Game change in the Gulf of Guinea: three intertwined perspectives on Sino-Equatoguinean cooperation

• Autor(a) principal: Ma, Yu
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Leandro, Francisco José
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/41915
• topic: Belt and Road Initiative; Forum Macao; People’s Republic of China; Portuguese-speaking countries; Republic of Equatorial Guinea; República da Guiné Equatorial; República Popular da China; Iniciativa “Uma Faixa Uma Rota”; Países de língua portuguesa; Fórum de Macau

The Republic of Equatorial Guinea (EG) joined the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Forum Macao) in 2022, becoming the tenth member-state. This occurred during the 2022 Extraordinary Ministerial Conference, after it acceded to the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) in 2014. Since 2015, China and EG have been intensifying their bilateral cooperation after establishing a comprehensive cooperative partnership (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 2015). In 2019, the two countries signed a Belt and Road Initiative (B&RI) MoU during the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, and initiated a strategic approach for bilateral cooperation. Consequently, considering the uniqueness of EG as a Portuguese-speaking Country (PSC) and as the newest member of Forum Macao, this paper poses and answers the following research question: What will be the impact of Sino-Equatoguinean cooperation in light of EG’s recent accession to FM? Methodologically, the research uses qualitative data supported by triangular referencing, including official and non-official sources, namely official statistics, academic papers, and media reports, to look into the bilateral Sino-Equatoguinean relations under the B&RI Lusophone framework, as well as the fact that EG is a CPLP member state. Accordingly, the methodologic rationale focuses on the uniqueness of EG as one of the Lusophone countries and relates it to the Chinese B&RI at three levels: domestic, regional and global. This paper is organized as follows: (1) Introduction; (2) The uniqueness of EG as a PSC; (3) The B&RI and the Lusophone Countries; (4) Cooperation between Equatorial Guinea and China; (5) Conclusion – The Future of Sino-Equatoguinean Cooperation.