The Impact of Cameroon-China Cooperation on Economic Development in Cameroon

The economic impact of Cameroon-China Cooperation has received mixed feelings from researchers (Khan and Baye, (2008: 37); Eyong, 2015: 26). China’s cooperation with Cameroon is considered as burdensome characterized by “untied” and “rogue aids” which is guided by China’s interest rather than the development of Cameroon. The purpose of this article is to investigate the impact of China-Cameroon cooperation on economic development in Cameroon. The areas of cooperation examined in this article includes infrastructure, technical and economic cooperation. The paper adopted two theories which include the modernization, and dependency theories for the theoretical framework. The research method adopted is the quantitative method with a case study design. A sample of 200 respondents was selected from the Cameroon’s Ministries of External Relation, Ministry of Economic Planning and Regional Development, and the Ministry of Finance. Official of Chinese Embassy in Yaounde and workers in the Chinese funded infrastructure projects in Cameroon and officials of the Chinese and Japan diplomatic missions in Yaounde and other donor agencies/institutions. The sample was selected using the probability sample technique specifically the simple Random sampling techniques and purposive sampling. Data sources included books, journals, articles, documentary review and questionnaires. Findings revealed that despite the positive contributions of China for infrastructural development in Cameroon, a lot still has to be done to make this impact more significant and durable. Also despite the positive and significant role played by China on technology transfer to Cameroon with a great impact on modernization, there is still a lot to be done in this domain. Furthermore, Cameroon’s increasing debt burden due to Chinese loans has sparked debate. It has been noted that the country’s debt has increased markedly, putting the country at a high risk of debt distress. There is need for the Cameroon government to rethink the cooperation with China and create policies to work with other African countries such as Nigeria than China.