After examining the recent development of the Chinese government’s guidelines and policies to promote sustainable overseas investment, this chapter examines the application of China’s state-centric approach to CSR in a particular geographic region—Africa. Africa is a central destination of China’s BRI and hence is an important illuminating context for the consideration of the impact of Chinese investment overseas. This chapter first traces the growth of investment by Chinese SOEs and state-controlled financial institutions in Africa under China’s BRI. It then analyzes China’s investment impact to show the need to promote responsible behavior of Chinese companies in Africa. The government-led investment indicates the importance of the state in influencing social and environmental impact arising from the investment in Africa. This chapter therefore discusses the implications of the state-centric approach to advance Chinese companies and financial institutions’ CSR in African countries. This chapter hence also sets the background for the empirical case study of the SGR project in Kenya in Chapter 4 and the case study of China’s green finance cooperation with Africa in Chapter 5 .