了更高要求。本文通过梳理近二十年来国内外相关学术成果， 重点阐释以下三个研究新动向： 第一，多类别史料的运用... more 冷战史新研究为书写非洲对外关系史提供了新机遇， 也对学者在史料运用和研究视野等方面提出了更高要求。本文通过梳理近二十年来国内外相关学术成果， 重点阐释以下三个研究新动向： 第一，多类别史料的运用， 尤其是对来自非洲国家档案文献的获取和使用； 第二， 去中心化的研究思路， 强调非洲国家内部政治与外交的互动； 第三， 多维度的研究内涵， 重视种族、民族和宗教信仰等社会因素对非洲开展对外交往的影响。基于百年未有之大变局的时代背景， 开展冷战时期非洲对外关系史研究， 有助于反思冷战思维对当今国际社会施加的持续作用力。
Cold War History, 2022
Using Foreign Ministry Archives and memoirs from China, this article explains the nature and the ... more Using Foreign Ministry Archives and memoirs from China, this article explains the nature and the development of Chinese policy in the Congo Crisis, in particular, Beijing's support of two Lumumbist movements in Kwilu and eastern Congo in 1963-5. While initially loyal to the Soviet Union, China sought to position itself as the leader of the newly independent 'Third World', sympathetic to-and able to provide experience, training and weaponry for-rural guerrilla struggles. However, China's military assistance to opposition movements in Congo had to make sure not to provoke direct conflict with the United States.
Journal of Southern African Studies, 2020
Existing analyses of China’s involvement in late colonial Angola have an overwhelming focus on mi... more Existing analyses of China’s involvement in late colonial Angola have an overwhelming focus on military support for competing independence movements. However, Maoism as an ideology had a more personal impact on Angolan elites in their struggle to define Angolan nationalism. Among them was Viriato da Cruz, an Angolan poet and nationalist who served as the Secretary-General of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) between 1962-1964. As a result of both ideological alignment and personal circumstances, Cruz lived in exile in the People’s Republic of China from 1966 until his death in 1973. Drawing on original archival, newspaper and oral sources, this article employs a biographical approach to analyse the connections between Angolan nationalism and Communist China through Viriato da Cruz’s life story. His intellectual and life adventures, played out beyond the confines of national borders and nationalist structures, reveal the mobile and transnational nature of southern African liberation. The article’s biographical approach also offers a unique opportunity to understand African history through the interaction between historical context and individuals.
International Journal of African Historical Studies, 2019
While it is commonly recognised that there is not a monolithic definition of socialism, the meani... more While it is commonly recognised that there is not a monolithic definition of socialism, the meaning of the term was the subject of fierce and politically influential contestation during the Cold War. Although the great dispute regarding ‘true’ interpretations of socialism divided the Communist bloc throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Africa’s own role in these debates, despite its perceived position as laboratory for Western ideas and practices, has received little contemporary scholarly attention. Marxist writers generally considered African societies as too underdeveloped to host a proletarian revolution led by its tiny working-class. There has also been an increasing interest in re-evaluating Africa’s contributions to the theories and practices of socialism. This article builds on these achievements, drawing on the newly accessed Kenyan and Zambian archives and newspapers, as well as previously neglected diplomatic sources. It constructs a historiography of African socialisms through a triangulation of the influences of the global Cold War, the political culture of individual African states, and their bilateral relations with Communist countries.
This article shows that Kenya and Zambia, despite considerable similarities in their historical development, did not deliver identical results. While Zambian Humanism was a catch-all term during the rule of Kenneth Kaunda’s United National Independence Party, Kenya President Jomo Kenyatta preferred the branding of ‘African Socialism’ to its substance or ethos. Kenya and Zambia’s increasing divergence, in terms of foreign policy in general and relations with Communist China in particular, revealed the diversity rather than the consistency of African experiments in socialism.
This article shows that Kenya and Zambia, despite considerable similarities in their historical development, did not deliver identical results. While Zambian Humanism was a catch-all term during the rule of Kenneth Kaunda’s United National Independence Party, Kenya President Jomo Kenyatta preferred the branding of ‘African Socialism’ to its substance or ethos. Kenya and Zambia’s increasing divergence, in terms of foreign policy in general and relations with Communist China in particular, revealed the diversity rather than the consistency of African experiments in socialism.
Cold War History, 2020
This article, by exploring the complex interaction among domestic politics, foreign policy, and t... more This article, by exploring the complex interaction among domestic politics, foreign policy, and the Cold War in Africa, analyses Kenya’s relations with Communist China between 1964 and 1970. As newly independent Kenya sought foreign aid and trade opportunities, the Sino-Soviet competition for influences in the ‘Third World’ enabled limited bargaining power for the Kenyan nation, commonly perceived as ‘weak’. Through an analysis of the factional political struggles within the Kenya African National Union (KANU) as well as Oginga Odinga’s overtures to China, this article emphasises the significance of local dynamics and forces in determining the unfolding ‘local’ Cold War.
