Chinese Loans as a Foreign Policy Tool – The Case of the Sino-Mozambican Relation

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to showcase that economic initiatives must be involved when discussing power gain dimensions. This is done by investigating the Sino-Mozambican relation through different theoretical lenses subjected under the realist school of thought as these will account for how Chinese loans may serve as a foreign policy tool responding to systemic and state level incentives. By using economic initiatives, due to money being a limitless variable, both parts of the relation have a greater chance of increasing their relative gains. However, because the power dimension in the relation is highly disproportional, the relative gains are divergent. As China gains increased competitional capabilities internationally and manages to answer to internal issues related to unemployment and resource scarcity, Mozambique mainly gains infrastructure in the Southern region of the country which again increase their attractiveness for foreign investors. Still, the largest part of the Mozambican population does not gain much access to the benefits this provides, creating unfortunate bases for sustainable development. A fieldwork was planned but was not possible to conduct due to the Covid-19-pandemic. Yet, through a combination of document studies and interviews with scholars known to this topic, a greater understanding of how China operates in Africa, and how smaller nations like Mozambique uses their agency to make the most of Chinese presence, have been added to the existing literature.