Within international relations theory and foreign policy circles, there is considerable interest in understanding China’s rise to power. In an exciting new book, my guest argues that China’s various types of encounters with countries in the Global South are very different from the behaviour and investment strategies of the US and European countries. In Shaping the future of power: Knowledge Production and network-building in China-Africa Relations, Lina Benabdallah explores the integrated roles of social relations, knowledge production and power in China’s foreign relations. She argues that it is simply not enough to look at the amount of loans, aid and foreign direct investments originating from China. While these material factors are important, we mustn’t ignore the investments made in people-to-people relations and human resource development in China-Africa relations. Indeed, relations and relationality are central to China’s foreign policy and diplomatic conduct. In the book, Lina examines how China deploys social capital and relational productive power on the African continent through knowledge production via human resource development and professionalization programs. Chinese investments in human resource development, she argues, expand Beijing’s network of connections with military officers, civil servants, journalists and regular citizens. They also act as spaces for expert knowledge production, and norm diffusion.Lina Benabdallah is an assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University in the United States. We discussed how China brands its model of development in Africa, the broad categories of knowledge production and network building activities, and whether African countries have much say in how these relations are conducted.Lina Benabdallah on TwitterDan Banik and In Pursuit of Development on Twitter