This article offers an analysis of China’s Africa policy that, while maintaining the connection with economics, emphasizes China’s concern with its reputation, soft power and other international players’ competition in Africa. Also, Chinese-African relations can be properly understood only by adopting a “longitudinal perspective”. This allows one to understand their specificities as well as why African governments have responded so positively (in general) to China’s presence. Also, this perspective focuses on the current, rejuvenated ‘scramble for Africa’ in order to explain why China’s Africa policy today is so accommodating. For given the competition between international powers on the continent, China faces constraints and its dominance on the continent has been much exaggerated.