Hello comrades, writing to you as a (somewhat) aspiring student who wants to potentially go into IPE (critical political economy, marxian analysis, etc.). I know this is effectively a bourgeois calling, but fuck it, I have to live off of something and want to put my analytical and research capabilities to work in at least a hegemony-countering context.

First of all - I am not interested in surface, reuters-al-jazeera-article levels of analysis.

I am doing a conference presentation roughly aligned on the topic, and would be greatly thankful for any in-depth scientific journals (fields of IPE/IR) that don’t directly fall into “debt-trap” bullshit or liberal-realist duality, but deal with the material and economic realities of the **DRC under the BRI. **

I am interested particularily in the developments in the DRC-China relations during the “BRI 2.0”, so, post-Zambia defaulting and resultant policies. Most notably: the ***Sicomines deal ***(https://doi.org/10.32473/asq.23.2.137935).

Key question is navigating the reality between social imperialism and “win-win” relations in the specific case of the Sicomines deal, based on theories of Unequal exchange (Amin), Imperialism (Lenin), advancing the world systems theories via (Minqi Li), et cetera. Most scholars accuse china of directly proliferating exploitative practices, I want to highlight their position as a position resultant from both the domestic need for expansion of capital and the global need of post-colonial africa to align itself with other-than-western sources of financial aid (countering IMF, WB…).

Core contradiction: between the developmental gap between the third- and second-world, and the lack of global instruments of development that do not reporoduce logics of unequal exchange and exploitation.

Incredibly thankful for any suggestions, and happy new year!