Book chapters by Jodie Yuzhou Sun
Communist Actors in African Decolonial Transitions – Comparative Perspectives, 2025
“If a single spark can start a prairie fire, then the fire in Africa has already spread. The Chin... more “If a single spark can start a prairie fire, then the fire in Africa has already spread. The Chinese torch has enlightened Africa”, said Leonard Mitoudidi of the Congolese movement Parti Solidaire Africain (PSA) in his conversations with Chinese paramount leader Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai in April 1964 in Changsha, People’s Republic of China (RPC).
This chapter examines China’s role in the Congo “crises” (1960–1965) and its extended impact in the region, with a particular focus on Angola, leading up to the Civil War in 1975. The work primarily draws on the rarely consulted China’s Foreign Ministry Archives (CFMA) and Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA). Building on the existing literature on Africa’s global Cold War and especially the roles of communist actors, the rich, detailed, and lively discussions between Chinese hosts and African delegates help reveal some of the hidden episodes of China’s relations with Congo and Angola at the time of fierce ideological and geopolitical struggles in the Cold War.
Emphasising “African agency” and its necessary constraints, this chapter analyses how African political parties, social groups, and elites approached, deepened, and negotiated their relations with communist China as they searched for global ideological and material support. While Chinese leaders tried to avoid coming embroiled in the factional politics of African leaders, this tactic was often compromised by the professional and personal goals of their African parts.
This chapter examines China’s role in the Congo “crises” (1960–1965) and its extended impact in the region, with a particular focus on Angola, leading up to the Civil War in 1975. The work primarily draws on the rarely consulted China’s Foreign Ministry Archives (CFMA) and Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA). Building on the existing literature on Africa’s global Cold War and especially the roles of communist actors, the rich, detailed, and lively discussions between Chinese hosts and African delegates help reveal some of the hidden episodes of China’s relations with Congo and Angola at the time of fierce ideological and geopolitical struggles in the Cold War.
Emphasising “African agency” and its necessary constraints, this chapter analyses how African political parties, social groups, and elites approached, deepened, and negotiated their relations with communist China as they searched for global ideological and material support. While Chinese leaders tried to avoid coming embroiled in the factional politics of African leaders, this tactic was often compromised by the professional and personal goals of their African parts.
«Mandei-lhe uma carta»: a obra poética e o pensamento político de Viriato da Cruz, 2025
No contexto da disputa ideológica da Guerra Fria, havia uma tendência para que os nacionalistas a... more No contexto da disputa ideológica da Guerra Fria, havia uma tendência para que os nacionalistas africanos estabelecessem contactos e procurassem apoio das superpotên-cias. A escalada da divisão sino-soviética no início de 1960 aumentou ainda mais a com-petição desses países por influência. Tomando de empréstimo a famosa citação de Mao Zedong, nacionalistas africanos como Viriato da Cruz assemelhavam-se a «faíscas» espo-rádicas, que seriam mobilizadas para um revolucionário «incêndio na pradaria» em todo o continente. As suas aventuras intelectuais e de vida, experienciadas para além dos limites das fronteiras nacionais e das estruturas nacionalistas, revelam a natureza móvel e trans-nacional da libertação da África Austral. O artigo recorre sobretudo a fontes de arquivo chinesas, literatura africana e biografias políticas para demonstrar as diversas plataformas e redes sociais que foram usadas para desenvolver as relações entre a China e a África Lusófona. A ênfase em atores individuais distintos e significativos enriquecerá sem dúvi-da as narrativas existentes de solidariedade e mobilidade global das lutas de libertação na África Lusófona.
The Liberation of Portuese Africa, 1961-75: International Exile and Solidarity, 2025
To quote Mao Zedong’s famous words, African nationalists like Viriat da Cruz were like sporadic ‘... more To quote Mao Zedong’s famous words, African nationalists like Viriat da Cruz were like sporadic ‘sparks’ mobilised into a revolutionary ‘prairie fire’ across the continent. Building on previous reports on China’s foreign policy towards Angola and Mozambique, this chapter examines China’s unique role as a home for exiled liberation movement members and Lusophone African activists. This chapter presents the diverse platforms and social networks used to promote relations between China and Lusophone Africa, mainly using Chinese archival materials, African literature, and political biog-raphy. Collectively, the intellectual and life adventures of those activists reveal the ‘unexpected twists, connections and conflicts, the positioning and repositioning that may appear to be contradictory on a broader scale’.
