China-Africa economic engagement has entered a new phase centred around the internationalisation of private capital. By and large, Chinese private businesses and entrepreneurial ventures have been sidelined in research on China’s outward economic relations, which have mostly focused on large-scale state-backed projects. While smaller than their state-owned counterparts, Chinese private businesses account for the majority of Chinese firms operating in African economies. Moreover, private businesses are not only seemingly ubiquitous in African markets, but also deeply embedded in the African political economies in which they operate. The presentation centres the project “African hubs, Chinese trade, and global circulation in West Africa”, which explores the impacts of Chinese capital internationalisation of regional integration and industrialisation in West Africa. It outlines the modalities of Chinese private capital expansion in the trade and manufacturing sectors, and how these translate in varied development outcomes through processes of embeddedness in regional political economies.