China’s ‘Hunan Model’ Gains Ground as Global Turmoil Reshapes Africa Strategy

The global geoeconomic volatility wrought by the second Donald Trump US presidency and hostilities in the Middle East has made the shift in China’s Africa strategy even more consequential for both China and Africa.

China’s Africa strategy began pivoting in 2019 towards investment, anchored in Hunan Province.

The “Hunan Model” emerged as the “Angola Model” — centred on building infrastructure in exchange for resource extraction — ran into sustainability challenges. African economies, vulnerable to external shocks, often struggled with rising debt repayments. At the same time, China’s domestic economic priorities were evolving.

Traditional trade partnerships and growth corridors also came under increasing strain, facing contestation and higher trade barriers.

Under these pressures, Beijing designated Hunan Province as its “project implementation unit” for a new phase of China-Africa trade and development.

The model has gained further traction following the formal approval of the China-Africa Economic and Trade Deep Cooperation Pilot Zone in early 2024 and the expansion of the China-Africa Economic and Trade Exhibition since its launch in 2019.

It aims to deepen and rebalance China-Africa trade and industrial integration, while addressing three core constraints to African development — shortages of capital, skilled labour and infrastructure — and ensuring China a stable and expanding supply of resources.

Based on years of study of China-Africa trade relations, I argue that tensions in the Middle East and the resulting global economic disruptions will accelerate China’s shift towards renewables and the electrification of its economy. They will also hasten its search for new markets, with significant implications for Africa.

Hunan Province is central to green transportation, construction, heavy industry and minerals processing, and plays a pivotal role in China’s economic engagement with Africa.

What Hunan is all about
At the core of the Hunan Model are two national policy initiatives:
• the China-Africa Economic and Trade Exhibition
• the China-Africa Economic and Trade Deep Cooperation Pilot Zone

Together, they form a logistics, trade and investment framework designed to integrate Chinese and African supply chains and development pathways.

Hunan’s capital, Changsha, hosts China’s third-largest wholesale market, the Gaoqiao Grand Market. It serves as a key distribution hub for non-commodity African imports, facilitated by “green lanes” that fast-track African exports into China.

The market also features a permanent trade facilitation hall where African countries can directly market their goods and access trade services.

The Hunan Model is supported by three functional zones that connect landlocked Hunan to global markets, particularly Africa:
• The Changsha Free Trade Airport Zone, a national airfreight hub with routes such as the Changsha–Addis Ababa cargo line launched in 2022.

• Yueyang Chenglingji Port, linking Hunan’s heavy industries — including timber and machinery — to maritime routes via the Yangtze River.

• The Changsha Jinxia Economic Zone, focused on non-rail sea trade through Guangdong.

The cooperation zone also includes five “functional clusters” that drive sector-specific trade, investment and industrial development between China and African nations. These target areas where Hunan has expertise and Africa has growth potential, including construction machinery, mining equipment and precious metals processing.

The China-Africa Economic and Trade Exhibition combines a permanent exhibition hall with a series of trade expos held in both China and Africa.

In recent years, as I’ve detailed in a journal article, such exhibitions have also expanded into African countries, including Kenya and Nigeria.

Impact of the Middle East conflict
The importance of the Hunan Model has arguably increased amid the second Trump presidency and intensifying US-China trade tensions. As Western markets grow more restrictive, China has pivoted rapidly towards the global south, with Africa playing a key role.

In 2025, while China’s overall foreign trade grew by 3.8 per cent, China-Africa trade surged by 17.7 per cent.

More recently, tensions in the Middle East have delivered a major shock to the global economy and energy supply chains. This is likely to intensify China’s push towards renewables and electrification, while also boosting global demand for electric vehicles — a sector in which Hunan is prominent, being home to e-vehicle giant BYD.

Given Hunan’s central role in renewables, electric transformation, minerals processing and construction, the Hunan Model is positioned to drive a new, renewables-led phase of China-Africa economic engagement.

In 2025, the “biggest highlight” of Changsha’s exports to Africa was the rapid growth of the “new three items”: lithium batteries, electric vehicles and photovoltaic products. Exports of these rose by 160.4 per cent, 840.4 per cent and 62.1 per cent year-on-year respectively, becoming a “new calling card” for Hunan’s trade with Africa.

Alongside electric vehicle firms like BYD, Hunan is also home to rail manufacturing giant CRRC, central to a growing “green” rail export push. In addition, following conflict in Iran, China has announced plans for a new rare minerals research and innovation hub in Changsha.

Avoiding ‘Africa last’
While the Hunan Model prioritises overcoming non-tariff barriers and offers an industrial alternative to earlier extraction-driven approaches, risks persist.

The scale of Chinese exports to Africa — rising 17.7 per cent in 2025 compared to a 5.4 per cent increase in African exports to China — highlights a widening trade imbalance.

African countries and regions must therefore develop their own industrial supply chains, much as China did with earlier waves of foreign investment.

The Hunan Model benefits from a dedicated research alliance of Chinese scholars and industry experts guiding its development. African nations will need comparable institutional frameworks.

As repeated shocks continue to unsettle the global economy, the Hunan Model is no longer merely experimental. It is actively shaping China-Africa economic transformation, offering both opportunities for growth and challenges that will require careful navigation.

(with PTI inputs)