Africa in Global History: A Handbook, 2021
An investigation into what Julia Strauss called “historical and rhetorical lineages in China rela... more An investigation into what Julia Strauss called “historical and rhetorical lineages in China relations with Africa,” is of historiographical importance and great contemporary significance. In particular, the ways in which this older Afro-Asian solidarity discourse is used to legitimise more recent political, economic, and cultural connections between former “Third World” allies remains under-researched and underappreciated. The uniqueness of China-Africa relations in the socialist and post-socialist periods is reflected in its challenge to the “East/West” and the “North/South” divides. Therefore, an examination of China-Africa relations beyond the Cold War enables an understanding of the extent to which the Cold War itself was the key influence on the evolution of these enduring and complex relationships.
This chapter provides an overview of post-colonial Africa’s relations with the People’s Republic of China. The comparative approach of studying countries engagements with China reveals the structural differences in their domestic and foreign politics that were informed and shaped by the Cold War. The resulting contestation of power should not simply translate into foreign manipulation. Facing similar challenges of state-building and economic development, newly independent African nations approached, deepened, and negotiated their relations with China as they searched for ideological and material support. In this way, it hopes to contribute to the much cited but little explained concept of “African agency”.
This chapter provides an overview of post-colonial Africa’s relations with the People’s Republic of China. The comparative approach of studying countries engagements with China reveals the structural differences in their domestic and foreign politics that were informed and shaped by the Cold War. The resulting contestation of power should not simply translate into foreign manipulation. Facing similar challenges of state-building and economic development, newly independent African nations approached, deepened, and negotiated their relations with China as they searched for ideological and material support. In this way, it hopes to contribute to the much cited but little explained concept of “African agency”.
Published Papers (English and Chinese) by Jodie Yuzhou Sun
Sixth Tone, 2023
China has sent more than 20,000 trained medical professionals on aid missions to Africa over the ... more China has sent more than 20,000 trained medical professionals on aid missions to Africa over the last 60 years. Some have never left.
非洲研究小组 Africa Research Group, 2021
Analysis of Zambian election 2021
澎湃新闻 The Paper, 2020
我们该如何理解警察与国家权力的关系？当前南非政府是否沿用了种族隔离制度时的警察系统来维持封锁后的社会治安？
东⽅历史评论 Oriental Historical Review , 2019
本文译自杰克霍根2014年发表在《南部非洲研究期刊》的文章，文中内容有删改，图片由译者添加。Jack Hogan (2014) ‘What Then Happened To Our Eden?... more 本文译自杰克霍根2014年发表在《南部非洲研究期刊》的文章，文中内容有删改，图片由译者添加。Jack Hogan (2014) ‘What Then Happened To Our Eden?’: The Long History of Lozi Secessionism, 1890–2013, Journal of Southern African Studies, 40:5, 907-924.
导读：
历史上洛齐族人曾经多次寻求分裂，从领袖挑战北罗得尼亚早期殖民的特许，到赞比亚独立前夕签订的巴罗策兰协定，再到一党专政和民主化运动时期的分裂主义运动。本文旨在通过详解不同历史阶段的权力斗争，来梳理洛齐分裂主义的动因，从而帮助人们更好地了解非洲的殖民主义、民族主义等概念。
同非洲国家其他的分裂主义一样，洛齐民族也强调其殖民前所拥有的强大政体，从而为其不同于中央政府的政治诉求提供一定程度的合法性。但是纵观整个20世纪至21世纪初，洛齐分裂主义频繁地出现，并不能简单地断言民主和政体具有原生关联。恰恰相反，只有将其历史演变轨迹仔细梳理，才能针对不断变化的政治经济环境提供更加客观的解读。
导读：
历史上洛齐族人曾经多次寻求分裂，从领袖挑战北罗得尼亚早期殖民的特许，到赞比亚独立前夕签订的巴罗策兰协定，再到一党专政和民主化运动时期的分裂主义运动。本文旨在通过详解不同历史阶段的权力斗争，来梳理洛齐分裂主义的动因，从而帮助人们更好地了解非洲的殖民主义、民族主义等概念。
同非洲国家其他的分裂主义一样，洛齐民族也强调其殖民前所拥有的强大政体，从而为其不同于中央政府的政治诉求提供一定程度的合法性。但是纵观整个20世纪至21世纪初，洛齐分裂主义频繁地出现，并不能简单地断言民主和政体具有原生关联。恰恰相反，只有将其历史演变轨迹仔细梳理，才能针对不断变化的政治经济环境提供更加客观的解读。
Oxford University China Africa Network, 2016