Three papers from CSIS, 4 Jun 08:

China in Nigeria
....This paper focuses on how various stakeholders in Nigeria view China’s engagement. The study is based on interviews with a wide array of actors, including Nigerian government officials, businessmen, academics, and residents of Chinese extraction who have lived and operated in Nigeria for many years. Other groups interviewed for the study include Chinese diplomats in Nigeria, Chinese traders and leaders, and Chinese project teams.....
Angola and China: A Pragmatic Partnership
....With 2008 marking the 25th anniversary of the establishment of bilateral relations between the two countries, this paper takes a fresh look at the issue of Angola and China’s partnership. The study benefits from fieldwork carried out in Angola in September 2007 and January 2008 and includes numerous interviews with Angolan officials. Chinese embassy personnel in Luanda declined to comment on the report....
Economic Relations Between Kenya and China, 1963-2007
....It begins with the backdrop to contemporary economic relations between China and Kenya by revisiting the hostile relations between the two countries in the Mao Zedong era, over the relevance of a socialist revolution in Kenya. In the wake of Deng Xiaoping’s “four modernizations,” that hostility gradually mutated into a fruitful phase of interaction between China and Kenya. From the evidence presented by this paper, economic interaction between China and Kenya—particularly after 2002—derogate from the received wisdom of a predatory China let loose among hapless Africans (at worst) or a calculatingly benign Beijing out to gain more from the deals than its African partners (at best). It also brings into center stage, the power of agency, demonstrating that African states are indeed capable of making choices that benefit them in the intensified phase of trade and investment in cooperation with China. It concludes that Kenya’s case may not be as exceptional as it seems at first blush.....