Eric Burton: Von Revolution zu Reform: Transfers zwischen China und Tansanias »Afrikanischem Sozialismus« von antiimperialistischer Solidarität bis Neoliberalismus, in: Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2020. Berlin: Metropol Verlag, pp. 121-138.

Abstract

This article discusses transfers between China and Tanzania from the late 1950s until today.
Following the establishment of ties between anti-colonial activists from East Africa and Chinese leaders in the late 1950s, relations between independent Tanzania and China took off in the mid-1960s. Building their own version of “African Socialism” (ujamaa), Tanzanians invited Chinese support and selectively adopted and reworked Maoist models such as the Cultural Revolution. Tanzania became an arena of competing socialisms, as Chinese competition with the GDR in Zanzibar shows, and home to the largest Chinese project in Africa, the Tanzania-Zambia Railway. Facing an economic and financial crisis in the 1980s, Tanzanian reformers in favour of neoliberal solutions discovered China as a possible model of rescuing the economy without having to change the political system. As ujamaa fully disintegrated in years leading up to the early 1990s, Sino-Tanzanian relations came to focus on joint ventures rather than aid. At present, Chinese investments have reached new heights and are accompanied by ideological transfers between the ruling parties, but also nationalist concerns over the effects of Chinese initiatives.

Über den Autor

Eric Burton, Dr. phil., geb. 1987. 2008–2014 Studium der Internationalen Entwicklung und der Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie in Wien und Daressalam. Promotion 2018 zur Geschichte der
entwicklungspolitischen Beziehungen zwischen Tansania und den beiden deutschen Staaten. 2017–2018 Gastforscher am The Leibniz ScienceCampus »Eastern Europe – Global Area« (EEGA) an der Universität Leipzig. Mitarbeiter in globalhistorischen Forschungsprojekten an der Universität Wien (2014–2016) und an der University of Exeter (2017–2018), derzeit Postdoc-Universitätsassistent an der Universität Innsbruck und Lektor in Afrikawissenschaften an der Universität Wien. Beiträge zu Kolonialgeschichte, Bildungsmigration sowie Entwicklungsarbeit in Sammelbänden und Zeitschriften (Cold War History, Zeithistorische Forschungen); Hg. von Journeys of Education and Struggle. African Mobility in Times of Decolonization and the Cold War (Stichproben – Vienna Journal of African Studies, Special Issue [2018], H. 34) und Socialisms in Development (= Journal für Entwicklungspolitik, Special Issue 33 [2017], H. 3).

Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung