Building Bridges Across the Diaspora: What Black America Can Learn From China’s Economic Engagement With Africa
One of the most important economic developments of the twenty-first century is taking place across Africa. Roads, railroads, ports, power plants, telecommunications networks, industrial parks, data centers, and manufacturing facilities are being constructed throughout the continent. China has become one of the most significant foreign participants in this transformation. The important question for Black Americans should not simply be whether China’s involvement in Africa is good or bad. A more productive question is: How can Black American entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, and institutions participate directly in Africa’s economic development and build mutually beneficial partnerships with African businesses?
China provides an important case study because much of its African strategy has combined trade, financing, infrastructure construction, industrial development, and partnerships with African governments and businesses. Under the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, China and African governments have specifically encouraged Chinese enterprises to form joint ventures with African partners, hire local workers, use local materials, and train African professionals. (China Foreign Affairs)
China’s current Beijing Action Plan for 2025–2027 continues this approach. China committed to supporting 30 infrastructure projects in Africa while connecting transportation infrastructure with industrial parks and expanding cooperation in digital technology and small-business development. (China Foreign Affairs)
This matters because infrastructure is the foundation of economic development. A farmer cannot efficiently sell crops without roads. A manufacturer cannot compete internationally without reliable electricity. Businesses cannot participate effectively in the digital economy without telecommunications infrastructure. Factories need transportation networks, ports, power, financing, and skilled workers.
Africa still faces a substantial infrastructure gap. The African Development Bank notes that the continent invests approximately 4 percent of GDP in infrastructure and estimates that closing the infrastructure gap could increase economic growth substantially. (African Development Bank)
China recognized this opportunity decades ago.
Chinese companies and financial institutions became heavily involved in African transportation, energy, communications, mining, manufacturing, and construction. Chinese-supported projects include railways, highways, ports and power facilities across numerous African countries. At the 2024 China-Africa summit, agreements included railway and highway projects involving countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia, along with renewable-energy investments. (Council on Foreign Relations)
However, China’s African involvement should not be romanticized. Chinese projects have generated legitimate debates about debt sustainability, environmental effects, transparency, labor practices, procurement, and whether enough economic value remains within African economies. Africa is also not one country: relationships with China vary tremendously among more than 50 African nations.
That complexity actually contains an important lesson.
The greatest long-term opportunity is not simply foreign companies arriving in Africa and building things. It is African companies and workers acquiring capital, technology, management expertise and ownership so that increasingly sophisticated businesses can eventually be financed, built and operated locally.
That is where Black America could become an important economic partner.
From Cultural Connection to Economic Connection
The relationship between Black Americans and Africa is frequently discussed historically and culturally. Those connections are important, but there is another relationship that deserves considerably more attention: commerce.
Imagine networks of Black American engineers, contractors, accountants, bankers, lawyers, developers, technology entrepreneurs, manufacturers and investors establishing partnerships with African companies.
Instead of thinking primarily about charity, the model could be:
investment + entrepreneurship + joint ventures + trade + education + infrastructure.
A Black-owned construction company in America, for example, could partner with an African construction company rather than attempting to enter a foreign market alone. The African partner contributes local knowledge, relationships, employees and understanding of regulations. The American company might contribute equipment, financing relationships, technology, engineering expertise or project-management systems.
Together they could pursue housing, transportation, water or commercial-development projects.
The same concept could work in agriculture.
American entrepreneurs could partner with African farmers and food processors to develop cold-storage facilities, warehouses, trucking companies, agricultural-processing facilities and export businesses. Instead of merely purchasing agricultural commodities from Africa, investors could help develop businesses that process products inside Africa, allowing more of the value chain and employment to remain there.
Technology presents another enormous opportunity.
Africa’s increasingly integrated marketplace is particularly significant. The African Continental Free Trade Area is designed to facilitate a single market for goods and services while encouraging investment and regional value chains. (Trade.gov) U.S. government trade analysis has described opportunities arising from a market connecting roughly 1.3 billion people across 55 countries, with transportation infrastructure among the sectors expected to benefit from increasing intra-African commerce. (Trade.gov)
Black American technology entrepreneurs could therefore pursue partnerships involving financial technology, payment processing, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, logistics, telecommunications, educational technology and digital commerce.
And the opportunity is becoming even more interesting. In July 2026, the AfCFTA Secretariat announced a joint venture intended to build African-owned digital trade infrastructure designed to make cross-border commerce easier and cheaper. (AfCFTA Media Hub)
Black America Should Think Like Investors
Perhaps the biggest lesson from China’s engagement with Africa is the importance of thinking in decades rather than election cycles.
Economic power comes from ownership.
Owning businesses.
Owning infrastructure.
Owning intellectual property.
Owning manufacturing capacity.
Owning real estate.
Owning financial institutions.
Owning distribution networks.
Black Americans interested in Africa could therefore organize investment partnerships rather than relying exclusively on individual entrepreneurs. Ten entrepreneurs with $100,000 each suddenly represent $1 million in investment capital. One hundred investors contributing $25,000 each represent $2.5 million.
That capital could potentially participate in African housing developments, logistics companies, manufacturing facilities, agricultural processing operations, technology businesses or renewable-energy projects—subject, of course, to securities laws, local investment regulations and careful due diligence.
There are already institutional pathways for American participation. U.S. programs have historically supported investments involving African energy, telecommunications, transportation and other infrastructure, while U.S. development-finance institutions have committed billions of dollars across African projects. (State Department)
There is even recognition among American Africa-policy researchers that the African diaspora—including African Americans—could play a much larger commercial role connecting American and African small businesses. Brookings has specifically argued for greater diaspora commercial diplomacy and partnerships between African innovators and African-American innovators. (Brookings)
A New Economic Relationship
The goal should not be for Black Americans to imitate China exactly. China operates with enormous state-owned banks, construction companies and government resources that individual American entrepreneurs do not possess.
But the underlying principle is transferable:
Go where growth is occurring, build relationships, invest for the long term, create businesses together and participate in ownership.
Africa should not simply be viewed through the historical lenses of slavery, colonialism, poverty or foreign aid. It is also a continent of entrepreneurs, consumers, natural resources, expanding cities, technology companies and enormous infrastructure requirements.
Black America possesses something valuable as well: capital, professional expertise, entrepreneurial experience, technology, educational institutions and access to the world’s largest capital markets.
Imagine combining those resources.
African entrepreneurs could provide market knowledge and local operating capabilities. Black American entrepreneurs could provide capital, technology and access to American markets. Chinese companies could potentially provide manufacturing capability, equipment and infrastructure expertise.
Instead of seeing these relationships as a competition in which one group must lose for another to win, there could be three-way partnerships:
Africa + Black America + China.
A Ghanaian entrepreneur, a Black American investment group and a Chinese manufacturer could theoretically establish a factory together in Ghana. African workers could manufacture products for an increasingly integrated African marketplace. American partners could contribute capital, technology or distribution relationships. Chinese partners could contribute equipment, supply-chain expertise and manufacturing knowledge.
That is what genuine international economic cooperation can look like.
The larger lesson is that Black America does not have to wait for governments to create economic opportunity. Entrepreneurs, investors, universities, professional organizations, churches, historically Black colleges and universities, investment clubs and business associations can begin developing direct relationships with African businesses.
China’s engagement with Africa demonstrates the extraordinary influence that infrastructure, trade, investment and long-term commercial relationships can create.
The next chapter could involve the African diaspora becoming investors and partners in that transformation.
For Black America, Africa should not only represent the continent of our ancestors.
It can also represent a continent of future business partners.