While the image is of Chinese companies taking over the business world, China has only the fifth-largest overseas direct investment in the world, behind even the Netherlands and a fifth of the U.S.’s, says American Sinologist David Shambaugh in his new book, “China Goes Global: The Partial Power.”

China can claim 40 percent of global growth over the past two decades as well as being the largest exporter and holder of foreign exchange reserves but its global reach is overstated, Shambaugh says, according to a report in ChinaDaily.

China may have 71 companies in the Fortune 500 but only three are truly multinational, gaining more than 50 percent of their revenues from overseas, the report says.

A professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, Shambaugh says China uses diplomacy mainly as a tool to serve its own economic modernization and national security and not for any wider goals.

“China has a very long way to go before it becomes — if it ever becomes — a true global power. And it will never ‘rule the world’,” he argues.

Shambaugh’s stance seems to be the polar opposite of British academic Martin Jacques, who wrote in his international bestseller, “When China Rules the World,” that it might be China who defines modernity in the 21st century and not the U.S.

Africa is one area of the world where China has had global influence, Jacques says. Apart from a major trade relationship emerging there, the Chinese have been a major actor in other ways, responsible for building much-needed roads, airports, ports, hospitals and schools.

Jacques says that although China has been accused of economic colonialism in Africa, China has built influence there because it has a deep understanding of the issues.

“China has gone through the development process itself and some areas of the country still have a per capita income similar to a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa so I think there is a greater understanding,” he says. “The West on the other hand with its so-called Washington Consensus has tried to impose its own ideas on the continent, which has not proved successful at all and has been largely abandoned.”

There is not some grand overarching Africa strategy from the Chinese, says Odd Arne Westad, professor of international history at the London School of Economics and author of “Restless Empire, China and the World since 1750.” The relationship is driven by business, Westad said.

“The Chinese business leaders I have spoken to believe there will be strong economic growth in Africa over the coming decades so to get involved for commercial reasons seems a very good idea,” he said. “There isn’t some clear Chinese State African policy. It is really about commercial development.”