But, majority of the information for the literature review was sourced from scientific articles and journals. Purposeful searches were carried out conducted on some key scientific databases to obtain the needed information like: (1) http://apps.webofknowledge.com; (The Web of Knowledge) (2) Science directhttp://www.sciencedirect.com; and (3) Scopus; (4) Google Scholar http://scholar.google.dk/. The above mentioned databases together possess a wide and current collection of scientific papers. To search the documents, specific keywords were used such as: “China”, “China Trade Relations”, “Africa” “developing countries”, etc. These keywords were combined with Boolean operators such as AND; OR; ( ); “ ”. Examples of such searches: ‘China and Africa trade relations,’ ‘Ghana and China policy relations “developing countries”’ etc. 2.3.2 DATA INTERPRETATION The kind of data interpretation that will be used to carry out this thesis will be content analysis. 2.3.3 CONTENT ANALYSIS Content or textual analysis is the study of textual content of a material. Holsti (1969) explains content analysis as “any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages”. The procedure includes studying the whole text to gain an overall overview; synthesis of the key themes; and ultimately generating a descriptive text (Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009).
and low welfare services. The peripheries as the last stage on his categorization are ruled by governments; export raw materials, import finished goods, live below subsistence wages, and have no welfare services (Thomas D. Hall et al, 1982). Given the above dynamics and categorization, it is important to point out that, in order for a country to move from one stage of the structures or global economic ladder to the other means it to change its domestic and foreign policy considerations at that period of time. Upon Wallerstein classification, China present status as the Semi-periphery and Ghana as the periphery in the global political economy, could only transform base on how both handles their policies. Hence, in the logic of the theory, if Ghana as the periphery continues exports raw materials to China as the semi-periphery who turn those raw materials to finished goods and export back to Ghana and other destinations, then the status of the former will difficult to change. Ghana could therefore move beyond its existing status only by adopting different resource management and trade policies. However, the theory will be incomplete if does not state something about the core even though there are not the main focus of the study. In short, the core are the developed economies with advance and complex economic activities, capital intensive or industrialized economy, welfare services, export finished goods and import raw materials. Also, the core state is made up of a complex variety of economic processes with high salaries for workers and having all the most sophisticated technologies (Peter, 1994). Countries that can be best represented in this category are USA, UK, France, and Germany. The semi-periphery shares the characteristics of both the core and periphery. In the words of Wallestein, countries under semi-periphery are the semi-developed countries of the capitalist world economy and form the buffer zones in the capitalist world economy. In that case, the is seen as those in the middle thus being between the upper stratum of the core countries and also the lower stratum of the peripheral countries (Alvin, 1990). They can therefore use their dual status to take an advantage of both the peripheral and the core countries. Classical examples of economies that are within the semi-periphery area are China and South Africa. The periphery countries usually are producers of raw materials to feed both the core and economies. The peripheral countries are characterized by cheap labor, few primary products and with the usage of obsolete technologies (Peter, 1994). Dependence and exploitation
are common with the relationship that exists between and among the periphery, semi-periphery and the core countries. However, the theory has room for both an upward or downward mobility, in a sense that a peripheral country could move into a semi-peripheral country or a semi peripheral country moving into a core, and the other way, a core country moves to semi periphery whereas semi periphery also moves to periphery. A lot of African countries including to Ghana fall within this stage. This theory will be used to analyze if the relationship has a positive impact for China and Ghana and as to whether it can provide a good grounds for Ghana to move out of its current situation. Figure 7 STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD SYSTEM THEORY 4.2.2 APPLICATION OF THE THEORY In an attempt to apply the theory to Sino-Ghana trading and investment relations, the status or position for each in the world system hierarchs becomes important. China falls under the and Ghana in the periphery. Besides, it is worth stating that the activities from the core countries can directly or indirectly play a role in the relationship. For instance, Ghana as a peripheral country has been over the past years exporting primary products like timber, cocoa, gold, diamond, bauxite to core countries and also to the Chinese. The Chinese alternative therefore, could create some impacts on the relationship. The reason being that Ghana now have an alternative market for the exports of her products thus to the core and the semi-periphery, but will this be a blessing in disguise, is what the study seeks to find out in the empirical chapter. China as a semi peripheral export both manufactured and raw materials to Ghana as well as to the core countries and also imports both raw materials and manufacturers from those destinations respectively. For example, there are over more than 800 Chinese state-own enterprise companies operating in Africa of which, most are into the extractive industries and this is one of the country’s soft power policies towards the continent (Martyn, 2008).
for that matter Ghana, which at the end of the day would increases the export-import of goods and services to China. Another dimension that is worth pointing out is the political terrain of the Chinese as opposed to the rest of the world. The ideological difference between China and the other major countries has made China to be politically isolated from some strong countries in the past with the exception of Russia. As several African nations such as Ghana continue to show keen interest in the Chinese way of development to develop their countries; it has thus assisted to nurture a good relationship between China and Africa which eventually making her to be strong in the international scene. For instance, when China encounters difficulties in the world economy, majority of African countries were in support of her (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2013). Lastly, the geographical location of Ghana has also been one of the reasons why China is interested in investing in Ghana. As can be seen from the above map, Ghana is one of the African countries that have been the gateway to most countries from Africa and for that matter the government of Ghana is always putting in a lot of efforts to welcome investors in helping to construct roads and railways in the country. In recent times, there have been an increased of Chinese investment in the mining sector and other mineral resource in Ghana with the bid to help transport all the raw materials to the final destinations. Also, the Chinese have also shown interest in the oil exploration that began in the late 20th century, but it was until 2007 that crude oil has finally been discovered in commercial quantities for the commercial marketing (Idun- Arkhurt, I, 2008). The Chinese investment in Africa and for that matter Ghana as I have already said is not a charity thing. The Chinese need African countries for their natural resources and Africa also needs China for its aid, investment and development assistance. In this regards, the African nations have offered a lot of natural resources at competitive price that has catalyzed the Chinese development and propelled the Chinese companies to the world economy. To view this from the theoretical angle, with respect to the dependency theory, China and Ghana are not at lost in terms of investing. That is Ghana as a developing nation relies on China for its investment as initially explained such as roads, schools, railways, hospital etc and China also employs mostly its own people to operate such projects thus creating employment for the Chinese citizens and causing capital flight. Given this scenario, with respect to Ghana being dependent on China, it is a
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