Africa’s 20th century national liberation heroes and African Marxist thinkers have identified Africa’s predicament as one of neo-colonialism. Political experiments in Africa during the Cold War had built on the revolutionary experiences of China (in Mauritania, Ghana, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Sudan, Somalia, and Benin) and the USSR (in Ethiopia, Sudan, Ghana, the African National Congress in South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Congo Brazzaville, and Madagascar). China’s opening up in the late 1970s, as well as the painful Soviet re-capitalisation in 1991, ushered in the world’s “unipolar moment.” The “Washington consensus” and its neoliberalism destroyed Africa’s potential, deindustrialized the continent, and, with INGO (international non-government organization) conditionality and donor dominated relationships, looted Africa’s primary resources and agricultural produce for Western corporate benefit while perpetuating ineffectual aid systems for the continent’s people. The 1990s brought genocidal wars and the near-disappearance of African statehood, while raw materials found their way to the Global North at giveaway prices. Twenty years of renewed African engagement with China altered this framework in a decisive way: the Belt and Road Initiative has helped rebuild Africa’s infrastructure; China has become Africa’s number one direct capital investor; FOCAC (Forum on China-Africa Cooperation) has strengthened win-win relationships; and China has played a role in building common security with Africa.