China has responded to the call for investments in Africa like no other country since the end of the 1990s. Its relationships with African countries has also become ever more political.
In Cambodia and Laos, China is the largest source of development assistance and investment. Both governments maintain close relations with China, where its presence is more marked than anywhere else in Southeast Asia.
The Indo-Pacific being home to significant global trading routes is not only of strategic importance to China. Once again it has become the focus of a global contest for power.
