Natural resource exports and African countries' voting behaviour in the United Nations: Evidence from the economic rise of China

We study the effect of African countries' resource exports to China on the countries' voting alignment with China in the United Nations. Our analysis exploits time variation in the swift surge in China's demand for natural resources and cross‐sectional variation in countries' propensity to export resources. We find that an increase in resource exports to China increases the probability of voting in line with China in the United Nations. Interestingly, we observe a stronger effect for resolutions on which China and the United States cast opposite votes. We provide suggestive evidence that public goods and state capacity are possible explanations for our main results.