Property and foreign investment in Africa: land rights and the structure of Chinese agricultural investment in Zambia and Tanzania

The exponential growth of Chinese presence in Africa has raised questions about two key features of China-Africa engagement in the land domain: the nature and motives of Chinese economic actors, and the African property institutions. Which land, where, and how do Chinese investors obtain access to land, and how do Chinese investors secure control of the land they acquire? Most studies of foreign land investment in Africa pay little attention to how African states govern their national resources and regulate foreign access to land, and to how this shapes how and where foreign actors gain access to and maintain control of land. This thesis argues that in fact, land tenure arrangements in African countries go far in shaping the investment patterns of Chinese economic actors. Taking patterns of Chinese investment in Zambia and Tanzania as case studies, this thesis argues that variation in national land tenure regimes goes far in explaining variation in Chinese land-related investment patterns across time, subnational geographic regions, and firm investment strategies in both countries. I argue that national property regimes create a variegated playing field that attracts different types of Chinese investors into different types of land-related investments, depending on investors' distinctive combination of accumulation logics and risk management strategies. Overall, this dissertation provides insight into how local conditions -- both formal laws, regulations, and policies, and informal practices and local forces -- create opportunities and set constraints on China-Africa investment agendas.