Introduction

The growing expansion into Africa of Chinese state-owned national oil corporations (NOCs) is one of the topics that has garnered the most comment regarding Beijing's current interactions with the continent. It should be pointed out that although oil is a major and obvious source of Chinese economic interest in Africa, it is far from being the only one as Chinese firms are actively seeking resources of every kind; copper, bauxite, uranium, aluminum, manganese, iron ore etc. However, it is largely issues surrounding oil-in Africa and elsewhere-that is of particular interest to ...