Lina Benabdallah

Lina Benabdallah is an Associate Professor for the Politics & International Affairs Department at Wake Forest University. Her book Shaping the Future of Power: Knowledge Production and Network-Building in China-Africa Relations was published in 2020 by Michigan Press University. It develops a framework drawing on Qin Yaqing’s Relational Internatonal Relations theory in order to analyze China’s human capital investments and network-bulding motivations in Africa.

She is now working on a new book which studies current Chinese government-issued discourses and narratives about the New Silk Road being a continuation of Sino-centric 15th Century Indian Ocean exchanges. The project investigates the degree to which Chinese foreign policy is successful (or not) in impacting local elites and citizens’ perceptions of China in countries with New Silk Road projects.