I see this term thrown around. I swear to God, with my limited knowledge of the world, this makes no literal sense to me. I’m not trying to be snarky, but it sounds like China has too many friends and this is imperialism, but obviously this isn’t the meaning.
It’s just someone whose analysis is still stuck in the 80s. And it’s not particularly good either. I also think it’s not reconcilable with neocolonialism as a historic phase of imperialism.
The understanding of neocolonialism as a historic phase of imperialism is that the former European colonies in Africa were converted into neocolonies with the same colonial masters. But if you’re claiming that China is colonizing Africa, you’re basically saying that China was somehow able to wrestle colonial control away from European colonial masters and set themselves up as the new colonial masters. Did the French and British just quietly hand over their neocolonies to China just because? It makes no fucking sense.
Notice that actual imperialists continue to fight over territory as well, but since the historic phase of imperialism is neocolonialism, they (mostly) use proxies and puppets instead of actual colonial troops. When Lumumba was assassinated, the DRC had a civil war with one side being led by a US neocolonial puppet and another side by a Belgian neocolonial puppet. Eventually, the US neocolonial puppet won, and the DRC was turned into a US neocolony.