Supping with a long spoon in the Indian Ocean: the negotiation of the 1972 Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation between Mauritius and the People’s Republic of China

Abstract

Against the backdrop of the Soviet Union’s 1970s reengagement with Africa through the Indian Ocean, this article investigates the overlapping extensions of aid and technical assistance to the island nation of Mauritius, focusing primarily on the unprecedented 1972 infrastructural development offer by the People’s Republic of China. By analysing the minutes of the Sino-Mauritian Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation’s negotiations as found in the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Colonial Office dossiers, this paper examines Chinese aid diplomacy to Africa in a period which saw its admission to the United Nations, its realignment against the USSR, and the concomitant latticed transformations of its aid diplomacy.